GRJ0012

Written evidence from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT)

Key points

• The UK’s public transport network has an integral role to play in the path to net-zero. RMT believes that there is significant potential for the creation of Green Jobs in public transport, through the expansion of the UK’s rail and bus networks and taking our public transport into public ownership.

• In the Covid-19 era staff have a key role to play in restoring passenger confidence in the public transport network, and research shows that the ideal response to the pandemic for passengers would be more staff, not less.

• Public investment in green infrastructure, offshore renewables and ports must be accompanied by guarantees over Green Jobs in seafaring, manufacturing and ports.

• Barriers to re-training for skilled offshore workers and seafarers for roles in offshore wind and other new green growth industries must be removed as a priority and form part of the North Sea Transition Deal.

• The Government should work with trade unions to set and deliver targets for increasing local labour through a robust supply chain in the offshore energy and decarbonisation industries.

• Trade union recognition is central to a Just Transition and to the delivery of the maximum number of good quality Green Jos across the economy.

Questions

1. What estimates are there for the jobs required to meet the pathway to net zero emissions, by sector, and other environmental and biodiversity commitments?

RMT believes that the significant potential for creating new Green Jobs in public transport and offshore energy are central to achieving net zero targets.

As we set out in our response to the EAC’s inquiry on ‘Greening the post Covid recovery’[1], RMT believes that the only way to reduce car mileage sufficiently to meet our carbon reduction targets is if there is a significant modal shift to public transport. However, it is also the case that the current commercial model through which our rail, bus and commercial ferry networks operate, relies on fare and/or freight revenue to fund the system. This drives down costs in the name of ‘efficiencies’ whilst at the same time allowing the private operators to extract profits, creating transport network which are fragmented, expensive and inefficient. It also fails to reduce car dependency and is a barrier to the creation of green jobs in the public transport sector.

Across the UK’s rail network, just 11% of stations are staffed from first to last train, while a further 45% are only partially staffed and the rest are totally unstaffed. There has also been a push to remove guards from trains through the expansion of Driver Only Operation (DOO) and Driver Controlled Operation (DCO). 

Yet, the presence of staff is even more vital in the Covid-19 era. Recent research by the passenger watchdog Transport Focus reveals that rail passengers view staff on platforms, on board trains and cleaning staff as of crucial importance.[2] The report found that ‘staff play a central role in helping passengers feel safe and secure when travelling by train’ and that there was ‘a strong sense that the ideal response to the pandemic would be to see more staff on trains and at the station, rather than less’.

Large parts of the country lack easy access to the rail network and the Government should look to create new green jobs through the expansion of the rail network. A recent report by Transition Economics on behalf of the TUC found that over the course of two years, a railway investment and expansion programme would create in the region of 126,000 jobs[3]. Rail expansion also ‘scored’ highly in terms of immediate job creation. Whereas, the report also found that that road building was one of the lowest ‘scoring’ projects in terms of job creation.

As we set out in our response to the EAC’s inquiry on ‘Greening the post Covid recovery’[4], the UK’s bus industry has continued to decline since it was deregulated in the 1980s. The latest DfT statistics show that there are 14,000 fewer staff employed by bus operators in England (outside London) than in 2010.[5] In the last decade, the number of annual passenger journeys in England (outside London) has fallen by 370 million[6] and more than 3000 routes have been cut or reduced.[7] Despite receiving significant amounts of public money since the outbreak of Covid-19[8], there are concerns that the commercial operators will respond to the pandemic by cutting further services to focus on core profit making routes. RMT believes that this damaging decline must be halted and reversed, and as a starting point the services and jobs which have been cut since 2010 must be restored.

As stated in written evidence previously submitted to the Committee[9] RMT regard the Government’s targets of 60,000 green jobs and 60% UK content from installing 30GW of offshore wind energy production capacity on the UK Continental Shelf by 2030 as far too conservative. A further 3,000 offshore oil and gas jobs have been lost and employers’ body Oil and Gas UK estimate a total of 30,000 jobs could be lost by October 2021 without effective re-training or transition policies.[10]

The offshore wind industry itself estimates current local content on UK offshore wind projects to be 48%.[11]

By contrast, the nascent offshore wind industry in the USA is forecasting the creation of 83,000 new Green Jobs from delivering offshore wind projects with 30GW production capacity off its Atlantic coast line by 2030.[12] This is largely due to the effect of the Jones Act, a form of regulation which RMT supports.

The Government has a target of 250,000 jobs by 2030 as part of the Ten-Point Plan. Prior to that, the Oil and Gas Authority, commercial regulator of offshore oil and gas sector stated in August that the UKCS will meet 60% of the UK’s carbon reduction targets to 2050.[13]

However, there are no specific job creation targets for crucial supply chain roles such as seafaring, although offshore wind alone will significantly increase demand for seafarers.

