Scottish Parliament, 30 September 2026

331 contributions from 64 members. The official report.

Consent for Jackdaw and Rosebank

Katy (Labour, West Scotland)

The next item of business is a debate on motion S7M-01376, in the name of Liam Kerr, on consent for Jackdaw and Rosebank.

15:00

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

The motion in my name presses the United Kingdom Government to stop prevaricating and grant consent to Jackdaw and Rosebank.

In order to quickly deal with the Scottish National Party and Labour amendments’ slopey shouldering to the UK to avoid committing, I remind members of Mr Gethins’ amended motion on 10 September, which both those parties voted for. It says:

“the Parliament … recognises that energy policy is a largely reserved competence, but accepts that the Scottish Government should do what it can to provide leadership”

and the Parliament

“agrees to work together to accelerate energy deployment”,

so I am delighted to give them that chance today.

Daniel Johnson (Labour, Edinburgh Southern)

While we are reminding people of things, is it worth reminding the Conservative Party that it is because its Government made flawed decisions, which were found to be incompatible with the law in the Court of Session, that this is in doubt at all? Is it not prudent that we ensure that we get these decisions right? We are only in this position because the Conservative Government made dodgy decisions.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

No, I do not accept that premise. What I do think is important is that Daniel Johnson clearly thinks that lessons should be learned. I hope that he has told his colleagues down south that they should be consenting immediately and without any of the delays that we have seen so far.

Speaking of the amendments, that of the Greens serves only to remind members just how out of touch and ill-informed they are. It also shows a somewhat sleekit use of polling, not least on the environmental case. Everyone knows that we need generation; the Climate Change Committee projects the UK electricity demand to more than double by 2050, and that has to come from somewhere.

Jamie Langan (Reform UK, South Scotland)

Will Liam Kerr take an intervention?

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I will in a second, Mr Langan.

Although intermittent renewables will and must form a key part of the supply, they cannot deal with the need for firm, dispatchable generation.

Jamie Langan (Reform UK, South Scotland)

Will Liam Kerr give way?

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

In two seconds, Mr Langan. I am aware that you are there.

What is more, it is well known that the average emissions intensity of imported liquefied natural gas is around three times that of UK domestic gas production—even before the addition of emissions from liquefaction, shipping and regasification. Rejecting North Sea oil and gas does not make emissions disappear; it increases them. That reason alone means that members should not consider the Green amendment further.

Jamie Langan (Reform UK, South Scotland)

Does Mr Kerr regret the Tory Government’s record on oil and gas and its introduction of the energy profits levy?

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Although this is a debate about Rosebank and Jackdaw, let us address the EPL issue. The EPL was brought in as a response to market conditions at the time and to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; it was at a level that the industry understood; it was made temporary; and it was brought in along with investment allowances. The SNP and Labour were huge cheerleaders for it at the time and wanted to hike it even further and to remove the investment allowances.

Another cheerleader for the EPL was Councillor Duncan Massey, who is sitting right in front of Mr Langan. At the time, Councillor Massey was entirely on message and a supporter of it; he wanted it.

Duncan Massey (North East Scotland) (Reform) rose—

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Perhaps Mr Langan might spend more time discussing such things with his colleague before opening him up to ridicule, which he is now desperate to come in on—I am afraid that I do not have time.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

We do have time for you to take the intervention—you just do not want to.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Oh. Well, in that case, I will take Mr Massey’s intervention.

Duncan Massey (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

Clearly, the EPL continued to be in place well after I joined the Conservative Party, and I moved to Reform for the very reason of protesting against that tax, which has absolutely killed the industry.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I do not find anything on record showing that Mr Massey left the Conservative Party in protest at the EPL. What I can find is that his leaving the Conservative Party was awfully proximate to his failure to get on the candidates list when he applied for it. [Interruption.] I tried to protect the member from that revelation, but he was not having it.

The Liberal Democrat amendment is the very embodiment of that party’s refusal to commit to anything and its determination to never actually upset anybody. However, it does recognise the energy security argument for UK production. The UK will continue to need oil and gas, and the more that we get locally, the more we control our energy supply; the less we are exposed to volatile international markets and geopolitical disruption; and the more we leverage our existing North Sea infrastructure and expertise.

Willie Rennie (Liberal Democrat, Fife North East)

[Made a request to intervene.]

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I would really like to take Mr Rennie’s intervention, but I only have six minutes, and I am five and a half minutes in—

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

Interventions are not counted against your time.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Well, in that case, I will take the intervention.

Willie Rennie (Liberal Democrat, Fife North East)

I am glad that the member recognises that we do not set out to offend people like the Conservative Party does. Nevertheless, he has struck on the right issue, which is that we need to deal with demand in this country. Of course, that should be the focus of every bit of Government. Does the member recognise that, so far, this Government has not made the progress on net zero that it should have in order to minimise the impact of those issues?

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I very much do. I welcome the intervention, and I am glad that I took it, because Willie Rennie makes exactly my point, which, I have to say, is what the Greens have missed in their amendment—namely that demand is not going down and that we have to satisfy it. Frankly, after years of rhetoric, this SNP Government is not making the progress that we—as I think it recognises—need, and it is not committing to making that progress in the way that we need to see happen.

I grounded my motion entirely in the economic benefits, such as the fact that, together, Rosebank and Jackdaw represent nearly £11 billion worth of investment, more than three quarters of which is expected to be spent in the UK. Actually, more than £1 billion has already been invested in Jackdaw by Shell. The platform has been installed, a 31km pipeline has been laid, and drilling of the four production wells was completed earlier this year. I mentioned investment. Approving these projects provides a signal to investors that the UK remains prepared to support major energy infrastructure, which is crucial for ongoing economic investment. Rosebank and Jackdaw will support more than 3,500 UK-based jobs at peak construction.

Helen McDade (Reform UK, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Will the member take an intervention?

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I look to the Presiding Officer.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

It is up to the member whether to take the intervention.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I will take the intervention from Helen McDade.

Helen McDade (Reform UK, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I just wonder, Mr Kerr, when you changed your mind from the Conservative position. Was it 10 years ago—[Interruption.]—or five years ago? [Interruption.] I have been talking to people like Murdo Fraser about this—

Rachael Hamilton (Conservative, Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire)

Where were you? You were not here at the start of the debate.

Helen McDade (Reform UK, Mid Scotland and Fife)

That is because it started early.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

I remind members to speak through the chair.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

That is an extraordinary intervention. The member might wish to look back, and she will see that my entire parliamentary career has been spent standing up for oil and gas, standing up for the north-east, and standing up for our brilliant oil and gas workers in the north-east and throughout the UK.

Almost 200 contracts have already been placed across the Rosebank and Jackdaw projects with supply chain companies, which offer—

Heather Anderson (Scottish National Party, Dundee City West)

[Made a request to intervene.]

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I will take the intervention in two seconds

The companies, which offer things such as engineering, fabrication, marine logistics, consultancy and specialist services, include 171 that are registered right here in the UK.

Heather Anderson (Scottish National Party, Dundee City West)

[Made a request to intervene.]

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Two minutes, please, Heather.

All that means that Rosebank and Jackdaw are expected to generate nearly £30 billion in gross value added over their producing lifetimes—including £9.1 billion through supply chain activity—and £1.4 billion in tax revenues by the end of the UK parliamentary term. That will rise to £3.8 billion by 2034. Crucially, consent for Jackdaw and Rosebank will help to sustain the Aberdeen and north-east ecosystem of companies, skilled workers, ports, vessels, fabrication yards and specialist expertise.

Heather Anderson (Scottish National Party, Dundee City West)

Does Liam Kerr acknowledge that the climate science is clear that there is a major issue in approving further drilling? Will he accept that the best way to support workers in the north-east is to support them to transition from the fossil fuel investigation of the past to the renewables of the future?

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I am afraid that Heather Anderson is missing the point in exactly the same way as the Green Party. Simply saying that we will not drill in the UK means that we will have to import oil and gas from somewhere else in order to meet the demand. As Willie Rennie said in his very sensible intervention, we must reduce demand before we can realistically start talking about where we source oil and gas from. We must have a supply from somewhere, and the best place is the North Sea.

The case against providing consent for Jackdaw and Rosebank asks us to believe that refusing British production somehow removes the demand for oil and gas. It does not. It will leave us importing more, while we sacrifice investment, jobs, tax revenues and the industrial capability of the north-east on the altar of ill-informed and dogmatic virtue signalling.

