Select committee: Energy Security and Net Zero Committee
Conclusion 2
6th Report - Workforce planning to deliver clean, secure energy
Published 5 Dec 2025
Addressed to Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
Energy Security and Net Zero Committee Workforce planning to deliver clean, secure energy All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Fortunately, there is a lot of scope for smart policy and expenditure to be used to collaborate with the whole energy sector, as well as the education and skills sector, to empower and equip existing workers and new entrants to meet demand created by the Government’s targets for clean energy and the decarbonisation of buildings. Crucially, time appears to remain available for productive change and many of the skills of the existing energy, engineering and construction workforces are highly transferable, alongside the potential for innovative and creative programmes to demonstrate crossover applicable skills from other parts of the economy. The skilled jobs that will be required, offer the promise of long-term, good careers but it is unclear that market forces alone will overcome inertia and bottlenecks. Notwithstanding the role of the private sector in investing in skills, there is a clear role for government intervention and leveraged public expenditure. (Conclusion, Paragraph 30)
From: Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, 6th Report - Workforce planning to deliver clean, secure energy (HC 393), 5 December 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 27 February 2026 (deadline 11 February 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government says it agrees with most of the Committee's recommendations on clean energy and retrofit workforce planning, and says it partially agrees with others, including on skilled immigration conditionality and impact assessments for procurement conditionality.
- On existing workers, it "agrees" and cites a new North Sea Jobs Service, and says it is "continuing to support" expansion of the Energy Skills Passport, including "exploring" additional sectors such as electricity networks and nuclear.
- On skilled immigration, it "partially agrees" and states: "We do not currently plan other labour conditionality measures beyond those we set out in the IWP", while keeping policies "under review".
- On impact assessments for procurement conditionality, it "partially agrees" but says conditionality "would not be within scope of requiring the publication of an impact assessment", and that it will be considered "on a case-by-case basis".
- On the Regional Skills Pilots, it "partially agrees", says it has "commissioned an independent evaluation", and does not commit to the Committee's summer 2026 reporting date.