Stuart C McDonald
Main Page: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
11. What estimate she has made of the number of jobs in Scotland supported by the renewable energy industry.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
15. What estimate she has made of the number of jobs in Scotland supported by the renewable energy industry.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Amber Rudd)
Renewable energy supported around 23,200 jobs in Scotland in 2013. As green energy is not about having wind farms
“any time, any place, anywhere”,
which is how the Scottish Minister for Business, Energy and Tourism once criticised the approach in Scotland, it is important to note that these jobs were supported across a variety of renewable energy technologies, and by supply chains.
Amber Rudd
The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear me say that job creation and job support are incredibly important in Scotland, and in the UK overall. Renewable energy remains a growth area, with high employment and investment. Scotland has a number of employees in the offshore wind sector, which continues to grow. I attended a conference on the sector yesterday. It is beginning to have a serious impact on exports.
Stuart C. McDonald
Of course, it is not only existing jobs that will be affected by the Government’s short-sighted policy on onshore wind; the opportunity to create further highly skilled and well-paid jobs will also be affected, perhaps even more so. As the Minister of State said, around 19,000 people owe their livelihoods to the UK’s onshore wind industry, but according to RenewableUK, that figure could have increased to as many as 37,000 by 2023 if Government policies had remained supportive. Is it not nonsense for the Government to turn their back on an industry with such enormous jobs potential?
Amber Rudd
As my hon. Friend the Minister of State pointed out, onshore wind has been a great success. If we continued to support it at the level that we had done over the past few years, there would be an impact on everybody’s bills, because we already have an aim for 2020 of getting between 11 GW to 13 GW from onshore wind; if onshore wind continues to be deployed at the level it has been over the past few years, that will contribute to an additional cost on people’s bills. I urge the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) to think about his constituents, who would not welcome another £10 or £15 on their bills.