Chamber and committees

To quote the question back to you, there is “regular” and strong engagement to ensure that business at the smelter continues going well and that the requirements that are placed on GFG—and the developments that are expected as a result of those—are realised.

There is regular and strong engagement, which Mr Cook leads on, and there is a strong team to ensure that the investment in Lochaber continues going well.

That has to be the overall aspiration. Beyond Grangemouth, I do not see where there would be complementarity that allows for blue hydrogen, but it depends on the potential projects coming forward. However, green hydrogen is where the maximum opportunity is and where the big wins will come, in my view.

We will need infrastructure near to where the offshore renewable energy is coming from. We have provided a £100 million fund for that transition to go forward and, we hope, to encourage further investment to ensure that the technology is commercialised, resulting in further infrastructure off the back of that. We want to work with potential producers to ensure that their plans align with where we are looking to go. I am hopeful that that will come forward.

I have set out my view.

We have established a new offshore wind directorate in the Scottish Government to look directly at that, partly to learn from the process with the onshore wind sector and to ensure that we have a supply chain that, as much as possible—to go back to the deputy convener’s questions—has a domestic supply chain as part of that. The Sumitomo announcement is important, because it gives confidence to other potential investors. It also gives confidence around the potential that Scotland has as a renewable energy generator. Obviously, the energy strategy and just transition plan will be important in ensuring that we continue to put in place the policy levers that allow for the domestic supply chain to be put in place and ensure that we can service the demands of the offshore sector.

The energy minister, Gillian Martin, met Andrew Bowie on the day that Mr Bowie gave evidence to this committee on the UK Government’s Energy Bill. Some of the discussions featured the issue of capacity in the grid and ensuring that appropriate support is in place to allow such projects to come on board.

I will bring in Claire Jones to provide supplementary information.

We want to continue to encourage better community benefit and community shared ownership models, and that is where community wealth building policies come into play. On the area that we have just discussed, you can really see demonstrable benefit to local communities from particular infrastructure being put in place. We will all have examples of communities that are neighbouring areas where renewable or other energy projects are taking place aiming to get discernible benefits from those projects.

I will happily bring in Ragne Low at this stage, as she has been closer to the issue over a longer period.

To be fair, I have set out my position and that of the Government quite clearly, and I will rest at the response that I gave earlier.

We would do exactly what I have just said. We would look to have a much smoother and more balanced consenting regime to ensure that we have, interacting with NPF4, a strategic look at where we are going to need that infrastructure. We need to prioritise that infrastructure while also, obviously, taking communities with us. That is the balance that needs to be struck.

Probably not, deputy convener. You are probably right in your assessment that communities are possibly not aware of the full infrastructure requirements that there will be.

There are a couple of points here. First, we need to understand that undergrounding is, in itself, not necessarily the full answer. To underground high-voltage cabling requires a significant amount of concrete over a long period of time and over a long distance, which has a huge environmental impact of its own. It is also really important that we come forward with a clearer sense of what we are looking to do, for instance with the likes of hydrogen, and how we can utilise energy in the locality rather than transmitting it all.

Taking communities with us is obviously going to be really important, and understanding the scale of the infrastructure will be part of that process. I am more than happy to take that away and look at how we can do more to provide that information.