Official Report 851KB pdf
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-20329, in the name of Douglas Ross, on recognising concerns regarding Moray FLOW-Park. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I invite members who wish to participate to press their request-to-speak buttons.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament acknowledges the concerns being raised by the communities impacted by the proposed Moray FLOW-Park; notes that Offshore Solutions Group plans to develop anchorage sites in the Moray Firth for floating offshore wind assets; understands that the project is at an early stage, but that concerns around the impact on fishing, the environment and marine life have been expressed and acknowledges the view that these deserve to be addressed, and notes the view that Offshore Solutions Group must both be upfront with communities about the consideration other sites were given for these proposals and must commit to detailed and meaningful discussions with key stakeholders and all communities in the Moray Firth area impacted by these proposals.
18:05
I thank all the members who have supported my motion and those who will contribute tonight. By way of background, I note that it has been a bit difficult to bring this debate to the chamber. I previously lodged a motion on the subject for members’ business that did not attract cross-party support. Emma Roddick then lodged a motion that attracted cross-party support, but the Scottish National Party did not choose to use it for one of the party’s members’ business debates. I then copied her motion, just to make sure that we were all on the same page. It might not be the exact wording that I would have used, but it was important for me to bring the debate to the chamber. I also support, and whole-heartedly and completely agree with, the amendment that has been lodged by Fergus Ewing.
Why is it important that we are debating the issue in the chamber today? It is because of the people who are sitting in the public gallery: almost 50 people who have come down from Moray and the Highlands to their Parliament to hear the matter being addressed—[Applause.]
That is deserving of applause, because some of us make that journey weekly, and it is not easy. I have led debates in Parliament before that have had a lot of public interest, but I am not sure that I have previously seen 50 people coming down from the Highlands to the Parliament to hear a debate—and that is just a fraction of the people in our part of the world who are interested in this issue. Many are watching online tonight, and many will be catching up later.
This issue has captured the attention and interest of many people in Moray, Inverness and Nairn and further afield. I have had comments, emails and letters from people from all over Scotland and the United Kingdom, and from others around the world, who are aghast—and absolutely disgusted—at what Offshore Solutions Group is proposing for the Moray Firth.
As I am sure that we will go through in the debate, the proposals are now less than what was previously put forward. I think that that just shows how cack-handed the company that is making the proposals has been throughout the process. We in this Parliament have to recognise that we, as elected members, have been supported every step of the way by some very committed individuals in the area, and by a wider campaign group, who have provided me, as an MSP, with more detailed information and expert analysis than I have ever had on any other issue.
Although I welcome that information and am delighted to receive it, I question why members of the public have had to commit so much of their time and energy to fight against proposals that should never, ever have got to this stage. The proposals are completely unacceptable and are completely out of character for our area. The numbers of people in the public gallery tonight, and the numbers of those who have been corresponding with their MSPs, show that there is widespread opposition to the plans. Indeed, I have met no one who thinks that the proposals are a good idea—well, I have met the developers, who are, I assume, in favour of the proposals, but I have met absolutely no one locally who is.
To go back to the issue of public engagement, my colleague Tim Eagle hosted a very well-attended meeting in Findhorn, with a satellite meeting in Nairn. I have been involved in public meetings in Moray for a long time, and I have never seen such a turnout before. I have never seen so many people wanting to get involved and engaged, and that is because they are worried about what will happen to our area if the proposals go ahead.
I congratulate everyone who has been involved. To single out one person is perhaps not the best thing to do, but I want to credit David Ross and the stop the Moray Firth FLOW-Park Facebook page. When people have asked me questions about the issue, I normally go to that Facebook page to get the answer because, if I do not know the answer, it will be there. Again, that highlights the commitment of the people who have been involved in the campaign.
I have many concerns about the proposals and how they have been put forward, because the process was very underhand. They were announced with minimal fuss to try to dampen the opposition to them—and then the situation exploded. Subsequently, when there were serious questions to be raised, the developers first agreed to come to Tim Eagle’s meeting to debate the proposals, and then cried off and said that they would not engage with the local community. If you trust your proposals, you should be brave enough to be up front and answer questions about them.