The case for providing consent for those fields is straightforward: it would provide energy security while we transition, economic investment, and the protection of the skilled industrial base that will help to deliver Scotland’s future energy economy. Consent must be provided for those fields.

I have no hesitation in moving,

That the Parliament believes that consent should be granted for the Jackdaw gas field and the Rosebank oil and gas field, recognising the significant economic benefits that this would bring.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

That was a shift, with six interventions.

15:11

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

I welcome the debate that Liam Kerr has secured. I am sure that Reform members will be horrified and shocked that we are having a debate about a reserved issue—one that involves a reserved quasi-judicial decision, at that—but I very much hope that they manage to stay in the chamber until the end of it.

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

Will the minister take an intervention?

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

My word—that was quick.

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

Given how much time was wasted last Wednesday on a reserved matter, we are more than happy to engage on something that is of huge significance to the north-east and the thousands and thousands of people who work in the oil and gas sector there.

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

I would never accuse a member of being ill informed, but, if he was not here, how does he know?

It is not for me to get in the way of a family feud, so I pay tribute to Mr Kerr, because the sector that we are talking about is important to Scotland and touches on crucial issues relating to energy security and the climate emergency. I am glad that we have the opportunity to discuss those issues.

However, it is important to begin with some points of context. In fairness, other members have made some of these points. The global climate emergency is real and requires all countries to respond, including by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. The North Sea is now geologically mature as an oil and gas basin. On a more positive note, there is a huge economic opportunity for Scotland in the transition to renewables, which is also the path to long-term energy security.

That said, it is equally the case that the North Sea oil and gas sector continues to make a vital contribution to our energy system, our economy and our society. That is especially true in the north-east. Although our domestic demand for oil and gas products is declining as we decarbonise systems such as heating and transport, that demand will continue.

Stephen Kerr (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I will ask a direct question. Is there not a huge economic opportunity in the development of Jackdaw and Rosebank? Surely there is, so will the minister come off the fence and state categorically that he and the Scottish Government are in favour of that economic development?

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

Stephen Kerr has asked me to come off the fence, but I do not want to fall into the same trap that the UK Government did previously in a very expensive way, which is why we are having the debate today. To be fair, Mr Johnson has already pointed that out.

We can see a parallel-track approach to energy transition, in which North Sea oil and gas production is managed alongside the increasing deployment of renewables, but let me touch on that point and be clear about consenting for oil and gas fields, including Jackdaw and Rosebank. These are quasi-judicial matters that are reserved to the UK Government. Although I wish that that was not the case; Stephen Kerr likes that it is the case.

Stephen Kerr (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Will the member take an intervention?

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

No, I am going to make some progress.

I wish that that was not the case, but I must operate within the political system that I have, rather than the one that I would like to have. I welcome all converts to the case of independence, but we are not quite there yet. However, Mr Kerr is certainly doing his bit.

We continue to call on the UK Government to approach such decisions in a way that is rigorously evidence-led and to do so case by case. That is the responsible thing to do. Ensuring statutory climate compatibility tests and energy security are key considerations. The process must be followed. Both fields were previously granted consent under the Conservative Administration, but that consent was then removed, which is why we are where we are today.

Let me move on to my own amendment, and a point of substance. The UK remains one of the only states on earth not to have established some kind of futures or sovereign wealth fund. Our neighbours in Norway, who discovered oil at the same time as Scotland, established one in the 1990s. It is now worth £1.5 trillion. Norway is not alone. Azerbaijan, where I worked in the late nineties and very early noughties, established a fund at that point. I remember that country then; it was not the country that it is today. It had just emerged from the Soviet Union. Even so, it established an intergenerational fund, which

“accumulates and preserves the nation’s oil and gas revenues for future generations.”

It was done elsewhere—in Tanzania, Colombia, Mexico, Angola, Gabon, Mauritania and Timor-Leste. It was even done at a sub-state level in Alaska, Alberta and Shetland. All those places established funds, but the UK did not. That is perhaps the defining failure of energy policy in the UK over the past half-century, and it makes the inevitable transition all the harder.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Will the member take an intervention?

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

If he can answer that point, I would love to hear it.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

If the principle is that Scotland should convert a finite natural source of wealth into a permanent future financial asset, why was the £750 million from the ScotWind auction not put into such a fund?

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

First, we have said that we will establish a ScotWind wealth fund during this parliamentary session, which was not done 50 years ago by Labour or Conservative Administrations, to our cost.

I want to touch on the amendment in my name, because there is still a point to be made on that. Even at this late stage, I call on the UK Government to do the right thing and get behind it. I hope that, given his intervention, Liam Kerr will get behind it, too.

During the past four years, the energy profits levy, which was introduced by the Conservatives, has generated £12 billion from North Sea oil and gas—dwarfing the ScotWind funds that Liam Kerr talked about. That policy is driving decline in the North Sea and, shamefully, it is being used to plug short-term spending gaps in the UK. That is grossly irresponsible and places a just energy transition at risk. We continue to call on the UK Government to replace the energy profits levy with a fair system that taxes excess profits but protects jobs, energy security and investment in our energy sector. I very much hope that we will see some progress on that in the budget in the autumn.

I conclude by restating the Government’s unwavering commitment to supporting Scotland’s valued and highly skilled oil and gas workforce during the transition. That workforce gives us a competitive advantage, and we will continue to do all that we can with the limited powers that are currently available to us to support them.

However, we have to start doing things differently. Although colleagues will focus on two individual decisions today, I urge them to look at what can be done, even at a late stage, to help with the transition.

I move amendment S7M-01376.5, to leave out from “believes” to end and insert:

“recognises that the UK Government will be making quasi-judicial decisions in relation to Jackdaw and Rosebank, and in doing so, will have to make assessments, in line with the updated statutory guidance issued following recent court cases, of the full climate impact of those proposals, while also taking due account of energy security considerations; believes that all applications must be fully assessed on a case by case basis within the appropriate legal framework; supports efforts to deliver a just transition and to take climate action to support the utilisation of clean energy to benefit the creation of jobs in the north east and protect the environment, and calls for the creation of a Future Generations Fund from all further income from oil and gas resources taken by the UK Treasury, dedicated to help grow Scotland’s renewables industry, support the communities who have generated hundreds of billions of pounds in taxation for the UK Government, and strengthen the supply chain to ensure ongoing investment and job creation in Scotland.”

15:19

Duncan Massey (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

I am pleased that we have another opportunity to discuss our oil and gas industry. In particular, I hope that the Scottish Government will change its current policy and start backing new projects and new drilling, including at Jackdaw and Rosebank, which seem to have become the most famous oil and gas fields in the history of the entire North Sea.

On the other hand, I am less pleased by the Tory debate. The Tories kid on that they are great champions of the industry after giving it an absolute kicking while they were in government. They were the architects of net zero and, despite what Liam Kerr says, the vast majority of the parliamentary Tory party still are. They introduced the net zero laws that are used to block these much-needed projects, abolished maximum economic recovery as the long-standing national strategy for the industry and replaced an oil-focused regulator with a sinister transition authority. In addition, they introduced the EPL at 75 per cent, which Labour then increased to 78 per cent, further crushing the industry.

I return to this place and the actual debate. This Government—

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

Will the member give way?

Duncan Massey (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

No. I am making my case.

This Government still seems to have a presumption against new oil and gas. It has not updated its energy policy yet. In the programme for government, it calls on the UK Government—

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

On a point of fact, will the member give way?

Duncan Massey (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

Go on, then.

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

I am seeking a bit of clarity. I will not sit here and defend, as he puts it, the “sinister” Conservatives or some of their policies. However, the policies on net zero are there to tackle climate change, regardless of whether we agree on the way in which they are being implemented. Does he agree that we should have net zero? Does he agree that we should be tackling climate change?

Duncan Massey (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

I do think that we should be tackling climate change, but there must be a global policy. Reducing emissions in the UK and Scotland has zero effect; it simply offshores emissions to China, India and the United States. Everyone in this place knows that.

I return to the programme for government. It calls on the UK Government

“to take an evidence-led and case-by-case approach to decisions on North Sea projects, with climate compatibility and energy security as primary considerations.”

The Scottish Government is sitting on the fence. It is pathetic.

