Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee, 06 Oct 2009

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Official Report 333KB pdf

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Climate Change (Employment and Workplaces Impact)

Good afternoon. I welcome everyone to the 22nd meeting this year of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee. I record that we have apologies from Alex Johnstone and that Lewis Macdonald MSP has joined us as an observer at today's meeting. I remind everyone present that all mobile devices should be switched off.

The first of the two items on today's agenda is an evidence-taking session on the impact of climate change on employment and workplaces. This is a chance to consider further the implications that the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 will have on employment. For that discussion, I welcome representatives of the trade union movement: Stephen Boyd, who is an assistant secretary at the Scottish Trades Union Congress; Anne Douglas, who is national secretary of Prospect; Paul Noon, who is general secretary of Prospect; and Harry Cunningham, who is the Trades Union Congress's regional education officer for Scotland. I welcome them warmly to the committee.

In questioning, we will want to discuss a number of themes, which will include the definition of "green jobs"; the net impact on employment, given that there will be swings and roundabouts; transitional and low-carbon industrial strategies; transition and diversification; and the implications for the changing workplace. Before we begin the questions, I invite Stephen Boyd to make some opening remarks.

We appreciate this further opportunity to discuss these issues with the committee. Obviously, we had what we hope was a productive session during the committee's scrutiny of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill. We regard today's session as a valuable opportunity to pursue in more depth some of the themes that we raised at that time.

The STUC continues to regard the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 as a key piece of legislation. We view the act positively, but we believe that it will introduce a period of potentially massive industrial restructuring. Given that the impacts of previous industrial change in Scotland were not handled as well as they might have been, it is important that the industrial change that will flow from the act is planned for proactively by the Government, so that we avoid repeating some of those impacts, which still affect too many of our communities. If the people whom we represent and the communities in which they live are to be brought along in support of the act, people need to be aware that the Government and legislators are behind them. We need to acknowledge the potential adverse impacts—as well as the beneficial effects—and work with people to address those as proactively as we can.

Both in our previous submission and in the short discussion paper that we have provided for today's meeting, we have tried to highlight a number of key issues. We think that the potential net impact on employment is positive, but we believe that the impact needs to be managed. The Government can do a lot to realise the opportunity and to maximise the economic and employment benefits during the transition to a low-carbon economy. However, we certainly believe that, if properly handled, the net impact can be positive.

One issue to which we could perhaps return during the discussion is the uncertainty that exists about what is meant by "green jobs". In trying to be positive about the climate change agenda, people have sometimes confused or alarmed people with talk about distinguishing between green jobs and other jobs. Clearly, the trade union movement hopes that, in the move towards a low-carbon economy, all jobs will become green jobs and that those that do not become completely green jobs will include a far bigger sustainable component than they do at present.

Skills are a major issue that needs to be addressed. As well as the specific skills that will be needed to move forward on delivering targets for renewable energy, general skills will be required for all jobs to make the economy more sustainable. As Harry Cunningham will mention later, an important issue for us is the emerging agenda on upskilling trade union representatives, who we believe have a key role to play in greening Scotland's workplaces. Of course, upskilling the current workforce will be pivotal, given that 75 per cent of those who will work in the economy in 2020 are already in work today. We must bring them along and ensure that they are included in the change.

We have spoken in the past about greening the workplace. Paul Noon is co-chair of the trade union sustainable development advisory committee, which is a TUC and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs body that has very much led on that agenda at the United Kingdom level. The TUC has been fortunate enough to be able to access funds and run pilot projects in the workplace. I am sure that Paul Noon will touch on that in our discussion.

We are somewhat concerned that the Government and employers are slightly behind the curve on greening the workplace in Scotland. Big employers are certainly aware of the external pressures on them to react to climate change, but much more can be done so that they work with their workforces and bring about change in the workplace.

I would like to touch on a key development since we last spoke to the committee. In May, at one of our biannual meetings with the First Minister, we signed a joint communiqué with the Scottish Government. We regard that document as important. It gives us a way into Government and commits the Government to doing important work on greening the workplace and considering ways in which the transition can be made more just. It is important to us that industrial change in Scotland is managed more effectively than it was in the past.

Members will recall that, during scrutiny of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill, we were slightly concerned that more research had not been done on identifying potential adverse impacts and working towards managing them more effectively. We are now considering with the Scottish Government how such research might be carried out and effectively completed, and how we can use it together to bring the workforce along with us on a positive climate change agenda.

I will leave things there. The convener identified many themes that we can consider. We will be delighted to answer any questions that members have.

Thank you very much.

I would like to explore the concept of green jobs in a little more depth. If we asked the person in the street about green jobs, they might say that somebody who manufactures wind turbines has a green job. We have had debates on a green jobs strategy in which different views have been expressed about whether such a strategy is supposed to be a strategy that is about green jobs or a jobs strategy that is green. Do we need to unpack whether the concept of a green job is coherent? If someone does insulation work one day a week, fits boilers on another day and fits air-source heat pumps on another day, the balance of their job might be shifting in the right direction in view of our climate change objectives, but at what point do we say that they are in a green job? Will the panel explore that issue in a bit more depth?

That is an important question. There is no generally understood definition of "green jobs" out there. The definition is closely aligned with new jobs. New jobs that are created are seen as being green jobs or not green jobs. We think about renewable energy development in particular. People would describe manufacturing wind turbines at Machrihanish as clearly being green, but there are existing jobs in the economy that we can describe in that way. The water industry is the clearest example. We would argue that jobs in the water industry are absolutely green because they involve husbanding a key resource for Scotland, but they have hitherto never been described in that way. We must develop a better understanding of the importance to sustainability of existing jobs in the economy, and we must try to develop the necessary skills in the existing workforce to make those jobs more sustainable.