The Government is involved in the issue, and I am sure that we will hear tonight from the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy that she cannot speak about live cases, but she can speak about Scottish Enterprise giving £1.83 million to the company to develop the proposals to meet Scottish Government targets. The cabinet secretary has been questioned about that in the chamber previously, but there is still huge concern and worry about that level of Scottish Enterprise funding going to an organisation that wants to create destruction in one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland.
I thank the member for bringing the debate to the chamber. As the constituency member for Moray, I welcome a number of my constituents to the public gallery and wish them a safe journey after the debate later tonight.
As the member will be aware, I am heavily engaged in the issue, too, and I have spoken to the developers a number of times. Does he agree that one of the easiest solutions to the whole debacle would be for the company, which did not rank the original locations that it looked at in order of preference, to look to a less contentious location for the project to go ahead? That would be an easy way out of this.
I can give you the time back, Mr Ross.
I agree with the member on that, but there is an easier way, which is just to abandon the plans completely and walk away from the Moray Firth, which is not suitable for what is being proposed.
I agree with Richard Lochhead—I put the exact same question to OSG representatives when I met them, and I got a muddled answer from them, as I have done on so many issues. However, they must listen—they must see that their proposal is so inappropriate that it is creating mass protest on a scale that I have not seen in Moray and the Highlands for a long time.
Instead of actually engaging and doing better with its consultation, however, I would say that OSG—even though I did not think that this was possible—has got worse. We have now found out that, earlier this month, OSG released a report, with very little publicity, that argues that the company does not have to do an environmental impact assessment, because it believes that the temporary nature of the structures does not require one.
An EIA is crucial. I sat on planning committees in Moray Council, and I was convener of the committee for a long time. EIAs form an important part of the planning process, but the company thinks that it can just dismiss that requirement and come up with its own plans. Again, I question the cabinet secretary: does she at least accept that undertaking no EIA for the development would not be allowed, should not be allowed and is unacceptable, and that the company must come forward with a full EIA?
I know that my time is just about up, Deputy Presiding Officer. There is so much to say on the issue that I could speak for seven hours, or even seven days, and I do not think that we would get through it all. However, I go back to the people who matter most here: the people who live in Moray and the Highlands, who will be affected by the proposals for years to come; who are fighting with great enthusiasm for the future of our area; and who are here in their Parliament today to hear—we hope—that the Government is on their side.
We need to protect our environment and the nature that it supports. As the nature champion for the bottlenose dolphin, I have had briefings from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation’s Scottish dolphin centre at Spey Bay, which is worried about the proposals. There is much in the proposals that we are opposed to and very little on which we can agree. Surely the only course of action is for OSG to abandon the plans and dump them completely. If the company does not do so, the Government must make the strongest possible statement that it opposes the plans, because they are not suitable for the Moray Firth or for Scotland and they should be scrapped completely.
18:14
I am grateful to Douglas Ross for managing to get the debate into the Business Bulletin. As he mentioned, a few of us tried previously, so fair play to him for meeting the requirement for cross-party support.
Having sat on a planning committee, I am always extremely careful not to cross the line into prejudicing a quasi-judicial process, which is why I worded my original motion in the way that I did. However, members are still required to take responsibility for their contributions in today’s debate. Nevertheless, being careful not to prejudice the process does not mean that I cannot demand that the developers meet their obligations; that communities’ voices are heard; and that the legitimate, evidence-based and very detailed concerns are acted on, especially when they have been brought forward by volunteers in communities, whether those are individuals, community councils or businesses, who are putting the effort into crafting and sharing them with those who are responsible for making the decision. That has not happened in this case, which deeply concerns me.
I am extremely disappointed to have had such strong and varied representation from people in the Highlands and Moray stating that they are not being listened to. If the people who have to live with the reality of a development—whether that is visual interference, an impact on livelihoods, or knock-on traffic, waste or employment impacts—feel that their voices are just being treated like background noise that can be tuned out, the process is broken. OSG’s refusal to attend a public meeting illustrated that point for me.