The other day, I asked the cabinet secretary what more evidence the Government needs to change its policy and be more supportive. We all seem to acknowledge that the reality, under all scenarios, is that the UK and Scotland will need oil and gas for decades. In the UK, 75 per cent of primary energy still comes from oil and gas. Transport fuels, key chemicals and gases are vital for heating and industrial processes. Of course, the more renewables we add, the more flexible gas back-up we need for generation.

We know that we are still very dependent on oil and gas, that we are facing high prices due to disrupted supply and that emissions are lower for domestic production of oil and gas. Why can we just not acknowledge that and back our North Sea oil and gas industry, which is probably still our largest single employer, our largest taxpayer and our largest single source of project engineering capability? Why not just change the policy and acknowledge that?

The current backdrop could not be more worrying. We may be heading for the mother of all energy crunches this winter. Across Europe, we need more diesel, we need more aviation fuel and we need lots more natural gas. Geopolitics is the proximate cause of the crunch, but decades of delusional policy making have left Scotland, Britain, and all of Europe badly exposed to energy reality. We have less domestic production, we have closed refineries and plants across many sectors, and we have some of the highest energy prices in the world.

Given that backdrop, would it not be good if we could simply start up some ready-to-go new fields? Does anybody know some?

I call again for this Parliament to become a vocal champion of the North Sea oil and gas industry, and not be negative, as it has been in the past, and not to sit on the fence, as it is now. I call for Parliament to give clear, unambiguous support for Jackdaw and Rosebank, for new drilling and licences and, if necessary, for new UK laws.

I also call for clear support for activities that drive jobs, enable supply chains to continue investing and strengthen the North Sea, providing major tax revenues, a stronger balance of payments, greater energy security and the opportunity to reduce imports and costs.

Lloyd Melville (Scottish National Party, Angus South)

Will the member give way?

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

The member is winding up. He is over his time.

Duncan Massey (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

These policies are reserved, but support from this Parliament and from this Government really does matter. Please back our industry, and please back my amendment.

I move amendment S7M-01376.2, to insert at end:

“, and agrees that, for the long-term success of the industry, exploration drilling and licences should be resumed.”

15:24

Daniel Johnson (Labour, Edinburgh Southern)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues, because they are serious, they are important, and indeed, they are urgent.

However, we need to decide what kind of debate we want to have. At times, Liam Kerr was trying to make the reasonable argument and balance the difficulties, but it does not help when he then lapses into slightly unnecessary and, dare I say, slightly hypocritical point scoring.

The reality is this: we are trying to balance four difficult, competing and at times conflicting principles in this debate. The first is the maturity of the UK continental shelf. Secondly, there is an imperative to decarbonise and electrify, not least because of climate change but also because of the maturity of the continental shelf. The third is our ongoing reliance on gas, whether we like it or not. The final point, and I am surprised that no one has brought this up, is the resilience and security of our energy supply.

At times, those things conflict over the short, medium or long term and need to be balanced, but anyone who claims that doing so is simple or binary is not telling the truth. We need to take a balanced approach and have a strategy, but that ultimately relies on making decisions that are robust and defensible, which the Conservatives would do well to think about.

If we look at the continental shelf, the simple fact that anyone who talks about turning on the taps must realise is that 80 to 90 per cent of our extractable resource is gone. To put it another way, we would need four to five times our current gas supply from the North Sea in order to meet domestic demand. We passed the point of self-sufficiency in 2004. However, that contrasts with the point that 2.1 million homes in Scotland are reliant on gas. We need to be very mindful that our heat pump roll-out is proceeding at a rate of just 7,300 a year. At that rate, it will take 280 years for every household to be able to electrify its heat.

I say to those who say that we should not develop the fields that it does matter where our gas comes from. I acknowledge the point that Liam Kerr made, because less than half of our current supplies can come from the UK. Seventy per cent of our imports come from Norway in order to make up that balance. However, the remaining third of our imports comes from other parts of the world, and their carbon footprint is threefold that of gas that comes from the North Sea. Therefore, if we want to reduce our carbon footprint in the short term—this is where the short term and the long term conflict with each other—it makes sense that we use our own supplies. We also need to be mindful of security, because there are those who seek to disrupt our supply.

If it was down to me, I would say yes, because I think that it makes sense to look at these fields, but it is not down to me. The decision that is taken must be robust and, as Mr Gethins pointed out, it is quasi-judicial.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I recognise Mr Johnson’s contribution, but does he acknowledge that, as he said in the debate two weeks ago, it is very important that the chamber shows leadership on this issue? The North Sea transition task force has reported that 25,000 jobs have been lost in the industry since Labour was elected. Surely Daniel Johnson wants to signal in the strongest possible terms that we need to license Jackdaw and Rosebank. Will he?

Daniel Johnson (Labour, Edinburgh Southern)

We need to reach a decision that can be relied on and that will not be challenged in the courts again, which is why we are here. That sums up the hypocrisy and the irony of this debate: although the Conservatives want to point to every other angle in the chamber, this would not be an issue if the decisions had been robust. The delay to approval would not have happened if the environmental impact assessment had taken account of scope 3 emissions and looked at the wider downstream carbon emissions of such extraction. The approvals would have stood if the decisions in 2022 and 2023 had been robust, but they were not, so perhaps the Conservatives should look at themselves.

I appreciate a short motion, and the Conservative motion is short, but if the Conservatives wanted a short motion, perhaps it should have said, “Sorry, we should have made a better decision.” However, I tell you what: if we were going to have motions like that from the Conservatives, there would be little parliamentary business time to consider anything else.

I move amendment S7M-01376.3, to leave out after second “that” to end and insert:

“oil and gas production will remain part of Scotland’s energy mix for decades to come and is vital to energy security and the economic security of working families and communities; notes that decisions on whether to grant consent for the Rosebank and Jackdaw developments will be taken at ministerial level by the UK Energy Secretary through a quasi-judicial process, with final consenting decisions resting with the North Sea Transition Authority; recognises the need for a wider programme of reindustrialisation, supporting jobs, domestic supply chains and investment in communities across Scotland, and believes that the transition to a lower-carbon economy must be a just transition that protects workers and communities while creating new industrial opportunities in the energy industries of the future.”

15:29

Kristopher Leask (Green, Highlands and Islands)

I agree with the minister’s point that, frankly, we are seeing a great deal of hypocrisy, given the debate that we had last week and the opposition that there was to speaking about our constitutional future. Had Mr Kerr’s motion truly tried to deliver for workers in the oil and gas sector and called for concrete action that the Government can deliver, that would have been commendable. Instead, today’s debate demonstrates, once again, that the Tories and Reform do not, in fact, care about the working people in the oil and gas sector and their families. They do not seek to deliver action that we can deliver here.

I take this opportunity to state the blindingly obvious. Tory and Reform members are intentionally misleading Scots to score political points when they say that more oil and gas will create long-lasting jobs, increase energy security or bring down bills. The reality is that, in just a decade, hundreds of new licences have been issued and new fields consented but the number of jobs that are supported by oil and gas has more than halved, from 441,000 to 214,000. Over their lifetime, the new fields are expected to produce a measly six months’ worth of UK gas demand and two months’ worth of oil—so much for job creation and energy security.

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

Will the member take an intervention?

Kristopher Leask (Green, Highlands and Islands)

No, not today. The member can get his party’s Facebook clips on someone else’s time.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has forced the UK to pay an estimated £183 billion in additional energy costs, which, according to the CCC, is £80 billion more than it would have been necessary to invest to enable the entire UK to reach net zero. Therefore, instead of having cheaper clean energy, folks are left with higher energy bills and more exposure and vulnerability to international price shocks.

The evidence could not be clearer: more oil and gas will not save jobs for the future, increase energy security or bring down bills. However, more oil and gas will line the pockets of corporation executives and their shareholders. BP’s profits just increased exponentially, more than doubling year on year to reach over £4 billion. The worst part is that taxpayers contributed to those sky-high profits to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. North Sea fields are now so uneconomical that the projects require tax breaks—and they have done for decades.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Will the member take an intervention?

Kristopher Leask (Green, Highlands and Islands)

No, I am going to continue.

In the case of Rosebank alone, we can expect a net tax loss of more than £250 million, while the field’s owners, Equinor and Ithaca Energy, will earn £1.5 billion in profit.

The Scottish Greens will not support any of the other amendments today or the motion. Although we support the broad principles of the future generations fund that the minister calls for, determining licensing applications on a case-by-case basis is, as the minister knows, a point that we disagree on.

