It’s a joint enterprise again seeing two state owned companies cooperating to exploit Scotland’s natural resource. Masdar, also known as the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company’s a UAE government owned company, securing Abu Dhabi’s future not Scotland’s though. 

So, in those fields some already operating with others being developed we’ve the absurdity of foreign state ownership of Scotland’s natural resource. And it’s costing us. The organization Commonwealth in their paper “Power to the People; the case for a publicly owned Generation Company” noted that in 2021;

“Our energy bills combined with Contracts for Difference payments contributed £2.56 billion in payments to offshore wind generators owned by foreign state entities.”

Meanwhile, we’re told ownership doesn’t matter though it matters to the governments of Sweden, Norway, France, Ireland, China and the UAE. They seem to see the benefit in not just managing their own but our natural resource.

Why? Because it underpins energy security, provides affordable energy for households and businesses, supports a Just Transition from fossil fuel to renewables, and allows for investment in technologies. All of which help hard pressed households, boost indigenous business and create a more vibrant and competitive economy.

It needn’t just be outright ownership of energy welcome though that would be. But as Denmark shows, a stake can be taken allowing the nation and its people to benefit and prosper from their natural bounty.

And it’s not just the slippage of profits and wealth to foreign shores but loss of control and influence over your natural resource. The evidence is that we are losing out in more ways than simply the profit from the energy produced.

Scotland’s losing the turbine manufacturing. A few to be built at Nigg, meanwhile as hundreds are commissioned orders are going elsewhere. Yards such as Arnish and BiFab lie empty even when proximate to the site. Not one turbine for a Forth field will be constructed in Scotland. Assembly’s a poor substitute for manufacture, seeing lower profit and requiring less skilled labour.  Every Firth in Scotland should be manufacturing turbines and expanding to meet growing need, yet other than at Nigg they lie idle and our folk face unemployment and our land a loss of skills.

Benefits from the supply chain’s a mantra from the UK Government shamefully echoed by their Scottish counterparts but it isn’t being born out in practice. In my East Lothian constituency where the turbines offshore are now visible and the horizon will change irrevocably in coming years there’s no work being generated. What should benefit current and future generations is seeing folk unable to heat their homes and youngsters struggling to access skilled employment. Local business hasn’t benefitted and new businesses in the sector are not being created either dealing with the offshore work or providing onshore opportunities through Long Duration Battery storage or hydrogen production.

Let’s look one of these sites owned by foreign state companies to confirm that. Neart na Gaoithe owned by EDF from France and ESB from Ireland is seeing the work likewise go elsewhere. The turbines are being produced at Siemens in Humberside, albeit assembled in Dundee, with the foundations laid by Saipem from Italy. They’re being taken out to the field by Fred Olsen Renewables and the cabling being done by DEME Offshore from Belgium. Where’s the contracts for Scottish businesses and the work for local folk?  

There should be a Scottish State Energy company and it should be both operating and taking a share in all fields being developed.  Other nations do it and as I’ve shown are doing it in our waters. Denmark with both its company and its public stake is showing what can be done. Just as Norway showed what can be achieved with an oil and gas bounty.

Scotland has lost out on the former and must not do so with the latter. The bounty from the energy off our shores must benefit our people not just corporations and even state-owned companies from other lands.

The great Scottish comedian Billy Connolly penned a song “Oh Sergeant Where’s Mine” describing the plight of a soldier with life changing wounds reflecting on the prospectus the recruiting sergeant had first given him. Lying in his hospital bed he says;

   Oh sergeant, is this the adventure you meant
When I put my name down on the line
All that talk of computers and sunshine and skis
Oh, I’m askin’ you, sergeant, where’s mine

Well all I’m asking you Minister where’s ours. All that talk of the Saudi Arabia of wind and the work and the jobs, where are they? And when other nations whether Ireland or France, Denmark, Sweden or Norway, China have a share of our natural bounty, oh Minister where’s ours.

I conclude by asking the Minister to confirm that his government will neither oppose a Scottish state energy company nor Scotland seeking to take a share in its natural wealth. 

The absurdity of an Energy Rich Scotland yet Fuel Poor Scots must end. We demand a share in our natural bounty.