What is the Scottish government doing exactly?
Come election time MPs love to make all kinds of promises, manifestos are packed with platitudes about how much money they will invest, how they will grow the economy, and make the country more green. So what exactly are Scottish MPs up to and what kind of conversations are happening in Holyrood?
Scottish First Minster questions are regularly aired on the BBC but if you really want to get into the nitty gritty you can find out about recent voting in parliament and read transcripts of the debates on TheyWorkForYou.com. Not exactly thrilling stuff but if there are issues you feel particularly concerned about it is a sharp way of getting information. It is also a good way of gaining trust toward particular MP’s. They become nuanced individuals not entities made for tabloid bashing. Political parties are regularly represented in a cartoonish form by the media meaning people pick parties like football teams. So what has the Scottish Parliament been doing to grow Scotland’s green economy?
The last debate regarding the issue was 12 September 2024. Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes of the Scottish National Party (SNP) opens the debate lamenting Petroineo’s decision to cease refining at Grangemouth in 2025 and by highlighting the publication of the SNP’s ‘Green Industrial Strategy’. The aim is to maximise economic benefit from the global transition to net zero. Forbes emphasises the importance of “securing investment across Scotland in the critical national infrastructure”. It is worth noting that Forbes doesn’t get specific on what infrastructure will be considered critical within this new greener future. The desire to assert Scotland within a global economy seems to eclipse any potential to fund and nurture local economies.
Graham Simpson of the Conservative party raises the 160 job losses by bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis, who blame the Scottish bus fund “which has funded more vehicles being produced in China than anywhere else – or certainly than in Scotland”.
Forbes notes the challenge of supporting businesses while operating within subsidy control measures. She then changes tack and takes less than a minute to transition from Net-zero to the fact Scotland still doesn’t have the full economic powers that independence would permit.
There is little debate as to what a green industry is. Does it concern energy production, transport networks, investing in local food growing? Industry remains ill-defined.
Labour MSP Michael Marra brings up the delays in sanctioning Berwick Bank wind farm to note its economic potential – Forbes is quick to remind Marra that she cannot comment on live applications. Business investment seems to be central to discussions of growing the green economy but little engagement with what precisely qualifies an industry as green.
Forbes spotlights an investment announced that day that the Scottish National Investment Bank would invest £20 million in ZeroAvia – a British/American hydrogen-electric aircraft developer. More aeroplanes – sounds environmentally sound to me.
Forbes wants to make clear to those who are listening (that’s us dear reader) that “Scotland is open for investment and that we are open for business”. A nice phrase for the newspapers to latch onto (that’s me dear reader) but sounds suspiciously like Scotland is open to being given money which is the same as literally every other country.
In terms of generating Scottish entrepreneurship Forbes highlights the impact of Techscalar, a network of over 700 businesses that have generated more than £70 million collectively since the program started. While a clear win for startup businesses this does not indicate if these businesses contribute to a green economy. It is perhaps too easy to mistake capital gain for environmental progress, particularly when what is good for the planet or ecofriendly is so poorly defined. There is a lot of talk about growth and none of it to do with agriculture.
The current priorities are “wind; carbon capture, utilisation and storage; professional and financial services; hydrogen; and clean industries.” And according to Forbes, “offshore wind is the single most important, and immediate, opportunity”.
Conservative MSP Douglas Lumsden goes beyond the usual duties of the opposition by pointing out that the SNP’s government failed to meet eight out of 12 net zero targets and cut funding in key areas, as well as criticising the exclusion of the oil and gas industry. The argument goes that the oil and gas industry is the largest investor in developing new industries that will help us reach the net zero target.
Partrick Harvie of the Green Party notes this investment is marginal in terms of global investment toward renewables. Further, the oil and gas industry continues to disproportionally invest in fossil fuel extraction.
Lumsden contests this saying this exclusion of the gas and oil industry threatens the 93,000 jobs that rely on the industry. He pushes for more detail on targets and specific plans for industry development with particular reference to the market for hydrogen. He notes the £80 million that was promised for industry development and wants to know when that money will be spent.
Then Lumsden seems to get himself tangled as he criticises the SNP for not making concrete plans to dual the A9, then in the next breath criticises the SNP for not encouraging people to use trains. It seems contradictory to push for the dualling of the A9, a venture that is estimated to cost £3.7 billion, then say things like “we want to see more people on our trains.” Having just criticised Patrick Harvie as having “his head in the sand” about realistic financial moves toward a green economy, Lumsden has a pot, kettle, black situation on his hands.
Enter Labour MSP, Sarah Boyak. She also criticises the Green Industrial Strategy as too vague, saying “we have had 17 years of warm words”. She notes the importance of supporting workers in the transition to a green economy with ‘skills passports’, and highlights educational institutions as the key point of intervention.
Boyak highlights the missed opportunities to manufacture renewables in Scotland – an issue that has been going on for the past 17 years. Blocked up supply chains means Scotland is losing business. The biggest failing seems to have been the inability to use Scotland’s renewable energy resources to generate jobs.
Lorna Slater, Green MSP foreground the industries missing from the Green Industrial Strategy: “forestry and sustainable building materials, retrofit heat pumps and heat networks, solar power, tidal power, hydropower and all the supply chain and maintenance contracts that support those growing industries.” Slater argues demand for green industry can be created by phasing out fossil fuels and reducing energy demand by regulating to decarbonise homes and buildings.
Richard Leonard from Labour posits: “Shouldn’t every job be a green job? Shouldn’t the whole economy be a green economy? Where is the ambition?” Then Leonard doesn’t define what would make said jobs green. He does note that job insecurity caused by foreign direct investment “leaves those workers and their families, and this strategic national asset, at the mercy of a billionaire tax exile and an overseas Government.” This is part of a bigger issue in the Scottish Government’s economic strategy that the Green Industrial Strategy perpetuates. “…With this latest strategy, what the Government is growing is not a green economy but a branch plant economy—and that has consequences.”
Strategies tend to be about either the economy or the environment. The Parliament seems to be unable to implement strategies that genuinely combine the two. Partick Harvie of the Green party is the only MSP to note the “direct conflict between growth and sustainability as objectives in an economy.”
Just Transition Commission published a report analysing Scotland’s progress towards achieving a just transition to a low carbon economy on 12 December 2024. They concluded “Scotland is now at risk of going backwards on just transition.”
Government strategy re-enforces the notion that the environment is a money sink and economic growth will kill the planet. The Scottish government announced they are giving up to £5.5 million in 2024-2025 to Community Climate Action Hubs but none of this is designed even in part to contribute to local economies.
Amidst all of this all parties fail to note Scotland produces enough energy to sustain itself, but that outdated grid networks and lack of storage schemes prevent it from utilising these resources. In January 2024 the Scottish Government released data that showed renewable energy technologies generated the equivalent of 113% of Scotland’s overall electricity consumption in 2022. But of the energy we consume only a fraction is from renewable technology. It is not Scotland’s ability to produce energy but to distribute it that is the issue. But updating grid systems is hard to incentivise. It won’t lead to never-ending economic growth but to cheaper, cleaner, energy supply. And who wants that? Too green, not enough economy.
As Forbes notes, issues concerning the grid are reserved to the UK Government. This means the Scottish Government has little control over updating outdated systems. But pushing blame opposed to pushing for a solution in which the two bodies cooperate is lackluster politics. Willie Rennie of the Liberal Democrat party is the only person to acknowledge the debate shouldn’t be a blame game but should focus on what the Parliament has the power to do.
The debate runs itself in circles trying to navigate this eco-capitalist future – discussions concerning how to grow a ‘green economy’ go from oxymoronic to simply moronic.