Internal RMT research[14] has found that over 2,000 seafarer jobs exist today at twenty eight companies providing crew transfer vessels and workboats to the offshore wind industry. The seafarer workforce on heavy lifting, special operation, offshore supply, commissioning and other vessels is much larger. Green job creation in these sectors of the UK shipping must be given greater priority in the forthcoming Energy Bill and in future Just Transition policies.

It is also worth noting that no commercial ports or ships in the UK are equipped for hydrogen or ammonia[15] bunkering/re-fuelling. In the ferries sector, major UK employers Stena Line, CalMac, P&O Ferries, Wightlink and DFDS have invested in new hybrid fuel vessels which use one of Liquefied Natural Gas, Methanol or electric battery cell in combination with ‘traditional’ fossil fuels. Roll-on roll-off ferries have an operational life span of up to35 years.

2. Does the UK workforce have the skills and capacity needed to deliver the green jobs required to meet our net zero target and other environmental ambitions (including in the 25-year environment plan)?

Recent research suggests that the rail industry is facing a skills shortage this decade with demand for skills set to peak in 2025.[16] The report suggests that around 7000 – 12,000 additional staff will need to be recruited every year, up to 120,000 in total.

Outsourcing is prevalent across the rail industry, particularly in functions such as cleaning and catering, where outsourced workers often have inferior terms and conditions compared to directly employed staff and less job security. For instance, unlike directly employed workers, the outsourced cleaners on the London Underground, employed by the private company ABM, do not receive free travel on the network and receive only Statutory Sick Pay. RMT believes that these outsourced contracts should be brought in-house, with all staff directly employed. This would retain skills, by affording all staff the same terms and conditions, and provide a much clearer career pathway.

In the shipping industry, there is an ingrained and growing seafarer skills shortage. In 2019[17] UK seafarers only held 33% of over 67,000 jobs in the UK shipping industry.

For those in Ratings roles the proportion is worse – 81%[18] (c 37,000) were non-UK nationals mainly from non-EEA countries such as the Philippines and Russia and earning below the UK National Minimum Wage. That proportion has worsened during Covid-19 as over 1,000 UK Ratings have lost their jobs, mainly in the passenger ferry sector.

Ratings training is poorly funded by the government, compared to Officer Cadet training. 40% of the cost of cadet training is covered by the Support for Maritime Training (£30m p.a.) scheme and there is a mandatory link to train UK Cadets in the Tonnage Tax. The maritime unions, industry and government agreed an adjustment to the Tonnage tax in 2015 to include UK Ratings in the mandatory link but this has only supplied 75 newly trained UK Ratings.

The Government’s key policy for supplying new UK Ratings is through trailblazer apprenticeships. Yet only 202 starts were recorded in 2017-18[19] across the entire maritime sector. This is way below what is needed, particularly given the advanced age of UK Deck and Engine Ratings in particular.

The average age of an offshore oil and gas worker is over 42 years. Oil and gas majors, including BP, Total and Shell are diversifying into offshore wind. Unsurprisingly, the contractors who supply the vast majority (over 70%) of installation workers are moving into the offshore wind sector too. Jobs in drilling and other exploration and production roles have been particularly affected in 2020. These workers, where willing, should be re-trained and re-deployed into offshore wind and decommissioning roles.

To make this work now and for other offshore workers who may be affected by the transition to net zero, barriers created by competition in renewables training programmes must be removed so that offshore workers are not lost to the economy and their lives or livelihoods damaged.

RMT has established constructive dialogue with the Global Wind Organisation (GWO) which sets the safety and other training standards in the international wind industry. OPITO, with whom we also have constructive dialogue, set the internationally recognised training standards for offshore oil and gas workers and employers. Developers of offshore wind projects on the UK Continental Shelf only accept GWO approved training qualifications to work on wind farm sites (on and offshore) licensed by the Crown Estate or Crown Estate Scotland.

OPITO, however, have issued a re-training product[20] for offshore wind which, if an offshore oil and gas worker were to pay for and obtain, would not be recognised on any offshore wind projects under construction or in operation in the UK today.

Similarly, the International Marine Contractors Association[21] has introduced guidance for seafarers looking to enter the offshore wind industry that confuses the status of existing[22] qualifications and what extra training may or may not be needed. These barriers need urgent Government attention.

3. What needs to be done to ensure that these skills and capacity are developed in time to meet our environmental targets?

The Points Based System (PBS) could ensure that industry is incentivised to fill the skills and capacity gaps described above, particularly in the supply of seafarers. We have yet to see the Immigration Rules which will introduce the PBS but note that the minimum income threshold for Ratings is £30,200 p.a.

