Meeting of the Parliament 20 April 2023
I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests.
The Scottish Government’s just transition commission is a rather measured, moderate group of people, but even they felt compelled to write to the minister responsible for just transition just a few weeks ago. In their letter, they pulled no punches. They said that addressing inequalities should be a core strategic objective of just transition and that there should be an audit of who benefits, of who pays and of which groups in society will pay more and which groups will pay less. They called for co-design and meaningful engagement and a stable and settled workforce, which they said demands a step-change in skills, credible road maps and an investment prospectus and plan.
We can hear their growing impatience and rising exasperation that, four years on from the Government declaring a climate emergency, they are still having to ask
“how existing constraints to financing, skills and workforce capacity can be addressed.”
No wonder their patience is running out, and it is not only the just transition commission; it is the audit commission too. The Auditor General’s new report, published just today, is scathing about the SNP-Green Government. He says:
“The Scottish Government does not routinely carry out carbon assessments or capture the impact of spending decisions on its carbon footprint in the long term ... The Scottish Government does not assess how far the policies outlined in the Climate Change Plan Update will contribute to net zero ... The Scottish Government does not know how much the policies proposed in the current Climate Change Plan Update will cost”.
However, what everyone in the country knows is that there are choices to be made, and they know that these are not technological choices but political ones, because the path that we must follow is not about technocratic fixes and scientific solutions; it is about what type of society we live in. It is about how we live and how we might live, and it is about how we overturn the deep divisions of class that hold us back. It involves a choice about whether we help the weak or the strong; whether we plan our economy or rely on the market; and whether we simply deal with the effects of the economic system or set about changing the current economic system. Those are the choices that the Government must make.
On Tuesday, the new First Minister arrived in Parliament with a document under his arm entitled, “Equality, opportunity, community: New leadership—A fresh start”. He spoke of trade unions and of fair work, declaring:
“We will take the workers of the northeast ... with us on our just transition journey.”—[Official Report, 18 April 2023; c 14.]
As we heard, on Wednesday the new Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Just Transition visited Ineos in the morning and Forth Ports in Grangemouth in the afternoon to meet “key stakeholders”. The cabinet secretary met senior managers from Ineos—Ratcliffe’s people—and the trade union representatives there, but she did not meet the trade unions at Forth Ports. This afternoon, let me warn the cabinet secretary not to pander to the Jim Ratcliffes of this world—Jim Ratcliffe who, as well as still wanting to frack across the central belt of Scotland, now wants to build a nuclear reactor right in the middle of Grangemouth. Let me warn her that a just transition that really is just means that we do not pander to those vested interests but, rather, we take them on—those whose only interest is in making money and a quick profit.
A just transition that really is just means that we will tilt the balance of power in the economy in a new and better direction. There will need to be a whole-system change, a decisive shift, a new kind of economy that includes public ownership, not least in energy. It will need to be bold—bolder than we imagine—because, in truth, we will be accused by future generations not of going too fast or of taking people by surprise but of going too slowly, nibbling away at the problem and not being decisive enough.
In “A Dream of John Ball”, William Morris wrote:
“Hard it is for the Old World to see the New”.
We want an earthly paradise—why not? We should draw on the great unused reservoir of human talent and potential—why not? We are world citizens, with an obligation as well as a right to speak out, because our common humanity should unite us—why not? We can change the fundamental relations of power in the economy and in production through radical and rational reform—why not?
But all of that requires not only vision; it also demands leadership. It cries out for urgent Government action and, in the end, it must be based on an understanding that these things will not happen spontaneously. They will not naturally evolve—certainly not under the logic of capitalism. We will have to plan for them. It also requires an understanding that this is not just an economic, an environmental, an ecological, a social and a political imperative but a moral imperative.
16:06