Five key questions from GMB on labour’s energy policy

Labour’s energy policy needs to deliver for working people or it won’t deliver at the ballot box, says GMB Union 

Today [Monday] the Shadow Climate Change and Net Zero Secretary is expected to unveil Labour’s vision for the UK’s energy future – GMB has posed 5 key questions.

The questions are:

  1. What percentage of the wind farms and solar panels will be manufactured in the UK?
  2. Are you going to ban fracking in totality, including the large amounts of currently imported fracked gas and ethane?
  3. If you do ban fracking, what’s your message to workers in the vital chemicals manufacturing sector who depend on imported fracked gas as feedstock for the industry?
  4. We built a global centre for offshore oil and gas in Aberdeen, where is your global centre for renewables going to be situated?
  5. Are you opposing new licences for drilling in the North Sea and if so, what’s your message to thousands of workers in Aberdeen and the North East of England who work offshore?

Gary Smith, General Secretary, said: 

“Labour’s energy policy needs to deliver for working people or it won’t deliver at the ballot box.

“It’s all well and good talking about the shift to green industries, but where’s the plan for the tens of thousands of energy workers who will be affected?

“So far, the supposed jobs bonanza in renewables manufacturing has been a sick joke at the expense of UK workers, with authoritarian regimes across the world hoovering up contracts that should be completed here at home.

“We need a plan that understands the value that energy workers bring to their communities and our country.

“This plan must live in the real world, or it is doomed to fail.”