Official Report 874KB pdf
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-14602, in the name of Michael Matheson, on Powering Futures—putting young people at the heart of the energy transition. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises what it sees as the important work of Powering Futures, which, it understands, has put young people at the heart of the energy transition, giving them the knowledge, skills and experience of real-life scenarios so that they are equipped to respond to the energy transition; notes that Powering Futures connects business and education to empower young people across Scotland, including in the Falkirk West constituency, to respond to the challenges of an energy transition; understands that, since Powering Futures launched in 2020, it has engaged with over 3,000 young people across Scotland and 150 businesses; notes that 45 schools across Scotland are currently participating in Powering Future’s education programme, with a further 100 schools registered to participate in 2024, and believes that Powering Futures is doing important work to connect different sectors with schools and young people through the SCQF Level 6 accredited programme, which results in young people gaining a SCQF Level 6 qualification.
17:01
I thank members from across the chamber for their support for the motion that has enabled this evening’s debate to take place.
I take this opportunity to welcome Jennifer Tempany and Anna Bell from Powering Futures, along with students and teachers from St Kentigern’s academy in Blackburn, Craigroyston high school in Edinburgh and Dollar academy, all of whom have been part of the Powering Futures challenge programme, which I will discuss throughout my speech.
Along with the rest of the world, Scotland is at a crucial time in our history as we face the twin challenges of the climate crisis and the devastation that we now face with greater nature loss. Every sector in our economy is, rightly, under intense scrutiny to act on the role that it can play in helping to address sustainability and those twin crises. As we progress our transition to becoming a net zero nation, we will need to innovate and collaborate to deliver the change that will be necessary across every aspect of our society, so that we can do so in a way that delivers a just and fair transition for everyone. The future is very much in our hands, and it is in the interests of our future generations that we exhaust all avenues in our ambition to achieve sustainability for everyone.
To deliver a just and fair transition, we will need to empower our future workforce and enable people to have the skill sets that are needed to meet the challenge. Key to that is supporting young people to develop their skills and confidence in preparation for the world of work, while encouraging them to question and challenge businesses and industries to be prepared as best they can be for a carbon-neutral economy.
That is core to the role and purpose of Powering Futures, which is based in Falkirk, in my constituency. Founded in 2020 by David Reid and Jennifer Tempany as Fuel Change, it initially received some Government support to help the programme to develop. It focuses on helping Scotland to achieve our climate ambitions by engaging our young people and employers in the debate and by encouraging the skills that are needed to meet the climate change challenge that we face.
From the outset, the ambition of the programme was to reach every business and school across Scotland. Powering Futures was set up as a social enterprise to give our 16 to 24-year-olds a meaningful voice in tackling the climate crisis. Over the past four years, it has gone from strength to strength, calling on world leaders to motivate millions of young people to make a real difference on climate change and working with more than 3,000 young people from more than 100 schools across Scotland at the same time as engaging with 150 businesses and volunteers, who are now partnered with schools and engaging with them regularly in delivering the Powering Futures programme.
Part of the unique nature of the programme is that there are huge educational benefits to the work that Powering Futures carries out. The Powering Futures challenge programme enables learners to develop the critical meta skills that employers are looking for in their future workforce, ensuring that learners will be able to enter, excel in and support their business, so that they have a positive impact on it by helping it to adapt to the opportunities that moving to a net zero society will bring.
On the programme, learners receive a Scottish credit and qualifications framework level 6 qualification, which is equivalent to a higher, with teams of four to six young people taking on real-life sustainability challenges that are set by the sponsoring businesses. Teams work through the challenge to develop a solution before presenting it to a panel of industry judges, so that they can provide feedback. As I have seen at first hand, the programme is delivered enthusiastically by classroom teachers from a variety of subject-area backgrounds, who are fully supported by the Powering Futures team in Falkirk, by the wider community and through practical, continued and lifelong professional learning sessions. The programme also provides teachers with access to high-quality learning resources to help them to continue to support their students.
At the end of it all, those who have taken part receive an SCQF level 6 qualification. Undoubtedly, they benefit from their exposure to future industries, potential employers and the challenges that they face. Fundamentally, they leave the course having enhanced their skills and abilities, enabling them to access the future world of work with those opportunities.
