Meeting of the Parliament 27 May 2025
I thank the cabinet secretary for that important clarification. We often hear that funds have gone from one place to another, so it is good to hear that that is actually new money. However, rural communities will wait to see what benefit it actually brings in the form of inward investment and economic benefit.
My pessimism well and truly returns when it comes to the jobs promised by GB Energy. It promised 1,000 jobs, but that will take years and years.
At the heart of all the announcements are small local communities that see the potential in small local energy schemes. They want to do their bit; they see an opportunity and have the drive and passion to take it forward, but they find the process incredibly daunting. There is little in the Government’s motion to suggest that that will be easier in the future, only that more money might be available.
The community groups that I have spoken to highlight some key challenges when it comes to getting schemes from idea to delivery. A report from ClimateXChange in 2024 found three main barriers: a lack of resources, a lack of skills and a lack of community input. Nothing that the cabinet secretary has said today will change any of those things.
First, there is a lack of resources. Taking a project from idea to execution can take five years or more, which, for a community group, is a huge amount of time and resources to which few can commit. Money will not necessarily make a difference to that, although it might allow groups to buy in expertise when they need to, given that they are often volunteer groups of committed individuals who have busy and changing lives. The personnel can change frequently and it is difficult for them to see a project through, given the amount of time that is required even to fill in the necessary paperwork.
Secondly, there is a lack of skills. The ClimateXChange report refers specifically to the lack of skills within local authorities to spearhead projects, stating that
“local authority stakeholders note that there is still often a lack of skill for local energy projects in general.”
That is, of course, in addition to a lack of expertise in local communities.