energy and just transition

We are concerned that the ‘just transition’ has been reduced to a slogan with little action, and hold that there can be no truly just transition with mass job losses. As such, the state must step in to ensure the creation of new jobs in green industries and the training of workers, to ensure no worker or community is left behind. Scotland once already endured the horrific effects of deindustrialisation in the eighties; we cannot allow that social vandalism to happen again.

To ensure this just transition, the state must take a far more active approach, and though energy is primarily a reserved matter, the Scottish Government does have powers to promote public ownership in the energy sector, and should make use of them. For instance, the Scottish Government should refrain from further PFI deals in the leasing of offshore wind, such as cases like the Scotwind seabed selloff in 2023, which leased seabed to private developers, and seek to reverse these selloffs.

Indeed, Scottish councils and public bodies should be supported to develop publicly owned renewables capacity and funded to do so.

In addition, any planning consent for new wind farms should only be given if the applicant company is prepared to create Scotland-based construction and R&D, and train a Scottish-based workforce.

Similarly, we must recognise that oil and gas will continue to be part of the energy mix for the near future, and sites like Grangemouth cannot be allowed to collapse. Instead, our current fossil fuel-based industrial sites should be re-equipped for the green industrial revolution to retain jobs and serve communities.