Economic Growth

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The way this Government run the economy does not work for the vast majority of people who live in Scotland or for those across the UK. It is frankly a disgrace that so many of my constituents, who live in the energy-rich country of Scotland, cannot afford to pay their energy bills. Let there be no doubt about it: the fault lies at the door of the UK Government. In Scotland and across the UK record numbers of people are struggling to afford food, energy and housing, yet there was a glaring omission of any tangible policies to help struggling households in the King’s Speech.

People in Scotland have so far been cushioned from the full impact of Westminster policies by Scottish Government action, but no amount of Scottish Government action can fully protect people in Scotland from regressive Westminster policies. Macroeconomic power and the real power to transform our society still lie in Westminster. The Scottish Parliament is only a devolved Parliament; it does not have the power to truly transform Scotland’s economy and society. That would come only with independence, and that is why I support independence.

I am here to scrutinise this Government. Climate change and the cost of living crisis are the two biggest challenges we face in Scotland and across the UK. The failure to include any meaningful action to tackle them in the King’s Speech is a gross dereliction of duty. With vision and a green new deal, this Government could tackle both the climate and the cost of living crises and transform the way our economy works to benefit all our constituents. But they have neither the desire nor the inclination to do so.

We have heard much about oil licences, but oil from the Rosebank oilfield will not increase energy security for the UK, nor will it lower energy bills for my constituents. It will be sold on the international market and we will have to buy it at the same price as everyone else. It will make Equinor and Ithaca a lot of money, but UK taxpayers will pay for it. As Jess Ralston from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said, it is clear that this Prime Minister would rather give tax breaks to oil companies than lower energy bills. Taxpayers across the UK will fork out around £4 billion to the developers of the oilfield—money that could have been used to insulate millions of homes, many of which are set to be colder and poorer this winter. The UK Government did not even attach any net zero carbon conditions to the new oilfield. I wonder whether they plan to do so for the promised future licensing. The UK Government’s new-found enthusiasm for drilling oil and gas in the North sea tells us that Scottish voters were lied to during the 2014 independence referendum, when Unionists from both the Conservative and the Labour parties said that the oil in the North sea was about to run out. Why should people in Scotland trust anything either of them say ever again?

While the UK Government continue to sell off the energy in the North sea to the highest bidder, there are no meaningful plans for the much-promised just transition. That is why Scotland—and, indeed, the UK—needs a green new deal. That phrase was first coined in the United States, and the Biden Administration have gone some way to putting a green new deal into action, with an industrial strategy that involves the world’s most generous package of climate incentives, under the Inflation Reduction Act.

In Scotland, the Common Weal policy think-tank has produced some excellent work on what a green new deal would look like for my country. During the pandemic it produced a blueprint for a comprehensive green new deal for Scotland, which would involve a process of public planning, organised and implemented by public bodies and paid for out of the public purse. It would be a whole new scheme for Scotland’s energy, agriculture and housing, with huge benefits of employment, prosperity and skills. It is a plan not just for our environment but for our economy and society.

A green new deal might work by tackling the problem of the cold, draughty homes in which many of our constituents live. We need to insulate and retrofit them, and we could do that if we supercharged our construction industry. That could be combined with a programme of transformative land reform to allow for reforesting to produce the wood needed for construction work. Reforestation done properly would also assist carbon capture and expand biodiversity. Once buildings are properly insulated, they could be heated by district heating systems provided by a combination of solar, thermal and geothermal systems. We could also use inter-seasonal heat storage to store heat from the summer for use in winter. All of that costs less and could feed into the grid much more quickly than new nuclear power. It would be a huge engineering feat, but other countries have managed it and it could create well-paid jobs.

The UK covid inquiry has heard evidence about how, during the pandemic, privileged Government figures could not comprehend the lives of the people for whom they were making decisions. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor are all rich men. How can they possibly understand the lives of the people I meet week in, week out at my constituency surgeries who are struggling to pay for basic necessities? We will not get sustainable economic growth for everyone until we tackle climate change, energy insecurity and the cost of living crisis. The King’s Speech was just another missed opportunity to do that.