It was reported on 19 October that the government had unveiled the country’s first ever national clean jobs plan. This was an announcement that was long awaited, and sees the government hoping to create as many as 400,000 new jobs in 31 priority occupations such as electricians, welders, and plumbers.
Under Miliband’s new scheme, if all goes to plan, and the plan isn’t watered down, employment in this crucial area is expected to double to 860,000 by 2030. As part of a just transition, gas and oil workers will not be victims of the Green Transition, but instead will benefit from up to £20mn in total to fund bespoke careers training coming from the UK and Scottish Governments.
This is very welcome news for all who have campaigned for a long time not only for a transition to a carbon neutral economy, but for a just transition, which will protect those working in the oil and gas sectors at present.
However, there is potentially more; a New Statesman report goes on to say:
“More interestingly, this plan signals a clear leftward shift from Miliband (who is often held up as a vanguard of the ‘soft-left’ in the cabinet). The plan also includes several key employment rights measures that trade unions have long been calling for. And as a result, it has been enthusiastically backed by some of net zero’s loudest critics within the trade union movement, including representatives from GMB, Unite, Prospect, Community, and a raft of others. Their concerns congregate around worries that the clean power transition will not treat oil and gas, and other industrial workers fairly. By laying out a clear four-year strategy for clean power jobs, the Energy Secretary hopes to assuage those concerns.”
Indeed, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will close the current loophole in employment rights legislation which means that those working further than 12 miles offshore do not benefit from the full raft of workers’ rights, as part of the offer to the unions. In this way, serious benefits for those working in offshore wind will be offered and the intention is for more people to be attracted to the sector.
It is further noted that, “the department will also set up new fair work charters which stipulate that if a clean power company (in offshore wind, or solar power, for example) wants to take up the government’s clean energy bonus, they must be able to provide clear evidence that they have good industrial relations and have a recognised union for employees. Clean Power companies have grown under the government’s renewed charge towards green energy: this stipulation in Miliband’s Clean Power Jobs plan will encourage them to give back.”
This plan must not be watered down
This is very encouraging news in an area which is vital to both the economy and the environment of the country, and perhaps particularly to a region like the North East. It has been noted before on NE Bylines that we need to move towards a green economy in our region, that can not only help the environment, but also provide good jobs for our young people in a thriving and sustainable economy. We should perhaps stop seeing ourselves as an ex-coal mining region, with all the connotations of decline, unemployment and outward migration and present ourselves as an energy producing region. While that energy used to be coal, in the future it will be green carbon-free energy sources.
Indeed, we are already doing this. Wind turbines being built at Port of Tyne for what will be the biggest wind farm in the world on Dogger Bank in the North Sea, as well as geothermal energy from old mine workings in Gateshead and at Horden in County Durham.
So far, so good. But unfortunately, with this government, there must be a caveat. So many of Labour’s initial plans in many areas including the environment have been watered down, that there must be concern that this might happen here as well. We have already seen the government’s original plans for a £28 billion investment in the green economy being heavily diluted, before the election even took place last year. The plan announced on 19 October, must not be watered down as it offers hope for the environment and the economy – and a crucial political opportunity to take on Reform.
For it is clear that Reform-led councils like County Durham don’t understand the economic as well as environmental potential for a just transition to a green economy. Indeed, Reform in County Durham seem determined to go the other way and have scrapped the Climate Emergency and Net Zero pledge that County Durham Council had previously announced. It seems a shame that County Durham Council don’t see the potential for new jobs and regional revival that a just transition to a green economy gives us here in the North East.
A clear contrast with Reform 2025 Ltd.
This contrast between the positive Miliband plans and the negativity of Reform has been taken up by Ed Miliband himself who, on the day that the plans were announced spoke to the Mirror saying:
“The message of this clean energy jobs plan to Mirror readers is we’re gonna deliver for our heartland communities, and that’s what these jobs will do.
“Reform has said they want to wage war on green energy investment, and that means waging war on these jobs, on the Siemens workers and the jobs in Hull, on the new jobs at the cable factory in Scotland, at the jobs in the Isle of Wight making wind turbines, at the carbon capture and storage in Teesside.
“All of these jobs are being created, they’re at risk under a different government and they are absolutely core to our vision of the future and how we change the country.
“We know that the Net Zero economy grew three times faster than the economy as a whole last year. [Reform’s war on green jobs-] It’s anti-business, it’s anti-worker, it’s totally betraying young people and the future of young people.”
Reform doesn’t seem to have anything to offer for the future, but simply wants to wind back the clock to some idyll that never really existed. Meanwhile Labour need to up their game as well, to ensure that this is only the first of many bold and positive announcements of government policy in a number of areas. Then they will start to truly deliver the change they promised at the last election, and that the people of this country so desperately want.
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