Chamber and committees

My constituency of Edinburgh Pentlands has three Army bases within its boundaries, including Dreghorn, Redford infantry barracks and Redford cavalry barracks. In addition, we have Glencorse to the east and to the north the former Army headquarters at Craigiehall, which is currently lying empty.

I have visited the barracks in my constituency on a number of occasions, the most recent one being only a couple of weeks ago, when I met Aramark trainees and apprentices providing hospitality and housekeeping services at Dreghorn barracks. Many of its employees are family members of serving Army personnel, who ensure that Army families have a better standard of living until the time comes for them to transition into civilian life. It is no surprise that companies such as Aramark employ Army family members.

It was found in a recent report by the Army Families Federation, “Military spousal/partner employment”, that

“30% of employers said that military spouse/partners show resilience and determination and 22% said that they are willing to go the extra mile in their work.”

It is estimated that there are 100,000 veterans of working age, with their families, living in Scotland. The average age of those leaving the Army is 29. As a result, they will spend more of their life in civilian employment than in Army life. These are highly trained individuals, who have transferable skills that are often sought after by employers, not only in Edinburgh but across Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s programme for government committed to securing improved opportunities for veterans, and it accepted the recommendations within the Scottish veterans commissioner’s reports on employment, skills and learning, and on housing. That includes ensuring easier access to further learning and training, resulting in the Scottish Government providing additional funds to the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership to develop a skills recognition tool for use on the My World of Work website. That alignment of existing military skills and civilian qualifications should give veterans the best chance to compete for jobs when settling in Scotland.

Improved connections to the business community by the veterans employability strategic group has resulted in membership, for the first time, from private sector employers. That presents an important step towards bridging the gap between public sector policy, service delivery partners and employers—to the improved understanding of the benefit of employing veterans and to ensuring that they find suitable employment. It should also help to reach out to small and medium-sized companies as potential employers or as mentors to veterans who want to start their own business.

The Forces Families Jobs website is a central portal for employment and training opportunities for military spouses and family members. It was launched in 2019. All employers who advertise on that website have signed the armed forces covenant, and a profile is provided for each to explain their commitment to being forces family friendly. The Scottish Government continues to work with Forces Families Jobs to signpost vacancies by directing people to Work For Scotland, the Government’s own job website. In addition, large public employers, from the NHS to Police Scotland, have designated websites or recruitment teams to support the recruitment of veterans.

Many soldiers will face other challenges when they leave the service, but the biggest difficulty that is faced by veterans in Edinburgh, before they can even start to seek employment, is finding a home when they leave the forces. Despite Scotland having some of the strongest homelessness legislation in the world, and all local authorities having a legal duty to provide support to anyone at risk of homelessness, including veterans, there are still housing issues in some parts of the country.

The number of people who live in Edinburgh city has increased by more than 13 per cent, in recent years, which has put substantial pressure on housing waiting lists. During the period from 2007, the Scottish National Party Government invested £558 million in housing grant support in Edinburgh, which contributed to the completion of more than 13,000 affordable homes. Over the five years from 2021, Edinburgh will further benefit from the affordable housing supply programme’s investment of £234 million towards the delivery of even more good-quality affordable homes, which is an increase of £32 million—16 per cent—on the previous five years.

Despite that, the growth of the Edinburgh population is such that we need to make use of all suitable housing to help meet the demand. The MOD, as a landlord, owns hundreds of units of empty service family accommodation in Edinburgh and the Lothians. I have highlighted that issue, over many years, with all the individuals who have held the Westminster defence minister brief. Thankfully, at long last, the MOD has agreed to sell some of those empty properties to the City of Edinburgh Council, starting with an initial batch of 23 of the 78 homes that have lain empty over many years on the Dreghorn estate.

We have touched a lot on the areas that I want to ask about, but you will be happy to know that I have one question with three parts.

Retrofitting of housing stock is a great opportunity. There are 2.6 million homes in Scotland, and we need to retrofit 113,000 homes per year. In Scotland, 99 per cent of businesses are SMEs. You have talked about capital investment and equity investment but, for many of those companies, it is cash flow that kills them.

My first question is: what more can the finance and banking industry do to support SMEs to take up those opportunities, in particular in relation to the cash flow problem?

Secondly, 75 per cent of homes are either owner-occupied or private lets. In my constituency, we are currently two years into a refurbishment of 181 blocks of flats in the Wester Hailes area, and many of the home owners there are being asked for a £40,000 contribution towards the external cladding, new roofs and insulation. Many of them cannot afford it. What can mortgages or buy-to-let mortgages do to support that funding?

Lastly, how do we encourage local job creation from investments from the finance and banking sector? Those are three easy questions.

Heather, your report “Tooling up the Green Homes Industry”, sets out three of the economic barriers as being the cost of heat pumps, the high-quality survey costs and payback periods for retrofits.

We have started to touch on the area that I want to look at. Derek, you said that Scottish Enterprise is carrying out research to identify investment opportunities in the Grangemouth area. I want to ask you about jobs. In response to the committee’s call for views, GMB Scotland noted that hydrogen and carbon capture both offer the potential for jobs growth, but that that does not guarantee the retention of current levels of skilled jobs.

Given that Scottish Enterprise has a role to play in not only creating but safeguarding jobs, how do you strike the balance between safeguarding existing skilled jobs and creating job opportunities when you make investment decisions?

Derek, I put to you the same question about local jobs for local people. In addition, what do you do about considering growing local supply chains when you are looking at investing in the Grangemouth area?

I will put a similar question to SNIB. We are in a period in which transition is going on. When you make investment decisions, how do you safeguard existing jobs and not undermine the skills that are currently required in the economy?

David, you spoke about the importance of local communities and you mentioned apprentices, skills and jobs. Grangemouth community council suggested, when it was giving evidence last week, that a percentage of jobs should be kept for local people. Do you guys consider that when making investments?

I have a couple of quick questions. It has been an interesting conversation, but unfortunately most of my questions have been covered.

My first question is for SDS. Most people’s perceptions of green jobs are about renewable energy, electrical transport or energy efficiency. We had a submission from Select that said:

“2022/23 saw the largest ever number of apprentices and adult trainees recruited into our industry.”

However,

“the number of available places funded by SDS falls short of our needs.”

Will you give us the background to that? Is it a capacity issue or a funding issue? What is driving it?

My last question is for Dominic Pritchard. The very last paragraph of your submission says:

“The Forth Freeport will not result in improved economic benefits for the current workforce or future workforce at Grangemouth.”

Will you elaborate on that?

What do you expect to change?