My colleagues will have much to add to what I have said.

The definition of "green jobs" is not always helpful. The phrase is mostly used when people talk about green-jobs-led recovery. There will certainly be opportunities for export in green manufacturing in the future. Our submission identifies examples such as electric vehicles. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has put quite a bit of effort into the area and into low-carbon energy production of various sorts.

To pick up on the point that Stephen Boyd made, we view the issue as having a transformational effect on employment. We think that people in all jobs have the skills that are needed to achieve the carbon reduction targets that have been set. Our perception is that, in future, the jobs that exist at the moment will be different. Whether that is because of a need for environmental advice—quite a lot of which will be needed—or because of issues such as green accounting, people in every aspect of employment will need to have a much stronger sense of such matters. We do not think that it is helpful to divide the economy into jobs that are green and therefore good, and those that do not have such a strong, directly environmental component to them and are therefore to be viewed pejoratively. It is a question of how we transform the whole workforce.

In future, if the targets are to be met and we are to have a genuinely low-carbon economy, every job will have green components to it. Even if the jobs themselves do not change, how they are undertaken or, equally important, where they are undertaken and what resources are used to undertake them will change. I echo what Paul Noon said—I do not think that there is such a thing as a green job per se; I think that all jobs will have green components.

I agree with what has been said. I represent an area where the petrochemical industry has its biggest presence in the north of Britain. In my view, some of the jobs that are done there are potentially green jobs. I am not talking about refinery jobs; I am talking about the skills that folk who work in the petrochemical and offshore industries have. We must ensure that those people can be upskilled and that the skills sector is ready to do that. If we agree that all jobs are green jobs and that we want to mainstream climate change across the sectors, are there ways in which we can ensure that the sectors are ready for that and that folk in the workplace have the opportunity to build up their skills so that we meet the climate change targets that Anne Douglas mentioned?

Let me say, by way of introduction, that the public sector has a strong role to play in this area, for example by linking policy objectives that Governments may have with the action that they take, and by ensuring that, as well as reducing the amount of carbon that is emitted, they provide demonstrable leadership to the wider economy. It is extremely important that Governments plan ahead to see what will be necessary for the future and that they ensure that they have programmes that will deliver that.

I do not underestimate the extent to which the commercial sector must view the process that we are discussing as being to its commercial advantage. The manufacture of green vehicles is an example. Over the past few years, those manufacturers that have got into more environmentally sustainable forms of production have made savings in production costs by modernising. In addition, they have brought to the market products that the public want. It will be important for manufacturers and the public and private sectors to work together closely on that, in the interest not just of saving the world but of making those companies commercially successful and of ensuring that the public sector successfully delivers what it sets out to deliver.

Just to play devil's advocate, if the slogan becomes "Every job is a green job"—I can see why you want to go down that route—that takes away from the idea of there being a discrete group of jobs that are additional to existing employment and which are seen to be the spin-off of a move towards more environmental sectors of the economy.

I suppose that it is a matter of semantics. Should we keep the term "green jobs" for jobs that replace or are additional to traditional forms of employment, and use the phrase "more environmentally aware employment" more generally? If by "green jobs" we mean more environmentally aware employment, how do we describe the additional jobs that need to be created as a result of a sectoral shift, in relation to which we might want the Government and industry to set targets?

My view—and therefore I suppose my union's view—is that dividing jobs into green and non-green jobs is not the best approach in the long term. I do not see how we can do that. The actions that an employer might take might be regarded as green one day and less green the next. Someone who lags lofts and installs boilers is a good example of that.

On a green-jobs-led recovery, Gordon Brown has talked about having 100,000 more green jobs and the STUC would welcome such a focus. However, we have never been able to define what a green job is. There is no single common or consistent definition, and we think that all jobs need to be green jobs.

Do we not end up almost in a "Nineteen Eighty-Four" situation? If we say that all jobs are green jobs, including, for example, the jobs of power station workers at Longannet, who provide us with power by a method that efficiently puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, do we not get into a daft position? What are we talking about?

In future, all jobs will have to be carried out in a more environmentally friendly way. The engineers and operators at Longannet will still be engineers and operators, but they will carry out their jobs in a more energy-efficient way. The green jobs at Longannet are the additional jobs that are created, for example to retrofit flue gas desulphurisation technology, or as part of the pilot project on carbon capture. If we need to define "green jobs", we should say that they are the catalyst that makes a low-carbon economy possible.

There must also be a culture shift, so that everyone works in a more energy-efficient manner. Just as health and safety in the workplace were not considered decades ago but are now taken for granted, energy efficiency must be considered if we are to have a low-carbon economy—I do not think that I have helped to answer your question.

I used the example of Longannet because I think that we can talk about green jobs in that context: they are the bolt-on jobs. That is my preferred definition of "green jobs". I think that you have given two other definitions and, ultimately, we will have to decide on a definition. We can say that we want to take employment in a direction in which all jobs are green jobs. We can say that green jobs are the additional jobs that are associated with a change in practice in existing sectors or the development of new sectors, and if we use that definition we can measure the additionality. Culture change is the third aspect. "Green jobs" sounds like a good slogan, but we cannot apply the term to all three aspects without getting confused, so we need to decide what it means.

Perhaps we are moving to a recognition that, if we are looking for transformational change in every industry and every workplace, there will be both positive and negative employment consequences. Just thinking about green jobs as additional jobs might distract us from considering the wider impact, so perhaps we could explore what the net impact might look like.

I will bring in Charlie Gordon and Lewis Macdonald and then go back to the panel.

