At this year’s general election, Labour stood on a manifesto pledge to “make Britain a clean energy superpower”. The party promised to renew job opportunities and communities across the country, particularly the former centres of heavy industry that have suffered the collapse of coal-mining, steelmaking and engineering, along with areas that have borne a decade of decline in the oil and gas industry.

This had been on the cards for a while. A year ago, Ed Miliband, then shadow secretary of state for energy security and net zero, promised that “under Labour, the British people will own things again, build things again”. Miliband has repeated that commitment since taking office, with Labour already launching a national energy company, GB Energy, to invest in a new generation of renewable energy supply.

But for all the talk of the government’s ambitious decarbonisation plans, as it stands, things feel like they’re stuttering to a halt. Manufacturing industries which were meant to be central to a green economic recovery are faltering, visible in bankruptcies, job losses and shuttered workplaces across the UK.

In late September, production ended at Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales, marking the end of a long era of basic steelmaking in the region which played a defining role in Britain’s industrial revolution. Thousands of workers face redundancy, along with many more in the supply chain. Despite the devastation, £500m of public money is going towards the building of an electric arc furnace at the site, with multinational owners the Indian firm Tata, stumping up £750m. Crucially, this means there’s just one remaining major basic steel site in the UK, making Britain even more dependent on imported – often highly polluting – steel from abroad to make wind turbines domestically.

Our wind turbine industry isn’t looking so healthy itself. There are currently just two facilities capable of manufacturing wind turbine blades across the UK, and none in Scotland. While there are plans to invest £270m in turbine manufacturing and repair facilities at Harland and Wolff’s yards on the east coast and in the Outer Hebrides, last month, in just the latest period of instability, the company went into administration, putting the promise of 600 green jobs at risk. This will only compound Britain’s dependency on turbines imported from our North Sea neighbours, Germany and Denmark, and global supply chains stretching to East Asia. 

A parallel situation is evolving at Grangemouth oil refinery in central Scotland, where 400 jobs are set to be lost on site next year. Last November, owners Petroineos (a joint venture between the Chinese state-owned oil company PetroChina and the privately-owned Ineos) announced plans to close the refinery and replace it with an import terminal. Possible alternatives include potential investment in hydrogen and sustainable chemicals production, but this will rely on the skills of a workforce now weighing up emigrating in light of fears for their future.

Alternatives are available. The end of September also saw the end of electricity generation at Britain’s last coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in the English Midlands. Closure at Ratcliffe was long planned for and expected. Although workers are rarely if ever going to be happy to lose their jobs, provision of employment alternatives was made for the 154 staff. This led to a relatively successful process of redeployment.

Given that transitioning sites like Port Talbot and Grangemouth is necessary for achieving decarbonisation, doing so should have been an urgent priority for the government. At both sites, this should mean expanding employment by delivering much-needed green industrial activity in steel and energy production. Policy should prioritise existing workers’ welfare (and that of the communities that depend on their wages) by avoiding a ‘jobs gap’: making sure they’re able to transfer into appropriate positions rather than obliging them to either endure periods of unemployment or leave the area in order to use their skills.

It’s notable that state-owned companies are key to the decisions to close Grangemouth – and that they may be part of the future at Harland and Wolff, where Navantia, the Spanish government’s shipbuilding firm, has emerged as a likely buyer. This reflects a wider pattern in Britain’s energy system, whereby government-owned companies are a frequent feature of electricity generation and oil and gas – just not ones owned by our own government. 

Miliband is right that making and owning things go hand in hand, particularly when it comes to achieving a fair future for areas which have already suffered decades of hand-wringing from London. The character of GB Energy, and whether it will live up to the name of a major publicly-owned generating firm, will be key to delivering real change. An industrial strategy worth its salt will mean government involvement in shaping sectors and markets, potentially forcing wind farm-owners to support British industry and setting out concrete transition plans between the state, industry and unions. But succeeding demands a willingness to take the wheel.