Britain’s Industrial Future

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

After the next speaker, the time limit will be reduced to four minutes. With five minutes, I call Kenny MacAskill.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister, Chi Onwurah.