Chamber and committees

Good morning, everyone. I will come on to some of the longer-term issues that have been raised in the discussion so far, but first I will focus on the coming financial year, because we are looking forward to the Scottish Government producing a budget for 2025-26, in the context of the commitment to increase funding so that it is at least £100 million more a year by 2028-29.

Obviously, we do not want to have to wait until 2028-29 for that extra funding to come along, but we would not expect all of that £100 million more a year to come right at the start. When we see the budget, what should we be looking for as being a credible step in that direction, in terms of either consistency or scale of funding? You have all mentioned the precarity and the different sources of funding—the Scottish Government’s funding is only one stream; there is your own income generation, other institutions and local government, as Susan Deighan was saying very clearly. However, in terms of the specific £100 million commitment, what is a credible path towards achieving that by 2028-29? What should we be looking for in the budget when we see it?

I want to build on that. The culture sector is very diverse. You all represent fairly substantial institutions and organisations within the culture landscape. Does the Scottish Government engage with you directly? Do you have access to the thinking that is being done within Government about what the increased funding that has been committed to will look like? It seems to me that there is a worry about whether it will end up being spent on culture activity or on the other costs that culture organisations have. A few minutes ago, someone—it might have been Anne Lyden—mentioned net zero. Whatever proportion of the £100 million goes to museums and galleries could very easily be swallowed up by decarbonising your buildings. To what extent do you have a sense that the Government is thinking about how that funding should represent an addition to your culture activity, rather than be used for other costs?

I am saying that only because all local taxation is devolved and we do not have that constraint on national tax.

An amount of money will be allocated in the coming budget, but you are also looking for a plan for the five years ahead. You want to have a sense of what the longer-term plan is for the course of increased funding. Is that right?

Rather than going round the table again, I will direct this question, which is about broadening or diversifying local sources of funding, to Susan Deighan, who has spoken the most about the local level. The Parliament has legislated to give local authorities the power to generate revenue through the introduction of a visitor levy—the City of Edinburgh Council has been the first mover on that, but I hope that it will not be the last. That might be particularly relevant for parts of the culture sector that do not have core funding. Some music venues are making the case for something similar through a stadium levy. How much further could we go? Are there opportunities not only to create a different way of using central Government funding but to introduce more local powers, so that revenue can be generated and put to use according to local priorities?

On a matter of pure fact, the member talked about the investment that the oil and gas industry is making tirelessly in the transition. Does he not acknowledge the fact that the oil and gas majors globally are still putting vastly more investment into more fossil fuel extraction than they are into renewables? They have been described by the United Nations as making, at best, a marginal contribution to global investment in renewables.

The news about Grangemouth this week makes it all the more important that the Government is truly honest about its climate action. However, the Government did not even want to tell Parliament about its legally required plan to make up for its missed targets. It slipped it out on Friday with no debate, no statement to Parliament and not even a press release about that legally required report.

No wonder that the Government is embarrassed by it. It is supposed to show what new climate action it will take to make up for falling further behind on the climate, but it contains no new policy whatsoever. That comes after it has spent the past few weeks abandoning policies that the Greens achieved in Government: it has raided the nature restoration fund and the ScotWind money, and it is planning a big increase in rail fares, which the Greens had cut.

How can the Government publish that report with no new policy in it and still expect to be taken seriously as it is rushing through a new climate bill that kicks this ever more urgent issue into ever longer grass?

I certainly agree with the First Minister and others that our thoughts today must be with the workforce and the community affected by the announcement about Grangemouth. However, the truth is that the Government has been well aware for years that Grangemouth urgently needed a just transition plan, and yesterday’s so-called “Green Industrial Strategy” contained nothing new to achieve a fair transition away from polluting industries.

The workforce and the community have been failed by the private owners, but they have also been failed by both Governments. Why has the Scottish Government produced a green industrial strategy that looks like it was written by oil and gas lobbyists and that contains no transition plan for Grangemouth?

The Government’s motion refers to

“concrete actions to accelerate the transition”.

That is certainly a description of what is needed from a green industrial strategy; sadly, in my view, it is also a description of what is missing from it.