Likewise, although Daniel Johnson’s amendment makes commendable points on the work that is needed to support a transition for workers, it fails to recognise that more dependency on oil and gas is not the same as greater energy security.

Equally, the Liberal Democrat amendment has much the same logic, although I welcome the Liberal Democrats’ recognition of the need to electrify en masse and deliver greater energy efficiency.

Finally, Reform is still grappling with what a finite resource means, and its amendment calls for no actual action to help anyone, be it workers or families, or for lower energy bills, so nothing has changed there.

I encourage—perhaps in vain—members to support our amendment and get squarely behind our oil and gas workers’ and supply chain’s futures for the long term.

I move amendment S7M-01376.1, to leave out from “believes” to end and insert:

“agrees that consent should not be granted for the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gas fields; believes that the exploitation of these fields would neither deliver secure energy jobs for oil and gas workers nor cheaper energy for consumers, but would instead facilitate profiteering by corporate executives and shareholders; highlights polling published earlier in 2026 indicating that almost two thirds of people in Scotland oppose new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea whilst 90% care about climate change; urges both the UK and Scottish governments to support renewable energy, particularly community- or publicly-owned projects, as the only pathway to provide economic security for workers and energy security for the nation, and calls on the Scottish Government to ensure that the Just Transition Fund delivers genuine economic transformation and resilience for workers and communities.”

15:32

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh Northern)

We are, once again, talking about two fields that, although quite different propositions, have together become, to some, a kind of litmus test as to whether someone cares about the climate crisis. The issue of consent for the two fields has become emblematic in a way that is deeply unhelpful and does not do much to move us towards where we all know we need to get to: a society that has weaned itself off fossil fuels.

We also have to be honest that the debate today will do nothing to bring down bills overnight and, no matter how we vote today, it will not solve the climate crisis overnight either. I know that many of us in the chamber take the climate crisis very seriously. I do, and it is one of the main reasons why I am in politics. I have made changes in my life to reduce my dependence on fossil fuels, but I recognise that oil and gas still play a big part in my day to day life, from the way that the food I eat is produced and transported—

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

Will the member give way?

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh Northern)

I will.

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

I thank the member for giving way so early in her speech and for the comments that she has made. I think that she will agree that there have been failures in energy policy. Our amendment seeks to send a message on where the funding should be—it should be used in establishing a futures fund. The UK is about the only country that has discovered oil and gas but has never established such a fund. Given the good sense that I know that she has, will she endorse that approach?

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh Northern)

In response, I only have to point to ScotWind and the points that were made earlier. For the record, I reject the idea that Scotland has not benefited from oil and gas in the past, and we would have concerns about—

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

Will the member give way? I think that she might have misunderstood my intervention.

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh Northern)

I will keep going.

I recognise that oil and gas still play a big part in my day-to-day life, from the way in which the food that I eat is produced and transported and the way in which the buildings that I work in are heated to the way in which the electricity that powers the laptop that I wrote this speech on was generated. The inconvenient truth is that, as a society, we still use too much oil and gas. The fact that we are still, in 2026—with everything that we know about the climate crisis and the causes of it—talking about whether to grant licences shows a failure on the part of successive Governments and society to bring down demand. It is as simple as that. The question must now be how we deal with current demand in the most responsible way while creating a credible and reliable pathway away from oil and gas that is fair to workers. That is the real and complex challenge that Scotland faces, which I think we all recognise in the Parliament.

The oil and gas industry has long been a totemic part of Scotland’s economy, having provided employment, supported businesses and created a generation of highly skilled workers. There are communities that still rely heavily on the industry for their livelihoods. An effective and fair transition must be practical and rooted in the reality that communities in the north-east and other areas face. That means supporting workers and businesses through change and investing in skills and innovations.

While we ramp up the development of renewables projects, it is important that supply chains of skilled workers and infrastructure are maintained. Leaders in the renewables industry will point out that the success of future offshore wind developments relies on those supply chains being in place.

We know that the transition is not moving nearly fast enough, and we need to see more urgency on the part of the Scottish Government, particularly in rural industries such as agriculture, forestry and fishing, where advancements in new technologies are slow. As we know, rural communities are particularly—

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

Will the member give way?

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh Northern)

No, I will make some progress—I am sorry.

Rural communities are paying for the ever-rising cost of fuel and continue to be disproportionately dependent on fossil fuels for heating and transport.

Given that we cannot simply wish away existing levels of demand right now, we have been clear that, if it makes more environmental sense to satisfy some of our current demand for gas ourselves rather than import it from far-flung countries with questionable practices—and we are talking about only a few per cent of our demand—then the UK Government should seriously consider doing so. If we can replace some of our imports that perform worst in carbon intensity, we should consider doing so. Equally, if—as I am being told—it is important for the future of our renewables capacity to maintain supply chains of skilled workers, logistics and infrastructure, that needs to be part of the conversation. However, if, as expected, the UK Government decides to grant consent for Jackdaw, that should be viewed as limited respite in the context of the transition away from fossil fuels.

We should all recognise that the real carbon cost is not in the production of oil and gas, because, fundamentally, it does not really matter where they are produced; the problem is that we are all still burning them. Therefore, reducing Scotland’s reliance on oil and gas must remain central to our response to the climate crisis. That means accelerating the electrification of heating, transport and industry; promoting better energy efficiency in our homes and buildings; and scaling up renewable energy production across the country in a way that does not alienate the communities that host those projects. In that way, our energy demands can increasingly be met by renewable energy sources, oil and gas can stay in the ground, energy prices can come down and Scots whose livelihoods have depended on the energy sector for generations are not simply abandoned but are instead part of an effective and fair transition. Rather than more of these debates, people want their politicians to get round the table and get stuff done.

I move amendment S7M-01376.4, to leave out from “believes” to end and insert:

“notes that the UK Government is due to make a determination on the Jackdaw gas field and the Rosebank oil and gas field; recognises that, in an ever-changing geopolitical climate, there is a real need to consider Scotland's energy security; believes that, in the case of the Jackdaw development, there could be arguments in favour of consent, including lower carbon intensity, improving UK energy security and economic benefits for those communities directly linked to the oil and gas sector that risk being left behind without a strong just transition; further believes, however, that any decision on consent should not delay the transition away from fossil fuels nor the work required to reduce demand for oil and gas; believes that there is a strong need for a greater electrification of heating, transport and industry, an improvement in energy efficiency in homes and an expansion of renewable energy in order to meet net zero objectives, and calls on both the Scottish and UK governments to work together to reduce emissions, drive down demand on fossil fuels and deliver a just transition.”

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

We move to the open part of the debate.

15:38

Stuart McMillan (Scottish National Party, Inverclyde)

I was not too sure whether the Conservatives were trying to play party politics or games today, but thankfully, when Liam Kerr spoke, he referred to the fact that the debate is on a reserved issue, which was not referenced in the motion that he moved. [Interruption.] Sorry, does the minister want to make an intervention? No? Okay.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

Please do not heckle speakers from a sedentary position, minister.

Stuart McMillan (Scottish National Party, Inverclyde)

Particularly when they are from the same side.

Thankfully, the Liberal Democrat and Labour amendments referenced the fact that it is a reserved issue.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Will the member give way?

Stuart McMillan (Scottish National Party, Inverclyde)

I have just started, Mr Kerr. I do not want to have round 2 after last week, so I will see what happens as I continue my speech.

Given that the debate is on a reserved matter, I was waiting for Reform members to stand up and walk out the chamber. Sadly, they are still here and their amendment has been moved. This debate highlights how pathetic their stunt last week was—

Duncan Massey (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

rose—

Stuart McMillan (Scottish National Party, Inverclyde)

If the member will apologise for last week, I will take his intervention.

Duncan Massey (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

The point that we are making is that the Parliament should be an unambiguous supporter of the oil and gas industry and put pressure on the UK Government to make the decision to give consent.

Stuart McMillan (Scottish National Party, Inverclyde)

That was not an apology for last week.

I turn to the motion and the amendments before us. The Scottish Government’s amendment states that the UK Government will be making

“quasi-judicial decisions in relation to Jackdaw and Rosebank”.

The minister touched on that, and the point is also raised in Daniel Johnson’s amendment for Labour. The Government’s amendment also states its belief that

“all applications must be fully assessed on a case by case basis within the appropriate legal framework”,

which Daniel Johnson touched on earlier. In addition, it states that the Government

“supports efforts to deliver a just transition and to take climate action to support the utilisation of clean energy”.