The Highlands is used to promises of gold rushes but, even when short-term jobs or community benefits are offered, we often feel that we are left worse off afterwards. I have seen developers work with communities to identify what their priorities are and how they can mitigate any unwanted impacts. That will never please everyone, but it can be done. Infrastructure must serve the community, not the other way round, and vague gestures relating to green energy do not cut it. Mentioning net zero on your planning application certainly does not excuse you from undertaking impact assessments, consultation and partnership working.
The people whom I met in committee room 5 ahead of the debate—thanks to another colleague, Tim Eagle, who arranged a drop-in event—are not opposed to the future; they just want the local community to shape the future. That is what the Scottish Government’s guidance says should happen and that is the point of having local development plans, and I think that it is an entirely reasonable expectation for my constituents to have.
I note that the constituency MSP for Moray, Richard Lochhead, has also asked pertinent questions about which areas are under consideration. There is a lack of information here. People can understand things better with more information but, of course, when they have more information, they can also form arguments that are more relevant and effective. That is why it cannot simply be left to developers to decide whether they want to share the information that local people deserve to have. When we discussed the issue earlier in the committee room, there was an awful lot of speculation. Much of that might turn out to be unfair, but it might be bang on the money. The point is that nobody, from the campaigners to the MSPs in the room, knows the answer to that.
In my view, planning and consenting should never be decided on a political basis. Fundamentally, I do not believe that politicians who are acting outwith the planning process should decide who gets to build and who does not. We all have interests and biases, and the planning process is designed to focus only on what is relevant to the application. My personal objection to or support for any application should never be worth more than the views of my constituents down the road.
The people in Nairn, Findhorn, Burghead, Buckie, Forres and Elgin who have all reached out to share their material planning concerns are the ones who must have a voice and a say in the process. I will continue to do what I can to draw attention to those objections and call out any failures to engage, lack of transparency or poor communication. All that needs to be done is to listen to the local experts.
18:18
First, I congratulate Douglas Ross—as both he and Emma Roddick have mentioned, the debate has been a long time coming. We have raised the issue in the Parliament several times, and, in Finlay Carson’s members’ business debate last week, we asked a question on the point that we should not have to wait for an informal application to go in—we need the Government to step in now.
I welcome everybody who is up in the public gallery. It is a long route down the A9—I do not know whether they came via Aberdeen or down the A9 today, but I am very conscious that we have held them up a wee bit, so I hope that their bus is going to wait for them for their trip home. I am grateful to them for coming to Parliament, because—as Douglas Ross said—it is not always easy for people who live so far away to come down here.
However, people are motivated and really concerned and anxious, and they have come to me in the hundreds. I have a folder in my inbox that is filled with emails from people from across the north-east and the Highlands, all the way to Caithness, who are concerned about the proposals. Douglas Ross got it right when he said that Moray Firth is just not the right location for these proposals: it never was, and they should not go forward.
I am, therefore, speaking today not just with my voice, but with a shared voice: a voice for all who have worked on the issue and all who have written to me, because there has been concern from communities about how the project has been handled from the very beginning.
As Douglas Ross said, I hosted a public meeting, and I could never have expected that more than 600 people would attend. I had to move the meeting to a different venue; we also had to create a satellite venue, and we still had people who were trying to access it online as well—and OSG did not even turn up. It is not as if the company even gave me a lot of notice—it literally did not turn up the day before, and that is just not on. If you trust your proposals, as Douglas Ross said, you should just come along.
We are now in a position in which more than £1.5 million of public funds are being spent despite the widespread local opposition, and despite unresolved questions about whether the facility is actually needed at the scale that has been proposed. The case for the project rests on the claimed need for wet storage for floating offshore wind foundations, but the available figures suggest that that need is far less certain than has been presented. If that is correct, the central claim of an urgent need for a dedicated flow park becomes much weaker. Surely, at the very least, it demands a transparent, updated, independent needs assessment before any further public money is committed to the project.
