Energy Trilemma

Debate between David Duguid and Ian Blackford

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

It is a considerable privilege to follow the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), and I thank her for securing this vital debate for all of us.

This has been an important week because we have had the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which bluntly gives what is essentially a final warning to humanity. The report lays bare what is already happening because of the damage that we are collectively doing to our planet as a direct result of the energy choices we have made for the last century. Extreme weather caused by climate breakdown has led to increased deaths from intensifying heatwaves in all regions, millions of lives and homes destroyed in droughts and floods, millions of people facing hunger and “increasingly irreversible losses” in vital ecosystems. That is the damage that has already been done, and if we continue down this path, the final consequences will not simply be about deepening that damage. It is much more fundamental; it is about whether we can continue to live and survive on this planet. That is the harsh reality of where we are, and that is why this debate is so vital.

In the years to come, energy is everything. It is quite literally the be-all and end-all, because the types of energy we use will determine whether we meet the challenge of climate change, and it will determine whether humanity can live on this planet for the foreseeable future. Unless we move immediately to a completely new system of energy production, we will have neither security nor prosperity. We often talk in this House about the scale of the challenges we have faced since the financial crisis in 2008: how to deliver sustainable economic growth, drive investment in our economy, drive prosperity and drive up living standards. The enormous opportunities that we have in green energy would enable us to kick-start that, to answer the questions on the supply chain that the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire raised and to ensure we have the skills, so that we can lead the way in not only providing energy for ourselves but exporting green energy, just as we did with the oil and gas revolution in the 1970s. We have to rise to that challenge, and we have to rise to it here and now.

The terrible truth is that the UK is being left behind when it comes to green energy and green growth. The US and the EU are powering ahead, and we need to make sure that we are not playing catch-up in the United Kingdom. The Inflation Reduction Act passed in August 2022 makes a remarkable $369 billion available to climate and clean energy programmes in the US—just think of the scale of the opportunity that comes from that ambition. Where is our ambition to match that? President Biden’s programme is a real levelling-up agenda, making green energy the economic catalyst to restore and renew the industrial heartlands of the US. Likewise, the European Union is powering ahead. It is debating the passing of the green deal industrial plan, with which it wants to grow clean energy production, revitalise manufacturing and support well-paid jobs.

If I may, I will just look narrowly at Scotland for a minute or two, because I know the figures there better than the figures elsewhere. Last year, the SNP Westminster group commissioned what has been called the Skilling report—“The Economic Opportunity for Scotland from Renewable Energy and Green Technology”—which I know some colleagues in the House have read. There is no fantasy in that report, because we are just reflecting on what we already know.

When the report was published, Scotland was producing 12 GW of green energy. It is now producing about 13 GW, but the report highlights the potential to increase that figure to 80 GW by 2050: a fivefold increase over the course of that period, generating as much as four times the green energy that Scotland needs. That represents the opportunity to keep the lights on—a phrase that was referred to earlier—right across the United Kingdom, and ultimately to produce hydrogen on a scalable basis and export to other parts of the European Union as well. We need to take advantage of the natural opportunity that we have in green energy, making sure that we are at the cutting edge of that. According to Skilling, the transition from fossil fuels will ultimately deliver more jobs than we currently have in oil and gas—over 300,000 jobs by 2050.

The right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire talked about the planning regime and the skilled jobs that we need to develop in order to make this happen, but there needs to be a sense of urgency in doing all of those things, or we will miss that opportunity. There is an enormous challenge, if I may say so, in making sure that we have the jobs in turbine manufacturing and providing cabling. We will achieve that only if we have the visibility of the orders coming in that will encourage people to invest here from across the United Kingdom, and indeed, to come and invest from elsewhere.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Blackford]

I will happily give way.

[David Duguid]

I am genuinely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I agree with pretty much everything he has said so far, which is unusual. I am sure he is familiar with the report by Professor de Leeuw at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, which assessed that at least 90% of the skills required for the net zero future already exist in the oil and gas industry. We should make the most of those skills while we can.

[Ian Blackford]

Actually, I agree with those comments from the professor and from the hon. Gentleman. When I have been in Aberdeen and been out looking at some of the offshore technology there, it has struck me that there is that transferability—if I may call it that—of skills from the oil and gas sector. Of course, we need to make that happen.

