Clean Energy Jobs Plan – a vital first step in fulfilling jobs potential offered by the clean energy transition

Last week the Government launched the first ever Clean Energy Jobs Plan. This is a vital and welcome first step in fulfilling the potential offered by the clean energy transition to create thousands of secure well-paid jobs across the country.

The Government estimate that 830,000 workers will be employed in the clean energy sector by 2030, which is nearly double the size of the current workforce. In order to achieve this, the plan sets out a pipeline of infrastructure projects and the training and skills development that will be needed to deliver the number of workers required.

It also includes plans for five dedicated colleges to train new energy workers, as well as measures to help workers transition from high carbon sectors like oil and gas. Part of the plan also involves a new Fair Work Charter to drive up job quality in offshore wind, which will be negotiated by unions and industry in the coming months.

It’s very positive that the plan makes clear the importance that trade unions will play in ensuring the clean energy transition puts workers first. As Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, says in his introduction to the plan, “our government is clear that trade unions are an essential part of a modern workplace”. Prospect, alongside other trade unions in the sector, have been consulted and given the opportunity to share the experiences and concerns of our members with the Government, which marks a significant turn in engagement from the previous Conservative administration.

Now that the plan has been launched, our focus will turn to ensuring the Fair Work Charter matches up to the ambitions of this plan to create and support good, unionised jobs. The Charter must include provisions around trade union recognition and access if we are to turn these warm words into reality, and these standards must eventually apply to the sector as a whole, not just offshore wind.

Ultimately, it’s important that we think of the launch of this plan as the start of the process, rather than the end. The scale of the challenges facing the sector, including training new workers and supporting existing workers, requires both more resource and coordinated effort across government.

There are also issues that the plan does not address, and where the Government must go further. These include current workforce issues, particularly in networks, that were revealed in our latest energy workforce survey and which could prevent the Government achieving its clean energy objectives as the workforce is increasingly stretched.

There is a lot to be welcomed in this plan, and our focus as a trade union representing workers in the sector must now be to ensure the Government live up to their ambitious promises of secure, well-paid and unionised jobs across the country as part of the clean energy transition.