I sincerely wish that we did not have to wait for the UK Government to take decisions about the industry in Scotland. I want Scotland to be a normal independent country, where we can decide energy policy to ensure that we reap the benefits of our extraordinary energy resources. No one can argue that the Norwegians, who have a sovereign wealth fund of $2 trillion, have done a bad job in managing their energy affairs. I say to Stephen Kerr that that is in stark contrast to the daylight robbery that has happened in the North Sea since the 1970s, which has meant that the north-east and other parts of Scotland have not fully benefited from our natural resources.

It was not until 2007, when the SNP came to power, that the Aberdeen western peripheral route, which had been spoken about for many years, could be delivered. I have family who live up in the north-east, and we had spoken about it many times in the past. It was not until the SNP came to power in 2007 that the AWPR could be delivered, despite all the billions of pounds. [Interruption.]

I remind Stephen Kerr that £350 billion went to Westminster, and the money did not always come back to Scotland. For decades, Labour and the Tories have raided Scotland’s energy revenues and treated our oil and gas industry as a cash cow where jobs are expendable. Scotland’s oil and gas wealth has flowed south to fill the coffers of the UK Treasury, leaving Scotland with the economic scraps from Westminster’s table. I will repeat that figure—the Treasury has taken more than £350 billion of Scotland’s energy wealth for Westminster. Despite that, Scots are currently paying some of the highest energy bills in Europe. [Interruption.] Mr Kerr, why should my constituents in Inverclyde be worried about—

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

Speak through the chair. It is not a two-way love-in, if you do not mind.

Stuart McMillan (Scottish National Party, Inverclyde)

It is certainly not a love-in with Mr Kerr.

In an energy-rich Scotland, why should my constituents in Inverclyde be worried about turning on the heating? It is a scandal that some people in Scotland are worried about putting on the heating because of Westminster’s failure.

However, despite the fact that we have missed out on the full benefit of our oil and gas bonanza, with our vast low-cost renewable energy supply—

Stephen Kerr (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Will the member give way on that point?

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

Will the member take an intervention?

Stuart McMillan (Scottish National Party, Inverclyde)

My goodness. I am in my last minute, and I intend to continue.

With our vast low-cost renewable energy supply, Scotland has a second chance to get it right. I am pleased that both the Tories and Reform are calling for the Parliament to state its case today. That might suggest that they are on a journey towards calling for independence; I do not know. I look forward to their contributing to future debates on all energy, social security and taxation powers coming to Scotland, and I particularly look forward to Reform contributing to future debates on rejoining the European Union.

The Tories and other unionist parties have squandered our first energy economy and our first energy opportunity. Let us not let them plunge more households into energy poverty as we move towards renewables.

I am conscious that I am over my five minutes, so I will end on that point.

15:43

Jack Middleton (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Central)

I thank my north-east colleague Liam Kerr for bringing such an important conversation to the chamber. It is a conversation that dominated the summer’s news cycle, and a conversation that it is essential for us to have if we are to address Scotland’s energy needs of today and outline the support that is required to build our industry of tomorrow.

I contend that nowhere was that conversation louder than in Aberdeen Central. My constituency is the principal hub of Scotland’s oil and gas industry, and the local workforce that I represent has powered the UK for decades. Unfortunately, those workers have been let down by politicians of all parties who have allowed this conversation—

Craig Hoy (Conservative, Dumfriesshire)

Will the member give way?

Jack Middleton (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Central)

I will give way to Mr Hoy shortly.

We have allowed this conversation to descend into a false choice between left and right, whereby being pro-North Sea somehow means that we are anti-renewables, with all room for nuance squeezed. All the while, it is Scottish workers who pay the price for wide-scale job losses.

Craig Hoy (Conservative, Dumfriesshire)

The member mentioned Aberdeen Central. If the SNP’s credentials with regard to oil and gas are so in tune with those of the Scottish people and those who live in Aberdeenshire, why did it get absolutely trounced in the Aberdeen South by-election?

Jack Middleton (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Central)

I am pleased that Mr Hoy has given me the opportunity to remind the chamber that I won in Aberdeen Central by 7,000 clear votes. Thank you very much, Mr Hoy.

I have been up front with my constituents, with whom I have an outstanding relationship, about where I stand on these very projects, and I am grateful for the opportunity to express those beliefs on the parliamentary record today.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I am very grateful to the member for giving way. I am genuinely listening to him very carefully, and I hear his position on Jackdaw and Rosebank, but I note that, in August, senior SNP MSP Paul McLennan said that Jackdaw and Rosebank should categorically not be consented to. The member seems to disagree, so at decision time, will he do what he believes in, or will he do what he is told?

Jack Middleton (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Central)

I urge Liam Kerr to have patience and let me make progress with my speech. I assure the chamber that I am big enough and ugly enough to have my own opinions on these things—and if the member gives me the chance, I will formulate them for the chamber.

I share my dismay that the institution with total and absolute decision-making powers on this—the UK Government—has delayed its judgment to suit its own narrow interests. Labour has made the political choice to leave our workers, our industry and our economy in the lurch, because it does not want the energy reality that we all face to be on the ballot paper in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. Liam Kerr has previously described that decision as a disgrace, and I whole-heartedly agree.

However, I ask in good faith, if that delay is reprehensible, what should we make of the fact that the Conservative Government botched approval of these developments and set them back by years? Of course, the only reason we are having this conversation about Jackdaw and Rosebank in September 2026 is that the Tories, by cutting corners, left the projects legally vulnerable.

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

Will the member give way?

Jack Middleton (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Central)

I am going to make progress.

I know that I have limited time, and I digress. From whatever angle we approach this conversation, the reality that we all face is that oil and gas meet 75 per cent of our energy needs. It is totally reasonable to argue that we will have to reduce that reliance, but our need for oil and gas in order to survive will not end next week or next year—or, indeed, next decade—and blocking Jackdaw and Rosebank will not end that need, either.

In fact, blocking Jackdaw’s gas from flowing directly into our grid to heat more than a million homes this winter would place these islands in a perilous position. With gas supplies running low, the Strait of Hormuz blocked and in crisis, and blockages on the gas that we receive from Norway, we would be forced to double down on our ever-increasing reliance on fracked gas from Donald Trump’s regime in America. That gas is liquefied and shipped halfway around the world at a rate of carbon intensity that is significantly higher than that of what we produce domestically.

Let me be clear: while we continue to need oil and gas, I will continue to support using Scotland’s domestic resources over foreign imports. I believe that doing so will provide a much-needed vote of confidence in our workforce and our industry and, more important, it will create wealth for all of Scotland.

How we utilise that wealth, which is generated in Scotland and unlocked by a Scottish workforce harnessing Scottish resources, is deeply important. Mr McMillan touched on the fact that my corner of Scotland has sent more than 300 billion quid in taxes from the North Sea to the UK Treasury. Aberdeen residents like me, Liam Kerr and Mr Massey know that, in comparison with cities in energy-rich, independent nations—I am thinking of Stavanger—my hometown sadly has very little to show for it. Our wealth has been squandered.

Russell Findlay (Conservative, West Scotland)

I appreciate Mr Middleton taking my intervention, and I appreciate, too, his candour in respect of his position on oil and gas. How many of his colleagues share his view?

Jack Middleton (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Central)

As I assured Liam Kerr earlier, I am big enough, ugly enough and, despite some commentary last week from former Government ministers, clever enough to formulate my own opinions and stand on my own two feet to convey them.

We know that these Scottish developments will create close to £1.5 billion in tax revenue by 2029 alone. That is wealth that is created in Scotland and which must stay in Scotland and be invested directly in Scotland’s renewable industry to power our future. That has been my direct plea since giving Jackdaw and Rosebank my full and public support, and I am happy to see that reflected in Stephen Gethins’s amendment.

Earlier this year, a YouGov poll found that almost two thirds of Scots agree that that money should be spent exclusively in Scotland. I hope that my parliamentary colleagues in the Conservative Party can join the majority of their constituents and back my calls on the matter. I am afraid that the Tories are increasingly looking to ape Reform’s rhetoric in their calls for investment to be pulled from renewables projects, much to the dismay of the energy industry. Those calls are setting Scottish workers up to face a cliff edge, just like Labour has done. The Tories’ anti-renewables rhetoric seems to stem from the top of the party in Westminster and it ignores the £150 billion of additional GVA that would be created for our economy by hitting net zero targets and scaling up the energy transition.

