Britain’s Industrial Future

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Kenny MacAskill

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow).

In this debate on the industrial future I wish to deal with renewables, in particular offshore wind. There has been some mention in the debate earlier—indeed, we have seen it in the press—that the statistic about Scotland having 25% of Europe’s potential offshore wind is incorrect. I am happy to concede that, although I am surprised it has been pilloried upon the Scottish Government because the statistic was also echoed by the UK Government, including by Ministers and even a Deputy Prime Minister, but I accept that technology changes.

It remains the case, however, that Scotland’s offshore wind potential is huge and significant. I am not prepared to accept the prognosis of Unionist front organisations or other bodies funded by rich men with an agenda. I maintain that the potential remains big because I remember when Scotland’s first bounty came about in oil and gas. As a child of the ’60s I recall being told that oil would all be gone by the ’80s, then it would be gone by the millennium, and when we got to the referendum in 2014 we were told that it was nearly gone and it was an impediment—how could a country like Scotland possibly survive as an independent nation if it had to put up with the difficulty of looking after its depleted oil and gas sector? Now, however, we find that there is a rush to grant licences at an excessive pace. So Scotland’s offshore wind potential is huge; even the former Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) described it as the Saudi Arabia of wind. If Scotland can do from wind what Saudi Arabia has done from oil, I will be very happy.

It has huge potential because Berwick Bank alone provides more electricity for domestic supply than Scotland has in households. That shows the potential, but to do it we have to ensure that the state has control, or at least a stake, that local businesses get the contracts, and that local workers get the jobs.

In each of those areas we are failing, and the Government have failed. In that context, I will look at one particular offshore wind farm. That wind farm is at Neart na Gaoithe, a Gaelic name and Hansard will get the spelling from me later. It is situated 15 km from the coast of Fife and 20 miles from my constituency, East Lothian, where the cabling will land. It is owned by EDF and ESB, one a state producer of power for France and the other the electricity board from the Republic of Ireland. The profits from this wind farm—54 turbines providing 370,000 households with electricity—are going not to Edinburgh or London, but to Paris and Dublin. That is ridiculous, and at minimum a stake should be taken by the Scottish or the UK Government.

What about the contracts? The contracts for the 54 turbines are going to Hull; they are certainly not going to Methil, where BiFab lines lie empty, or Arnish where lines also lie empty. I do not begrudge the work going to Hull, but 54 is more than the number of turbines committed to or produced in Scotland at all, which is unacceptable. Every yard in every estuary in Scotland should be producing these turbines because the requirement is there, yet we are getting numbers of contracts that we could count on our hands and feet and that is simply unacceptable. The other contracts are going abroad too, to Belgium, Spain, Norway.

What about the jobs? I listened to the hon. Member for Peterborough going on about jobs going abroad. At this very moment workers in the Neart na Gaoithe field who are operating on the Solstad ship the Normand Navigator, are getting redundancy notices because there has been an extension of the offshore workers immigration rules and as a consequence the employers are laying off UK seafarers—36 so far, and more perhaps in other fields—and replacing them with cheap south Asian labour. That is simply disgraceful. We are not giving the contracts to Scottish business, and the workforce, whether based in Scotland or elsewhere in the United Kingdom, are getting redundancy notices. Many of them took those jobs because there was an opportunity to work closer to home. In my constituency, we will be able to see the turbines turning, yet many in their homes will not be able to meet the bills despite the fact that the energy should be available cheaply and not priced at the rate of European gas.

We are not even getting the jobs. As I said, we have the ridiculous position that we will be legislating in this Chamber to address the iniquity and disgrace of P&O and yet a situation caused by the Home Office’s rule change is seeing UK seafarers laid off and dealt with as despicably as P&O dealt with other sailors. It is about time that we took the opportunity to get the best of renewables and to protect our own workforce.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Good news: one colleague has withdrawn from speaking, so the time limit will stay for the moment at five minutes.

Tackling Short-term and Long-term Cost of Living Increases

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Kenny MacAskill

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

All speeches, especially those outlining a programme for government, take place within a context and against a backdrop. I am talking about not just the rising cost of living, but the utter perversity of Scotland having a land that is energy rich while so many Scots are fuel-poor. Oil and gas, which in 2014 were said to be literally valueless and would soon be gone, are now worth a fortune and the UK sees them being exploited for decades to come. However, it extends beyond that, because we have renewables: we have not simply been blessed with hydro and with onshore wind, but we now have offshore wind coming—we are the Saudi Arabia of wind, with 25% of Europe’s resource being in Scotland.

Where are the benefits to our community? Where is our version of the oil fund that Norway has, which we can only look at and lament? Where is the benefit from offshore wind, when the jobs are going abroad and the revenue is going south? There is a perversity in my constituency: people can see the energy wealth, yet they are unable to heat their own homes.