I certainly encourage colleagues across the chamber to get in touch with the Powering Futures team so that they can see its work at first hand in their respective areas. I know that some members across the chamber have already done so. I can say with certainty that the work that Powering Futures is doing is putting the voice of our young people at the very heart of our energy transition in helping to clear the path to a better and more sustainable future for us all. I am sure that colleagues across the chamber will want to wish the young people who are taking part in the programme well as we continue on our journey to becoming a net zero nation.
17:08
First, I congratulate Michael Matheson on securing this members’ business debate on putting young people at the heart of the energy transition. As the former Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport, and now as the deputy convener of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, Michael Matheson has a wealth of knowledge and understanding of our energy sector and of what is needed for a just transition.
The motion is clear, as are Michael Matheson and so many other folk I have spoken with, that young people absolutely need to be at the heart of the transition. That is the generation that we need to get this right for. If we act too slowly on an energy transition, we will do irreparable damage to our climate, and they will have to live with it. If we move too quickly and scale down our current energy industries without investing in new industries, we will fail that generation by failing to provide them with the job opportunities to make their own way in life.
Investment in new industries is needed not only in bricks and mortar and in technologies and machines, but in people. To borrow a phrase from Jimmy Reid,
“The untapped resources of the North Sea are as nothing compared to the untapped resources of our people.”
That is why it is such a pleasure that this debate gives us a chance to talk about fantastic initiatives such as Powering Futures that are investing in young people and giving them the skills that they need for Scotland’s energy transition.
It is particularly pleasing for me that two schools in Aberdeen are Powering Futures schools. As members will know—not least because I keep saying it—Aberdeen is the future net zero capital of the world. It might come as no surprise to members, therefore, to learn that the north-east has a similar scheme of its own, the girls in energy scheme, which complements the Powering Futures scheme exceptionally well.
The girls in energy scheme is a year-long engineering course for 14 to 17-year-old secondary school students, sponsored by Shell and delivered in partnership with North East Scotland College and Fife College, to encourage young women to engage in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and to consider a career in the global energy sector.
Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting the girls in energy conference at the P&J Live, in my Aberdeen Donside constituency, where I got to meet the five members of team phoenix—Elizabeth Ogunleye from St Machar academy, Kacey Smith from Mintlaw academy, Isla Walker from Ellon academy, Tilly Drunsfield from Peterhead academy and Sophie Charleston from Banff academy—who thoroughly impressed me with their elevator pitch.
Team phoenix recognised that carbon emissions from air travel need to come down in our journey to net zero, but they also recognised the importance of aviation in connecting us to others, so they set out their ideas to make flying more environmentally friendly. I think that they were going with the line, “You can’t change the world if you can’t connect to it”.
Although I did not get a chance to meet any of the other teams, I was still quite certain that team phoenix’s pitch would be the winning one, and I was almost proven right. When I spoke to Audrey Nicoll later—she was one of the dragons for the day—she told me that team phoenix had made the top 5 and that they had a very impressive pitch. She said that it was very close and that it was a difficult decision to pick the overall winners.
I offer my congratulations again to Michael Matheson on securing the debate, and I am pleased to hear of the many ways in which young people are being put at the heart of the energy transition. With the likes of Elizabeth, Kacey, Isla, Tilly and Sophie at that heart, the energy industry has a bright future ahead of it.
17:12
I thank Michael Matheson for securing the debate. I begin my comments with Powering Futures. The motion speaks about the programme’s role in bridging the crucial gap between education and business, and about its work in equipping young people with the skills, experience and confidence that they need in their future careers. It is an inspired approach that takes real-world sustainability issues that businesses are grappling with and gives young people the opportunity to come up with solutions. In doing so, they gain direct experience of how industry works and of the sorts of challenges that must be overcome to secure the net zero transition.
The success of that transition depends heavily on having a workforce with the right skill set to make it happen. We have already seen what happens when that is not the case; the Scottish Government has admitted to me that peatland restoration efforts are being hampered because of a skills shortage. It is encouraging, therefore, to hear that the Powering Futures programme is helping to train a generation in the skills and approaches that are needed to build a circular economy, with its programme now registered in more than 100 secondary schools across Scotland.
It is also great to see Powering Futures working with Tayside businesses through the Tayside circular economy challenge. Powering Futures has also partnered with Zero Waste Scotland to deliver training to young people, allowing them to deliver sustainable solutions for their employers that both advance net zero and secure better results for the economy and for the company.
