Chamber and committees

Thank you.

I referred earlier to the significant personal expense that offshore oil and gas workers face in covering training costs. Research by Friends of the Earth Scotland, Platform and Greenpeace UK suggests that an offshore oil and gas worker will pay up to £1,800 a year in training costs. Most of those workers receive no financial contribution from their employer towards training costs. As the sector offers largely insecure work, workers are often forced by new employers to duplicate training that they have previously completed.

The impact of those training costs on the lives of workers should not be underestimated. Take James, for example, who worked in the offshore oil and gas sector for almost 25 years but took the decision to transition to working primarily in offshore wind. James said:

“I bear all training costs myself, from my own pocket, and to become competitive with other divers, the more qualifications you have, the better chance you have of working”.

To increase his competitiveness and meet the standards required by offshore wind employers, he has spent £6,000 of his own money on training and certification costs in the past two years.

Like James, Jack has spent a significant period working in the offshore oil and gas sector. He has borne training costs of £3,000 in the past two years due to receiving no financial support from his employers. Jack said:

“The companies used to pay for your training costs. Once you were established with a company, they would pay for your training because they wanted you to work for them. Now it’s very different. You’ve got to cover all these costs yourself, and the training needs redoing every couple of years, so you’re in this constant cycle.”

Those workers have taken a financial hit in the name of transition, but achieving the scale of change that we need will take co-ordinated Government intervention. My first ask to the minister is this: will the Scottish Government commit, in principle, to supporting the creation of an offshore training passport?

Along with the burden of costs, I spoke earlier of the market failure in the offshore energy sector that is exemplified by the two industry training bodies. The Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organisation focuses on offshore oil and gas training while the Global Wind Organisation covers training for offshore wind. Despite a significant overlap in many of the training modules that they provide, particularly in relation to safety, they have been unable to agree common standards. That means that workers who are looking to make the transition are in the ludicrous position of regularly having to duplicate training and qualifications.

One worker, who wishes to remain anonymous, told me of the duplication of safety training that he would have to undertake if he wanted to transition from offshore oil and gas into offshore wind. He summed it up perfectly:

“Can anyone tell me what the difference is between the GWO and OPITO courses? All it leads to is confusion and very rich training providers”.

My second ask for the minister is whether he will call a summit for OPITO, the GWO and the trade unions to deliver an agreement on common training standards and to resolve other issues such as the lack of sectoral collective bargaining in the offshore wind supply chain.

The Scottish Government regularly talks of its commitment to a just transition for those working in carbon-intensive sectors, but its actions to date have failed to live up to that commitment. It has provided no detail on how its planned skills guarantee will work in practice, and its much-trumpeted green jobs workforce academy has also turned out to be little more than a referral website to job adverts and training courses. In fact, when I used that website yesterday to search for offshore jobs, at least half seemed to be for advisory roles and research posts at universities.

Given that the energy skills alliance has been tasked with creating an all-energy apprenticeship for new entrants into the sector, my final ask of the minister is whether he will look at tasking the ESA with creating an offshore training passport to benefit the existing workforce as well.

As delegates begin to arrive in Glasgow ahead of the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—we have an opportunity today to demonstrate Scotland’s commitment to climate justice, underpinned by social and economic justice. I hope that the Scottish Government will grasp that opportunity and deliver the worker-led transition that our offshore oil and gas workers deserve.

The pandemic has caused a sharp rise in rent arrears, which now stand at more than £3 million in Dundee and nearly £8 million in Aberdeen, yet support for landlords has been prioritised—landlords have received around 14 times more in financial support than tenants have received. When will the Scottish Government start to support tenants who are facing rent arrears, given that no money has yet been paid out from its £10 million tenant hardship grant fund?

It is important that island impact assessments do not become just a box-ticking exercise and that, if concerns or issues crop up through the assessments, they are acted on. Are witnesses able to share any examples that they have come across where a concern or issue that was raised in an impact assessment has had a substantive impact on a public body’s course of action, so that something has been implemented off the back of the assessment?

We have significant public ownership of island transport infrastructure, including ferries and HIAL, which has experienced industrial disputes recently because of the centralisation of its air traffic controller jobs to the mainland. My question is for Jenny Milne and Alex Reid. Do you have any views on the responsibility of the Scottish ministers to island communities in relation to public ownership of transport infrastructure as it relates to connectivity and jobs for the islands?

In its motion, the Scottish Government emphasises its commitment to Scotland being a good global citizen, but that commitment lacks substance. It is easy to say that Scotland in the world should be a champion of progressive values. Everyone in the Parliament would probably identify themselves as an internationalist. We would all say that we support Scotland being a champion for fairness, democracy and human rights, but achieving those goals requires fundamental change to our failed economic system, because the global challenges that we face, from the climate emergency to vaccine apartheid, are a direct result of wealth and power being concentrated in the hands of a few. That will not change while the Scottish Government pats itself on the back with motions rather than bringing forward a real plan to tackle those international issues. [Interruption.] No.

The scale of the challenge could not be greater. The world’s richest 10 per cent now own more than 80 per cent of global wealth. There is a growing divide between the north and the global south when it comes to access to healthcare, education, housing and wealth, and the pandemic has exposed that divide, with the global south set to suffer from greater debt and lack of access to vaccines. It is also set to bear the brunt of the climate emergency.

So, the Scottish Government’s commitment to increasing its international development fund by 50 per cent is a welcome step forward, but it does not go nearly far enough, especially in meeting its own self-image as an international progressive force.

The Labour amendment calls for specific commitments from the Scottish Government on access to vaccines and highlights the importance of matching rhetoric with reality when it comes to promoting human rights.

