John Swinney urges UK Government to ‘give certainty’ to Grangemouth workers

The first minister has called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to “give certainty” to workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery. 

Speaking at First Minister’s Questions, John Swinney said he was “becoming increasingly impatient” with the Labour government’s handling of the site, despite the party promising to save the refinery last year. 

He said: “When I last met the prime minister, I was clear with the prime minister on the need to support and retain the highly skilled workforce at Grangemouth.  

“I am becoming increasingly impatient about the fact there has been no decision taken to award the Acorn carbon capture and storage project to Grangemouth, which I was assured would be the case by the last Conservative government and has not been taken forward by the Labour government.” 

Swinney called on the UK Government to authorise the carbon capture project as a “matter of urgency”.  

It emerged yesterday that some Grangemouth staff have received redundancy letters from site owners Petroineos. The company announced last autumn that the refinery will close by the summer with over 400 workers set to lose their jobs. 

Petroineos say the Grangemouth site will instead transition to a fuels import hub. 

Michelle Thomson, MSP for Falkirk East, warned that “the ‘just’ in ‘just transition’ has turned into a ‘just wait’” for Grangemouth workers in her constituency. 

She added: “Despite statements from the prime minister and the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, who promised to – and I quote – ‘step in to save the jobs at the refinery and put hundreds of millions of pounds behind it’, the UK Government has instead prioritised eight sites – none in Scotland – for the likes of sustainable aviation fuel.” 

The Acorn project in Aberdeenshire, which aims to store greenhouse gas emissions in pipelines under the North Sea, received £2m from the Scottish Government last July. Grangemouth is one several Scottish sites signed up to the scheme, which would see waste CO2 transported northwards from central Scotland. 

However, the plans are yet to receive support from the UK Government. 

Last July, in his first visit to Scotland after winning the 2024 general election, Starmer pledged to save hundreds of jobs at Grangemouth. 

“We will also start more immediately with discussions about Grangemouth, which is obviously a source of great concern to me, in terms of what steps we can now take to preserve jobs and ensure the future,” he said. 

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar also told a pre-election BBC Scotland debate that his party would “step up and put our money where our mouth is” at Grangemouth. 

Today, he said in an interview with STV that the UK Government is “working to deliver a positive transition for the community of Grangemouth”. 

Starmer told the House of Commons in January that the UK Government would provide cash for Project Willow, a plan to support future industrial work at the site. 

However, the results of the study are yet to be published and is intended to be a longer-term solution for the area. 

Petroineos said Grangemouth, Scotland’s only oil refinery, would be closed due to unprofitability and competition from sites elsewhere in the world.