However, waivers from immigration rules have been issued by the Government since 2016 for offshore wind employers to allow non-EEA workers leave to enter the UK for the purpose of joining a vessel engaged in the construction and maintenance of a wind farm within UK territorial waters. The current waiver expires on 1 July 2021.[23] The new PBS must backed by wage thresholds that guarantee growth in UK training and green jobs for UK Ratings.

A clear and effective programme of training for Green Jobs, including ‘Just Transition’ pathways must also be part of plans for the North Sea Transition Deal outlined in December’s long awaited Energy White Paper.

The Government’s ‘Ten Point Plan’ for the green industrial revolution includes £20m public funding for the Clean Maritime Demonstration Programme. This initial public funding is likely to be followed by further state support to develop ‘green ships’ with the lobby group MaritimeUK seeking £1bn from the British taxpayer for this strand of work.[24]

We welcome public funding for the development of green maritime technology, particularly merchant ships that could be built in UK shipyards such as the publicly owned Ferguson Marine on the Lower Clyde in Glasgow. These projects must be accompanied by guarantees for UK crew to be employed on the next generation of green ferries, crew transfer vessels, offshore supply and other merchant ships designed and constructed with the support of the taxpayer.

4. What measures should the Government take to ensure that its proposals to meet environmental targets do not by default lead to jobs in affected industries being exported?

As we have argued previously, a suite of ‘Cabotage’ laws would be the most effective way to prevent the export of green jobs, especially in the supply chain.

For example, reserving jobs for UK crew on the specialist vessels needed to deliver the Government’s Ten-Point Plan for a green industrial revolution would create tens of thousands of good quality jobs for local seafarers. Brazil, for example, reserves at least two-thirds of Officer jobs for Brazilian nationals[25] on foreign flagged ships. Robust reform of licensing and auction processes for offshore wind energy projects on the UKCS is now both possible and desirable in order to maximise local labour (including UK Ratings and Officers) in a robust supply chain for installing, maintaining and operating 29GW of fixed and 1GW of floating offshore wind energy production by 2030.

The Shipping Minister has noted that at the end of the EU transition period, “The UK [will] be able to introduce its own regulation on maritime cabotage for foreign flagged vessels operating in UK waters.”[26] The key point is that we can also use this new legal landscape to regulate through cabotage and to directly invest in favour of green jobs for local seafarers.

However, Alistair Philip-Davies, CEO of SSE the only major UK-owned developer of offshore wind projects stated in a recent press interview following the posting of pre-tax profits of over £193m, that he was duty bound to ‘get the cheapest providers.’[27] Accommodating private profit and shareholder dividend is at odds with the national need for successful green job creation in the offshore wind industry and its supply chain contractors. The Contracts for Difference auction process for offshore wind should reflect that and not use cheap bills as a smokescreen to protect private profit and dividends from offshore wind developments.

RMT is pressing the Government to establish a cross cutting forum involving trade unions and industry to set targets for the creation of more jobs for UK seafarers and other supply chain roles in offshore wind.

5. What risks are there to meeting the Government’s ambitions for green job creation in both the public and private sectors? What should the Government do to create the conditions to ensure its commitments are met by both sectors?

Relying on the private sector to run our public transport services has created a network which is fragmented, inefficient, expensive and prioritises profit making over all else. Under the current model, our public transport systems are dependent on fare revenue for income, and hence fares have risen significantly under privatisation. Rail passengers pay for 61% of costs, compared to 32% just 10 years ago. RMT believes that this is counterproductive to meeting our net-zero goals and means many people are priced off public transport.

Instead, RMT believes we need a ‘New Deal’ for public transport, with a significant increase in operating subsidy, capital investment and capacity, which can be better planned and paid for by diverting funds from road budgets, using record low interest rates to raise borrowing (paid back by the economic benefits of transport expansion) and coupled with the savings made through the creation of a publicly owned and integrated public transport network.

De-regulation, particularly in planning to speed up the delivery of infrastructure upgrades central to decarbonisation and net zero must not undermine employment, environmental or safety standards.

6. Are the Government’s ambitions for green job creation in the public and private sectors sufficient for the scale of the challenges? What changes should be made?

No, they are not, particularly for offshore wind. It is particularly concerning that Policy Exchange’s estimates on green job creation in the North Sea are referred to by both the EAC and in the independent Committee on Climate Change 6th Carbon Budget[28] specifically under employment and just transition. Policy Exchange’s analysis accepts as a given that there will be no regulation of the employment market in the supply chain and, therefore, makes a deeply conservative estimate of 40,000 net jobs created by offshore renewables in the North Sea by 2050.