I know that a large number of freedom-of-information requests have already been put in to try to clarify the status of the Moray FLOW-Park proposal. I am conscious that the marine directorate has confirmed that there is no EIA scoping and screening, and that engagement—in its own words—is described as being only at an “early stage”. It is worth reiterating the point that no consultation was done prior to the money coming from the public purse and the project going forward.
The responses from Crown Estate Scotland to FOI requests show that it did not progress beyond phase 1 on the project. As Douglas Ross said, we heard today that a report was put out on 6 February. I had not even seen that report, because the company had hidden it away, and it had the audacity not to even come forward to me with it, despite the fact that I had asked it to send me any information. The report seems to be suggesting that the company does not need to do a full EIA on the project, which—to be frank—I think it does.
When communities turn out in such numbers, when detailed challenges are raised and when funding decisions have broken the £1 million mark, Government should step in early. It should test the case regularly and be willing to say “Stop” if the evidence does not stack up.
That brings me to my question to the cabinet secretary—it has always been my question regarding the need for the Government to step in. We want the proposals stopped, and we want OSG and the Government to come to the table with the local councils and stakeholders and have a real conversation together. Here is my question: will the cabinet secretary agree to ask officials for a short written review looking at the need, the numbers and the strength of local feeling, and on the back of that review, will she meet with key stakeholders in Moray so that we can finally agree a position moving forward, rather than leaving us in limbo as we currently are?
Thank you, Mr Eagle. I was not aware of the bus timetabling issues, but I will try to ensure that the debate does not overrun unduly.
18:23
I, too, congratulate Douglas Ross on securing the debate and pay tribute to the campaigners who have come such a long way to their Parliament to make their case. I am sorry that I missed them earlier—I was late in coming to the drop-in event, and they had already left for the chamber.
I acknowledge the real concerns that have been expressed about the potential application. No application has been lodged, so we debate the issue in a vacuum with little or no information about what is proposed and what the impact will be. On the one hand, flagging up a potential development at an early stage is welcome, in that it gives people more chance to consider its impact. On the other hand, doing so without providing information obviously causes concern, as people cannot see what the impact would be and the effect that it would have on them.
We do not even know to which body the application would be made and what process would be used to assess it. What is clear is that those who are impacted by a potential flow park must be consulted, and the impacts on them and on local businesses must be taken account of. The proposed project has the potential to have an impact on local fishing and tourism businesses that are unable to move their businesses out of the way easily.
I would hope the Offshore Solutions Group would be speaking to those businesses now and hearing their concerns. If it does not, it is going to find itself facing a backlash that no amount of information will diminish. It is simply wrong to allow speculation that puts people in fear of their livelihoods.
I do not think that simply moving the site would work either, because another community would need to be consulted and may have similar concerns. It is important that a discussion is had before any application is put in.
There are also concerns about public bodies providing funding for the project—the Crown Estate to the tune of £1.5 million, and Scottish Enterprise to the tune of £1.8 million, as has been highlighted by Douglas Ross. Those organisations can spend their funding as it suits them, but it gives people real concern to see funds being invested by the same public bodies that are part of the Scottish Government and which will have a role in making a decision on any application. They will have a direct role in deciding on marine licence applications, or they will be able to use their call-in powers with any application that falls to the local authority. Obviously, that causes concern, because what if the body making the decision on the application has already invested in the proposal? The process not only needs to be fair—it has to be seen to be fair. Clearly, there needs to be much more public information and consultation.
I have spoken in the chamber before about the need for better marine planning that takes account of the needs of all marine users. Too often, we see the fishing community squeezed to make way for innovation, renewables, telecoms and energy connections. A thriving fishing industry provides local wealth and anchors our communities, and we need to value and protect it.
Scottish Labour has argued in the past for a community right of appeal in planning applications, and this case highlights our reasons for doing so. Therefore, I urge the minister to ensure that the community is informed of proposals at every stage and, more important, that it is heard at every stage.