The question that we face at decision time is not a binary one about oil and gas or renewables: we need both, and that will continue to be the case for some time. We must accept that reality and work at pace to grow the industry of the future and to create Scottish jobs. That is why I support the amendment in Stephen Gethins’s name.

15:50

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

As others have said, the motion is strangely silent on the fact that licensing is the responsibility of the UK Government and on the fact that a Tory UK Government lost in court for not adhering to net zero legislation. I notice that Liam Kerr did not mention that that legislation was about net zero; that may be because Kemi Badenoch does not allow the Tories to talk about net zero any more.

I will let Stephen Kerr intervene, if he agrees that we still need to work towards net zero.

Stephen Kerr (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

The Conservative Party’s position is very clear: we believe in a balanced approach to meeting our energy needs. I will make a point to Alan Brown about his question on what is not in the motion. I have sat in the chamber for more than five years listening to SNP members regularly opine about all kinds of issues that have nothing to do with the direct remit of this Parliament. What is preventing Alan Brown and other members, following the example of the member for Aberdeen Central, from standing up and saying, “Let’s get on with the development of oil and gas opportunities for the sake of the Scottish economy”?

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

Stephen Kerr’s intervention lasted longer than I have spoke so far and I notice that he still didnae mention net zero.

As others have said, licensing is a quasi-judicial process and needs to be treated as such. However—maybe Stephen Kerr will want to listen to this—I believe that, if climate compatibility tests can be met and if oil and gas imports from other countries can be reduced, there is a logic to considering important revenue implications in relation to the associated licensing. Clearly, job creation and job retention are good for the Scottish economy, given that there has been a decline in the North Sea over the past few years. If we take at face value the information that the company Adura put out, £3.8 billion in tax revenues is to be welcomed.

That reiterates what Scotland’s North Sea sector provides for the UK Treasury and underlines that it is still not too late to create a wealth fund. Many in the chamber, including Liam Kerr, who went on about it earlier, get exercised about how the £700 million of ScotWind funds have been utilised. However, none of those members ever raises a peep about the lack of an oil and gas fund. They shrug their shoulders when we point to Norway’s $2.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund. The £700 million from ScotWind pales against the squandering of the North Sea’s revenues by Westminster for decades. It shows that there has been a big lost opportunity, but it also shows that it is never too late. The £700 million from ScotWind is still a greater legacy than the UK Government has ever created.

Angela Ross (Reform UK, Edinburgh and Lothians East)

Why did the Scottish Government not create a wealth fund with the money that it received from selling the seabed?

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

That is ScotWind. I am sorry—the member will need to educate herself. That is the £700 million.

A future consideration has to be the ongoing development of the offshore energy sector and the development of our supply chain and manufacturing capability, which takes us to the need to reverse the decision on the possible £1.5 billion Ming Yang turbine manufacturing facility at Ardersier.

I will give way one more time.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

On the point about a wealth fund, what is Mr Brown’s answer to why the Scottish Government did not put the £750 million into a ScotWind fund and why it has instead spent around £80 million of it so far?

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

As a fellow member of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, Liam Kerr knows the constraints of the Scottish fiscal framework and why the Scottish Government is having to manage that fund in the way that it is.

On legacy and our future direction, it is also critical that the pathways for the strategic spatial energy plan do not penalise Scotland’s offshore sector. It is bad enough that the existing grid charging system impedes Scottish wind farm developments, without pathways possibly being chosen that do not provide future support for Scotland’s offshore wind farms and grid connections.

Bob Doris (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Kelvin and Maryhill)

There is a lot of misinformation in relation to ScotWind. Does Alan Brown recognise that it is about not only the windfall from the licensing of ScotWind but that, once the projects are up and running, there will be annual income from rental, which will lead to an ongoing legacy for generations to come, under Scotland’s control?

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

I thank Bob Doris for that intervention. I was going to mention that later. He is absolutely right. It is developing the projects to provide the revenues associated with power generation capacity that will create a proper wealth fund for future generations.

At present, when it comes to grid charging, we are told that it is only right that Scottish wind projects pay more money in grid charges than those in the rest of the UK, because that electricity has to be moved south. However, an explanation is never given as to why generators in the south of England are actually paid to connect to the grid.

National Energy System Operator figures show that an intermittent generator in north Scotland pays £28 per kilowatt while, in the Cotswolds, an intermittent generator gets paid £14 per kilowatt. How is that fair or logical, and how does it even adhere to the laws of physics? It is not as if the south of England grid does not require upgrades either. National Grid figures show that £17 billion of grid upgrades are planned for East Anglia, south England and London. How do the negative generation charges pay for that? When will we get a fair grid charging system that does not impede development in the north of Scotland?

There is also a chance for Scotland to be a world leader for floating offshore wind. We are world leading in marine energy, which is another opportunity that can be won or lost, depending on future UK Government support in the contracts for difference auctions. These are technologies that the UK Government could invest in directly as part of a just transition. How beneficial would it be to invest £18 billion directly into those technologies, rather than Sizewell C nuclear station?

We need to see a coherent and wider offshore energy strategy overall. Where are the calls for support for the Acorn carbon capture scheme? The plug was first pulled on Acorn by the UK Tory Government back in 2015. Eleven years on, and what was originally the most advanced cluster now lags behind north of England clusters, which can also access £22 billion of revenue that is allocated for carbon capture and storage. Why are there not louder voices across the chamber calling out the UK Government for its lack of support for Acorn? Why was Grangemouth not supported by the UK Government, when the UK Government can pay £1.3 million a day for British Steel? What effect has the Grangemouth closure had on energy security and transport fuel costs?

Careful consideration must be given to the licensing for Rosebank and Jackdaw and the associated climate compatibility tests and checks. However, much greater efforts have to be put into supporting Scotland’s opportunities for clean offshore energies and creating that wealth fund for future generations.

15:58

Maggie Chapman (Green, North East Scotland)

We are in Scotland’s climate week, which is a celebration of positive action that people are taking across Scotland to lower our climate emissions and to increase our resilience to climate impacts.

The Tories have clearly let that pass them by, just like they must have missed the report four weeks ago from that well-known virtue signaller, the United Nations Environment Programme, that said that the crucial 1.5° warming limit that was agreed in 2015—including by the then Conservative UK Government—will be breached in the next few years, because of the failure to reduce emissions.

The Tories have also somehow missed decades of scientific evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is climate vandalism. Indeed, as long ago as 1977, ExxonMobil’s own research predicted, with terrifying accuracy, that continued burning of fossil fuels would produce dangerous global warming. It is almost as if they do not care. All that matters, it seems, is corporate profit. The oil and gas industry has been complicit in driving climate catastrophe and covering up the evidence.

Today’s motion wants to allow the industry to push us even further and ever faster towards total climate breakdown. We must change course—and fast.

A report that Robert Gordon University’s Energy Transition Institute released this summer makes for uncomfortable reading for the Scottish Government. We have not delivered the jobs transition plans that oil and gas workers in the north-east need or deserve. Simply talking about transition and funding different ad hoc projects does not amount to a plan or strategy. The institute is clear that the next five years will provide the Goldilocks window during which we must match the decline in fossil energy jobs with growth in renewables and other green economy activity to avoid a permanent skills and capabilities decline that would make the transition much harder.

If it is well planned and well spent, the just transition fund could be a game changer for the communities and workers in the north-east of Scotland and elsewhere that currently rely on oil and gas—it could genuinely drive demand reduction. However, the problem is that the fund is not being properly planned, and it is not even being spent. A list of projects is not a plan.

We need a proper strategy that draws together licensing, procurement, funding, supply-chain support, education and skills, and which not only drives down demand but enables the north-east to be the powerhouse of our new green economy. I have been asking the Scottish Government for that plan for years. A draft was consulted on nearly four years ago, but nothing has been published since; when I asked the First Minister about it in February this year, he had no answer. So, after a summer of devastating climate change-induced fires that have ravaged our country, I ask the minister where that plan is and hope that he will answer that question in his closing remarks.

