The UK Government promised that its approach to the North Sea would not cost jobs. It’s time to admit that promise has been broken.
In the last fortnight alone, nearly 600 energy jobs have been put at risk across our region, the latest blow delivered by Harbour Energy’s decision to cut a quarter of its workforce in Aberdeen. This is not just another redundancy round. It’s a flashing red warning light for the UK’s energy security, industrial base, and transition ambitions.
The Energy Profits Levy is starving the sector of investment. Since its introduction, 10,000 jobs have been lost — and we’re still just at the start, with the UK Government planning to keep it in place until 2030. With firms increasingly pulling out or scaling back, we’re sleepwalking into a future of imported energy, higher emissions, and lost economic opportunity.
We must stop this now. Ending the Windfall Tax is the only way to restore confidence, protect skilled jobs, and give the UK a fighting chance of hitting its climate goals using homegrown talent and resource.
Sign the letter. Stand up for our jobs, our energy future, and our region.
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What the letter says
The text of the letter reads as follows:
Dear Prime Minister
It is almost exactly a year since you publicly insisted that your party’s plans for the North Sea would not cost jobs.
Yesterday, the largest independent operator in the UK Continental Shelf, Harbour Energy, announced plans to cut its workforce by 25% with 250 roles in Aberdeen being placed at risk. This is a devastating blow for the economy across the region, and the government should be concerned that with continued job losses in the North Sea the UK’s long-term energy security is threatened.
Harbour Energy has been clear that they have come to the decision as a direct result of the punitive Energy Profits Levy. For years oil and gas companies have argued that it is haemorrhaging investment in the sector, a policy that OEUK analysis shows has, so far, cost 10,000 jobs since its inception, whilst in the same period the price of Brent Crude oil has nearly halved.
This, along with the fact that in the last 10 days a further 300 jobs have been lost across our region at subsea engineering supply chain firms, serves as an important reminder that our energy sector is highly integrated. In short, we are at grave risk of losing the world-class company and skills base that will be required to deliver offshore wind, green hydrogen and carbon capture projects at pace at such time they are available commercially at scale.
Regrettably, we find ourselves in the economically and environmentally incoherent position whereby government policy is bringing a premature end to the oil and gas sector whilst the UK simultaneously relies on increasing amounts of carbon heavy and costly imports from overseas to meet its energy needs.
The situation is absurd, and we urge you to act now before it’s too late. The Climate Change Committee highlights the UK needs up to 15bn barrels of oil and gas up until 2050 and our world-class oil and gas sector can meet almost half of this, unlocking £150 billion to the UK economy.
Please confirm an immediate end to the Windfall Tax and unlock the investment required to protect jobs, generate economic growth and greater energy and national security for the UK.
The alternative, added to by the regrettable demise of Grangemouth Refinery, is deindustrialisation and mass unemployment, something any responsible government must avoid at all costs.
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