Recently, I got an e-mail from a young constituent who said that he had just graduated from university with a decent degree. He wanted to use it to have a career in one of the thousands of new green jobs that he had been reading about but, when he researched that on the internet, he could not find any. He asked whether I could help him. I could not help very much, although I tried my best to point him in the right direction.

I have started to think—and I firmed up my view as I listened to the past few minutes of debate—that the term "green jobs" is a misuse of language. It is so imbued with ambiguity that it is starting to get in the way. Perhaps we should start a campaign, albeit a possibly forlorn one, to get rid of the term. What do you think?

I call Lewis Macdonald before I bring the panel back in.

I will use the phrase "net additional jobs". The Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee has heard a little about the matter and I am interested in exploring it with the panel. A few months ago, the Scottish Government suggested that 16,000 additional jobs might arise from the greening of the economy in general and the energy industries in particular but, when we explored that with ministers, it turned out that that number was simply 10 per cent of a United Kingdom Government projection of 160,000 green jobs, as it calls them. What is the trade unions' view of the additional employment opportunity? Is 16,000 net additional jobs in Scotland a modest aim? Is it ambitious? Is it realistic?

In my six years at the STUC, I have seen a number of strategies and policy papers pass before me. I think back to when Jim Wallace was the Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning and the original green jobs strategy was published, and to the first meeting of the forum for renewable energy development in Scotland—FREDS—that I attended, which was in Aberdeen in 2004. I think that Lewis Macdonald was there. The first marine energy report that was published at that time said that there would be 7,000 jobs by 2010.

My concern has always been that the strategies have created a massive hostage to fortune. At the FREDS meeting, I was asked whether we had the skills to deliver what was promised. I said that I could not answer the question because I did not know what or where the jobs would be. People have to describe those things in some detail before we can consider the skills issues.

The first green jobs strategy took a mechanical percentage approach to the renewables gap chain analysis that had been undertaken at that point at the UK level. It seemed highly speculative and had the potential to generate a lot of cynicism. That is what continues to worry me about the targets. I understand why they are attractive to use and why people think that they will help to bring along workers and employers in a positive agenda about climate change, but we have to start moving towards them.

To answer Lewis Macdonald's question specifically, I would hope that a net impact of 16,000 jobs in Scotland is a modest target. We talk about Scotland's comparative advantages in renewable energy, and those are genuine. Last Wednesday and Thursday, I spent some time in Caithness at the annual regeneration conference. The opportunities in the Pentland Firth are real. There are a number of major challenges to be overcome if we are to develop those projects, but it is not unrealistic to hope that substantial numbers of high-quality jobs will be generated in that area in the medium term. There is much to be done to ensure that the supply chain remains in the area. We have to look at the hard constraints that can be placed on developers to ensure that they use local supply chains, but there is a genuine industrial opportunity.

Much can be done in onshore wind if we approach it in a different manner. I think back to when I undertook a youth training scheme after I left school in East Kilbride in the late 1980s. At that point, the national engineering laboratory in East Kilbride was undertaking cutting-edge work on wind turbines but, unfortunately, we never capitalised on that. It hints at major structural weaknesses in our economy that we do not make the most of such opportunities. However, all is not lost in onshore wind if we approach developments slightly differently from how we have done hitherto.

Offshore wind definitely offers us an opportunity, given the facilities around Scotland, particularly those in Fife and Nigg. Those are top-quality facilities that should be able to benefit from development. Do we want to regard clean coal and carbon capture and storage as providing green jobs? I can understand that that might be difficult for some, but we would certainly look at it in that way. I think that Scotland has a genuine comparative advantage in that regard. I am sure that Paul Noon and Anne Douglas can speak in more detail about what we need to see happening at Scottish and UK levels to ensure that we generate such jobs in carbon capture and storage, and clean coal—much can be done.

We are keen to talk about low-carbon industrial strategies. We are not big users of the phrase "green jobs", and we certainly do not attach figures to it. However, we want to see meaningful industrial strategies at UK and Scottish levels that outline in reasonably specific terms how we hope to make the most of our comparative advantages and maximise the economic and employment opportunities. The latter have often been secondary to achieving the targets for renewable generation. I would like the target for renewables almost to be secondary to generating the jobs.

To go back to Lewis Macdonald's question, I would hope that the target is a modest one. Much can be done, but we must be clever about how we present opportunities to people out there so that we do not generate unrealistic expectations.

Building on that and on Charlie Gordon's question, how do the skills sectors prepare? Young apprentices are starting in my area and in others, but if an apprenticeship takes three or four years, apprentices will come out in 2014 who have been trained in a skill that is perhaps no longer appropriate. I think that opportunities will present themselves, and we need to be able to take them up. However, I am not convinced that the skills sectors and the colleges are ready. How do we ensure that that happens? Stephen Boyd said that the jobs are there now, but are the skills there now? How do we ensure that, in the future, young people get appropriate training rather than training for jobs in the petrochemical industry, for example, which will be inappropriate? Perhaps we need to consider now the training of the young engineers and workers of the future to ensure that they have the skills to take up posts.

Can the panel address that point as well as think about the relationship between what needs to happen at the Scottish level and the UK level? We have the Scottish climate change delivery plan and the UK's low-carbon transition plan, but Stephen Boyd has expressed slight wariness about dealing with industrial strategies that have perhaps not delivered everything that they said that they would. Can you comment on the training and education issues that Cathy Peattie raised, and on the other aspects of what Government needs to do to drive the agenda forward and create not green jobs in the narrow sense but employment opportunities from greening the economy?

