Meeting of the Parliament 12 September 2024
I welcome the publication of the green industrial strategy, but I would have welcomed it more enthusiastically if it had arrived sooner so that I and other colleagues—never mind stakeholders—would have been able to properly scrutinise the report before today’s debate. It is worth reminding ministers that it was first announced in the programme for government in 2021, so we have been waiting a long time.
The points made by Douglas Lumsden, with whom I do not always agree, were very accurate about the raft of cuts being made by the SNP Government, delaying the progress that we urgently need, on things such as the climate change adaptation programme, the energy strategy, the solar ambition for Scotland and the sectoral just transition plans. We need a joined-up approach if we are going to deliver on climate change and deliver the thousands of jobs that we urgently require. Had the strategy come out earlier, we could have got to work, but instead we are lagging behind and losing out on skills and resources, while the Scottish Government dithers and delays. If we look at what is in green industrial strategy, it still feels like a rushed job, even though it has been hanging around for three years.
The Deputy First Minister mentioned the importance of a strategy for ensuring that our education and skills system is responsive to green economic priorities, but we still do not have that. Most of the plans outlined in the climate emergency skills action plan have never come to be, and the workers and our industries are still waiting for an offshore skills passport.
I attended an excellent conference of the Energy Efficiency Association yesterday, and it was striking to see the extent to which we simply do not have the skills to refit our homes and buildings, which would make them energy efficient and more affordable to heat and power. The lack of support for the supply chains was stark, and that support is crucial if we are going to decarbonise our homes and buildings. The message that came across from all the businesses there was that they need that support now.
We need more apprenticeships and more spaces in our colleges, and not just in a couple of cities—we need them right across the country, and we need them now.
We need support for people who want to install solar heat and power systems and innovative battery storage and heating systems. The fact that Mitsubishi announced last week that it might cut 440 jobs in Livingston is due to a decline in product demand. That is deeply worrying, given that its product is one of the solutions. We are not seeing the action on supply chains that is urgently needed.
In the past few weeks, we have also heard about the missed opportunities with the ScotWind contract, but the issue is not just about extracting the money and spending it to support supply chains. There has been a complete lack of conditionality with approvals and a lack of joined-up thinking that would get more renewables manufactured in Scotland—not just in recent years but over the past 17 years.
I have had the privilege of seeing the work that is being done in the port of Leith, which will give us home-grown supply chains. Manufacturing renewables there would be a huge opportunity, and we cannot afford to miss it. It was good to see the work that is being done in Ardersier as well. There are companies that are prepared to invest, but we need more support for manufacturing. We cannot just keep relying on imports for key components.
The problem with “Green Industrial Strategy” is that it is too vague. We see the same words peppered throughout the document: “support”, “explore”, “consider”. They are nice-sounding words but bear little connection to actual action and implementation. We have had 17 years of warm words, and that is not enough for a critical economic sector for our economy and to tackle our climate crisis.