Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps he has taken to develop an internationally recognised Offshore Energy Passport for offshore workers that will facilitate job-mobility between offshore renewable and extractive industries.

The offshore wind sector is leading work to facilitate job-mobility between industries as part of the Offshore Wind Sector Deal People & Skills workstream. The release of a Joint Statement on Collaboration in 2020 reflects an active commitment to create good working practice and mutual recognition of standards across sectors. Industry have developed Merit Assessment, a system which allows for existing training, qualifications and certification to be converted to an industry recognised Global Wind Organisations qualification.

Industry is in the advanced stages of forming an agreement between offshore wind and oil and gas stakeholders committing them to work collaboratively for the benefit of the workforce across sectors and to avoid duplication of training where possible. Moreover, industry is in the final stages of developing a Wind Energy Access Portal which will provide the knowledge necessary for workers to transition to the offshore renewable industry with minimum friction.