Chamber and committees

Can the cabinet secretary tell me whether the closures of the Grangemouth refinery and the Exxon plant at Mossmorran have impacted on the viability of the Acorn project? Will she deliver the £80 million of funding that the SNP Government promised, to safeguard the future of carbon capture in Scotland?

I agree that the energy profits levy is a disaster and threatens jobs, but so does the Scottish Government’s presumption against new oil and gas. The cabinet secretary does not want to debate the energy strategy next week, so can she tell me when the Scottish Government will bring forward that energy strategy? Will it remove the disastrous presumption against new oil and gas?

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the economy secretary has had with ministerial colleagues on how its internal modelling of oil and gas jobs in the north-east compares with the latest industry estimates. (S6O-05261)

I thank the Deputy First Minister for that answer, but it is not good, because the North Sea industry has been trapped in a vicious circle of Scottish National Party Governments that demonise oil and gas, egged on by student politicians and Green extremists, who delight in every announcement of hundreds of jobs being lost in the north-east. Does the Deputy First Minister agree that we should do everything that we can to reverse the worrying downward trend in oil and gas jobs, which will damage our energy transition in the long term?

It was, and it was absolutely rejected, because we knew that we had to incentivise people to get into EVs.

As Sue Webber pointed out, EV charging is a lottery. Mark Ruskell made a good point about the fact that there is inequality in the cost of charging an EV. If you are lucky enough to have a driveway, you will pay a much lower rate—Mark Ruskell quoted 8.5p per kilowatt hour—but, if you have to go to a public charger, it might be 55p per kilowatt hour or, if you use a fast charger in a service station, it might be 85p per kilowatt hour. That needs to be looked at quickly. I agree with something that Daniel Johnson said, namely that it is about connecting Scotland—that there is value to our economy of upgrading links. For example, upgrading the A96 between Inverness and Aberdeen would bring huge economic benefits. The same goes for the A75 and the A77. It is all about trade, linking Scotland to Northern Ireland—a point that Fin Carson made. I could feel Fin Carson’s frustration, because “Wait” is what we hear all the time. There are new reports, new studies and more dither and delay from the SNP Government.

Emma Harper seemed to paint a rosy picture of what has been going on with the A75 and A77, but it would be interesting to know whether the people whom she represents think the same. It is bizarre that she talked about the lack of rest stops. There have been 18 years of SNP Government; it has had the time to get that right.

Rural communities are angry. That is why the Scottish Conservatives brought the debate to the chamber. We want to talk about the issues that the public are talking about and the challenges that they face. They want to know whether they will have a job next month and whether they will be able to drive to it—because there is no public transport—on decent roads that are safe.

Only the Scottish Conservatives are committed to bringing in legislation so that work could start immediately on the dualling of the entire A9 and key sections of the A75. We would take swift action, cut through red tape and recognise the reality of the challenges that are faced by rural Scotland. The failing SNP Government and the feckless London Labour Government are harming Scotland. The sooner that they are gone, the better.

All of those will have to be clawed back in our bills. Will he be scrapping carbon levies that are adding to our bills and making our manufacturing industry uncompetitive, all in the name of net zero? Will he be looking to install more expensive floating offshore wind, all of which is subsidised through contracts for difference by bill payers right across the United Kingdom, adding more to our bills? How will our baseload be provided? Since the First Minister will not allow nuclear, does he plan to turn our rural communities into one huge battery storage system? [Interruption.]

I thank colleagues from across the chamber who have so clearly set out the challenges that our road networks face.

I want to start by acknowledging the very real and life-changing consequences of not getting our road infrastructure right. Tragically, last weekend, two of my constituents, both just 24, died as a result of a crash between the Toll of Birness and Mintlaw. They were a young couple with so much life ahead of them, and their deaths are all the more tragic because of the dangerous nature of the roads north of Aberdeen. Those of us who live and work there know that it is dangerous, and we will continue to call on the Government to make safety improvements. That is why I brought this debate to the chamber: to make our roads safer and to save lives.

The variety of MSPs who have spoken today make it very clear that the problem with our roads is an issue from the very north to the very south of Scotland. Whether you are in the north-east or the south-west, our trunk road system is not fit for purpose for today’s needs. If we are to encourage growth, build economic prosperity and make the most of our industries, we need a road network that meets our ambitions and requirements. It is not just an economic issue. As I mentioned earlier, it is a matter of life and death. Today, we have heard of the tragic consequences of our poor roads and the undualled A9, A96, A75 and A77. We have heard about families left devastated and communities rocked when people are killed and injured on our roads.

Back in 2011, the SNP first promised, in its manifesto, to dual the A96 by 2030. The SNP has now promised a refined package for the route. The refined package, which is more of a regressed package, is not much use when you are a business trying to move your goods between Inverness and Aberdeen, and it does not help rural communities, who are left wanting—unconnected and struggling to access the rest of Scotland safely. The SNP says—it has repeated it today—that it supports the dualling of the A96. If that is the case, come back with a timescale and a plan, so that we can all see it. Over the past four years, all that it has done is kick the can down the road. It is all too wishy-washy, just like the SNP’s amendment to the motion. There are bits of the amendment that I agree with, but it makes no commitments on the projects that we highlight in the motion, which is why we cannot support it.

We are used to broken promises from the SNP, whether it is on dualling the A9, the A96 or even, as once promised by Alex Salmond, the A90 between Aberdeen and Peterhead. Whatever happened to that promise? There has been no mention of that promise by the cabinet secretary today. The sad reality is that these delays and broken SNP promises are leading to deaths on our roads and in our rural communities. Sadly, the Parliament is becoming numb to the repeated deaths that happen week in, week out. This is not good enough, and this SNP Government needs to realise that it is to blame. Jamie Greene highlighted the lives that have been lost on the A9. The number of deaths would be less if the Government had stuck to the timescale that it had promised.

There were questions about whether this should have been a wider debate. If it had been, I am sure that Sue Webber would have spent four minutes talking about Winchburgh station. She also highlighted the value of the logistics industry and spoke about the lack of rest stops, which will become more important as we move towards electric or hybrid HGVs or hydrogen vehicles. On the lack of toilet facilities, Emma Harper made the point very well: we would not put up with a lack of facilities in this building, but that is what we are asking our logistics drivers to do day in, day out.

The Labour proposal to charge EVs 3p per mile seems a bit of a back-of-a-fag-packet policy, to be honest. It would hammer rural drivers, and I have no idea what would happen if you were driving a hybrid vehicle—whether you would have to pay double.

There is a spare slot next Thursday, so, instead of MSPs sloping off early—

Members: Oh!

Using the time next week for debate would give the SNP Government the chance to come clean on its fantasy claims and answer those questions. The debate could also give the Government the opportunity to defend the conflict of interest that my constituents in the north-east find so worrying, which is the fact that the chair of SSEN is one of the First Minister’s advisers for the ministerial code of conduct. We have a situation where the energy minister meets SSEN regularly but fails to meet concerned community groups who are seeing their countryside being ruined by monster pylons, substations and battery storage, and the First Minister and his advisers turn a blind eye. [Interruption.]

—let us make the most of the little time that we have left in the current session of Parliament—[Interruption.]