Many different bodies come up with reports about which skills are needed, which are in short supply, and which we have an oversupply of. Wearing a different hat, I note that Skills Development Scotland is now working closely with the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council and the energy sector to identify and bring all the information together so that, probably for the first time, there can be a coherent understanding of what skills are currently in short supply and what skills will be in short supply in the future, given existing renewable technologies.

I had a meeting two or three weeks ago with one of the big energy companies in Scotland, which said that, in addition to traditional skills shortages, it had big skills shortages in renewables. I asked what those shortages were and the company told me that they were in project management, planning and the infrastructure that is connected with the wind farms being in situ and generating electricity. Skills Development Scotland, the Scottish funding council and the energy companies are beginning to address those issues for that sector.

It is more difficult to identify the skills shortages for technologies if we do not yet know how those technologies will work out in practice. Everybody knows that marine energy will be great if it works but I suspect that nobody yet knows how it will work—not even the academics who are working on the prototypes and research. They have probably thought about how that really new technology will be installed and commissioned, but I doubt whether they have thought much about how it will be maintained and operated once it is up and running.

We need to cope with the skills shortages that we can easily identify for the medium term and continually refer back so that we identify the skills that will be needed in the future and change the curriculums and courses in colleges, universities and schools to enable us to match that need.

There has been a lot of progress on industrial strategy at the Scottish and UK levels over the past year. There is nothing like a financial crisis to focus minds on the benefits of manufacturing to the economy. The Scottish renewables development plan that was published this summer was slightly more focused on maximising employment opportunities than previous strategies have been, which is welcome.

At the UK level, a number of interesting reports have emanated from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It is clear that Peter Mandelson's time in Europe was well spent. He has learned much about what other member states do to ensure that they maximise employment opportunities in their own countries. There have been so many reports that I forget their titles, but the key industrial strategy paper that was published about six months ago focused on matters such as procurement in a way that the UK Government has not done over the past 20 or 30 years. It spoke about using procurement to boost markets for new products, for example. There is a long way to go to develop that thinking, but it is to be welcomed.

We had a very interesting break-out session in Caithness last week on energy and the local supply chain. The facilitator of the session was keen that nobody should say anything that could be perceived as anticompetitive in any way. My concern was that, if an opportunity comes up and we get the regulatory framework right but leave it to the market to deliver, the local supply chain might be bypassed completely. That would not happen in other member states, so we have to be a wee bit clever and ensure that, from ministerial level down, the message is relayed with great certainty that Scotland expects that the people who live next door to a precious natural resource will benefit from its exploitation. There is nothing wrong with that and it is not anticompetitive. Taking a slightly wider view, we have to ensure that policy is focused on making the most of such opportunities.

I reiterate what Anne Douglas said. There may well be skills shortages that need to be identified and worked on, but there is real good practice on putting existing technology in a more hostile environment, such as in the sea rather than on land.

I was lucky enough to be at the Rolls-Royce factory in Dalgety Bay, where I met a young apprentice who is working on wind power and things such as that. It was a really good example of joined-up thinking between a local college—from which he gets day release and so on—and a university in promoting the leading technology. We need more of that; it should not be an isolated example of good practice.

How do we build on such examples? I am aware of some good work that is happening, but it is happening in a small way. Because the timescale is very tight—we are looking towards 2020—I am interested in young people being work ready and in people who are in the workplace having an opportunity to upskill and change the work that they are involved in. How can we encourage colleges, universities and others to be ready and to work with people to provide training for the future? Given that 2020 is not far away, we need people in the workplace who have the skills to meet the targets.

Encouragement can be done in at least a couple of different ways—through challenge funds, for example, which the Scottish funding council could offer. The appetite and enthusiasm are there; we just need to harness them and move things on.

Going back to Caithness—Caithness is live in my mind, as I spent some time up there last week—some great work is taking place at North Highland College. I am sure that Rob Gibson knows far more about the detail of that than I do. The college is waiting to see what happens and is ensuring that it is ready to make the most of the supply chain opportunities.

We are at quite a difficult stage at the moment. We have had this discussion in relation to the development of the port infrastructure in the area. People want money to be spent now to do things to the ports, but some of the developers have told me that we need to hang on and see which projects get consent and what their leads are before we spend the money. I think that the skills situation is similar. As Anne Douglas said, we are not entirely sure what skills will be required in the Pentland Firth and other areas with marine energy potential. However, we need to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to enable us to react quickly once we know what skills are required.

My question is on the subject of the skills sectors, focusing on people who are already established in the workplace and who are perhaps halfway through their working lives. Do we need more innovative employment practice to encourage people to take up training opportunities? I am thinking of incentives such as longer sabbaticals, opportunities to work in the private sector rather than the public sector, and exchange networks. Do you think that there is any scope for such approaches?

That is a very relevant question. Of course, it is important that we get people with environmental skills coming through schools, colleges and universities, but we cannot write off the people who are already in work. Many of them—certainly Prospect members—have a background of technical skills but they might need to retrain to bring those skills up to the required level. The trade union movement is working quite actively to ensure that people have wider environmental skills. We provide training, and the TUC does a lot on that.

Employers recognise that those skills will be important, but it is a question not just of bringing people in but of taking the actions that need to be taken to ensure that the existing workforce has up-to-date skills. Those skills may be in mitigating and addressing climate change, but they may also be in adapting to the climate change that is inevitable—the climate change that we already see. This morning, one of our representatives from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh told me about the extent to which that employer tracks climate change and the work that is being done on native species.

Quite a lot needs to be done to address those issues, and both public sector and private sector employers need to be forward thinking in addressing them for their own business needs, apart from anything else.

I want to encapsulate the idea of the transition that we are in from jobs that might not have been seen as green to jobs in green areas.

