Answers to my Written Parliamentary Questions – jobs created by wind turbine installation

Department for Energy Security and Net Zero provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (198577):

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many jobs have been created in the UK to manufacture wind turbine (a) motors and (b) blades in the last 12 months. (198577)

Tabled on: 11 September 2023

Answer:
Graham Stuart:

The Government does not hold this data.

The Office for National Statistics estimate that the offshore wind sector employed around 10,600 people across the UK in 2021.

The answer was submitted on 19 Sep 2023 at 11:38.

 

Comment.  World data tells us China is the dominant supplier of wind turbines and solar panels. The much vaunted green jobs so far have largely been created in China.

28 Comments

  1. Peter D Gardner
    September 24, 2023

    Of course the Government doesn’t hold this data. if it did it would show the Government a) doesn’t have a manufacturing strategy and 2) its promises of thousands more jobs by switching to Green energy are empty. So it is better not to hold such data.

    1. Everhopeful
      September 24, 2023

      Ah..I see.
      Maybe that’s why the question was asked!
      The swap to electricity is resulting in thousands of redundancies.
      Of course unions, being extreme far Left support all the green stuff

      Maybe soon they’ll have no members.

  2. Everhopeful
    September 24, 2023

    Orwell “1984”

    “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute.”

    1. Bloke
      September 24, 2023

      Those who oppose the interests of the UK are likely to be using 1984 as their Instruction Manual for destruction.

      1. Everhopeful
        September 24, 2023

        Unfortunately so!
        It was always said that Orwell wrote as a warning not a blueprint.
        But I think there is now some doubt about that?

  3. Ian+wragg
    September 24, 2023

    It will be the same for EVs, the majority of the jobs will be Chinese
    In fact the whole net zero con will be a China fest.

    1. Mickey Taking
      September 24, 2023

      They are often thought of as inscrutable, but in fact fall about giggling privately….

    2. Everhopeful
      September 24, 2023

      +++
      Oh how they love the Silk Road.

  4. Bloke
    September 24, 2023

    Our treating China as if it is to become the only factory in the world makes us increasingly incapable of making things for ourselves, without adequate income to pay for what we import, and adding to the energy wasted in delivering it here.

  5. agricola
    September 24, 2023

    Your question and comment exposes one of the achilles heels and outright lies of green energy creating jobs within the UK. It being one of Labours election building blocks. Create more green energy and ergo more high tech jobs. As one contributor has pointed out, at the wrong end of the silk road. An invitation to political demolition.

  6. Iain Moore
    September 24, 2023

    Not only are we giving them our jobs, our treacherous political classes are also giving them the Chagos Islands

  7. Bryan Harris
    September 24, 2023

    The much vaunted green jobs so far have largely been created in China.

    Indeed

    More deceit from the green establishment.

    As our electricity generating capacity diminishes as fossil fuel generators are taken out of service, we will eventually be left with so called ‘renewable energy’ – This may seem like a disaster to come, but the green blob have an answer to that.
    With meters being installed, imposed, and the Energy Bill in place – we will be forced to use so much less power that even the useless renewables will be able to cope with demand.

  8. David Andrews
    September 24, 2023

    Your heading should read “Non answers…..”

  9. Sakara Gold
    September 24, 2023

    “World data tells us China is the dominant supplier of wind turbines and solar panels. The much vaunted green jobs so far have largely been created in China”

    This is not so. ALL our wind turbines, blades, towers, generators are built or assembled HERE in the UK at the ginormous Humberside and N Linconshire plants operated by Siemens and Oerstead. Thanks to the Tory ban on new onshore solar and Cameron scrapping of the excellent FITS scheme there is insufficient business to warrant a solar panel assembly industry here in the UK, but the solar panels on my roof were imported from the USA

    Reply Just untrue. The UK does not manufacture wind turbine nascellles, gear boxes,generator units etc but imports these. Of course installing. Wind turbines in the UK creates some construction/ installation jobs. There is some limited blade manufacture capacity. Siemens has factories on the continent and in the US.

    1. Ian B
      September 24, 2023

      @Sakara Gold – Assembly of predominately Chinese components is not manufacture, it doesn’t permit indigenous growth of the technology in the UK. It is just exporting UK Taxpayers money

    2. Mark
      September 24, 2023

      I read a government grant of ÂŁ160m is supposed to result in 460 jobs at Siemens’ Hull blade manufacturing site. That’s ÂŁ350,000 per job.

    3. Original Richard
      September 24, 2023

      SG :

      I cannot see many new offshore wind turbine jobs coming along now that no offshore wind turbine bids were made at the last renewables auction as a result of the wind industry informing the Government that they needed the CfD price to become two and a half times higher than its current level.

      See the Renewables UK press release dated 04/07/2023.

      Finally we are seeing the true cost of offshore wind energy and this is before the extra infrastructure costs to make wind electricity fit for the grid, the extra cost to bring the electricity ashore and the extra cost to provide a parallel hydrocarbon back-up system for when the wind doesn’t blow.

      Wind power is the most expensive form of energy we have.

      And the few times we have excess power when the wind blows we export it at negative prices as this costs us less than paying the constraint payments.

  10. Chickpea
    September 24, 2023

    These hideous wind turbines around our countryside aren’t even efficient and they look dreadful. We know they don’t produce anywhere near what we need, yet this idiotic feat continues, giving money to China in the process.

  11. Elli
    September 24, 2023

    The ridiculous claims of UK replacing all existing industrial jobs with “world beating unreliable energy” jobs is a claim with no legs.
    We are shedding thousands of strategically important industry jobs, losing expertise and just like Cameron and May’s disastrous sacking of ten thousand police jobs, resulting in current law and order issues, we will never regain the industrial base we are now losing.