The issues on which Powering Futures is focusing in Tayside involve exactly the sort of work that I have been urging the Scottish Government to take more seriously—for example, on supply chains, procurement and end-of-life product management. Those issues are obviously relevant to the energy transition. One such example is oil and gas infrastructure, where better reuse and higher-value recycling could boost the asset value of steel, valves and tanks by as much as 25 per cent, and where repurposed pipeline can be worth five times as much in construction.
However, giving our young people the right skills is only half the battle—we need to ensure that there are jobs for them in Scotland; otherwise there will be somewhere else, out there in the global jobs market, that will benefit from their talent. My concern is that not enough is being done to ensure that that happens. Back in 2010, the “Scottish Offshore Wind: Creating an Industry” report from Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Renewables estimated that there could be 28,000 offshore wind jobs by 2020. However, the Fraser of Allander Institute has pointed out that there were just over 15,000 jobs by 2021, which represents a sizeable shortfall.
Yes, there has been progress—the Fraser of Allander Institute also points out that, in 2021, the renewables sector as a whole employed people in almost 43,000 full-time equivalent jobs and had an economic output in excess of £10 billion. However, there are real challenges. Green job creation is not as high as it could be and there are still net zero skills shortages, and the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 did not do much, if anything, to meet either of those challenges. Praising the efforts of others is not enough. Young people need the Government to step up its action to make sure that they benefit from the net zero transition.
17:17
I thank Michael Matheson for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I am delighted to take part in the debate to recognise the work of Powering Futures in ensuring that young people are at the heart of the energy transition in Scotland. As we have heard, Powering Futures was set up in 2020 to do what we know so many young people need and want from education in Scotland: develop and empower the young and future workforce with the skills, knowledge and ability to help Scotland to transition to net zero.
By bringing together the employers of today and the workforce of tomorrow to work towards the shared goals of prosperity and stability, Powering Futures creates the circumstances whereby young people can see a pathway to opportunity and employers can spot and support the talent that they need. The organisation’s main aim is equipping 1 million young people with the skills and behaviours that they need to thrive in the workplace by 2030. I believe that that aim could change lives, and it is an ambition of the scale that is required in order to meet the challenges of today and build the country that we need for tomorrow.
In supporting young people to take on real-life business and sustainability challenges that are faced by industries and develop solutions to them, the Powering Futures challenge programme sets up the next generation to face real-life issues and become work ready. Participants who complete the programme, whether in school or through retraining,
“receive an accredited qualification and are empowered to become sustainability-enabled problem solvers with the skills to generate implementable solutions.”
In delivering training and retraining to schools and businesses, the programme recognises that we need both young people with new skills and talent and experienced staff to reskill to help our economy to thrive.
As Michael Matheson’s motion sets out, Powering Futures has, since its inception in 2020,
“engaged with over 3,000 young people across Scotland and 150 businesses”.
More than 100 Scottish secondary schools have registered to start the education challenge programme in the academic year 2024-25. Given the skills gaps that, as we have heard, already exist in this industry in particular, that is the sort of scale on which we need to operate in order to meet that challenge.
The programme is a fantastic example of interpersonal learning, which was advocated by Professor Louise Hayward through the independent review of qualifications and assessment. It gives young people the opportunity to learn and showcase skills that will be useful to meet the real-life challenges that they will face when they leave school. Although I know that the Government is hesitant on aspects of that review, I hope that it will see that examples such as Powering Futures show that such learning is already happening and that it will consider taking the steps that Professor Hayward has suggested to recognise that.
I recently had the pleasure of visiting a school in the Glasgow region that runs a similar interdisciplinary programme. There, I heard first hand the positive feedback from pupils who spoke extremely highly of the opportunity to opt for a module, as they described it, that was perceived to offer something different from traditional learning methods. Powering Futures is an example of that. I note that the Scottish Government is funding a programme at Dollar academy, and I suggest to the minister that he note the success of the Powering Futures challenge programme, which currently does not receive Government funding and is being undertaken in almost a third of secondary schools in Scotland, and that he consider supporting that, too.
The rate of uptake in the Powering Futures challenge programme demonstrates the value of that kind of provision. Professor Ken Muir, author of the “Putting Learners at the Centre” report, which was commissioned by the Scottish Government, has been involved in assessing students’ presentations as part of the challenge programme. He has had the chance to speak to students and teachers who are involved and reports that staff have universally praised the quality of the programme, particularly the excellent resources, videos and support that is available. He also noted that there has been positive feedback from students, with one comment in particular sticking in his mind. A student said:
“This is a different kind of learning, and I really, really enjoyed it.”
