Chamber and committees

That is a good challenge to put to the Government and to the local economic partnerships that are involved.

As a backdrop, I note that since day 1, when speaking to organisations, public sector groups and community groups in north-east Scotland, I have been clear that, in a project that is as vital for north-east Scotland as energy transition is—which includes the energy transition zone and development of Aberdeen harbour—if the neighbouring communities do not see benefits, the just transition will have failed in those areas.

When it comes to the plans for the energy transition zone, I understand that, recently, there has been some good community engagement, and that residents are now involved in plans for the future of that area. I hope that that is productive and that progress is made.

We have not directly funded any oil or gas companies. The development of the north-east economy cannot be supported without the involvement of the offshore sector and the oil and gas industry—

—which is a crucial part of the just transition. That industry has the skills, the expertise and the investment that will underpin the just transition. We need its buy-in and we need to work with it as it transitions over the coming decades because, irrespective of net zero policies, employment in oil and gas in Aberdeen and north-east Scotland is going to decline substantially by 2040 to 2050. The transition is therefore superimportant for the future economy, so those industries are part of the local economic partnerships with which we will work.

We must take care to say that none of the just transition funding that was announced has gone directly to oil and gas companies. We are supporting economic partnerships, of which the oil and gas sector has to be a part.

Through the area-based schemes, the Scottish Government funds local authorities to carry out retrofitting and other such measures in the renewable energy sector, so the situation that has arisen is not necessarily the Government’s direct responsibility. It might be that various factors have slowed down the implementation of some schemes over the past couple of years, but I would have to investigate the reasons behind that. I am happy to do that and come back to the committee.

As I said before, we have a big challenge in ensuring that we have the people to realise our ambitions and the economic opportunities in Scotland. We are working on ensuring that we have people with the right skills and that the projects are delivered.

At the moment, we are not far off the tipping points that I mentioned earlier. The supply chain companies in Scotland are excited about the future, but they are waiting for the projects to happen so that they can keep people in work and stay in Scotland. That is a big issue in the north-east of Scotland. There is a lot of excitement, but people are waiting for the first projects to come on stream, which should, I hope, happen.

As far as the skills guarantee is concerned, we know that there is the potential to employ even more people in energy in the north-east of Scotland than is the case at the moment. Robert Gordon University’s “Making the Switch” report, which the Government funded, found that we could create 9,000 more jobs in offshore energy in the north-east of Scotland than we have at the moment. Therefore, it is not just a case of protecting what we have; we have the opportunity to create more jobs.

Through the just transition fund, we have provided OPITO, which is the offshore skills organisation, with nearly £5 million to create a digital passport to make it easy for people to use their transferable skills to move from oil and gas jobs into jobs in renewables and decarbonised energy.

The picture is optimistic at the moment, but the projects must take place so that business can be delivered for the supply chains and we can move forward.

We have had correspondence with the commission a couple of times. I think that it asked us some follow-up questions, and we have responded to that. The first report was geared around many of the things that we have spoken about today, which are the key principles that underpin just transition and the issues that have to be addressed. It is an important first stage that we accept the principle of co-design and the principle of keeping a close eye on people to ensure that they do not fall behind or pay a disproportionate cost of the transition. The first report was about those general principles to get things going and setting the parameters of what a just transition is all about. I am sure that the detail will come and that the commission will press us more on that as time goes on.

As you can imagine, because it is vital to delivering it, we are mainstreaming the just transition through all portfolios and policies. Therefore, I have bilateral meetings and correspondence with all other cabinet secretaries and ministers. We discuss the urgency of transport or other areas in which we support the just transition.

All ministers are working on the just transition dimensions of their own responsibilities. My responsibility is to help to co-ordinate that and the publication of the plans. My officials will co-ordinate the publication of the plans, but the different teams and ministers across Government have responsibility for populating them and the measures that we will take.

We are aligning our just transition plans with the Scottish Government’s next climate change plan. That is because the climate change legislation includes references to just transition and we must take into account all the issues that we will discuss today. I understand that the draft climate change plan will be published before the end of 2023. The plans are aligned, and the climate change plan for Scotland must be adopted a year or so after the draft plan is published. We are trying to align all of that.

You asked about the energy plan and its detail. The draft energy strategy will deal with the whole energy system in significant detail. There will also be a just transition element within that plan. That is always evolving. We will have a just transition plan for energy alongside the refreshed energy policy. We will include as much detail as we can, but that is always evolving. We are sowing seeds in 2022 for transformation in the coming decades.

That picture will always change, and we need an evolving living and breathing approach to a just transition in Scotland. We are becoming more aware of what is required for each sector. There are myriad opportunities for Scotland, including onshore and offshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture and decarbonising buildings. There is a massive exercise to gear up the skills for that and to have the appropriate funding, not only in the public sector but in the private sector. There must be an evolving living and breathing approach to just transition. We have not done this before, so we must continually learn lessons and adapt. We must look at what is working and at what is not working so well as we move forward.

The Scottish Government has allocated £2 billion to transport projects under this agenda, including more than £1 billion for rail electrification, £500 million to active travel, £50 million to active freeways, £287 million for the future transport fund, £495 million in bus priority investments and £120 million in zero-emission buses. A lot of the building blocks are being put in place. However, in the past two or three years, various factors have come into play that we were not expecting.

Covid has had an impact. On one hand, transport emissions fell in certain sectors because of lockdown, but now we find that people are reluctant to go back to public transport and are still driving. Such left-field issues have come into play and have affected our emissions in the transport sector, particularly when it comes to cars.

We do not underestimate the challenges. It is about behavioural change as much as Government policy. It is about everyone—the public and private sectors. It is about political consensus. I recall the battle that we had in the Scottish Parliament, from the member’s party and other parties, over the workplace parking levy, giving local authorities the powers that other parts of the UK have. That became a political battle.

I therefore say to the member and to the committee that we need political consensus if we are to put in game-changing measures; those must not turn into political battles all the time. Given that we are all supposed to be signed up to going towards net zero and reducing transport emissions, that political consensus would really help us.

The difficulty is that there is no uniform definition across the UK or across the world. The ONS is looking into that as the official statistics body. It is looking at different categories—it is looking at green jobs that are created in emerging sectors and at existing jobs that are being greened.

One of the understandable challenges is that a job nowadays may be a green job just part of the time; if the employee does not spend 100 per cent of their time doing green tasks, do you define it as a green job? That type of issue is a sign that the world of work is changing and the green economy is emerging. Those are the challenges that the ONS and others are looking at. However, I think that it is good news that we now have a report saying that there are up to 100,000 green jobs in Scotland and that many of those are in new and emerging sectors.

Yes.