Andy Burnham has said he will work with the SNP on Scotland’s energy transition, after a warning that an imminent Westminster energy blueprint could put almost £79 billion of offshore wind investment at risk.
PM backs a “pragmatic” approach
Responding to SNP MP Seamus Logan during Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Burnham said supporting industrial transition “pragmatically” rather than “ideologically” was central to plans to re-industrialise Scotland and other parts of the country.
He told the Commons: “This is exactly what I’m talking about when I’m talking about supporting industrial transition.”
The new Labour leader said he intended to visit Scotland soon to look in detail at the impact of the transition on Aberdeen: “I know they’ve struggled with the impact of transition. Let’s see what we can do to build common cause.”
Warning over offshore wind pathways
The intervention came after trade groups, unions and port operators wrote to Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh about their anxiety over the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP).
The plan will set out how the national grid moves electricity and gas around the UK. Scottish industry groups are concerned that only two of the six pathways being considered would fully support Scotland’s pipeline of offshore wind projects.
They fear the wrong choice could delay or scale back ScotWind projects and send a discouraging signal to developers and investors about Scotland’s place in Britain’s future energy system, with knock-on effects for supply chain confidence and port investment.
The letter quoted Crown Estate Scotland projections that ScotWind could deliver £78.5 billion of investment, with a further £17 billion from the Intog leasing round supporting more than 21,000 jobs a year in the coming decades.
Raising the issue in the chamber, Mr Logan, the MP for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, said that “after the betrayal of the last administration at Grangemouth and Ardersier, can the Prime Minister commit today to selecting a pathway that enables the full Scotland pipeline, including floating offshore wind and the grid investment, to deliver Scotland’s energy potential?”
Grangemouth and Ardersier remain in focus
Mr Burnham said he would work with the SNP MP on the issue and said he planned to visit Scotland to discuss the challenges facing Aberdeen.
“So, I will work with him. I intend to visit Scotland soon, to look in detail at the issues in the Aberdeen community, because I know they’ve struggled with the impact of transition. Let’s see what we can do to build common cause, and let’s look at Grangemouth too, which could be the home of sustainable aviation fuel.
“I’m interested in making progress on all of these issues and I will work with him on that.”
Grangemouth’s oil refinery, Scotland’s only one and one of the country’s largest industrial sites, closed in April 2025 after owner Petroineos pressed ahead with the shutdown despite a UK and Scottish government-backed £200 million Just Transition Fund and warnings from unions over the loss of around 400 jobs.
Ardersier refers to the deep-water port near Inverness, where the UK government blocked Chinese renewables firm Ming Yang from building a wind turbine factory on national security grounds.
First Minister John Swinney criticised the decision in April, describing it as “an anti-Scottish move”, and saying Labour ministers were “welcoming Chinese investment into Hinkley power station south of the border”.
UK Energy Security Minister Michael Shanks later accused the First Minister of making a “political intervention against the country’s national security”.
Elsewhere in the Commons
Earlier in the session, Mr Burnham clashed with Kemi Badenoch over the state of the public finances, after long-term borrowing costs rose to their highest levels for 28 years amid a global bond sell-off linked to fears of escalation in the Iran conflict.
Ms Badenoch cited a warning from Lord Jim O’Neill, an adviser to the Prime Minister, that his tone during Tuesday’s Commons debut had unsettled investors, and pressed him on how he planned to tackle rising debt costs.
Mr Burnham said he and Lord O’Neill did “not always agree,” and blamed market turbulence on 14 years of stagnant growth and rising debt under the Conservatives.
“We are turning that corner,” he said, pointing to the fastest growth in the G7 in the first half of the year and borrowing at its lowest level in six years.
Ms Badenoch accused Mr Burnham of being a “spendthrift Prime Minister who wants to say yes to everyone but cannot tell us where the money is coming from,” and pressed him to say whether he was preparing to raise taxes.
Mr Burnham declined to “write the Budget” at the despatch box, saying that was a matter for Chancellor John Healey, but said the pair had brought forward the Budget date “to reduce the period for prolonged speculation.”
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