As well as the fact that £500 million is nowhere near enough funding, we are spending what has been agreed for just transition far too slowly—only one fifth of that budget has been allocated so far, with Government allocations at just under £16 million per year from now until 2029-30. Let us be clear that those failures to plan and to invest are a gift to fossil fuel companies, which want to keep drilling, polluting and raking in the cash, and to their supporters in the chamber, who want to help them to drill, pollute and exploit even more. We must do better; otherwise, the disaster capitalists will keep dragging us towards climate chaos.

Communities and workers must be at the heart of our strategy for the future and empowered to own and control their own renewable energy generation and distribution. We must plan for genuine resilience against unpredictable global markets and price spikes that trap people in poverty. The fossil economy will never deliver that resilience; it belongs, as the Conservatives do, in the past.

16:02

Paul Sweeney (Labour, Glasgow)

It feels as if every few weeks we stand in this chamber, trapped in an endless cycle of political short-termism and false binaries as we repeat the exact same arguments about Scotland’s energy mix. I get the frustration, though. World energy markets are in turmoil, and families up and down the country are being squeezed to breaking point at the pumps and by utility bills. Meanwhile, the long, slow decline of the North Sea basin over the past 12 years poses colossal economic challenges to every tier of government—I saw it a decade ago when I was an account manager at Scottish Enterprise. Yet, time and again, the response in the Parliament is to scramble for quick fixes and short-term solutions instead of confronting the foundational truth of how we got here.

We are surveying the wreckage of 40 years of failure of the political economy in this country and 40 years of systemic economic vandalism, engineered by the Conservative Party, which left the proud university city of Aberdeen dependent on resource extraction, handed our strategic sovereign energy assets to foreign multinationals and ensured that an oil and gas boom that was built by Scottish entrepreneurial genius and state support was monetised and strip mined, with privatised profits taken overseas.

Let us remember our economic history. As I have said before, when Margaret Thatcher took power in 1979, the British state still had the power to shape the future of the North Sea and reap its benefits for the people of this country because of Labour Government policy. British Petroleum was majority publicly owned; the British National Oil Corporation, headquartered in Glasgow, was owned outright by the public; and British Gas held direct strategic assets beneath the bed of the North Sea, with a big national storage reserve.

Civil servants warned ministers, and world-leading economists advised ministers, to build a sovereign wealth fund. Likewise, from Parliament to the picket line, the labour movement said, “Take those revenues and deposit them in a national investment bank.” The choice was staring us in the face then: on one side was long-term stewardship, state-led industrial strategy and honest recognition—to quote Labour’s 1983 manifesto—that

“the oil won’t last forever”,

and on the other side was ideological dogma, rapid privatisation and the squandering of our national wealth.

We know what choice the Conservatives made. The party that dared to lecture this nation on fiscal prudence became the party that, in the words of Harold Macmillan, sold off the family silver to bankroll tax cuts and engineer a short-term speculative bonanza in the North Sea.

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

[Made a request to intervene.]

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

[Made a request to intervene.]

Paul Sweeney (Labour, Glasgow)

I have to give way to the minister.

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

I thank Mr Sweeney for giving way. We have heard about ScotWind and producing a wealth fund from an infinite resource. Does he therefore agree that we should have a fund from a finite resource, which is something that Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher and so on failed to create? That fits with the member’s argument beautifully.

Paul Sweeney (Labour, Glasgow)

I absolutely support the creation of a wealth fund in that regard, and I would like to see it financed, but I am concerned by ScotWind being dependent on foreign direct investment. I am also concerned that only 30 per cent of the £29 billion supply chain is destined to come to Scotland. We need to concern ourselves with that.

The Conservative Party, which has dominated British politics for the past 40 years, took the greatest resource bounty in British history—a black gold wave that should have underwritten our schools, hospitals, infrastructure and industrial future for generations—and used it to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest and the welfare bill from the mass unemployment that it deliberately created through an inflationary surge in the pound and the Dutch disease that ensued. The Conservatives sacrificed our steel mills, our shipyards and our coalfields on the altar of free-market dogma, leaving permanent scars that continue to sear with pain across the working-class communities of this country. They could have protected the north-east, built a transition fund and safeguarded the workers in Aberdeen and across Aberdeenshire, but they did not care. They abandoned those workers, and that is precisely why the Scottish people rose up in 1997, including in the old Conservative heartlands, wiped the Conservative Party off the political map of this country and voted to build this Parliament.

Colleagues, it did not have to be this way. We need only look across the North Sea to Norway. In 1990, Norway made a different choice. It took its petroleum wealth, stood up a state oil company and built a sovereign wealth fund. That required fiscal discipline and vision, but today that fund stands at more than $2.2 trillion. That is a permanent national legacy. The fund guarantees public services, funds state-of-the-art infrastructure and protects future generations for ever.

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

Will the member give way?

Paul Sweeney (Labour, Glasgow)

I am glad that Mr Brown is in such violent agreement with me, but I will not be giving way.

The Conservative Party robbed that future from the people of Scotland and the United Kingdom, so let us face that reality today. The North Sea is a mature basin that is in terminal decline. Fluctuations in world commodity prices might yield temporary blips, but the trend is clear. We cannot leave our country or the north-east region hostage to the whims of global market volatility, foreign-owned capital or resource depletion.

The economic ruin left to us by decades of Conservative failure will not be fixed overnight, but through a genuine state-driven green just transition, underwritten by public investment, strong trade union jobs and local supply-chain content, we can reindustrialise Scotland. We can ensure that the wealth created by Scotland’s wind, wave and energy potential stays in the hands of the working people who build it and is not exported to foreign shareholders again and again.

However, we seem to be repeating the same mistakes, with our dependence on foreign firms, the selling off of key assets such as Wood Group and the failure to invest the ScotWind proceeds. As I mentioned, only 30 per cent of the supply chain is coming to Scotland, which is not good enough. I urge the Scottish Government to do better and support the amendment in the name of my friend, the member for Edinburgh Southern.

Katy (Labour, West Scotland)

I call Mark Simpson. We have no time in hand.

16:08

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

I will briefly sum up. I will start with what Jack Middleton said, because I quite liked what he said. It is a shame that it took him five minutes to say that he supported oil and gas drilling, but it was good that we got there in the end. We know Mr Middleton’s view quite clearly—he supports oil and gas drilling—but I suppose it would be quite useful for Scotland to know how many of Jack Middleton’s colleagues share his view. There we go—silence.

I point out to the Greens that in a debate, it is disappointing that they do not wish to debate. I will just issue a quick reminder that Scotland accounts for 0.07 per cent of global emissions.

In the debate, it is important to zoom out a bit and take a look at the bigger picture to try to understand why we are in this sorry state in the North Sea. The answers come from the party on the benches behind me. During the Conservatives’ years in power, they were the strongest advocates for net zero. Theresa May said that the UK should be “truly proud” of legislating for it. Boris Johnson came out and said that he was setting the

“most ambitious targets to cut emissions”

in the world.

We are very fortunate that Richard Tice, the then deputy leader of Reform UK, warned that net zero policy would drive up bills and said that Britain should become self-sufficient using its own oil and gas. I am delighted to say that, once again, the wisdom of Reform UK was proven to be correct. If Reform UK had not raised those concerns about the costs and impact of net zero and had not surged in the polls, I wonder whether the Conservatives would have ever changed course and abandoned net zero. I sincerely doubt that they would have done.

In September 2021, Kwasi Kwarteng was the energy secretary. He accepted that, as wholesale gas prices surged, suppliers would go bust. We ended up with 30 suppliers going bust, which affected 4 million customers and cost the taxpayers about £2.7 billion. After 11 years of Government, how had the Conservatives created a market so fragile that a wholesale price shock could wipe out numerous suppliers?

Lloyd Melville (Scottish National Party, Angus South)

Mark Simpson is putting the words of Kwasi Kwarteng into the Official Report and seems to be in support of them, from what I can glean. What other lessons does he take from the man who single-handedly crashed the UK economy four years ago?

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

I am quite confident in saying that I have never supported Kwasi Kwarteng.

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

Malcolm Offord did.

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

I am not Malcolm Offord, for the avoidance of doubt. I will let Malcolm Offord speak for himself.

In April 2022, when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, he admitted that Britain had

“drifted into dependence on foreign sources”

of energy because of

“policy fudges, decision-dodging and short-term thinking”.

The record is damning: net zero targets, the imposition of the energy profits levy and an admission of failure and bad policy after the damage was done. Reform UK warned about that and has been proved right. Sadly, it was the public who paid the price for the Conservative failure.