Many of the small engineering firms in Caithness have done very high-quality decommissioning work at Dounreay and are leading the country in that work. Those firms find that the education that is provided in North Highland College is good in theory, but that the college's equipment is not up to the standard of equipment that they are used to working with. There is an issue about funding colleges so that they have up-to-date equipment, but there is no doubting the college's intent. Those firms have been doing green jobs—they have been mastering the removal of very dangerous materials from the old nuclear plant. They can move into jobs that are associated with developments in the Pentland Firth and the Moray Firth.

In some ways, trying to see people as doing green jobs is complicated. The issue is complicated further by the fact that some firms are far ahead. I know that I am supposed to be asking the questions, but if we are to make progress on the transition to a low-carbon economy, we should recognise that, largely, current workers are the ones who will do that, and that they mostly have the necessary skills already.

Through TUC education, we train union representatives in the workplace on issues such as the environment and greening the workplace and economy. We should think back 25 years to the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the prominence that it gave to health and safety. We now have a dedicated cohort or cadre of union reps in the workplace who are first-class health and safety professionals. The trade unions want to have environmental reps in the same way, with the same professionalism and enthusiasm as the health and safety reps have. As Paul Noon mentioned, we have produced a series of briefings, workbooks and other materials and we have a curriculum for reps. We want to encourage that enthusiasm so that the reps take it back to the workplace and make real changes through measures such as environmental audits and inspections. We are happy with progress on that—we just need to do more of that work, more often. That is an exciting adventure for us, and many reps have a great enthusiasm for it, in comparison with their enthusiasm for some of the other workplace issues that they have to deal with from time to time.

You have talked about health and safety. I am aware that the Health and Safety Executive has concerns about wind power, because people have new kinds of jobs in which practice has not been developed fully. What discussion is the trade union movement having with the Health and Safety Executive and others about those new challenges? Obviously, health and safety is considered, but it is appropriate to find ways of training people and making employers aware of the issues. Twenty or 30 years ago, employers did not think that asbestos was a problem, but look at the outcome of that. It is vital that employers are aware of the dangers involved in someone having to climb to the top of a wind turbine, for example. What discussions are taking place and how will the situation develop to ensure that trade union members on the ground have an opportunity to train in and to be pioneers of the importance of health and safety in the new industries?

Although Prospect represents staff of the Health and Safety Executive, I do not know the answer to the question. I am sure that the HSE is aware of the issue, but the best thing that we can do is ask it about that. With new installations, the HSE is keen to ensure that, before people start work, it is safe to work.

With wind power and other generation capacity, the premise is that a risk assessment is always done before work starts. Whether we are talking about climbing a turbine or going into a boiler, the risk assessment process is carried out, as it is for every other aspect of work. However, Paul Noon is right that we need to ask the HSE about what it is doing on that specific issue.

One area that the HSE has expressed concern about, although perhaps not as much as we might have liked, is the effect of the changing climate on the workplace. The absence of a maximum temperature in workplaces has resulted in some workplaces being unbearably hot—although perhaps not as hot as we might have liked it to be this summer. I know that the HSE has given some thought to the implications for people in the workforce of the climate change that has already taken place.

I want to take us slightly away from the renewable energy sector and think about the public sector workforce. You might not have looked at this already, but the Government's approach to the carbon assessment of the Scottish budget includes consideration of induced emissions as a fairly major element of the carbon emissions that are associated with each department heading. That largely relates to the way in which employees spend their salaries, interact with the wider economy and generate emissions in their own lives.

Are the witnesses concerned about the implied expectation that a part of Government can make savings only by reducing its workforce or by focusing on induced emissions? The health and local government areas of Government have a high carbon assessment under that methodology—far higher than some other sectors that might be seen to have a bigger impact on climate change through the decisions that they make.

That is an interesting question. However, I have not studied the issue in any way, shape or form, so I am reluctant to say anything too definitive.

As you can imagine, we are currently looking at the budget, and this is a new issue. Unfortunately, such issues are hitting us in the middle of a deep recession in which the pressures on us all are quite intense. I would like to have a look at the question and come back to the committee with some thoughts, perhaps on paper.

It would be useful to explore the matter further at a later date.

The trade union approach to education, especially of representatives and officers, is to look beyond the workplace. In principle, I agree with Stephen Boyd that we cannot really deal with the detail, but we need to look beyond the workplace in many areas, and obviously the issue that you raise is one of them.

Okay. I will take us to one of the slightly harder-edged questions. We have talked about some of the opportunities that will exist and the way in which existing jobs might need to change or adapt. However, there might be some areas of the economy in which we would expect to see the possibility of reduced employment. Which areas are you concerned about, and what transitional structures need to be in place for employees who might have to face that possibility? What support mechanisms need to be in place for people who might be displaced? How can we ensure that people find new opportunities?

Clearly we are concerned about high-emission sectors. We hope that, through carbon capture and storage and the deployment of clean coal technologies, substantial mitigation can be put in place for the coal-powered stations in Scotland's power generation sector. We also hope that the future impact on employment in the high-emission sectors can be positive.

That brings me back to one of our fundamental points about the need to plan for change. In the past, we have left such change to the market but, in dealing with the demise of Scottish manufacturing over the past two or three decades, we did not have that planning in mind. We must recognise that there will be an impact on people's lives and we must plan for that, which is why we need to maximise employment opportunities and to have coherent and well-developed transitional skills strategies to provide employment opportunities to those who will be affected. That is fundamental if we are to bring the population along with us so that we can deliver the climate change targets. The Government must recognise that it has a role to play, and it must plan for such industrial change.