But what I would say is that, if Skilling is right—and I believe he is—the scale of the opportunity goes way beyond the jobs that we currently have in oil and gas. We need to make sure that we have the research and development and the innovation right across the supply chain, and that we are utilising not just our higher education sector, but the further education sector to deliver people with the appropriate skills to do this. That is an enormous opportunity. Out of that, there is an enormous opportunity to make sure that we have an industrial strategy that is fit for purpose as well. I would be delighted if we had these kinds of debates more often in this House—if we were actually having detailed discussions about how we do all this. What do we have to do to make the planning system work in a way that is respectful to local communities, but recognises the need and desire to move ahead?

[Ian Blackford]

I agree. The right hon. Member has made an important point. Often, the question is: how do we make sure we are protecting the rights of stakeholders and the rights of communities, while being able to do things at pace? What we have been talking about highlights the potential loss of technological leadership, because if we cannot do these things, we will not get that investment. In that context, let me go to the side a little, because I want to talk about one of the subsets of the green industry that has enormous potential for us.

We heard a comment earlier about nuclear and the opportunity to provide baseload. I have mentioned this in the House on a number of occasions, and I do not apologise for doing so again: there is enormous opportunity in tidal, and that has been demonstrated with the success we have seen with a number of projects. I encourage everyone in the House to examine a peer-reviewed Royal Society report published just ahead of COP26. It highlighted the opportunity of developing 11.5 GW of energy from tidal. If we look at the projects already developed in the United Kingdom, we tend to find that as much as 80% of that supply chain has been generated domestically. A number of the companies doing that are supplying equipment to such countries as France and Canada, as has been mentioned. There is a real danger that unless we recognise the scale of the opportunity, we will lose that leadership.

I am delighted that in the last contracts for difference round, the UK Government put in place a ringfenced pot of £20 million for tidal. That got us off to a degree of a start in fulfilling that ambition laid out in the Royal Society report. It was not as much as I would have liked. For us to fulfil that potential, we need to provide as much as £50 million annually, but I regret that over the past few days we have seen that that ringfenced pot will be cut to £10 million. I say to the House that we run the risk of losing this industry, and I appeal to the Government to revisit this issue. We can provide that baseload from tidal, as an alternative to nuclear energy. If we are ambitious about getting to that kind of scale in tidal, ultimately we will be providing that baseload on a more affordable basis.

[David Duguid]

I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman’s flow, and we can all agree that we wish there was more money available for different things, but he might not be aware that the £20 million that was initially ringfenced was for a two-year period. It has since been changed to a one-year or annual allocation. The £10 million for one year is essentially equivalent to £20 million for two years.

Scottish Independence and the Scottish Economy

Debate between David Duguid and Ian Blackford

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

I have already given way twice to the hon. Member, and I think I have been very gracious with my time.

As I said at the start, all the Westminster-imposed chaos comes with real consequences because the cost of the last six weeks, and the consequences of the last six years of constant crisis mean that the Tories are right back where they originally started—implementing austerity. This week, we have been deliberately bombarded by Treasury briefing about the “difficult decisions” that need to be made in order to fill the economic hole that the Tories dug themselves, but the return of austerity, if it ever truly went away, is not a so-called difficult decision. It is instead what it has always been—a Tory political choice to hit the poorest hardest.

No one should be fooled into thinking that there are not other choices. In the week that BP announced a quarterly profit of £7.1 billion, why not take the easy decision to bring in a proper windfall tax on excess profits? Why not take the easy decision to end non-dom tax avoidance? Why not take the easy decision to reinstate the cap on bankers’ bonuses? With all that new revenue, why not take the easiest decision of all, and protect those most at risk by uprating benefits and pensions in line with inflation? That, after all, was the promise the Prime Minister made when he was Chancellor back in May.

Until each and every one of those easy and essential decisions are taken, the Tories should not dare talk about the difficult decisions they are having to take. I fear, though, that the Tories and their new Prime Minister have already made their choice: they are gearing up to take a wrecking ball to public services and double down on austerity. That is exactly why we are now at such a critical juncture. It is clearer by the day that austerity 2.0 is the future awaiting the Scottish people unless we escape Westminster control for good. That is why independence is not just desirable; it is essential.