I do not intend to focus too much on the fundamental economic differences that we have. Greens, in particular, have a critique of the predilection for economic growth as an end in itself. For us, there is direct conflict between growth and sustainability as objectives in an economy. However, the fact that the green industrial strategy emphasises growth over sustainability is not a great surprise, given that that is the fundamental difference not just between the Greens and the SNP but between the Greens and every other party in the chamber.

However, even from a perspective that sees green industry as an alternative way of delivering growth in an economy as polluting industries decline, the strategy is lacking. Fundamentally, it offers no clear path away from fossil fuel industries—the dirty, polluting industries of the dying economy. The focus on carbon capture, utilisation and storage, and on fossil hydrogen, emphasises the problem for me. If both those technologies were to come to pass and to deliver on the scale that the Scottish Government clearly has in mind for them, they would lock us in to our overreliance on a fossil fuel economy and on the on-going extraction of fossil fuels.

During the debate, somebody—I apologise that I have forgotten who—made the point that plastics, paints and chemical feedstocks also come from hydrocarbons. The idea that those hydrocarbons will continue to be extracted if we stop using them for energy and only use them for other purposes is not a viable proposition. I do not think that we would find an oil and gas major in the world that would accept the idea that it carry on investing in extracting hydrocarbons without being able to use them as fuel.

Grangemouth is a clear example of the vulnerability and precarity of our economy through its overexposure to and overreliance on fossil fuel. Members from all parties have spoken of their concern for the community, the workforce and their families, who are now left high and dry without a clear proposition of how a just transition will be brought about.

However, Grangemouth is far from the only community in that position. I make the comparison with Longannet, to go back more than a decade. People had known for years that Scotland’s last coal-fired power station was going to close—should close, would close, had to close—if we were to have any chance at all of reducing our carbon emissions. Despite knowing that, the Scottish Government, local government, the owners and—I am sad to say—even the union at the time kept on saying, “We’re fully committed to the long-term future of the plant.” If we were serious about a just transition, the last 10 years of the operation of that plant should have been dedicated to investment in what the community needed when it closed. Sadly, what we got instead was that full commitment to its long-term future until the date for its closure was announced, which was followed by a decision to set up a task force.

That is exactly what we are seeing again right now, although I am not making a direct comparison between Grangemouth and Longannet, because there are other ways that we could repurpose the Grangemouth plant. The issue is not about closure, which was a clear expectation. The issue is the need for a just transition. That has been a clear expectation for years, yet it is utterly lacking. That is the case not just for Grangemouth; detailed just transition plans for other communities that depend on such fuels are also utterly lacking from the green industrial strategy.

Other things are missing as well. Demand reduction has been mentioned in relation to heat in buildings by my colleague Lorna Slater, by Sarah Boyack and by one or two other members. It is worth acknowledging that the risk to jobs at Mitsubishi in Livingston results principally from a decline in the export market. Mitsubishi has been exporting heat pumps to other European countries, and that demand has not kept pace with expectations. The company has invested in production for domestic demand, and if the UK and Scottish Governments can work together to find a solution that protects those jobs, I wish them well.

However, the long-term viability of the incredible opportunity that the heat in buildings programme gives us will be realised only if the Scottish Government has the political will to face down the critics on its own back benches and regulate with great ambition to say that it is serious about the heat in buildings agenda. That will create the conditions for investment in skills, capacity and the supply chain, and in the innovation that is already happening.

Demand reduction needs to relate to resources as well as energy. The potential for repair and reuse skills becoming an important part of our circular economy needs to be part of our approach.

Finally, there is nothing in the green industrial strategy on ownership, decentralisation or the risks of financialisation. Some members slightly turned their nose up when Richard Leonard was making some very important and serious points on that issue. However, I do not want to swap a bunch of multinational fossil fuel companies for a bunch of multinational renewables companies. I want the agenda to be one that ushers in a new economy that is fundamentally more equal and that does not allow the wealth that needs to be invested in the green transition to be hoarded by a few billionaire tax exiles.

Will the Deputy First Minister come on to address the economic arguments that were made in relation to, for example, the hoarding of wealth by the super-rich—by billionaire tax exiles such as Jim Ratcliffe, who has failed the community of Grangemouth so grievously? Is that not a fundamental reason why Governments do not have the resources that they need in order to be able to invest in the green transition? Will the Government come on to address that issue of financialisation and privatisation, which is at the heart of the economic problems that we are facing?