I mentioned the communiqué that we signed with the Scottish Government, and the issue of research and how the Scottish economy will change. We have had some interesting and constructive discussions with the analysts in the environment department of the Scottish Government, but it is fair to say that there is something of a disagreement on how to approach the issue.

The analysts are concerned that they do not have the modelling techniques and power to investigate the changes that might occur in the Scottish economy. Our view, however, is that we are not looking too far forward: we are looking only at 2020, in which a number of key players in the Scottish economy will still be in the workforce. We need to talk to the major power companies, which will already be planning for such a change. We also need to examine other sectors, such as coal production and transport, and engage with key people—employers and unions—in those industries to get their views on how their sectors might change in the future.

We are not looking at complex statistical modelling—that type of modelling is not particularly necessary, and a reliance on it can be quite dangerous. We require a qualitative piece of work to be carried out; we can start with the Scottish Government's six key sectors, if that is the best way of doing it, but I hope that the work will extend further than that. We need to speak to key people in those sectors to get a decent handle on the type of change and the net employment impact that they envisage and where they believe adverse impacts will happen, on a geographical as well as a sectoral basis. Some of the adverse impacts may hit a certain locality particularly hard, and we need to plan for those.

It will be difficult to answer your question until the underpinning research is carried out, which I do not view as being particularly difficult. We will continue to work with the Scottish Government on the issue, but there is an expectation, now that the communiqué has been signed, that the Government will deliver something that allows us as a trade union movement to work with it to identify and address the potential adverse impacts.

Have you been given a timescale for the research that you mention?

No. I emphasise that discussions have been constructive, and I acknowledge that if the rate of progress has been slow since we signed the communiqué, that is probably more down to us and the pressures that we currently face than it is down to the Scottish Government.

My question is on the same area. I want to find out about not only the timescale—which you have said is not agreed—but the wording of the communiqué, which states that there will be

"a scoping exercise of what research"

already exists.

A scoping exercise is a preliminary step to carrying out the work, so I want to get a sense—although you do not have a formally agreed timescale—of what is happening. Are we scoping this year and researching next year? What is the expectation?

There was an amount of to-ing and fro-ing with regard to the wording of that particular bullet point in the communiqué; I am not responsible for the inelegant language.

Much of the scoping has already been undertaken, and the analysts have done a fair amount of work so far. They have suggested to us what might be possible, and we have suggested to them that some more detailed work is required on some areas; there will be further discussions on that. The scoping has begun, but we hope that more substantial work will be carried out in the short term, rather than the medium term—in the next few months, rather than next year.

Do you expect that the initial stage of the work will produce something that you and the Scottish Government can put in the public domain? Will we see it?

I certainly hope so. We have not discussed that explicitly, but our aspiration is that in the end that piece of work will provide us with a decent analysis of potential job impacts in Scotland's key industrial sectors, although we will need to put a lot more flesh on the bones.

Does it extend to—as Paul Noon mentioned—the impact of climate change on workplaces, as well as on industrial sectors, or is it more of a sectoral and geographic study?

There is a commitment elsewhere in the communiqué to work closely with the Government on the workplace impact. I do not know whether you remember, but during our previous appearance at the committee, we raised the issue of the climate challenge fund and the fact that workplaces were not able to bid for that fund as communities. The Scottish Government has helpfully said that that is no longer the case, and we are working with the climate challenge fund to identify how unions might be able to access that money to bring about change in the workplace. I do not know whether that is part of the research, but I emphasise that we are working with the Government to consider ways in which it and the unions might work together to bring about the type of change that Paul Noon described, which is fundamental.

On the convener's question about the possibility of reduced employment, I defer to Stephen Boyd, not only because it was a difficult question, but because he knows more than I do about the situation in Scotland. At the UK level, in the discussions that trade unions have had through the TUC, the conclusion that we have come to is that there is no long-term future in simply trying to defend jobs that involve high levels of CO2 emissions. That is the broad picture. Many employers will want to anticipate the changes that they know will take place. That has happened in the steel industry, which is covered not by my union, but by Community. Moves have been made towards ultra-low carbon production and other production methods, and the workforce has been taken along with that.

Having said that, there are still concerns at TUC level about carbon leakage and the operation of the European Union emission trading scheme. If we decarbonise our economy, we do not want jobs to go to other countries that are less concerned about the issue, particularly in eastern Europe. That is why we have been arguing in the European Trade Union Confederation and more generally that it is vital that the more-than-somewhat-complicated arrangements for the European emission trading scheme, which we broadly support, work fairly for British workers. We want to do the right thing, but we want everybody else to do the right thing, too. So we see the issue as not only a national one.

If no other member wants to pursue the theme of Government and the trade unions working together, we will move on.

This might seem fairly minor, but one change in working practice is increased home working. Although I am the first to admit that I can do a lot more at home than I can in the office, it is not so long ago since home working was seen as a cheap alternative and some home workers were exploited. The safety practices and the equipment that was provided were not particularly good. Do you have concerns about home working for your members or people in the workforce who are not trade union members? Are there threats from the development of home working?

I recently dealt with one employer in which home working has become a reality for a number of people who are in posts for which it previously would never have been considered. That was not because of the environmental agenda but because of mergers and takeovers. The jobs have transferred to London from Scotland and the employer has agreed that home working from Scotland is an alternative to relocation.

We have spent a lot of time developing home working policies that have all the checks and balances in place and which cover health and safety. That is not only about someone being at home on their own, out of touch with colleagues; it relates to equipment and all sorts of issues. The process has taken time but, where we have put policies in place, so far they seem to be working well. I would say this, but that happens only when we have a trade union-organised workplace and an employer that is used to dealing with representatives on such issues.

