NORTH Sea oil and gas jobs are being lost faster than new renewable roles are being created, MPs warned last night.
The Scottish Affairs Committee said the UK Government was not doing enough to slow down the rate of losses — amid a “demolition” of the industry.
That’s despite Cabinet member Ed Miliband’s promise last weekend of 40,000 new clean energy jobs in Scotland by the end of the decade.
And the UK Government faced calls to allow extra drilling near existing oil and gas fields and take a “pragmatic approach” to new licences.
Committee members also blasted the windfall tax on oil and gas energy profits, warning the Labour policy could speed up job losses and leave workers on the scrapheap.
Tory shadow Scotland secretary Andrew Bowie said: “This cross-party report lays bare the devastating impact of Labour and the SNP’s ideological war on our oil and gas sector. Their irrational desire to kill off this industry is tantamount to an act of national self-harm. That’s not a transition, it’s a demolition.”
SNP energy spokesman Graham Leadbitter added: “The Labour UK Government is destroying jobs in Scotland’s offshore industry with its fiscal and licensing regime.
“This report is yet more evidence Energy Secretary Ed Miliband must change course.” It said new projects were “taking longer than expected”, adding: “We found clean energy jobs are not being created at the pace or scale required to match the job losses arising from the decline of the North Sea oil and gas industry.”
MPs also found workers in North- East Scotland are already leaving the sector and moving abroad to find work in the oil and gas industry.
And they warned UK Government plans for a “just transition” — where workers are retrained for roles in renewable energy projects — are “moving too slowly”.
Most read in The Scottish Sun
The committee also slammed both the UK and Scottish Governments for failing to act fast enough to save the Grangemouth oil refinery.
Their report states they “should have acted sooner to prepare for the resulting job losses and set in motion plans for future industries at the site at a much earlier point”.
GMB Scotland union secretary Louise Gilmour said ministers could no longer “stick their fingers in their ears” and ignore warnings about job losses, adding: “The MPs’ report is grim but completely unsurprising.
“It comes days after the Scottish and UK governments continued to insist they have a plan. If they do, it is beyond time they shared it.”
