John Healey stood in front of two giant robotic arms this week and promised to ‘make Great Britain Growth Britain again’. The Chancellor also promised, borrowing a catchphrase from his neighbour in No. 10, to deliver ‘good growth in every postcode’.
In the North Sea, 150 miles east off the coast of Aberdeen, lies the first big test of this promise. The 6,000-ton Jackdaw extraction platform is ready to start pumping gas from a field three miles below the surface.
Twenty years after the Jackdaw field was first successfully prospected, it will, at the stroke of a ministerial pen, finally be allowed to operate. Industry bosses have been told to prepare for a possible government handshaking visit on Tuesday, though the Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh could announce approval as early as Monday. Rosebank – Jackdaw’s sister field, which could produce gas but mainly oil – is also expected to be approved, though the decision will likely come at a later date.
Jackdaw meets the postcode part of Healey and Andy Burnham’s promise. Aberdeen has lost a third of its offshore energy jobs in a decade. Some in the granite city fear further decline could finish it off. The human stakes extend beyond GDP: over the same period, ‘deaths of despair’ – from drugs, alcohol and suicide – rose by 42 per cent in Aberdeen, against 28 per cent across Scotland. Employment, investment and opportunity are literally matters of life and death in these postcodes.