A good example of that is BT in Scotland and throughout the UK. A tremendous proportion of its workforce, particularly its middle and senior management, works from home, although I have forgotten the exact percentage. The company has worked with our sister union Connect on precisely the point that Anne Douglas talked about—the terms and conditions. Home working is popular and effective, and it is seen as something that is good to do. Of itself, it is not the answer, but it has allowed BT to reduce its office space. I do not know what the net effect is, as people have to heat their homes, and I do not know what happens to the gas bills, as I have not seen the agreement. However, the issue is important and several employers are starting to follow suit.

The STUC held its first climate change conference in the early part of last year. To everyone's surprise, home working was a key issue to emerge from it. There was a lot of scepticism about whether home working would deliver cuts in emissions, for the reasons that Paul Noon outlined. To build on Anne Douglas's comments, there are health and safety concerns, particularly about the mental health of people who are forced to work at home. As she said, it is imperative to have a trade union leading on effective home working policies.

I am keen to see how the trade union movement develops the issue, because it will be important for many workers, given that large corporations such as BT are telling people that they can keep their job if they work at home. Although home working has benefits, I have concerns about the pitfalls that exist.

The discussion paper that the STUC sent as written evidence contained a lot of informative points to give us a good start. One interesting issue was how workplaces can adapt and the role for employees in that. I am particularly interested in the important role that trade union representatives can play in adaptation. Is there good practice that it would be useful for us to hear about and are there lessons that workplaces need to learn when they consider adaptation?

There is a lot of good practice already. For several years, we have had joint trade union-employer initiatives on the issue. The TUC ran its greening the workplace programme, which involved 10 pilot projects, and an agenda is certainly emerging.

A key issue for trade unions is the lack of facility time for trade unions to undertake that type of work. The evidence is that, when we work with an enlightened employer that is prepared to give the trade union rep the facility time that is required, there is an impact on emissions and on the workplace and productivity. However, when we are not working with an enlightened employer, as is all too often the case, it can be difficult for trade unions to take the lead on such activity. Making the case at UK level for facility time for trade union environmental reps is fundamental.

To reiterate Stephen Boyd's point, we know from independent research that workplaces with properly trained trade union health and safety reps have a safer working environment with, for example, fewer injuries and accidents. The HSE has done research on that. We want to train green or environmental reps so that they have a similar impact, workplaces become more environmentally friendly and people are more conscious about what they do. As Stephen Boyd said, one big hurdle to achieving that is the lack of facility time to allow reps to access training. Reps currently have statutory rights to access health and safety and learning rep training, but nothing is in place for green reps. We want to pick up that issue on a UK-wide basis and push forward on it.

The example of health and safety was the one that came to mind when I read your submission. That approach has been proven to have a clear benefit for employees and, from a selfish point of view, employers. The argument surely has already been made. What are the barriers to some of our more enlightened employers taking up environmental issues directly instead of having to wait for changes at UK level? Can the Parliament or the committee do anything when we speak to business organisations to encourage them to show their green credentials more? The issue of reps is one of the key ways in which we might do that.

In much of the debate on the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill, and in some of the subsequent consultations on adaptation, the workplace has not been as prominent as we would like. It is important to talk about these issues. Convincing your colleagues in Government that these are important issues will ultimately make a substantial contribution to achieving the targets. I think that the whole culture shift agenda is really important. My colleagues might have some more concrete things to say about the workplace.

The TUC started the greening the workplace project and, as I think we said when we gave evidence to the committee previously, we are trying to roll that out in Scotland. A couple of employers, one public and one private, are supporting it.

As an employer, Prospect has environmental champions. They are not green reps as such; they are employees who are interested in environmental issues and who have been nominated by their colleagues to be champions. They meet centrally, keep up to date with information and new initiatives, take it back to the workplace, and make sure that all their peers implement the good practices that they have heard about. That is beginning to happen in a lot of places, but not to the same formalised extent as health and safety reps or shop stewards who are acknowledged by employers.

This point might come back to the question of whether a job is green. In the transition from high carbon to low carbon, jobs are going to change—some might disappear altogether, but there must be some jobs that can be changed. We are already working with enlightened employers on workforce development, skills utilisation and re-skilling through the learning and skills agenda, which can all be used to make sure that there is neither a net loss of jobs nor a series of job casualties that make the net increase smaller than we would like it to be.

To some extent, this all links together with the relationships with employers who are enlightened enough to realise that organised workforces are more productive, better and safer.

Shirley-Anne Somerville also asked about the role of the employer representative organisations. Without being too controversial, I think that some of the representative organisations in Scotland, particularly those that look after larger companies, have not been amenable to any discussion about the workplace. Anything that could be perceived as infringing on the managerial prerogative is not up for policy debate. If the committee has such representatives before it, it would be helpful if they were challenged on that point.

Representative organisations that look after smaller businesses have been up for a discussion on these matters. Some of the barriers to them undertaking the work are slightly more obvious, and certainly the issues that face them at this time are such that they are unlikely to give much emphasis to the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. However, at least they can be engaged in the debate, as opposed to the organisations that do not like the Government or politicians to consider anything that could infringe on their members' ability to manage their workplaces as they see fit. That orthodoxy must be challenged.

The good news for such employers is, when they take such action, they find that they can engage with a new generation of environmentally aware young people in the workplace who want their employer to do something and will respond in a different way. Employers can also reduce costs under the green agenda, but they will not get a response if they just tell people that they need to cut costs and must, for example, travel in one way or another.

If employers say, as they should do, "This is about reducing our carbon footprint, which we set out and explain in our annual report," and they do it for its own sake, they will get a good response, including from trade union reps. People in businesses or public sector organisations will get more engaged and will want to make a contribution—we have found that people will get involved in everything from car sharing schemes to recycling projects and so on.