There is no better example of that necessity than the energy issue. The motion refers to the detailed and evidenced-based report by David Skilling, who has laid out the facts on the sheer scale of the energy opportunity awaiting an independent Scotland. I encourage hon. Members across the House to read that report. We have the potential to generate around 10% of Europe’s wave power and possess 25% of the potential European offshore wind and tidal resource. Let us not forget that it is Westminster that is holding back our tidal potential with its refusal to fund it to the rate that will be necessary to generate up to 11.5 GW of tidal energy by 2050.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

I am not sure if I picked the right hon. Gentleman up right, but is he accusing the UK Government of not funding tidal energy, when in fact £20 million of contracts for difference were committed, as ringfenced, specifically for tidal stream energy?

[Ian Blackford]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman raises that because it takes us back to the discussions we had last year. The Royal Society report published just before COP26—a peer-reviewed report—indicated the potential to get to 11.5 GW of electricity from tidal. Incidentally, that would be 15% of the UK’s electricity production, which is the amount that nuclear contributes today, and by 2030 tidal would be cheaper than nuclear. We do not need nuclear to provide our baseload electricity because tidal does it. The fact remains that that £20 million, welcome as it is, does not go far enough for that industry to develop its potential. When we look at the programmes that are already live around these shores, about 70% of the value added from tidal comes from Scotland and about 80% comes from the UK. It is a domestically grown industry.

We heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) about the contrast with the oil industry in Norway, but one of the key lessons from that is to make sure not just that we have the energy production, but that we control the supply chain. This is exactly an industry where we do control the supply chain. I say to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) that he should join me in pressing the Treasury to make sure we get the £50 million-a-year ringfenced pot—that is what would allow us to fulfil our potential—and at the same time to make sure that we get carbon capture and storage for Peterhead. Those two clear examples are direct demonstrations of how Scotland has been held back—held back on its ability to deliver green energy and on its desire to get to net zero in 2045. That is the cost of Westminster control for Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Blackford]

I did ask for respect and honesty in this debate, and I think that if the hon. Gentleman checks Hansard, he will find that I have said that on a number of occasions.

This is Scotland’s energy and it should serve Scotland’s people. The Skilling report shows that Scotland has the potential to boost our output by more than five times, increasing from 12 GW of installed renewable capacity to over 80 GW by 2050. Just think about that—80 GW of electricity by 2050. That is as much as four times the energy Scotland needs. It will provide the cheap, green energy that will allow us to have a new industrial revolution, and to see jobs come to the eastern highlands, the western highlands, the lowlands and the south of Scotland as a consequence of the economic opportunity that will be created. By expanding Scotland’s renewable capacity and becoming a green hydrogen exporter, we have the chance to pump as much as £34 billion into Scotland’s economy every year—an investment that would sustain up to 385,000 jobs, dwarfing the jobs that we have in oil in gas today. That is a real energy transition.

This is a plan for growth—green, sustainable growth for the long term, not the fantasy growth that we had from the Truss Government and the absence of any plan from the existing Government. Driving better productivity, driving an industrial green society, and driving our economy into the future—that is the plan on which an independent Scotland can and will be built. Apparently, the only UK Government response to that energy plan is the bizarre argument that we should ignore the vast renewable energy potential and instead turn to nuclear. Well, let us be very clear: we do not need nuclear in Scotland, we do not want nuclear power, and we will not be having nuclear power. We want the powers of independence so that Scotland’s energy can finally serve the needs of the Scottish people.

In the latest Scottish Government paper on independence, our First Minister set out all the economic opportunities that independence will unleash. Instead of Westminster anti-trade union laws, we could ensure fairer work with European-style labour market policies. Instead of an economic race to the bottom, we could build an economy based on human wellbeing, lifting people up so that they can contribute fully, not waiting for wealth to trickle down while the inequality gap grows. Instead of Brexit, we would be an EU member state in our own right and we would, for the first time, be in a position not just to benefit from EU trade deals, but to help shape them. Instead of a hostile environment and the disgrace of a Home Secretary who talks about “invasions”, we would have a humane immigration policy tailored to our needs.

[David Duguid]

rose—

[Ian Blackford]

I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman if he will join me and ask the Home Secretary to apologise for the outrageous language that she used in this Chamber on Monday.

[David Duguid]

I genuinely thank the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene on the point he was making about an independent Scotland being in the EU—a point he made previously. Does he agree with his leader in Holyrood, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, when she admitted that there could be hard borders and passport controls between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom?