18:27
People along the Moray Firth are closely watching this debate not only in the gallery, but in Nairn, Findhorn, Burghead and Buckie, and along the coastline that is often described as the riviera of the north. Those who have got in touch with me have said that they are not anti-climate action or anti-renewable energy; they are just asking reasonable questions about impact, fairness and voice, and their concerns deserve respect.
We are living in a climate and nature emergency, and we know that we must move away from fossil fuels, but it is striking that some of those who are being the most vocal in the chamber tonight continue to support new oil and gas extraction as a silver bullet. We cannot claim urgency on reducing emissions while expanding the very industry that is driving climate breakdown.
However, supporting renewables does not mean suspending scrutiny. How we transition matters. If floating offshore wind infrastructure risks marine ecosystems, fishing livelihoods, navigation routes or tourism, those impacts must be fully understood and addressed. A healthy climate, thriving wildlife, clean oceans and strong communities all depend on each other. Science shows that our economy is part of the natural world, not separate from it, and it can thrive only when the planet is healthy, too.
There is also a wider context here. The proposed location is close to the Cromarty Firth freeport. The Scottish Greens opposed freeports, because international evidence shows that they often weaken employment protections, displace other sustainable local jobs and fail to deliver genuine community wealth. In my recent discussions with trade unions, strong concerns were raised about pay conditions and enforcement in freeport areas. If the nearby freeport had not been designated, would this spillover proposal exist in this form? Were the full implications made clear during the bidding process?
As we have heard, communities are worried that a lot of public money has already been spent on early exploratory work before they have had any real chance to help shape plans. Even if the Government is not running the project itself, the use of public funding means that it still has a responsibility to set the ground rules, and that should include strong and meaningful involvement from communities right from the start instead of their views being sought once most of the decisions have already been made.
When Crown Estate Scotland was established under the Scotland Act 1998, an inherent conflict was created. The public purse benefits significantly from it, but the Scottish Government, via the marine directorate, has the final say on whether marine developments such as this one go ahead. Where is the community voice in that?
The strength of community feeling on this proposal is clear. The fact that Crown Estate Scotland appears to have misjudged the feelings of local communities so significantly reflects a wider concern that it has lost touch with the communities that rely on it to protect and safeguard their coasts and waters from encroaching business interests, whether it be floating storage parks or polluting salmon farms.
It is clear that Crown Estate Scotland benefits from the proposal through the revenue generated via its lease and proof of concept for future opportunities; it is clear that Offshore Solutions Group benefits through generous grants and increased revenue for its directors, as well as potential expansions in the future; and it is clear that the Scottish Government will benefit through revenues paid to it. How do the people of the Moray Firth benefit?
We should have begun the transition away from oil and gas in earnest 20 or 30 years ago, and both the UK and Scottish Governments should have done more to include communities from the start. We are now trying to move quickly, but speed cannot replace trust. If Scotland is to lead in offshore wind, let it lead in democracy too, grounded in marine protection, worker protection, community voice and genuine shared benefit. That must be the foundation, not an afterthought.
18:31
Of the many reasons that we owe a debt of gratitude to the Roman civilisation, one is that it bequeathed to us the principles of natural justice. One such principle is audi alteram partem: one must listen to both sides of the case.
When I, like other members, was inundated with expressions of concern about this particular development, the levels of which were unprecedented in my 26 years as a constituency member, I sought a meeting with Mr Rowley, the head of OSG, to get his side of the case. Before the meeting, I availed myself of the opportunity to look at the company accounts, which are publicly available, and found that it is a microcompany. Microcompanies put in limited accounts to save money; they are generally not able to grow fast and have no, or limited, potential for raising money.
I found out that OSG’s net assets were £207,000 in 2023 but had fallen to £131,000 in April 2024. As a former energy minister, I know that no project manager of any billion‑pound project would for a moment conceive of taking on a contractor in the supply chain that was a paper company and did not have the capacity, if it failed to carry out the work, to make recompense for that failure. Any project manager who did so would be sacked—none would do so.
