The UK’s Energy Minister used the platform of the UK’s largest energy conference to set out his stall for the country’s clean energy transition making it clear that Scotland is central to his vision.
More than 13,000 energy professionals gathered at the SEC in Glasgow for All Energy 2026.
Minister for Energy, Michael Shanks delivered one of the most substantive statements of the government’s energy direction to date, hours before the King’s Speech confirmed the introduction of a new Energy Independence Bill.
Shanks drew on Glasgow’s industrial heritage to frame the scale of the moment — the SEC sits in the shadows of the iconic Finnieston Crane, a symbol of the city’s role in the first Industrial Revolution — before arguing that a transformation of equal consequence is underway.
“Glasgow coal powered the first Industrial Revolution and kept the country going for 300 years,” he said.
“And now it is Glasgow and Scotland that is playing a central role in our next great energy transition, one just as consequential as the one that began here those centuries ago.”
The minister was direct in confronting what he called ‘misinformation’ and ‘misplaced nostalgia’ around North Sea oil and gas.
While stressing that existing fields would remain open for their lifetime and that tiebacks (the process of connecting new, smaller fields to existing, larger production platforms) would be supported, he argued that expanding extraction could not solve the problem.
“The truth is that drilling for more fossil fuels cannot be the solution to a fossil fuel crisis,” he said.
“What happens in the Strait of Hormuz will always have far more of an impact on prices than anything we can do here in the UK,” referencing the fact that oil and gas extraction in the North Sea accounts for just 0.7 per cent of the global market.
Instead, Shanks pointed to the accelerating pace of the UK Government’s Clean Energy Mission, including the next renewables auction (AR8, which opens on 20 July), investment in grid infrastructure, and plans to break the link between electricity prices and gas.
Glasgow coal powered the first Industrial Revolution. And now it is Glasgow and Scotland that is playing a central role in our next great energy transition
- Michael Shanks
Scotland, he said, would be a primary beneficiary, citing investments including Vestas‘ planned turbine parts factory in Leith, the Berwick Bank offshore wind project, and close to £10bn committed to carbon capture, including the Acorn project in Aberdeenshire.
On jobs and the just transition, an issue with particular resonance in Scotland following the Grangemouth closure, he was candid: “The UK Government hasn’t always got just transitions right.”
He pointed to the new North Sea Jobs Service as part of the government’s effort to learn from past failures and support workers into the industries of the future.
With the International Energy Agency describing the energy crisis as the worst in history, Shanks framed the choice in no uncertain terms: “Do we want to be a country that is always buffeted by the headwinds of conflicts that we played no part in starting?
“Or do we want to take decisive action now to protect people and to guarantee
our future economic prosperity?”
Shanks declared this is the moment to go further and faster, and Scotland has every reason to lead the way.
Michael Shanks MP will be speaking at The Business of Energy 2026 on 1 December.