Chamber and committees

When the general secretary of the STUC says that

“this is more a strategy for economic status quo than economic transformation”,

there must be things missing from the strategy.

You say that it has an important role to play, but the Government is ending that fund at the end of the month. It has been £13 million a year over the past 10 years. A market failure was identified when it was set up.

In response to a parliamentary question, the Government said that one of the reasons why it is ending the fund is that

“There are new investment mechanisms in place, through the Scottish National Investment Bank, which supports the Scottish Government’s strategic priorities to achieving our net zero ambitions.”—[Written Answers, 11 March 2022; S6W-06172.]

Given that that £13 million-a-year fund, which is largely spent on community renewables, is being ended in a few weeks’ time, what is the bank doing to support community renewables?

Good morning to the panel. With regard to the bank’s role in investing where the private sector is failing to provide sufficient funds, your biggest investment is £50 million in a forestry fund that is run by the asset manager Gresham House. I have to say that that firm has admitted to owning a management company in Guernsey, which is a well-known tax haven. Forestry is not short of people queuing up to invest, so where did you see a particular market failure in that sector that you needed to fill? I notice that your website says that the forest growth and sustainability fund is going to create rural jobs. How many jobs have been created so far as a result of that investment?

I quoted your target and I would like to know why you failed to meet it.

It would certainly take a leap to go from 20,500 to 130,000 jobs just by changing the definition. I would be keen to hear what the Government’s target actually is, however you define it.

I will briefly raise a final issue. I have previously raised the issue of the cluttered landscape that businesses and organisations face when they seek support, which was highlighted by Audit Scotland. You changed the name of the Enterprise and Skills Strategic Board; I think that you now call it the snappy “national strategy for economic transformation delivery board”, which you will co-chair. If I am a business that is getting on with the day job and looking to see where I am best placed to get support from all the various organisations, how does the strategy make that less cluttered? You are obviously not removing any of those organisations, so what has changed from that very cluttered landscape that businesses keep referring to?

Even since you made that investment, the market has changed significantly. We now see a lot of private companies that—if we are being perfectly honest—want to buy up huge swathes of Scotland to plant trees, including native species, not for commercial planting but to offset their carbon footprint. Given that the market is changing, what mechanisms do you have in place to enable you to say, “Well, actually, we no longer need to have a role there,” because the private sector—including green lairds and all sorts of interesting organisations—is moving in to buy up land for tree planting? Is there a mechanism for the bank to say that it does not need to be there, because the private sector is, rightly or wrongly, filling that gap?

We should go much further with conditionality in areas such as trade union access.

You mentioned one big issue that trade unions are deeply concerned about, which is jobs in the supply chain. You highlighted offshore wind. The former First Minister, Alex Salmond, said that Scotland would be the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”. The Government promised that there would be 130,000 jobs in renewables. The most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that that number is 20,500 and that it is actually falling. Why has the Government failed to meet those targets? If we are focusing on delivery, what is your new target for renewable jobs?

To come back to the issue of jobs in renewables, you said that we are leading the way. Your Government promised 130,000 renewable jobs by 2020, but the ONS figures show that we have a sixth of that number of jobs and that the number is falling. I am keen to know why you think that we are leading the way if we are so far behind your Government’s target for renewable jobs. The trade unions are very concerned about supply chain jobs. What is your new target for renewable jobs if you are so far from delivering the target of 130,000?

That is an important point.

However, you are not actively investing in them at the moment. My concern is that the Government has said that the fund is ending and that the matter will land on your desk in a few weeks’ time but, I presume, you do not have plans to invest £13 million in community renewables over the next year, so there is obviously a gap.