The UK government will make billions of pounds available in funding across the UK, including for Scotland’s clean energy industry.

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, made the pledge ahead of a visit to Aberdeen with Great British Energy Chair Juergen Maier, visiting the city for the first time since Aberdeen was announced as the headquarters for the UK’s new publicly-owned energy company.

Following the visit, the government is set to sign a new agreement with the Scottish Government today to boost Great British Energy’s ambitions supporting clean energy supply chains and infrastructure.

The government hopes that by developing partnerships with Scottish public bodies in the clean energy sector – including Crown Estate Scotland, the Enterprise Agencies, and the Scottish National Investment Bank – Great British Energy can deliver quickly and effectively, providing maximum value for money from Scottish projects. 

Previously, the SNP have been vocal in their criticism of the UK government’s energy plans, with claims in Westminster that they could cost up to 100,000 Scottish jobs, an assertion that has since been refuted.

Despite the war of words, work is already underway in Scotland to use part of the £8 billion in funding for investment into energy infrastructure and development projects. 

As well as funding clean energy networks, the UK government claims that such investments will support the creation of new private sector jobs across industries in Scotland.

“Scottish energy workers will power the United Kingdom’s clean energy future- including in carbon capture and storage, in hydrogen, in wind, and with oil and gas for decades to come as part of a fair transition in the North Sea,” said Miliband.

“Unlike in the past we’re also working closely with the Scottish Government with a new agreement to ensure our publicly owned company Great British Energy is primed to accelerate clean energy investment in Scotland”

Ahead of the energy secretary’s visit to Aberdeen, the government has also confirmed that oil and gas workers will be supported to move into careers in the renewable sector, including offshore wind, with the government accelerating delivery of a ‘skills passport’.

The passport is an industry-led initiative overseen by RenewableUK and Offshore Energies UK and supported by both the UK and Scottish Governments.

The aim of the initiative is to align standards, recognise transferable skills and qualifications and map out career pathways, with a digital tool for workers set to be piloted by January 2025, and the government estimating that its efforts could create hundreds of thousands of new jobs across the UK by 2030.

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According to Full Fact, around 93,600 jobs are currently supported by the oil and gas industry in Scotland, and with the average age of the core offshore workforce sitting at 44 years old it’s unclear how many of these workers will need to be reskilled, or whether these jobs will be naturally phased out before the government’s net-zero target in 2050. 

Secretary of state for Scotland Ian Murray said: “It should be easier to switch between oil and gas and renewables work offshore. The present situation, where training in one industry isn’t recognised in the other, cuts off opportunities for oil and gas workers. 

“The fact some workers are paying out of their own pockets is scandalous. We need to cut that red tape and deliver a skills passport that allows offshore workers to move flexibly back and forth between both industries in the years and decades to come.”