Chamber and committees

Heather, your report “Tooling up the Green Homes Industry”, sets out three of the economic barriers as being the cost of heat pumps, the high-quality survey costs and payback periods for retrofits.

We have started to touch on the area that I want to look at. Derek, you said that Scottish Enterprise is carrying out research to identify investment opportunities in the Grangemouth area. I want to ask you about jobs. In response to the committee’s call for views, GMB Scotland noted that hydrogen and carbon capture both offer the potential for jobs growth, but that that does not guarantee the retention of current levels of skilled jobs.

Given that Scottish Enterprise has a role to play in not only creating but safeguarding jobs, how do you strike the balance between safeguarding existing skilled jobs and creating job opportunities when you make investment decisions?

Derek, I put to you the same question about local jobs for local people. In addition, what do you do about considering growing local supply chains when you are looking at investing in the Grangemouth area?

I will put a similar question to SNIB. We are in a period in which transition is going on. When you make investment decisions, how do you safeguard existing jobs and not undermine the skills that are currently required in the economy?

David, you spoke about the importance of local communities and you mentioned apprentices, skills and jobs. Grangemouth community council suggested, when it was giving evidence last week, that a percentage of jobs should be kept for local people. Do you guys consider that when making investments?

I have a couple of quick questions. It has been an interesting conversation, but unfortunately most of my questions have been covered.

My first question is for SDS. Most people’s perceptions of green jobs are about renewable energy, electrical transport or energy efficiency. We had a submission from Select that said:

“2022/23 saw the largest ever number of apprentices and adult trainees recruited into our industry.”

However,

“the number of available places funded by SDS falls short of our needs.”

Will you give us the background to that? Is it a capacity issue or a funding issue? What is driving it?

My last question is for Dominic Pritchard. The very last paragraph of your submission says:

“The Forth Freeport will not result in improved economic benefits for the current workforce or future workforce at Grangemouth.”

Will you elaborate on that?

What do you expect to change?

Would the land that you are talking about, which has been put aside, allow existing businesses to grow, or is it about encouraging innovation?

You touched earlier on the lack of financial support for SMEs to engage in the journey that we are on. What do you see as being the nature of that financial support?