A Clean, Just Recovery, That Creates Quality Employment - EU Skills

A Clean, Just Recovery, That Creates Quality Employment

National Grid’s Chief Executive, John Pettigrew, has joined with other business leaders to sign a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a clean, inclusive and resilient recovery plan for the UK.

A Clean, Just Recovery, That Creates Quality Employment

National Grid’s Chief Executive, John Pettigrew, has joined with other business leaders to sign a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a clean, inclusive and resilient recovery plan for the UK. The recovery plan would seek to bring hundreds of thousands of new recruits in to the energy industry through high quality employment. The letter aligns with the launch of the Energy & Utilities Skills Partnership Workforce Renewal & Skills Strategy on June 9th.

National Grid joined over 200 business leaders in a call to action, asking the Prime Minister to ensure a clean, inclusive and resilient recovery plan from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the letter it seeks the alignment of the Government’s economic recovery plans with the UK’s wider social, environmental and climate goals. National Grid sees that Net Zero delivery and economic recovery go hand-in-hand.

The letter states that “with the UK facing major economic and social concerns including the risk of high unemployment and rising regional inequality, we believe that an ambitious low carbon growth and environmental improvement agenda can do a lot to address these concerns, as well as make the UK economy better prepared to deal with future shocks such as those related to climate change.” An economic recovery with the climate at its heart will be key to unlocking these opportunities.

John Pettigrew advised: “We’ve been working hard to play our part in keeping the electricity and gas flowing to the UK’s homes and hospitals throughout the pandemic, while continuing to deliver critical infrastructure projects that will ensure our energy networks are fit for the future. We’ve estimated that the energy sector alone will need hundreds of thousands of new recruits as we work towards net zero and believe that an economic recovery with the climate at its heart will be key to unlocking these opportunities.”

Energy & Utility Skills Chief Executive, Nick Ellins, commented:

“Energy & Utility Skills fully support these ambitions for strategic recovery aligning with the UK’s wider social, economy and environmental goals. The pandemic has shone a bright spotlight on the fact that it has been the workforce that has kept the nation functioning and will now enable its future success. It’s time to quickly accelerate the Chancellor’s approach to human capital valuation, and have the Prime Minister start one single labour market and skills strategy for the whole UK – based around strategic workforce planning – that has central and devolved governments thinking and acting genuinely together, getting displaced workers into the most essential roles quickly and targeting what funding exists to ensure our nation stays a leading global economy.”

“National Grid can speak with authority on the employment challenge and have been leaders in the efforts to build a sustainable energy workforce for years. They were founding members of the Energy & Utilities Skills Partnership and its CEO Council that sets the workforce strategy for the whole utility sector. They have been active contributors to the National Skills Academy for Power(NSAP) for over a decade, have pioneered transforming procurement culture to drive increased investment into targeted training and skills and were among the first to accredit apprentices through the new English apprenticeship system. They have played a significant part in creating the sector’s new Workforce Renewal & Skills Strategy for 2020-2025, and their Net Zero Workforce report now forms an integral part of the sectors evidence base.”   

Find out more about the Energy & Utilities Skills Partnership and the new Workforce Renewal and Skills Strategy for 2020 to 2025.

Find out more about the National Grid Net Zero Energy Workforce report which provides more explanation about the employment impact of a UK net zero future.