Keir Starmer has said that oil and gas will be used in the UK "for many, many years" after unions raised concerns about Labour's energy plans.
GMB general secretary Gary Smith had warned in an interview with the Daily Record that Scottish Labour will lose seats over a “stupid” and “catastrophic” ban on new North Sea oil developments.
The Edinburgh-born trade union leader said knocking back all future license requests would hit jobs and be seen as an “attack” on Scotland.
But Starmer tried to reassure Smith that oil and gas will continue to be part of the UK's energy strategy for decades.
The Labour leader told broadcasters on Monday morning: “I think we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity now to seize the jobs of the future. Oil and gas will be part of that, because where there is existing licences they will go on to the 2050s and so oil and gas will be part of our energy mix for many, many years to come.
“But we need to seize the opportunities for the next generation of jobs. And that is in renewables, it is in nuclear, Hinkley Point C here today, staring at the future. We have got 9,000 people working on this site, they are going to power the UK and they are the jobs of the future”
Starmer was visiting nuclear power station Hinckley Point in Somerset in the South of England.
He said that both Labour and the GMB want a “government with a strategic purpose that seizes those opportunities, doesn’t see job losses, actually sees an increase in the number of jobs because we have taken the tough decisions to go forwards to the next generation of energy power for not just the next 10 years, but something like Hinkley Point C here, a 100-year project.”
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