We are fortunate in that in many areas our members understand what is needed—they get it. The message spreads, which works to people's advantage. However, some employers are slow to understand the issue. Too many employers that we deal with do not have a long-term plan and think ahead only as far as the next crisis that might come along. When employers have a long-term plan and the confidence of the workforce, a lot can be done.

People who work in politics recognise the phenomenon that you described.

In discussions with employers, is consideration given to the greenhouse gases that are created by travel-to-work patterns? Issues to do with working from home are sensitive for employers, who want an organised workforce made up of people who can meet one another. Do you put the issue in the pot and talk about how employers should organise their business?

Very often. There are many examples of people who recognise the advantages of working from home, or working more flexibly if employers have more rigid systems of working. Often the union leads the discussion about that. Employers are motivated in different ways and do not consider their business only from the perspective of individuals' domestic arrangements, as I am sure you know. It is often that the union puts the issue on the agenda and not that the employers try to force something through.

There are issues. It would be wrong of me to claim that many of our members do not have a deep affection for the internal combustion engine and driving everywhere—they do. However, that is often because of the absence of reliable public transport that can get them to work. People might use that as an excuse in some cases, but when employers work with us to ensure that there are ways for their employees to get to work other than by cramming the car park full of cars, particularly on remote sites, there is a good response.

Shirley-Anne Somerville asked whether employers can tackle environmental issues directly. The Scottish Government has tried to do a bit of work on that, not just as an employer—through initiatives in the Edinburgh area, for example—but from a policy perspective. I understand that employers' representative organisations have singularly failed to engage.

Not just home working but the working week has an impact on travel patterns. How resistant are employers to changing the shape of the working week by moving to annualised hours, compressed working and so on? Such arrangements have a direct benefit, particularly in the context of equality, because they can help women to get back into the workplace. Have you had many discussions about such issues?

We have agreements with public and private employers that cover a variety of arrangements, from old-fashioned flexitime to annualised hours and nine-day fortnights. It is usually difficult to get members to agree to such arrangements in the first place, but once the new approach is implemented people say that they would never give it up. There is a bit of an education process to go through on both sides.

In some jobs it is not easy to have anything other than a standard way of working, given how the supply chain works or how customers and competitors work, so there can be issues to do with equality of implementation.

Should there be more focus on raising awareness of the indirect benefits of such arrangements?

That would not go amiss. However, they probably have more equality, family-friendly and work-life balance benefits than environmental benefits.

Congestion might be spread out and travel patterns might change. Even if emissions are not reduced, people will not sit in congested traffic.

Things are difficult because there are continuous processes in many jobs, and certain arrangements are not possible. If a turbine has to be kept running at a power station, people must be there to keep it running. Changing how people work is not always easy—it depends on the nature of employment. I am sure that many air traffic controllers would like to work from home, but that is not yet possible.

Are there any other aspects of the working environment, such as potential changes in terms and conditions, working practices or greener practices, that might be controversial? Is there anything that we have not touched on to do with the workplace and terms and conditions?

We have approached the matter not by trying to identify what the particular issues will be but by trying to encourage employers, the unions and the Government to get involved in a proactive agenda to manage the process as it happens. There will be changes that we are not yet even aware of. It is a matter of embedding positive working relationships in organisations to ensure that transitions are managed effectively. The literature refers to the process as internal adaptation.

I want to get away from details. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 has been passed. From the trade union perspective, are there three big asks that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament should concentrate on in implementing that act and the changes that it is intended to produce?

Those three things might be slightly tangential to the act. I think that I would call for a low-carbon industrial strategy, a just transition strategy and a transitional skills strategy. That might seem a bit nebulous, but we must focus minds on those areas. Policies can be fitted into those boxes. I do not claim to know about the activities that have been undertaken, but we need to be slightly more concrete about what we are planning to do in those three areas.

I gave you the opportunity to be concrete, and you said that you want three strategy documents. We have plenty of documents—indeed, we are awash with strategy documents, legislation and so on. What three things that you want to see changed are at the top of your agenda in the context of climate change? What should we focus our attention on? I did not prepare you for that question.

Sufficient funding is needed for research on the new technologies that will replace the existing generation sources and to ensure that people whose jobs disappear or change will reskill and retrain so that they can continue to be a productive part of the Scottish economy. However, I suspect that it will not be easy to achieve those asks.

What about agreed time off for environmental representatives across the public sector?

Yes—and in the private sector.

That is a specific and deliverable measure in the public sector that the Scottish Government could introduce. Perhaps we will find an opportunity to put it to the Government.

We are aware of instances in the public sector in Scotland of employers actively preventing trade unions from taking forward their positive environmental agenda. In the fire service, the trade union was proactive about getting an environmental champions initiative off the ground, but the employer refused to engage. There are problems in the public sector.

If you have any further examples of which you want us to be aware when we question Scottish Government or other witnesses, the committee will be glad to hear of them. Would you like to raise any issues that have not been touched on in our questions?

Stephen Boyd's paper is based on a model of social dialogue, participation and engagement in the workplace. Such engagement has a positive effect. If the detail is underpinned by that kind of framework, we will move forward. If we struggle on participation and social dialogue with employers, we will not realise the opportunities that exist in relation to climate change.

We need to recognise that the UK's tradition of social dialogue is not strong. That is why we need Government to play a proactive role and to encourage employers to engage positively with the climate change agenda.

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I know that many of you will participate in other events throughout trade union week in the Parliament. I am sure that members look forward to having the opportunity to talk to you more informally at some of those events.

We are not quite ready for the second panel of witnesses, so I suspend the meeting until 3.30.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—