Labour is delivering for workers while Reform opposes new jobs

Proper leadership from a government that’s hearing what workers and their trade unions are saying, and has worked with us to build a plan grounded in modern technologies with good jobs at its heart.

Labour’s newly published Clean Energy Jobs Plan is a million miles away from where we’d be with Reform. It’s a credible plan to double the jobs in the clean energy sector within five years. It’s a plan that sets out routes to provide up to 15,000 more jobs in the North East alone, making thousands of new jobs in science, construction, engineering, and electronics.

And these aren’t jobs for elites or distant promises. This is tangle, immediate stuff. These are secure futures for existing workers and the promise of good futures for real people in their own towns. It’s a plan for you and your family. This is a plan for economic security of a type we’ve not seen here for decades.

Farage would scrap all this. Reform’s rhetoric of ‘net stupid zero’ is a promise to take away your future, to pull the rug from under thousands of workers and young people, and plunge the North East into futureless contemplation of a lost chance at reindustrialisation.

The clean energy economy is already growing at twice the rate of the wider economy, and this plan both increases that growth and scoops up our people to ride it out. Because these are just jobs for jobs’ sake. These clean energy jobs come as standard with good wages, stability, and reliable career trajectories. They’re the kind of jobs you can put down roots with; jobs you can build families on.

Reform votes against improving workers’ rights. Reform is the party of zero-hour contracts, unfair dismissal, and fire and rehire. They’re the party of the past.

Labour works with trade unions. That’s why this plan includes commitments to grow pay packets, standardise good conditions, and ensure trade union recognition in clean energy industries. Good work builds strong industries and strong communities. This plan offers working-class communities a future to be proud of.

We now have a roadmap that leads to a thriving clean energy sector right here on the Tees and the Tyne.

This is government commitment of millions to train our young people to take long-term rewarding jobs, to provide worthwhile futures to North Sea workers in growing sectors, to ensure that more employers work with trade unions, to get better rights for offshore workers, and to create a new Fair Work Charter that guarantees good pay, job security, advanced health and safety, and access to trade unions.

Clean energy means we slow climate change, prevent flooding in our communities, stave off deadly heatwaves, reduce climate migration turmoil, and ensure stable food supply and pricing. But with this government’s commitment to building the kind of clean energy sector that trade unions are fighting for, clean energy also means prosperity for the North East, a stop to the brain drain, resolidified communities, and work to be proud of.

The trade union movement wants these things. And we’re, on this at least, largely in step with Labour.

Reform doesn’t want you to have a slice of this future. Reform wants our communities to absorb climate chaos in higher insurance costs, more heat deaths, dangerous and insecure work. And Reform wants you to blame someone else for their ideological choice to sell your future down the river.

In the TUC, we’re standing with good jobs, secure futures, and the communities of the North East. That’s why we’re celebrating this plan. It’s a plan for working people and a plan for a strong North East.

First published in the Journal (Newcastle-upon-Tyne), 27 October 2025