To round off Chamber’s Future Economy Seminar in Hull, in partnership with RWE, a panel session was held where the speakers discussed the most pertinent points raised regarding decarbonisation, with specific focus on the skills gap in the sector and the importance of collaboration.
Net Zero Director for the East Coast of the UK, Corrine Barry, hosted the panel. She was joined by six panelists including:
- Melanie Onn: Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes
- Mike Ross: Leader of Hull City Council
- Anne Handley: Leader of East Riding Council
- Ruth Carver: Chief Executive of Greater Lincolnshire LEP
- Duncan Hammond: Manager of Humber Decarbonisation Projects, Phillips 66
- James McIntosh: Chief Commercial Officer, Catch UK
The Importance of Collaboration
Chief Commercial Officer of Catch UK, James McIntosh, started off the discussion with the claim that collaboration is the key to bridging the current skills gap in the sector. He said,
“We’ve known about the skills gap for several years in our industry. We have a 2 per cent loss of the workforce each year, just with business as usual, and when you throw in decarbonisation, we are looking at being around 12,000 people short when it comes to new roles for new projects.”
“Collaboration is a vital way to try and reverse that. If you look at the Viking cluster, whereby loads of different companies came together to collaborate with each other, we were their training provider and effectively produced a solution that benefited everybody.”
“We know that we can’t be the only solution. We are just one training provider and collaboration is essential to find the people, train them and provide a destination for them. It’s not just about young people and apprentices either, it’s got to be about upskilling and reskilling existing workers.”
Ruth Carver, Chief Executive of Greater Lincolnshire LEP, echoed these thoughts, pointing to the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan as key evidence and calling on local authorities to do their bit to support collaboration. She said,
“I think the point that I want to make is we need more than one provider to be working with industry to meet our skills needs. The numbers are huge when you look at the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan, which has had a lot of money spent on it to evidence where the skills gaps are and what the future needs will be.”
“The figures are huge in terms of these mega-construction projects. It means we need more collaboration than there currently exists. And I do think that is a role for the local authorities to convene and facilitate, whether that’s now or a case of waiting for combined authorities and then, subsequently, mayors.”
Adapting to Skill Shortages
Reducing skills shortages isn’t going to happen overnight, so adaptation is key for the first steps. Duncan Hammon told the group how Phillips 66 is tackling the issue in the Humber region. He said,
“We had to change our maintenance strategies around the skills shortage and that gave us a bit of a pragmatic realisation that we’re all planning on doing these big mega projects, the size of which hasn’t really been done in the area for a long time, but who is going to build it all? There are just not the people out there.”
“By the time you’ve been through the process of awarding contracts, it’s too late. You need to have those people in the chain now, getting trained up and ready to go. We thought, what can we do to support the industry to kickstart skills development and what kind of investment is needed?”
“If we want to get this stuff done, we all need to chip in a bit to get things moving. Then, in the long term, we should have the skills resource already in place.”
The Need for Central Funding
The reality for all rural areas in the UK, such as the Humber, is that they haven’t received the same level of help in terms of levelling up as urban areas. Leader of East Riding Council, Anne Handley, revealed that she has been drumming the point home to the Government’s Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance. She said,
“I was in Westminster on Tuesday morning this week, sitting around the table with Lord Callanan and telling him that we’ve got a huge skills gap that needs to be addressed and that it’s not just a couple of thousand, we’re looking at tens of thousands of people that we need to get the right skills.”
“I also told him that without us, the Government will not be able to reach its Net Zero targets. So, if you don’t come and give us what we want then the whole decarbonisation plan will fail.”
“We are ready to go, with 15 billion pounds worth of investment waiting to go into the Humber. I do not want to see that go to anywhere else in the world. I want jobs for our people in our area. So, that was the message that I gave to Lord Cullinan on Tuesday. And he got that quite loud and clear.”
Mike Ross, the leader of Hull City Council, spoke about specific numbers. He said,
“That commitment of 16 million pounds per year is good and welcome but I think there also needs to be an understanding of what that potentially unlocks from the private sector as well, going forward.”
“The only way to understand how much money we need to bridge the skills gap is for us as a council to sit down with local businesses and assess what their needs are in the short and long term. We need to put all the pieces together and go to the Government with information on what we need from them to match our ambitions.”
The Impact of Decarbonisation on Green Jobs
Finally, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, Melanie Onn, spoke about green jobs and how decarbonisation will result in many existing jobs automatically qualifying as ‘green’ in the future. She said,
“We are very aware that lots of jobs in this area will move into becoming green jobs. We know the Humber is a high emitting area for carbon but, as we start that decarbonisation process, presumably, you will expect within the workforce of Philips, for example, that some of those jobs will fall under a definition of something that qualifies as a green job.”
“Other companies have already started to change the way that they work or change the areas in which they work. They are diversifying, so where they might have previously worked with the oil and gas industry for years, they are developing new skills within their workforce, so that they can also work in CCUS, hydrogen, and solar.”
Chamber’s Roundtable Event:
To watch the full video of the panel discussion at the Future Economy Seminar, please click below and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Curia’s Industrial Strategy Research Group
Alongside the Health, Care Life Sciences Research Group and Foreign Policy and Defence Research Group, Curia’s Industrial Strategy Research Group offers privileged access to events, such as this one, with previous and upcoming events for subscribers including a gala dinner with Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves MP, a reception with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt MP, and a jazz evening with Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Thangam Debbonaire MP, and Shadow Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, Chi Onwurah MP. To find out more please email team@curiauk.com and visit our website here.