Scotland’s energy rip-off continues unabated, and its impact on Scotland is merciless. GB Energy is to put up a plaque on an office in Aberdeen whilst Scottish pensioners can’t afford to put on the heating. Oil continues to boost the UK coffers as a senior British business figure calls Scottish renewables “a golden ticket for UK growth”.
But as Scottish pensioners freeze, Scottish industry’s being devastated, and workers are being made redundant.
Despite worthless pre-election promises from Scottish Labour, and in the face of inaction from the SNP, the lights will soon go out on Grangemouth refinery, devastating central Scotland and leaving this land as the only major oil-producing nation lacking a refining capacity.
Worsening that, a redundancy process has started at Alexander Dennis Ltd in Camelon, makers of electric and hydrogen buses – just what should be springing from the renewable energy bounty, as industry and jobs boom in Scotland. But no. Instead, it’s very existence is threatened, and workers sent to join their Grangemouth neighbours on the dole.
This is the Great Energy Triple Whammy. Our natural resources are exploited, yet industry and jobs are lacking or leaving and the end product is unaffordable to many in the land that is blessed with it.
Grangemouth embodies that for oil, but now Alexander Dennis is filling the same role for renewables. On and off our shores turbines are turning and the opportunities are huge. It should be “a golden ticket” for Scotland. Cheap and clean energy enticing business, creating jobs, all as energy is affordable.
Westminster is exploiting us, but Holyrood is also failing us. When ScotWind was sold off for a song – not the billions obtained in the USA – we were told the jobs and benefit would come from the supply chain. But Methil and Arnish lie idle and the turbines going up are brought in from south of the border or abroad. In East Lothian where they’re visible on the hills and in the Forth there’s neither business springing up nor work coming in, and most other areas are similarly bereft.
Yet the opportunities are huge. With Scotland producing more energy than we have homes to use it, export and use for other purposes is sensible. But there’s neither revenue nor benefit coming. Battery storage ensures a continued supply even when the wind’s not blowing (though it almost always is). Green hydrogen is also coming. According to National Grid ESO, 100% of that product is going to come from Scotland.
At the same time industries are converting to using hydrogen. Ineos at the Grangemouth chemical site is doing so, as indeed is the Scotch whisky sector at numerous sites across the land. That’ll provide cheaper energy for the sites, but also allows access to the surfeit of the product produced for other sectors.
Green hydrogen offers huge opportunities not just for Scotland but the planet. Transport’s now the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas. Addressing that is essential. Electric and hydrogen-fuelled transport offer environmental benefits but also economic opportunities. It’s on our doorstep, it’s cheap to produce and it’s clean. It should afford cheaper transportation for the community, vital in so many parts whether urban or rural. But it should also offer opportunities for Scottish business to benefit and Scottish workers to gain skilled employment.
Yet what we’ve seen in oil and with turbine production is now being seen in the offspring of the renewable bounty. As I said in a parliamentary debate a few months ago, we were promised a Brexit Bonus which was plastered on the side of a bus, but it wasn’t meant to be that the bus would be built in China and the benefit go there while P45s were being issued on our own doorstep. But that’s what’s happening.
Alexander Dennis is one of three major UK manufacturers of electric and hydrogen buses. But it’s also sited where the renewable bounty is springing from. They make a mixture of electric and hydrogen buses offering options and choices not simply in size and chassis but engine technology. Their buses are already visible on our roads and have been for many years. The work they provide is vital and the skills have been nurtured and passed down through generations.
But what’s happening with bus orders? In 2020 the UK Government promised 4,000 “beautiful, British-built buses” which were to be “cleaner, greener, quieter, safer and more frequent”. There’s almost 40,000 buses on our road and only about 3,000 are zero emission so there’s work to be done but where? What’s the reality?
UK government schemes pledged £312 million to fund the purchase of 2,270 buses but shamefully 46% of those 2,270 buses will be manufactured outside the UK, mainly in China.
Scotland was marginally better. But since then, Alexander Dennis has announced 160 redundancies. Yet City Link boasted of buying electric buses from China and Lothian Buses are procuring theirs from Volvo in Sweden (also Chinese owned).
This isn’t just a slap in the face to the workers and manufacturers in this country, it jeopardises their very existence, and in an area where they are already not only skilled but leading in the technology. Any loss would not just be in orders but in the possibility of production.
How absurd to take action to reduce emissions on our roads and yet massively increase them on the high seas. It’s environmental as well as economic nonsense. It’s suggested that the Chinese buses are significantly cheaper. But how’s that achieved and how’s it calculated? Is consideration given to the social and economic costs of factory closures? Or to the loss of skills and technology? I welcome Chinese investment. But I don’t want Scotland flooded with cheap Chinese buses at the expense of our indigenous manufacturing base.
The renewable bounty or golden ticket must also be for Alexander Dennis, its workforce and Scotland. Business should be booming, skilled work increasing, and transport and its cost being transformed. Instead, it’s a triple whammy. Energy rich, yet fuel poor. A resource to be exploited yet our environment and economy trashed. Independence has never been more needed.
