'No ban without a plan'

Unite delegate Cliff Bowen moved a composite on workers’ transition in the North Sea on Monday (September 9).

He highlighted how “the future of over 30,000 oil and gas jobs across the North Sea hangs in the balance”.

“This crisis is urgent. Environmental action is required but exporting jobs, skills and destroying working class kids’ futures whilst moving production abroad is just burying our heads in the sand.”

Cliff added that it would be “the biggest industrial test of Labour in government” as well as the biggest “test of Keir Starmer’s mettle”.

“He must prove the difference a Labour government can make,” Cliff continued.

“Congress, it will be the biggest test of our ability to make them do the right thing,” he argued. “We should be under no illusions as to what will happen if we get this wrong. Enough of us in this room remember the fate of the miners forty years ago.

“Even those too young to remember it directly have had to live with the consequences ever since,” he went on to say. “Hundreds of thousands of workers and their communities were left on the scrap heap after the closure of the pits. The consequences haunt villages and towns across the country to this day.”

Cliff said this was the same “cliff edge that tens of thousands of workers in the North Sea face today”.

“We know what it will take to avoid that fate,” he added. “Not misty-eyed promises. Not jargon about ‘accelerating the transition’ with no substance. Not false promises of green jobs which don’t materialise in time.

“We demand a real industrial strategy, built on the expertise and experience of oil and gas workers themselves. This is the greatest challenge in energy in our lifetimes.

“The world of energy is changing, but with it we also have the greatest of opportunities,” Cliff told Congress. “We can show the world what a just transition should look like taking the 200,000 skilled workers who support UK oil and gas production and their communities across the country with us – and in the process revitalise UK manufacturing.”

Calling for a just transition that is “with them and not done to them”, Cliff highlighted Unite’s estimate of a £6.6bn transition plan over the next six years.

“The cost of such a plan is nothing compared to the massive profits which have been extracted from these industries and our members’ work,” he pointed out. “It is also nothing compared to the benefit of giving communities a future – and the economic boom of £12bn in expected tax receipts.

Cliff said there must be a commitment to jobs “which defend and value the skills and experience that our members have worked hard to earn”.

These jobs must include “union-standard apprenticeships to bring young workers into these industries because oil and gas workers skills are the skills needed to work in these new decarbonised and clean energy activities”.

Cliff went on to warn that skilled oil and gas workers will leave if they see no opportunity in the UK, and they’ll take their skills with them, never to return.

He called for jobs in the transition to green energy with “terms and conditions mapped to guarantee every new job is like-for-like or better than those they replace”.

Cliff went on to say that this was “not just a single industry issue”.

“A plan for the North Sea must be the foundation for an entire industrial strategy – one which includes our utilities and manufacturing base as well as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, glass and textiles among others,” he said.

“That is why we also demand such a strategy includes the entire energy network – one which reduces household bills and strengthens our national security,” Cliff added, highlighting the importance of infrastructure projects like Sizewell C.

Cliff then called for a “grown-up conversation” on the future of the UK’s six remaining oil refineries and what the “future of green fuel looks like”.

“In an uncertain world, increasing our reliance on imports whilst exporting jobs and money for the exchequer is the wrong path,” Cliff explained. “It’s absurd and naive to think otherwise. The world will continue to need fossil fuels and if we continue down the path charted by our government then the path to net zero will end up as a path to nowhere.”

Cliff said Unite’s demand, in the end, is simple – “no ban without a plan”.

“Five clear words – but they form the basis for the most important industrial transformation of this generation,” Cliff concluded. “Energy security, skilled jobs for our communities, investment for the country and a sustainable future for our kids. Choose a homegrown energy transition.”

Calling on support for the composite, Cliff urged Congress to “stand with us”.

You can watch Cliff Bowen’s full speech in the video below:

By Hajera Blagg

Photo by Mark Thomas

You can watch TUC Congress live here. You can follow UniteLive’s coverage of Congress here.