This is not all the fault of Ukraine; of course it is a factor, but there are many more, including the profits being made. That is why I support a windfall tax, because there has certainly been a windfall for many of the corporate executives, while we suffer the absurdity and indignity of one third, and rising, of Scots now facing fuel poverty—it is more than half in the islands and in areas of deprivation.

Let us be clear that we are not talking about the invidious choice between heating and eating, or the appalling euphemism “self-disconnection”. It is not self-disconnection; it is disconnection forced by political decision making and political choice. Those people have no alternative. It is not an accident, but a political decision.

Let us also remember that it is not just a choice between heating and eating, because it goes beyond that. It is the person who wants to charge up and power their phone—we need a phone to live these days—because they want to be contactable for employment. It is the mother who wants to wash the clothes so her kids can go smart to school, even if the clothes had to be bought in a charity shop. It is the child who has been given an iPad because he comes from a deprived area and they want to try to level up, and his mum cannot put the power on. It is the person on dialysis who is sitting having to keep themselves alive and making the choice, if they keep their power on, about what they will not spend upon instead.

That is the situation. Yes, there are things that have to be done that cost money, but there are other things that are remarkably cheap. What about unregulated fuel? We have seen the costs of electricity and gas rise, but what about liquefied petroleum gas, heating oil and biomass? Some 7% of Scots are on unregulated fuel. Why can that not be regulated and at least capped when a cap is imposed? Everybody knows the costs of heating oil have gone up far more than the costs of electricity and gas, and those people have been left behind.

What about prepay meters? We have the ignominy in our country that those who have the least pay the most. Those who are dependent upon prepay meters are not simply those who are there by choice; many of them have no alternative because their private landlord insists upon it. Yet they pay a higher tariff and higher standing charges, and there is no reason for that. That is not a technical decision forced by the complexity of metering. It comes about because the Government will not direct Ofgem to enforce a change. The companies could change it.

Equally, as my friend the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) said, it is time now for a social tariff and a disability tariff. Other countries do that—Belgium does it, and Portugal and Spain have actions so that those who have least are protected. That means that those who have more, such as myself and other Members here, might have to pay a slightly higher rate, but indeed that can be done, as well as having money coming in from a windfall tax. This is not a situation we find ourselves in by accident. It is a political decision and it has to change.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We now have a time limit of three minutes. I call Wendy Chamberlain.

Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Kenny MacAskill

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP) [V]]

As others have mentioned, today is St Patrick’s Day. It is also a century on from when the United Kingdom, in its first iteration as the United Kingdom and Ireland, ended when the Irish Free State was established. Now the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland stand on the brink as Scotland seeks its independence to make its way in the world and to end the dystopian fantasy of post-Brexit Britain and its pursuit of a new age of empire.

What Charles Stewart Parnell said of Ireland applies to Scotland:

“No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has a right to say to his country—thus far shalt thou go and no further.”

Yet that is what Scotland is being told, despite support for independence being ever greater and despite Scotland’s democratically elected representatives demanding the right to hold a referendum. Instead, we are told that it is no to indyref2, and that now and forevermore it will remain that way unless and until it is set by the British on their conditions. That is simply unacceptable. Scotland cannot be subject to a British, or even Boris, veto. It is neither his nor their right or prerogative—it is the democratic right of the Scottish people.

That is why we have to consider what options are taken. Section 30 has been rejected by the Prime Minister. A consultative referendum is to be boycotted by the Opposition parties. It is for that reason that more and more people in Scotland see the need to make the Holyrood poll a plebiscite election. It cannot be, or will not be, boycotted because of its nature. The vote on the list can be definitive for independence and parties are signing up for that. It is simply not acceptable that Northern Ireland is entitled to a referendum and the Irish Free State was established on a referendum, yet Scotland is denied another referendum despite carrying out its actions democratically and without violence.

As Brexit Britain sails off into oblivion, it is for Scotland to gain its independence. There is a better way, and the people of Scotland are beginning to recognise that the tenor and tone of the debate has changed. In 2014, and occasionally in some of the contributions here, we have heard, “Please don’t go, Scotland, we love you.” Equally, it is becoming clearer and clearer that it is not a desire to retain Scotland for Scotland’s interests, but a desire to retain Scotland for the interests of those who are the British establishment. That was made quite clear by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, who wrote recently of Scottish independence that:

“The rest of the world would instantly see that we were no longer a front-rank power, or even in the second row.”

So the whole position put forward by the British Government is not the advancement of the interests of the Scottish people; it is the preservation of the interests of Britain as it stands and of those who are currently very wealthy, as the chumocracy looks after its friends and others.

It is for that reason that the people of Scotland recognise there is a better way, but the better way is to be an independent Scotland where you can care for your own people rather than provide for the private profits of the few. That has to be brought about and if it cannot be delivered by a referendum, we have to make the coming election the plebiscite. Independence is the right of the Scottish people; it is not subject to a veto from Britain, or from a British Prime Minister.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I now have to reduce the time limit to three minutes, as we go to Wales. I call Jonathan Edwards.