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Do you accept that, without the Acorn project, we cannot decarbonise Grangemouth on the scale that is required?

Good morning to the panel. One of NSET’s priorities is to capitalise on the opportunities of the transition to net zero. Would it be a fair assessment to say that, although the growth of renewables has significantly reduced carbon emissions, it has not delivered for Scotland the economic benefits that it might have delivered? We were promised 130,000 green jobs by 2020. The Fraser of Allander Institute put the actual figure at 27,000. Recently, the trade unions highlighted the fact that only around 3,100 jobs have been created in offshore wind. Why have we failed to deliver the real potential in jobs from the growth in renewables?

You talk about learning the lessons from onshore wind, but the trade unions recently highlighted analysis that showed that we are also failing to deliver when it comes to offshore wind. Their analysis highlighted that the latest Office for National Statistics low carbon and renewable energy estimates showed that

“In 2014, every £1 million in income made by offshore wind companies translated to 7 jobs for workers in Scotland”

and that

“this plummeted to 1 job per £1 million”

of turnover for offshore wind farm companies in 2021. Therefore, the big wind farm companies seem to be doing rather well out of it, but why is that not translating into jobs? Why do we appear to be going backwards?

This is a whole new subject, which means that you will need to completely change your papers, minister. The committee is keen to hear from the Government on the role of co-operatives in the wellbeing economy. What do you see as the role of co-operatives and how will the Government support their growth as a model?

One of the reasons why I asked the question is that it is fair to say that there was a lot of criticism of the lack of detail in the wider just transition plan for energy that was published recently, not least from your just transition commission, which was not consulted on that development. It said:

“we are … deeply concerned about the lack of evidence of adequate policy actions to deliver a just transition for the Energy sector, particularly given the urgent need to shift gear in the rest of the 2020s.”

Friends of the Earth pretty much said that it was more of the same when we know that more of the same will not deliver our net zero targets.

Do you recognise the criticism that the draft just transition plan lacked the detail that we need to deliver the just transition that we all want?

Those targets, and the route map to monitor them, will be contained in the plan for Grangemouth when you publish it. Is that right?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. The Grangemouth plan will be the first regional just transition plan. How will it differ from the sectoral plans that have been published, and how, specifically, will you measure success?

We know that any energy transition is likely to reduce emissions. However, there has been criticism in the past that, although the growth of onshore wind, for example, has contributed to a reduction in emissions, it has not delivered the economic boost for which there was real potential.

How do we make sure that, with the plan for Grangemouth, we do not repeat the mistakes of the past? How will you measure that? Will there be specific measurements in the plan to enable us to assess whether it is a genuine just transition plan?

In the past, the Government promised 120,000 new jobs by 2020, but the Fraser of Allander Institute recently did a piece of work that concluded that 27,000 jobs had been created. One of the institute’s criticisms was that it had to work out what a renewables job was, because it could not measure it. Are you confident that you will be measuring what you want to have in that plan, or will you have to start to measure new things, too?

Professor Skea, can I follow up on your point about looking at what data or information is already there? There must be gaps. The Fraser of Allander Institute recently carried out work to measure the economic impact of the renewables sector and concluded that 27,000 jobs had been created, but the institute had to define that for itself, because there was no definition of a renewables job. There must be gaps in what we are measuring.

My main point is not about what we measure or the figure at the moment; it is about what the actual target is. It will be easy for ministers to stand up and say that things are fabulous and that we have created a certain number of jobs as a result of the just transition, but how do we know that that figure should not have been five or 10 times higher? We need to see genuine targets for a just transition. At the moment, the energy plan targets for onshore wind seem to be about how much power is generated, but how do we get targets that measure specifically whether that generation is creating a just transition?

Do you want that to be incorporated in the Government’s final just transition plan and the various sectoral plans?