    1. Ian B
      September 24, 2023

      @Elli – part of this Conservative Governments import only doctrine

  12. Hugh
    September 24, 2023

    Sir John – I feel comforted to know that your breadth of knowledge and ability to ask penetrating questions exposes the spin and lack of vision of those to whom we entrust the running of our country.
    On the other hand I feel discomforted to know that you seem to be pretty much a lone voice in exposing these poor strategies and that these same poor strategies are present in so many areas of Government, resulting in massive squandering of taxes and opportunities for our future economic security.
    I have written to my MP on many occasions and have failed to learn much about what the man really thinks – his answers are invariably on message and ignore the main questions I raise. I have given up on him which no doubt was his intention.
    I am not alone in thinking that we have had enough of the “same old same old” and that we need something much more inspiring to give our vote to next time we get the chance to tell them how we really feel.
    I am very grateful for your tireless involvement.

  13. Ian B
    September 24, 2023

    “how many jobs have been created in the UK to manufacture wind turbine (a) motors 
 “

    Unbelievable, thr UK Taxpayers money is being ‘given’ to these entities, that for the most part don’t contribute to the UK, as would a UK Industry Company, and the Minister has no knowledge if there are even jobs created.

    This Conservative Government has been sucked into being the big taxpayer give away Government. The US subsidises industries that are homed and contribute to the US economy on an equal basis. The money goes around, and around. This Conservative Government just exports taxpayer money, yes we might get some electricity, but its not UK electricity, the ownership and the tax domain is elsewhere.

    Reply If we had created lots of wind turbine jobs I expect the government would tell us.

  14. Ian B
    September 24, 2023

    “China is approving new coal power projects at a rate of about two plants per week, a rate that energy experts warn is unsustainable if the country is to reach its energy-related targets.”

    You could suggest they are needed to keep pace with this Conservative Governments import only policy. The Chinese grow World pollution, burn even more fossil fuels to help the UK’s flow of Imports of wind turbines and EV Cars.

    The UK the exports taxpayer money, shut down manufacturing, looses expertise, more importantly lose the jobs that pay UK taxes.

    Look at all the project this Conservative Government has on the go, it all money going out of the Country. There is no money being used to build a sustainable, self reliant UK future.

  15. Christine
    September 24, 2023

    So, the government constantly tells us how good the green revolution is for jobs in the UK yet doesn’t measure how many jobs have been created. How can they prove their forecast? I expect the only jobs that have been created are in the charity and lobbying industries. Not real jobs at all. We will soon become a country with only parasitic organisations then everything will collapse.

  16. John McDonald
    September 24, 2023

    “The Office for National Statistics estimate that the offshore wind sector employed around 10,600 people across the UK in 2021”
    One has learnt to take any information from Government as Politically framed rather than the truth.
    The intent of the question is how many UK owned companies and UK citizens are involved with the manufacture and installation of the off-shore wind turbines.
    My initial Google search did not come up with any UK company involved. I will continue the search. I seem to recall a small company in Scotland involve with blade manufacture but can’t be sure.

  17. Original Richard
    September 24, 2023

    If it was considered a security risk for Huawei to supply our 5G communications equipment why is it not considered a security risk for China to be a major supplier of our energy and electrification infrastructure – wind turbines, solar panels, motors, generators, batteries, vehicles and cabling plus a major source of the necessary metals and minerals etc.?

    Particularly when wind turbines require replacement every 15 years and solar panels every 25 years.

    And this chaotic, intermittent renewable energy does not come cheap as it requires a completely parallel hydrocarbon generated backup system to give reliable, dispatchable power.

    The reason there were no offshore wind bids at the last renewable auction was because the wind industry wanted the CfD price to increase to two and a half times the current level.

    Nuclear, on the other hand, is affordable, reliable, abundant and secure – with no Chinese involvement. Nuclear uses 1000 times less concrete and steel per unit of power than offshore wind turbines and lasts 4 times longer.

    If only we had a world renown British engineering company who had been making SMRs for submarines for years from whom we could order a batch of nuclear plants
.

  18. Derek
    September 24, 2023

    The Government ES&NZ department “does not hold this data”. Is this a joke?
    We have been told that government “Green polices”, adopting more and more renewable sources of energy, will produce more jobs. I had thought they meant, British jobs for British people but apparently not.
    That they do not collate the relevant data, speaks volumes. Embarrassing volumes of course, for they effectively say, “ALL OF THE NEW JOBS ARE CREATED IN CHINA”! What? Why would they want that?
    What is the matter with our Government? Why are they intent on exporting British jobs to the Far East? They clearly do not think like true Conservatives and sound too much like the Obama administration, who were far from conservatives in their policies and did just this – export American jobs to China. All in the name of “Globalisation”. In reality it allowed western manufacturers to transfer their factories to China to gain more profits provided by cheap, cheap oriental labour. No matter the lengthening dole queues in the USA and elsewhere.
    Now, perhaps the Minister will explain to the House and to the electorate how and why they can believe our dependence on energy provided by Communist China (et al), can ever be considered as “Secure”? As in ‘Energy Security and Net Zero’! Energy, like charity, should remain at HOME.
    What is the matter with them? The mentality of hares caught in car headlights comes to mind – and It’s a killer. So I would ask, “When will you wake up and move over to our safe way”?

  19. David Bunney
    September 26, 2023

    Sadly it is energy bill payers’ and tax payers’ money being poured into renewables when most of that money leaches away to China and a handful of jobs are created. Whilst simultaneously for every 1p/kWh the green revolution pushes up energy prices another few thousand small and medium sized business go to the wall. The not-so-green revolution is creating a massive economic casm in the public purse, in our personal pockets and those of businesses.

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