Chamber and committees

Yes. That is certainly what has been articulated to me and is what was said to the committee earlier.

I do not think that anybody should have been particularly surprised by the announcement in itself. Regarding the timing, we were told at the same point as the workforce, so there was certainly an element of surprise there.

We are talking about a century-old refinery that has had issues, where significant interventions have been made in the past and where the joint venture has provided a significant subsidy for a number of years. Therefore, the announcement was not a great surprise to us, and I do not think that it should have been to others.

The important considerations for the Scottish and UK Governments are energy security and the need to ensure that there is continued industrial capacity. We have been working on that with the joint venture and will continue to do so.

That work is on-going. With respect, the discussion that we have already had this morning indicated that we are still working with other parties to understand the likely impact of the decision to close the refinery and, importantly, the possible mitigation of the import terminal, and what other possible investments in hydrogen, carbon capture and a potential biorefinery might be made. That work is on-going, and we will continue to publish that as quickly as we can.

An additional consideration here is the fact that the final decision has not yet been taken, though I grant Mr Kerr the point that we will be in a difficult situation with the refinery after 2025. At the moment, my energy is directed at understanding what will be important for the joint venture in making the decision on when the refinery will close, and what, if anything, we can do to assist with the extension of the refinery.

We continue to work with partners on the Grangemouth future industry board and we continue to have discussions with the UK Government on those areas. We will continue to work on a just transition plan that will consider and articulate some of those areas. It will ensure that we are giving comfort to the communities and the people who are central to all of this that future job opportunities, future industrial capacity and a just transition can be achieved for the area.

We will be, yes. The responsibility goes wider than the Scottish Government; it also has a UK Government element to it. We need to work with all parties involved to ensure that we are coming up with the information that we need to take decisions that we need to take around, for instance, the just transition plan and the potential opportunities for future industrial use of the site. We will continue to do all that we can to pull that together as best we can.

I would expect the committee, and other committees across Parliament, to scrutinise it. Obviously, we will reflect on the concerns of the Just Transition Commission and take those on board as we continue to work up the just transition plan that we will publish early next year.

They meet on a regular basis, at both ministerial and official level. I am not sure of the date of the last meeting at official level.

I absolutely agree that we are trying to avoid how deindustrialisation has happened to communities in the past—communities that you represent, convener, and communities that I represent in Airdrie and Shotts. We are absolutely looking to avoid that.

The work that we are doing on our just transition plan for Grangemouth is continuing. I hope that we now have a date set for a ministerial element to the Grangemouth future industry board and that UK ministers will be along to that as well, so that we can discuss the impact of this on what we are trying to achieve for the Grangemouth site.

Colleagues have already articulated some of the potential options for future investment and industrial activity at the site. The jobs aspect is still to be finalised. We are still to understand the full detail of what refinery losses can be made up for by the import terminal. We are looking to push as hard as possible to ensure that, whenever a decision is taken, we protect as many jobs as possible, for the reasons that you have articulated.

More widely, we are looking to ensure that we see as many opportunities as possible to retain highly skilled workers from the traditional oil and gas sectors in the green industrial revolution that is coming, and to ensure that we can see a line of sight for workers who are looking to transition to be able to do so and remain here in Scotland.

There are a couple of elements in there. First, on the jobs and the assumption around potential losses, I have had—as I said in my introductory comments—very good and constructive meetings with Unite the Union and the STUC on that. They are working closely with the management and the joint venture to ensure that the workforce is given as much protection as possible, and that as much of the workforce as possible is retained in order to ensure that the refinery is operational for as long as that decision is alive.

With regard to the work in the supply chain, that features, as I said, in the work of the Grangemouth future industry board and the work that we are doing around the just transition plan. However, I note that certain types of supply chain operations such as the logistics element will still be there. Where there is an import terminal, there will still be a need for logistics moving from the site to the forecourts, so supply chain elements will still be retained as part of that. Nevertheless, we are looking to try to ensure that we assess the situation as acutely as possible, working with the joint venture to understand to a greater extent—as Ms Chapman challenged us to do—what the potential impact on the supply chain could be.

That is central to the work of the Grangemouth future industry board, and it will be central to the just transition plan that is published. We cannot have a just transition without having a just transition for the workforce, so of course that is central to the work that we are doing.