LABOUR MPs have warned that the UK should not turn a blind eye to the human rights records of regimes it deals with, following the announcement that Saudi Arabia has confirmed a £1billion investment on Teesside.
The alfanar group says its Lighthouse Green Fuels Project will be the first company in the UK to produce sustainable aviation fuel from waste on a large scale.
More than 700 jobs will be created during construction of the plant at Port Clarence, starting next year, and around 240 people will be employed there once it is fully operational.
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However, Andy McDonald, MP for Middlesbrough, said the UK must 'choose its partners with care' as concerns have been repeatedly raised around Saudi Arabia's human rights record.
Mr McDonald said: "Of course, we want to realise our green industrial revolution ambitions and deliver good, well-paid, secure and unionised jobs, but that does not mean turning a blind eye to the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia.
“We cannot forget Yemen or the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, and, in a week when 81 men have been brutally beheaded in Saudi Arabia, we need to hear much more about the extent to which this company is involved with the Saudi Royal family.
“We cannot divorce our industrial strategy and policies around energy security from human rights.
"It is insulting in the extreme to suggest, as those in the Tory Government have done, that Teessiders don’t care about human rights.”
The Prime Minister is visiting the Gulf state and its neighbour the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday as he tries to wean the West off Russian energy in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
But Alex Cunningham, Labour MP for Stockton North, said that the UK needs to ensure that in seeking to cut dependence on Russian oil, it does not simply switch dependency to another regime with an 'appalling' human rights record.
He added: "Sadly the Prime Minister appears to be doing just that with Saudi Arabia.
“North Sea oil and gas companies have made huge profits because of global prices, with bosses saying they have more money than they know what to do with.
"We should be taxing that and using it to bring energy prices down for people, instead of dealing with a regime that only a few days ago beheaded 80 men.
“The same applies to investment in Teesside based industries and innovation.
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"Recent events have shown that we need to be doing more to support homegrown and already existing industries to reduce our dependence on regimes like Saudi Arabia and Russia.”
Meanwhile, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has reiterated his comments that “going cap in hand from dictator to dictator is not an energy strategy” as Boris Johnson continues his visit to the Gulf this week.
Speaking to reporters in Huddersfield today, Sir Kier said: “The Prime Minister says we can’t rely on Russia, so now he goes to Saudi Arabia.
“We need to make sure we’ve got security for our energy and that means lessening our imports and not going cap in hand frankly, from dictator to dictator.”
Asked whether he would visit the same region if he was Prime Minister, Sir Keir said: “I’ve got nothing against measures to try and bring prices down in the short term but Liz Truss was saying only the other day, we’ve got to stop relying on malign actors and that’s why they want to wean us off Russia, but you can’t do that and go cap in hand to Saudi Arabia."
He added: “If there’s one lesson we’ve learned in the last few weeks and months, it’s that we need to stop this reliance, dependency, on oil and gas from overseas, Russia in particular, but you don’t do that by jumping from Russia to Saudi Arabia and recreating the exact same problem.”
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