Meeting of the Parliament 29 April 2025
There is no doubt that these are turbulent economic times. Global instability, shifting trade policy and the urgent need to respond to the climate crisis are reshaping the way in which industry must operate. The question today is not about recognising challenges, but about rising to meet them. That is what the UK Labour Government did in acting to support British Steel—not just protecting jobs at the site of our last blast furnaces, but safeguarding the very future of domestic steel making.
That matters in Scotland. Hundreds of skilled jobs at Dalzell, and in the future—I hope—at Clydebridge, depend on the success of British Steel. Our infrastructure, our defence and our manufacturing and resilience all rely on having a steel industry that we can call our own. When the Labour Government saw a risk, it acted urgently, decisively and strategically. I only wish that when the then UK Government and the current Scottish Government were first made aware of the risk to the refinery at Grangemouth, we had seen that same urgency.
As we have heard, production has now ceased at the refinery. Our thoughts are, first and foremost, with the workers and their families. Those workers kept the national asset running for decades and deserved better. They should have been at the heart of a proper plan for transition years ago. Instead, they have been let down and left behind.
In evidence to the Economy and Fair Work Committee in November last year, Petroineos told us that it had approached the Scottish Government more than five years ago about the need to transition the Grangemouth site. When the former energy minister met Petroineos in February 2022, he was warned about the likely closure of the refinery. That was more than three years ago.
However, when the committee published its just transition report on Grangemouth in 2023, we said:
“There is no evidence of a clear, joined-up approach across government. No timeline. No worker-led strategy. No plan.”
We had two Governments asleep on the job.
Since then, we have seen a change of UK Government and, within months, a commitment of £200 million to support a clean industrial future for Grangemouth through project willow, which involves biofuels, hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel, and is a road map to protect skills and secure investment.
When it comes to the delivery of project willow, we cannot afford a repeat of the drift and delay that defined the past five years. We need urgency to attract investment, change regulation, develop infrastructure and secure the jobs that remain at Grangemouth and, crucially, those supply-chain jobs across the country.
The situation with the refinery at Grangemouth is not an isolated failure of the Government to turn warm words on a just transition into reality; it is part of a pattern of inaction, and I see that in my region of Dumfries and Galloway. That area should be at the forefront of Scotland’s net zero future, because we have the land, the wind and the water. However, we do not have the investment. Dumfries and Galloway is home to more than 11 per cent of Scotland’s wind turbines, but members would struggle to find a fair share of the renewable jobs in the communities that host them, and they certainly would not find any communities there that manufacture them. We have the highest level of fuel poverty in Scotland, the lowest wages and a population that is declining, with too many of our young people leaving because they cannot access the apprenticeships, housing or opportunities that they need to stay.
How has the Scottish Government responded? With a 22 per cent cut to the budget of the South of Scotland Enterprise Agency; reduced funding for colleges, which forces them to turn away young people who are desperate to train; and a continued failure to invest in crucial infrastructure, such as the A75 and the A77, which are vital links for business to Northern Ireland and the EU.
The Just Transition Commission could not have been clearer in its recent report on Dumfries and Galloway. A lack of housing is stifling economic growth; poor transport is holding back investment; and a lack of skilled workers is putting at risk the region’s ability to play its part in the transition.
That situation cannot go on in communities across Scotland. If we are serious about delivering a just transition, we need to back it with action—a proper industrial strategy that is rooted in Scotland’s strengths. There should be no more exporting of renewable energy supply-chain jobs abroad and no more bridges built with Chinese steel, turbines manufactured in Indonesia or ferries built in Turkey. We should be creating those jobs here, in Grangemouth, Motherwell, Stranraer and Dumfries.
I welcome much of what is in the Scottish Government’s motion today, but the fact that it is silent on the Government’s role speaks volumes.
Labour’s amendment recognises the importance of the action that is needed at Grangemouth and of a proper delivery plan. We owe it not just to the workers at Grangemouth, but to the young people across Scotland who are wondering whether they have a future in their home towns, and to the communities in every part of the country who are still waiting and hoping for the just transition that this Government promised them. Let us not let them down in the way that workers at the Grangemouth refinery have been let down today.
15:48