[Ian Blackford]

Here we go: “Project Fear” all over again. Let me give the hon. Gentleman and the House the example of Ireland. Way back in the 1940s, close to 90% of Ireland’s exports were to the rest of the United Kingdom. Today that figure is less than 10%, but the value of Irish exports to the UK actually increased every single year, irrespective of the economic cycle. An independent Ireland was able to pursue policies that delivered growth and resulted in investment and trade opportunities. That is the opportunity for an independent Scotland.

Debate on the Address

Debate between David Duguid and Ian Blackford

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

I can see the Secretary of State for Scotland nodding, so perhaps we can discuss that over the coming days.

Since the start of this year alone, we know that the UK Government have profited by at least £1.7 billion from the revenues brought in from North sea oil. All that revenue from Scotland’s resources, and still this UK Government refuse to match the Scottish Government’s £500 million just transition fund to help to ease reliance on fossil fuels. Still there is no commitment to carbon capture and storage in Scotland’s north-east. Not only are this Westminster Government harming our planet, but they are holding Scotland back.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

I am genuinely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, particularly as the Scottish cluster is so important to my constituency. Does he agree that the UK Government have thus far committed £41 million to that project? However, that was not what I wanted to intervene on; I wanted to intervene on his mention of the £500 million just transition fund for the north-east of Scotland. Can he do what his colleagues the hon. Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) have not been able to do thus far, and describe in detail what that £500 million will be spent on in the north-east of Scotland?

[Ian Blackford]

We have been short-changed by not getting carbon capture and storage in Scotland. Twice now we have been promised that it is coming, but we all know in Scotland that getting carbon capture and storage in the north-east of Scotland with the Acorn project is instrumental in getting to net zero by 2045. It is instrumental in ensuring that Grangemouth has a green chemical future. There can be no more dithering—there can be no more delay. The Acorn project must be greenlit, and it must be greenlit now.

I say to the hon. Gentleman that yes, we will spell out exactly the plan for that £500 million transition fund. I say to the House now that, together with my hon. Friends the Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun and for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), we will be speaking more on Scotland’s future energy potential. We on these Benches will accept our responsibilities to deliver that energy strategy and the industrial policy that is lacking from those on the Government Front Bench.

I have concentrated on how the proposed legislation in the Queen’s Speech fails to tackle the cost of living crisis and our green future, but what it will enact is every bit as harmful. At the heart of this Session’s programme there is a twin attack that must be challenged: an attack on devolution and an attack on human rights law.

As the Prime Minister gets increasingly vulnerable and desperate, it is probably no surprise that he has reached back to the policy that got him the job in the first place—Brexit. The Brexit freedoms Bill to repeal EU-retained law and the other Brexit legislation in his Queen’s Speech represent a race to the bottom on standards. As for the idea that Westminster will be able to strike down devolved legislatures’ retained EU laws, that would be only the latest in a long line of Tory power grabs.

Covid-19: Future UK-EU Relationship

Debate between David Duguid and Ian Blackford

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

“Not the SNP!” Do I really have to take that? I know the hon. Member represents an English seat and perhaps he does not pay much attention, but if he looks at every one of the results of elections to the Scottish Parliament since 2007 and to Westminster since 2015, as well as the European results, he will see that the people of Scotland have put their trust in the SNP to defend them from the kind of attacks that we have from the Tory Benches. [Interruption.] I hear, “What about a referendum?” so let me say this. We went to the people of Scotland last December and we stood on the principle of Scotland’s right to choose. We got 45% of the vote. There is a bigger gap between us and the Tories than there is between the Tories and Labour in the United Kingdom. We won that election, by any definition. The people of Scotland elected us in 48 of the 59 constituencies. There are six Tories from Scotland. We won that election. I accept that the Conservatives won the election in the UK, but that means that it is incumbent on the Conservatives to recognise that the SNP won in Scotland.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

No, it’s not.

[Ian Blackford]

“No, it’s not”—well, there we are: democracy Tory-style. The Tories think that they can simply ignore the people of Scotland. I say to them: carry on, because people are saying now that support for the SNP and support for independence is rising, and you will not stop the people of Scotland determining our own future. It is ours to choose and we will not be stopped by any Tory Government.