Meeting of the Parliament 20 April 2023
I am delighted to open the debate in my new role as Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Just Transition. Those matters coming together, side by side at Cabinet level for the first time, is instructive. For me, net zero is about acknowledging the unavoidable truths that we face a global climate and nature emergency, and that we must be prepared to take action that is commensurate with the scale of that challenge.
Putting that side by side with the just transition at the top of government makes clear the Government’s commitment to taking that action and to doing so in a way that is carefully managed, fair, learns the mistakes of the past and leaves no one and no community behind. Let me be clear: the Scottish National Party-led Government will never allow to happen to Scotland’s oil and gas workers what was done to our steel and coalmining communities under Thatcher, when unplanned change left families and communities devastated.
The First Minister and I visited Aberdeen earlier this month and saw some of what the Government’s £500m just transition fund is supporting. Our commitment to the north-east is in stark contrast to the United Kingdom Government, which has repeatedly refused, again as recently as last week, to match our investment, despite the hundreds of billions of pounds that have flowed from the North Sea into the UK Treasury since the 1970s. All the while, it continues to refuse to match our investment in the Scottish Cluster.