I asked Mr Rowley to explain why he thought that he would get contracts, but I got no answer. That leads me to assume that the intention is not to carry out the development, but to get the permission and sell on. Incidentally, no accounts for the company have been lodged for this year—they are late.
I also found out that Scottish Enterprise has extended a grant of £1.83 million to the company, most of which has been paid out, despite the fact that that is about six times more than the company’s net worth. How did that happen? When I asked Adrian Gillespie of Scottish Enterprise—someone with whom I have worked over the years, for whom I have great respect and who has done great things for Scotland—what due diligence was done, there were no clear answers, other than that the grant specialist team had looked again at the application and checked it off.
When I asked whether the Scottish Government had been told, I got a very carefully worded answer—we have seen a bit of that recently—and I am not sure whether the Scottish Government was involved or consulted in any way. I say to the cabinet secretary that there will be freedom of information requests on this matter, so she should open the books and allow us to see the whole story, because if there was any such involvement or consultation, I would like to know about it.
Equally, if there was not, how can it be that in Scotland we extend, through our enterprise company, and through Crown Estate Scotland, which allocated £41,000 at an earlier stage, £2 million without any involvement from the minister? Is that not wrong? If I were the minister, I would be asking, “What is going on here?”
Do we need this project at all? I do not think so, because we have storage in ports and storage on land. The cabinet secretary and I have both visited Aventus Energy; I know the estate that is involved, and I know that there is extensive land and unused capacity there, as David Ross has illustrated in his excellent work. The project is not required at all. When I asked the Crown Estate whether it was required, it said, “We cannot express an opinion. We are only the Crown Estate.” Well, goodness me.
I will conclude, as I have only 20 seconds left, but I would like to say a lot more. I want to pay tribute to the people who have come down here for the debate—that shows just how much anger there is.
This is much worse than Flamingo Land—this application should never get anywhere. Incidentally, it is not a live application; there is nothing to prevent the Scottish Government from stopping this now, because there is no application to prejudice. Of course a marine assessment is required; it is required under regulation 7 of the Marine Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2007. I just looked at it—it takes about 30 seconds to look it up.
This is one of the worst applications that I have ever seen, and it must never go ahead. If all parties join together—including the SNP, which I used to serve, and did so for 50 years—we will see off this proposal and spare the people of Moray and Nairn any further misery. [Applause.]
Thank you, Mr Ewing. I remind those in the gallery that this is a meeting in public, not a public meeting, and that participation, either through applause or the opposite, is to be discouraged.
I call Gillian Martin to respond to the debate. You have around seven minutes, cabinet secretary.
18:36
I thank Douglas Ross for bringing the debate to the chamber, and I thank everyone who has spoken today. It is very apparent that every party and every representative of the area have received a great deal of correspondence about the matter.
Before I was in politics I had a significant issue with a development in the area where I live, so I understand the strength of feeling when something happens that causes people a great deal of concern. I will not say any more about it than that.
There is an imperative that developers consult and engage early with constituents and the people in whose community they want to base themselves. That is not just something that is required as part of the application; it makes good business sense. Why would someone want to go ahead with a development when they have not engaged with the people they want to support the development? Why would they not turn up to a public meeting that is full of the people they would want to bring onside by answering their questions about the development? That does not make sense to me, as a constituency MSP. If someone in my constituency were proposing a development, and I had received a great deal of correspondence about it, set up a public meeting and been told by the developers that they would come along to answer questions, I would fully expect them to turn up.
The minister has said that early consultation is essential. Given that that has not happened, and that the consultation began a year and a half after £2 million of public money was offered—apparently without the minister’s approval or involvement—will the minister now seek an investigation into how on earth that could have happened, contrary to the clear spirit of Government policy?
I can give you the time back for that intervention, cabinet secretary.
I have written down a number of issues that I will look into, but I want to continue my response to the debate.
Over the past few weeks, I have been made aware, by my colleague Richard Lochhead, who is the constituency MSP for Moray, of substantive concerns that local communities have raised about the Offshore Solutions Group proposal. As he said in his speech, Tim Eagle has also asked me parliamentary questions on the issue in the chamber.
