Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 02 December 2020
Five hundred workers were on the verge of filling up the BiFab yards to work on the NnG wind farm off the Fife coast. That would have provided a real-life connection between domestic electricity users and the massive turbines that they are ultimately paying for. It would have tied the economic wellbeing of industrial communities across Scotland with our efforts to combat climate change. It would have signalled to other companies and countries across the world that Scotland was matching the high rhetoric of Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and even Keith Brown, with delivery.
Everyone buying into the battle on climate change is essential if we are to succeed in it. Today, things have come to nothing. There will be 54 turbines for the NnG wind farm, but the Government cannot get organised to build even eight of them. At no point did the Scottish Government tell the Parliament that BiFab was on the edge of collapse. Where was the debate about the additional support that was supposedly required? For two years, the Government boasted that it had saved BiFab, but the truth is that a couple of hundred temporary jobs were created in the past couple of years.
If the reports that the Government may lose the more than £52 million that it invested in BiFab are accurate, that will mean that each of those jobs has cost us £262,000—a quarter of a million pounds for every temporary job that has been created. If we had paid £50,000 a year to each of those workers to sit at home and do nothing for the next five years, we would still have money left over. It is an astonishing waste of money. What is even more wasteful is the failed opportunity to bring economic opportunities to hundreds of people across Scotland.
The Government’s answer is to have yet another working group and to make a commitment to leave no stone unturned. The Government is expert at creating working groups, reviews and studies. If setting up working groups and turning over stones created jobs, we would have full employment in this country by now.
Who knew that when Alex Salmond talked about our being the Saudi Arabia of renewables, he meant that Scotland was going to be turned into an industrial desert? I feel sorry for Fiona Hyslop, who was handed the portfolio. Keith Brown is not even here today to answer for himself. He, Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond should be in their seats explaining why this has all gone wrong. They are the architects of this situation, and they are responsible for it. I find it staggering that the Scottish Government is pointing the finger at DF Barnes when it was the Scottish Government that recommended that company to the Parliament. The Government brought DF Barnes in; it is responsible for that company being in charge.
What should happen now? The Government should publish the legal advice on state aid without any further delay. The union has done that, and the Government should follow. The Government should immediately contact EDF and Saipem to ensure that the eight jackets can still be built here if we can get our act together and to ensure that we have an industrial plan by January to secure those jobs and even more.
The clock is ticking. From the Fife coast, I can see that the work on NnG has already started. The S7000, Saipem’s semi-submersible crane vessel, is installing the casings for piles and is preparing the sea bed. The question is: can the Government get working too, or will it just create another working group?