The Scottish Government’s current action on human rights is totally inadequate. We can see that in its refusal to address the activities of Police Scotland’s international development and innovation unit. That unit is proactively offering training and technical advice to some of the world’s worst offenders when it comes to human rights abuses. Several organisations, from Pax Christi Scotland to Freedom from Torture, have highlighted that the Sri Lankan regime is engaging in the use of torture and state surveillance of human rights defenders. Police Scotland has claimed that its training activities with the Sri Lankan police are helping to promote gender equality and tackle gender-based violence, but, as recently as August, the Sri Lankan police confirmed that cases of intimate partner violence would not be taken to court. Therefore, how can anyone say that that training is working?

The activities of the unit extend far beyond Sri Lanka. Police Scotland is also offering technical advice to the police force in Colombia, a country that has faced long-standing allegations of human rights abuses and which launched a major crackdown on recent protests. What is the Scottish Government’s response to that alarming activity? To repeatedly pass the buck to Police Scotland. There is no point in having a justice secretary who is not prepared to stand up for human rights and hold the police to account when things go wrong, yet we have exactly that in Keith Brown. He avoids answering questions about human rights abuses, and he has nothing to say about Police Scotland providing political cover and legitimacy to those human rights abusers.

My question to the member is this: will he urge the justice secretary to seek an immediate suspension of Police Scotland’s activities with any country that engages in human rights abuses? Will the Scottish Government also launch a full-scale review of the international development and innovation unit’s activities?

This debate has asked us all, as MSPs, to consider Scotland’s role in the world. Although the Scottish Government’s motion seeks to paint a picture of Scotland as a progressive beacon, the reality, at home and abroad, could not be more different. It is yet another example of Scottish Government ministers talking progressive while failing to deliver real change.

Vaccination and testing are both crucial tools for ensuring that our schools remain safe for staff and pupils. Teachers are eligible for the flu jab this year, but they are not being prioritised for the Covid booster jab. Will the cabinet secretary look again at that decision, and will he commit to not introducing charges for lateral flow tests?

Land is a public good and a natural resource that should serve our common interests. It is vital for our sustainability and for Scotland’s biodiversity. However, we currently have a system of land ownership that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few. The system operates at the expense of the social, economic and environmental benefits that land offers. That is why I cannot welcome the growing trend of wealthy individuals and corporate interests seeking to use land to greenwash their record. It is a sign not of growing corporate responsibility or the rich engaging with the realities of the climate emergency, but of an unjust transition and a further transfer of wealth and power at the expense of working communities and our natural environment.

If we are serious about tackling the climate and ecological crises, now is the time for redistribution of land. We must create a new system of land ownership in rural and urban spaces that empowers local communities and delivers for the common good.

Rhoda Grant was right to say that the biggest problem that we face is Scotland’s “no questions asked” approach to land markets. The Scottish Government’s commitment to introduce a public interest test for land transfers is a welcome step forward. Such a test would send a signal that common good is at stake when land is exchanged. It would also provide greater transparency around sales. The Scottish Land Commission has also suggested introducing land management plans and a review of land rights and responsibilities. Those measures would be welcome, but they must have teeth and protect the public interest.

There should not be a limit on our ambitions. There is much more that the Parliament can do with the powers that it has. More radical proposals, such as caps on private land holdings and a land value tax, must be considered. After all, why should money and connections enable a wealthy few to monopolise a public good such as land? Why should landowners continue to benefit from the increasing value of land, which was created by public money? The Parliament should empower communities to take ownership of their space and their land.

The issue of land reform has dogged Scottish politics for decades. We have had years of discussing and debating the issue, but now is the time for change.

I will stay with the topic of land use and management. The number of farmers is reducing, we have an ageing population and many potential new farmers are priced out of starting up because of the cost of land. The recent programme for government contained commitments on modernising tenant farming and reforming legislation on small holdings. Are there any measures that the witnesses would like to be taken to make things easier for potential new producers starting out and to put power into the hands of people who work the land?

The motion seeks to paint a picture of a Scotland that has not endured 14 years of inaction and broken promises at the hands of this Government. In June, we saw the consequences of that continuing inaction from the Scottish Government when it failed to meet its target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and it has allowed emissions from domestic transport to reach worryingly high levels. At this rate, Scotland will struggle to meet its 2045 net zero target without significant intervention.

The Scottish Government is also failing to meet its targets on renewable energy. The latest figures show that just 24 per cent of current energy consumption is coming from renewables. With energy bills set to rise for households across Scotland, the Scottish Government’s failure to deliver a publicly owned, not-for-profit energy company is unforgivable. However, it is not too late for it to reconsider. A publicly owned energy company that produces local energy as well as supplying it could reduce costs for consumers and direct investment into much-needed green technologies.

The motion rightly recognises the need to deliver a just transition. That is particularly important to the workers and communities that I represent in the north-east. At First Minister’s question time two weeks ago, I challenged the First Minister to consider introducing an offshore training passport. Last week, I received a response from the just transition minister that avoided giving a firm commitment to introducing such a passport. Warm words are not enough. We need practical solutions.

One such solution would be to expand the role of the Energy Skills Alliance, which is developing an all energy apprenticeship. That is good for new entrants, but it does not help the current workforce. However, that work by the ESA suggests that standardised training for the energy sector is possible. Will the Scottish Government consider tasking the ESA with developing an offshore training passport as part of a wider, all-energy training programme for the existing workforce?

I do not know whether the cabinet secretary wants to intervene on that. As I asked a question, I think that I should give way if he wants to answer it.

Sorry, Presiding Officer.