PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Great British Energy: Job Creation - 17 December 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Great British Energy will deliver well-paid jobs in industrial communities. It will own and invest in projects across the country, it will crowd in private investment, and it will develop those crucial supply chains that will make us more resilient as a country and deliver more jobs.

I was delighted to see the Government’s commitment to reindustrialise our nation, creating thousands of jobs in the process. This is the difference that a Labour Government can make, cleaning up the mess of the Tories and putting this country back on track. My constituency of Airdrie and Shotts is at the heart of Scotland’s central belt. Once an industrial heartland, it is full of skills and potential waiting to be unlocked. Will the Minister work with me to ensure that the benefit of the significant job creation that the Government are undertaking will be felt in my constituency?

I will work with my hon. Friend on creating the jobs that we all want. It has been announced that Great British Energy will be located in Aberdeen, and there are two additional sites, one in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh. The national wealth fund has just announced a £20 million investment in XLCC, to support a world-leading factory in Hunterston producing cables. That will support 900 jobs. We have seen a £1.6 million investment by Sarens PSG to provide specialist equipment and skilled workers, and to set up a centre for excellence in Aberdeen. Those are the kinds of projects that we want across our communities, in his constituency and beyond.

An important aspect of Great British Energy’s work will be ensuring industrial strength in all areas of the UK. Places such as Peterborough are well placed to develop high-skilled jobs and great opportunities in green hydrogen to support that transition, through the work of National Gas in Werrington and our new university campus, Anglia Ruskin University Peterborough. Does the Minister agree that the success of GB Energy will be the breadth of opportunities that it creates in places such as mine?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Green hydrogen is vital, not just for the decarbonisation of heavy industry but for aviation and maritime. It has the potential to create thousands of very highly skilled jobs in every region of the country. We have already confirmed support for 11 green hydrogen projects from Cumbria to Cornwall, and from Scotland to Kent. I look forward to saying more on our hydrogen journey soon.

The Labour party promised 650,000 jobs through Great British Energy, but the Secretary of State has endorsed a carbon tax of £147 in 2030—double the Department’s current forecast. It would be the highest carbon tax in the world, and devastating for British industry. Can the hon. Lady confirm how many British jobs would be lost as a result?

I do not recognise those figures at all. I would be interested to see where she got them from—perhaps from her Twitter threads, which contain things that we do not quite recognise. We inherited a mess in this country—no stability or economic growth, and stagnation. We are fixing the foundations and putting that right. We will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the growing green sector of the future.