I also understand that the Powering Futures team has recently been to Dublin and has plans to pilot its challenge programme elsewhere, which confirms the value that others see in the programme.
Young people must have the opportunities to flourish and succeed. Powering Futures can help them to do that. As many young people as possible should be able to benefit from learning of that kind, and I hope that the debate offers food for thought for the Government and that it might, as a result, give more consideration to opportunities for shared provision and more flexible timetabling in schools, so that more young people can access that learning and spread the opportunity that it brings.
17:21
As others have done, I extend my thanks to Michael Matheson for securing the motion for debate in the chamber and to members for their contributions. In passing, I note that it is good it is to see Mercedes Villalba back in the chamber.
As we have heard, Powering Futures is playing an increasingly important role in connecting schools and businesses to prepare young people for sustainable careers. Its schools challenge programme supports young people to develop crucial skills for the workplace as well as further develop their knowledge of the sustainability sector. I understand from Education Scotland that more than 100 secondary schools across the country either are now participating in or have signed up to the Powering Futures schools challenge programme. The growth of the programme in schools since 2020 is certainly to be welcomed, as is the presence in the gallery of a number of the participants. Indeed, I note that, in my constituency of Angus South, Carnoustie high school is taking part in the programme and Monifieth high school is preparing to join the programme in the next academic year.
One of the strengths of the programme is the sustainability challenge that young people are presented with. Real-world problems are brought forward by business partners. Young people are tasked with developing solutions and presenting their findings, which gives them real insight into green jobs. To realise our climate change ambitions, we need to ensure that our young people have the knowledge and skills to access the increasing number of green jobs. New research, which was published just last week by PwC, indicated that Scotland is poised to reap the rewards of leading the just transition to net zero. It is vital that our young people are furnished with the knowledge and understanding that is required to seize the opportunities that that presents.
Our children and young people recognise the importance of climate and social justice for their future lives and work in the 21st century. Pupils want those themes to be a real and meaningful part of their learning experiences. That is why I am proud that Scotland was one of the first nations to embed learning for sustainability as an entitlement in the curriculum for all learners. Through the curriculum improvement cycle, which is currently under way, there is an opportunity to ensure that learning for sustainability is properly embedded across an updated, forward-looking curriculum. The Scottish Government is also working closely with a wide range of partners to implement the learning for sustainability action plan, which includes the target 2030 ambition for every three-to-18 education setting to become a sustainable learning setting by 2030.
The chamber will also be aware that our national strategy for economic transformation sets out our aim to establish Scotland as one of the best countries to start and grow a business. Today’s young people are our entrepreneurs of the future. That includes working with partners to nurture and develop entrepreneurial mindsets in education and beyond. I am confident that Powering Futures will have a key role to play in that work and will help to develop the meta skills of its participants that Michael Matheson highlighted.
In the current financial year, the Scottish Government is providing £0.25 million of funding to Powering Futures through the entrepreneurial education pathways fund. The funding will enable Powering Futures to further develop and enhance the programme and qualification on offer by being more explicit about entrepreneurial understanding and attributes.
Interdisciplinary learning programmes such as the Powering Futures schools challenge offer young people the opportunity to apply disciplinary knowledge and develop key skills in relation to complex, real-world challenges that are very much relevant to future employment opportunities. I recognise the desire, including from young people themselves and from employers, for more IDL opportunities to be consistently available in secondary schools, with the skills and the benefits that that form of learning can bring.
In response to the independent review of qualifications and assessment, the Government is committed to undertaking more work to support a high-quality and more equitable IDL offer in secondary schools. Powering Futures is specifically mentioned in that response as an example of effective practice. In order to achieve that, a refreshed national IDL working group, chaired by a senior secondary school teacher, will bring together all the key voices who are already working in the space. The Government, in partnership with Education Scotland, colleagues in the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland and other delivery partners, looks forward to working with organisations such as Powering Futures in taking that important work forward.
The debate has shone a light on the huge opportunities for our young people to be at the heart of our energy transition. As we have heard today, programmes such as Powering Futures and the girls in energy scheme are inspiring the next generation to do just that, while transforming how business engages with the next generation of talent.
It is inspiring to see the programme continue to evolve and grow since its inception in 2020. I very much look forward to even more schools and businesses, including in my constituency, becoming part of the programme in the future, because the benefits for the young people who are involved, for business and for the country’s transition to net zero are evident.
Meeting closed at 17:26.Next
Correction