Tim Eagle has asked me to stop the project, effectively. In our exchanges, I have set out the statutory and established regulatory processes that exist, how applications for consent are made and the Government’s very clear expectations of developers in engaging with affected communities.
Richard Lochhead has told me—as have many members today—that he has met the company, relayed the opposition and asked the company to explain why the other sites that it considered had not been taken forward.
Richard Lochhead was not able to make a speech as he is a Government minister—we all understand the conventions around that—but he was able to make an intervention, in which he said that no ranking had been made of the other areas that were considered. Other people have made the point that some areas of Scotland are crying out for that type of development—where there is a green port status, for example. It is apparent that representatives in the chamber have put forward to the public and to me their concerns.
I must say that, notwithstanding anything to do with the proposals or any of their detail, which I do not have in front of me—I do not have anything in front of me—I am unable to say that an application cannot be made.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
I will in a second—I am making a point here. Processes must be gone through—indeed, Emma Roddick made the point that there are examples of good public engagement. It is entirely reasonable for the public and elected members to expect that a developer will engage early in a project and, indeed, will bring the public with them as well.
I am not quite sure where the cabinet secretary is going, but I hope that that will be explained in a minute. There was no engagement—we have heard that very clearly in the debate—so you are absolutely right to say that consultation was very poor. Fundamentally, I do not think that the company could continue if the Scottish Government withdrew the funding that Scottish Enterprise is currently giving—and I must believe that it has the power to do so. Given that every party in the chamber and pretty much the entire population of the area do not want it—and the constituency MSP says so, too— why will the Scottish Government not simply step in? I said earlier that we should pull the funding, stop that project and then come back round the table. That is what we want, and the Scottish Government could do that.
Always speak through the chair.
Scottish Enterprise has made the funding available. That is a very important point. There has been no direction from ministers on the matter, and I will not say that I can instruct Scottish Enterprise to do anything. Notwithstanding that, I have made notes today that I will take away.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
With respect, I have taken many interventions and I am coming to the end of my time.
The applicant must successfully go through several processes, and no minister can pre-empt or distort the process by telling any developer that they can or cannot proceed through that process. I understand that a proposal has not been submitted so far, and that a screening request for one sea-bed area has been made to Scottish ministers to identify whether an environmental impact assessment is required for the proposal.
An environmental impact assessment is a fundamental part of a development of that type, and it has a part on socioeconomic impact that must be answered, too. The Scottish national marine plan makes it clear that projects are expected to put forward the socioeconomic impact of the life cycle of a project.
I will take Douglas Ross’s intervention, but that must be the final one.
The cabinet secretary’s point on the environmental impact assessment was the point that I made in my speech. The cabinet secretary has just said that an EIA is crucial. Does that not indicate to her that that company is not a reputable company to be taking forward the proposal if, earlier this month, it was seeking to go forward with its plans without an EIA? The fact that everyone else believes that an EIA is essential, but the company does not, should surely be a flashing red light for the minister, who could then give ministerial direction to Scottish Enterprise to stop allocating any more funding. She has that power—whether she uses it is her choice.
I do have the power to make a final assessment. If a final assessment is made that an application is not fit for purpose, that is a different matter. Ministers are not afforded the ability to prevent the submission of prospective applications, and it would be entirely inappropriate for me to make a judgment on a project before an application is processed.
Wide public consultation is for the developer to undertake and demonstrate. Everyone has said that they do not believe that that has been done.
Statutory pre-application consultation provides an early opportunity for interested parties to comment on proposals, with further engagement when licence applications are publicised and consulted on. If that is not done, that will impact the quality of the application.
I have gone over time, but I could say a lot more on the matter. I have not gone through all the different procedures that must take place, but any applicant must be familiar with them. As I said, wide public consultation is for the developer to undertake, and that must be demonstrated.
That concludes the debate. I wish those people in the gallery a safe trip back up the road.
Meeting closed at 18.45.
Air ais
Decision Time