The Transition Economics report for the TUC found that nearly 35,000 domestic green jobs could be created through £1.7bn investment[29] in ports, supply chain and manufacturing roles from shovel ready projects in the offshore wind sector alone.

The Committee on Climate Change recommends a 63% reduction in carbon emissions by 2035, from a 2019 base line. 40,000 net or 60,000 green jobs created in that timeframe would be a failure to deliver the maximum economic benefit of our green energy resources and would entrench existing inequalities.

7. How can the UK ensure jobs are created in areas most impacted by the transition to a low-carbon economy?

Preventing premature decommissioning of offshore oil and gas assets in the North Sea is a major issue here and has risen in significance following oil price shocks preceding and coinciding with the pandemic.

The North Sea Transition Deal has a clear role to play here in mitigating the impacts in parts of the country like North East Scotland which are particularly exposed to a decline in the offshore oil and gas industry.

8. What additional interventions should be undertaken to aid in a ‘just transition’?

A worker led Just Transition is the most effective means of delivering these outcomes. We agree with the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendation that ‘the Government must develop effective plans for a just transition while embedding the principle of fairness throughout policy.’ [30]

Achieving ‘fairness’ in just transition policy includes trade union recognition. As the IPPR has pointed out,[31] trade union recognition is the best way to ensure that workers in oil and gas can move to good quality green jobs, should they wish to, with no detriment to livelihood or conditions.

Again, the USA provides a useful comparison. Despite offshore wind being at an early stage in development compared to the UK’s world leading status, Ørsted[32] has taken steps to ensure trade union coverage through a national agreement for the coming jobs boom in the US offshore wind industry.

We would also point out to the committee that a number of developers in the offshore wind sector in the UK, including Ørsted, are majority owned by the government in their home countries. This applies to a number of companies that own existing and are committed to developing new offshore wind farms on the UKCS by 2030. Equinor, Vattenfall, ESB and EDF are all state owned in Norway, Sweden, Republic of Ireland and France, respectively and all have major projects central to the delivery of the bridging targets in England, Scotland and Wales to net zero.

RMT also believe that a whole host of projects to mitigate job losses and contraction in offshore oil and gas a are both desirable and achievable in the context of a just transition for workers and communities on the front line of the conversion to low and zero carbon energy production. These include:

• investment in UK ports to increase capacity to build new merchant and Royal Fleet Auxiliary class ships, with appropriate environmental mitigation measures;
• clear linkage, including statutory requirements, between offshore decommissioning and CCUS projects;
• invest to increase domestic capacity to receive and recycle steel from decommissioned offshore infrastructure and merchant ships;
• Re-design the Department for Transport’s grant system[33] for modal shift in freight transport to create more green jobs in rail, sea and inland waterway freight operations;

• Bolster procurement processes and supply chain tendering to benefit local employment and stimulate investment in domestic skills and manufacturing; and
• Use decommissioning tax relief to maintain scheduled decommissioning projects on the UKCS and link that work to UK crewed and registered vessels.

9. What impact can green jobs have on the wider UK economy?

In addition to immediate job creation, railway expansion reduces regional inequalities, supports local economies, expands labour markets, encourages new investment and development, supports new housing developments, eases road congestion and improves air quality.

A 2018 report by the Urban Transport Group  found that significant rail expansion was the ‘only viable option’ to help UK cities achieve their ambitions on economic growth and meet housing demand, whilst making urban centres attractive, with less road traffic and improved air quality[34].  A report produced in 2018 for the Railway Industry Association found that the activities of the railway system, the railway supply sector and station retailers and their supply chain contributed £36.4 billion to GDP and was associated with nearly 600,000 jobs[35].

10. What contribution can green jobs make to the UK’s economic recovery from Covid-19?

RMT set out in our response to the EAC’s inquiry on ‘Greening the post Covid recovery’[36] how investing and creating green jobs in public transport and the offshore energy supply chain can support the UK’s economic recovery from Covid-19. This investment would be a significant creator of new green jobs at a time of rising unemployment and economic downturn.

11. How can the UK ensure high emissions are not locked-in when tackling unemployment?

 Securing robust supply chain procurement practices in the offshore wind sector and recruitment practices in the wider UK shipping industry would deliver both employment and lower emissions. By steadily reducing the reliance on non-UK crew being flown to and from work on exploitative contracts in UK waters, unemployment would be reduced and the carbon cost of the ‘low cost’ crewing model would be significantly reduced. At present, this carbon cost is not included in the UK’s Nationally Determined Contribution from international shipping and is not disaggregated from the UK’s NDC from international aviation.

January 2021