Striking the Balance

That the Parliament notes the publication of a new report from Robert GordonUniversity’s Energy Transition Institute, titled Striking the Balance: Building a sustainable UK offshore energy workforce; understands that this report warns that the UK oil and gas workforce could shrink by approximately 400 jobs every two weeksfor the next five years without urgent government action; notes that this wouldmean the same number of redundancies as those caused by the closure ofGrangemouth every fortnight until 2030; recognises that the report highlightsthe UK’s “widening gap between policy intent and real-world outcomes”, incomparison to countries like Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, whichcontinue to invest in domestic fossil fuel production while acceleratinglow-carbon growth; notes the warning from the Director of the Energy TransitionInstitute that "The UK’s lack of joined up action means that the window ofopportunity for delivering a just transition is closing"; believes thatthis report is a damning indictment of UK Government energy policy, which itsees as leading to a premature end to North Sea oil and gas jobs, whiledithering and delaying the ramping up of investment in the very renewableenergy projects that are required to ensure a just transition; calls on the UKGovernment to finally start working with the industry to deliver that justtransition and prevent thousands of highly-skilled workers from Scotland'soffshore energy workforce being left on the scrapheap, and hopes that thisreport is taken as the wake-up call that it considers the UK Government badlyneeds.