Rachael Hamilton (Conservative, Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire)

Does Mark Simpson believe that it would be wise to register Reform’s interests while he is speaking, particularly since Christopher Harborne is a major donor to Reform?

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

I am sorry—I am talking in a debate about oil and gas. Why would I be registering Christopher Harborne?

Rachael Hamilton (Conservative, Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire)

Well, that is my point—

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

So the answer is no.

I turn to the motion. Jackdaw is 150 miles east of Aberdeen. It is a gas field that is already installed and linked to existing infrastructure. Operators say that it could be connected to the UK network within months and, at peak, could provide more than 6 per cent of the UK’s gas supply, which could heat around 1.4 million homes. Rosebank is Britain’s largest untapped oil field. Together, they could account for 10 per cent of UK domestic gas production.

Opponents say that we should instead import gas. That is the same short-term thinking that Boris Johnson admitted to in 2022. We know that imported LNG is, on average, far more carbon intensive—

Katy (Labour, West Scotland)

Mr Simpson, you have had your intervention time back. Unfortunately, we have very little time, so please draw your comments to a close.

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

The Parliament should agree that consent should be granted for the Jackdaw gas field and the Rosebank oil and gas field, recognising the significant economic benefits that they would bring.

16:13

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

I again thank Liam Kerr for securing the debate. I do not want him to get thrown out of his own party for references to net zero. Councillor Massey certainly would not get thrown out of the Conservative Party for some of his beliefs. It has been hard to be in the middle of what has been, for a great deal of the debate, a family dispute, but, sad as that is, there are even more serious issues that need to be tackled.

I am really glad that Reform members managed to make it all the way through a debate about a reserved issue without walking out; I congratulate them on that. It is quite the transition: not only are they now sitting through and contributing to debates on reserved issues but they now think that we should be influencing policy from China, as well. I am afraid that, just as I cannot influence a UK Government decision on the issue, I certainly cannot influence the decisions that are made in Beijing. That has been quite the jump.

On Labour’s perspective, I thank Mr Johnson for a serious intervention, because the consent is a quasi-judicial decision. Mr Johnson was right to reflect on that situation, given the mess that the Conservatives have made in relation to the matter and the fact that that is what has brought us to this point today.

We will back Labour’s amendment and our amendment, but I gently point out that the sole difference between the amendments is a commitment to the sovereign wealth fund—a future generations fund—that was endorsed by Mr Sweeney earlier. I congratulate Mr Sweeney on coming round to that, and I look forward to Labour voting for it, given that it said that it is something that it will back.

Paul Sweeney (Labour, Glasgow)

It is important to note, as a point of procedure, that pre-emption applies, so that is not possible. However, we agree, in spirit, that we would support the idea.

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

When it comes to a multibillion pound sovereign wealth fund, I am sure that the member can overcome his concerns around pre-emption, especially given that the energy profits levy has raised £12 billion in just four years—an amount that dwarfs what it is possible for ScotWind to produce.

On that point, let me turn to the Liberal Democrats. I find it astonishing that the Liberal Democrats want us to produce a sovereign wealth fund for an infinite resource—I agree with them on that—but not produce a sovereign wealth fund for a finite resource, when that has been established everywhere else in the world. Can Sanne Dijkstra-Downie explain her thinking behind that?

Willie Rennie rose—

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

Maybe Willie Rennie can do some of the talking for her.

Liam McArthur (Liberal Democrat, Orkney Islands)

Behave yourself.

Willie Rennie (Liberal Democrat, Fife North East)

Yes, I think that that is inappropriate. Sanne Dijkstra-Downie is more than capable of speaking for herself.

Is this not just a bit of a distraction from the fact that the SNP has failed for years to set up a wealth fund, based on the resource that it has? Is the SNP not seeking to divert attention to a UK Government for a failure that—as it recognises—it has also made for a number of years? Surely the minister should focus on what his Government can do with the money that it has, given that it has failed to act on that so far.

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

I will happily give way to Sanne Dijkstra-Downie on this point, if she wants to come in.

No?

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh Northern)

Please carry on.

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

“Please carry on.” Thank you very much.

On that point, this is a Conservative motion on the oil and gas industry. It is a Conservative failure on a futures generation fund, which simply was not set up under Labour and was not set up under a Conservative-Liberal Administration when they had the ability to do so. This Government has put such a fund for the infinite resource of renewables in the programme for government. That is not in the UK Government’s programme for government, and it is entirely appropriate for us to make that case. I fail to see why the Liberal Democrats think that a fund should be set up for an infinite resource but not a finite resource.

Mr Leask accepts those broad principles, and I thank him for that.

Paul Sweeney (Labour, Glasgow)

[Made a request to intervene.]

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

I should make some progress.

With regard to my colleagues, Stuart McMillan is right to say that this is a reserved issue, and the difference between independence and union is illustrated by the fact that £450 billion has been squandered, making the transition to renewables more difficult. That is a failure of half a century of Westminster energy policy.

Jack Middleton was right to highlight some of these issues. We are now waiting for the Holborn and St Pancras by-election before we even get a decision. Jack Middleton has been a champion for his city and this sector. Alan Brown was right to say that there has been no mention of net zero and to talk about the lack of support for the Acorn project and for Grangemouth.

Mark Simpson (Reform UK, North East Scotland)

Will the member take an intervention?

Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party, Dundee City East)

No, I am reaching the end of my speech, and I do not want to get Mark Simpson into any more trouble than he is already in with his party. He talked about Reform’s surge in the polls. It was such a surge that it came third. Talking about by-elections, it was such a surge that, in the by-election in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry in the north-east—the same place that he stood—the SNP’s vote went up.

The lack of a wealth fund has been the most monumental failure of half a century of Westminster control over oil and gas. It makes the transition to renewables more difficult. I would not have thought that our amendment was terribly controversial. Lots of people agreed with it, and I therefore hope that they will back our amendment.

16:19

James Adams (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I am in a bit of shock, because I have found myself agreeing with multiple parties from across the chamber during the debate. I agree with Duncan Massey that this Parliament should be a champion of the oil and gas sector. That is why I am standing here today. I was so close to agreeing with everything that Jack Middleton said—I agreed with him until the end of his speech. I welcome his tone and his dialogue, and I hope that that will continue.

Today’s debate is about whether we stand up for the communities in the north-east that rely on the oil and gas sector, and it is about how workers in that sector contribute to our security and our economy. As we heard from Liam Kerr, Labour is currently obsessed, as we saw at its party conference, with leading the world in virtue signalling. The SNP has a continued presumption against new oil and gas exploration, but, from what the member for Aberdeen Central said, that might be mellowing a bit. Such policies have had a direct impact on investor confidence. They have cost thousands of jobs and billions of pounds in lost revenue.

The Green position is clear: they fantasise that shutting off our domestic production will somehow make the demand for hydrocarbons magically disappear. However, as Willie Rennie noted, that demand—currently, oil and gas account for about 75 per cent of the UK’s whole energy supply—will not disappear. What will disappear are the jobs, technology, expertise and capital funding that are needed to deliver a successful home-grown energy transition.

The Scottish Conservatives have been consistently clear: Jackdaw and Rosebank should be approved without further delay. Giving those projects the green light is not radical or controversial; it is just common sense.

According to the latest regional estimates, the UK oil and gas sector supported about 83,700 Scottish jobs and contributed some £14 billion to the economy in 2023. Those are not abstract numbers. They represent livelihoods, supply chains and world-class skills and technologies across Scotland, which cannot simply be switched off like a tap and switched back on when another industry eventually needs them. Every month of delay creates more uncertainty and sends a message to investors that this country is not serious about supporting domestic energy production. We should be serious about keeping the jobs, skills and technologies alive in the oil and gas sector.

The approach makes no environmental sense. Importing liquefied natural gas is more carbon intensive, and shutting down domestic production would not end demand but would simply export production, emissions, jobs and much-needed tax revenue elsewhere.

The approach also makes no sense for our energy security. At a time when countries across the world are prioritising home-grown energy, Labour appears to be spending billions of pounds on increasing dependence on imports rather than backing the resources and skills that we already have in Scotland.

Members have argued that we need more renewable energy, and I do not necessarily disagree. The UK has decarbonised more than any other developed country so far, but we are not there yet. We need oil and gas, so it makes sense to produce our own as much as we can for as long as we need it.

I welcome Michael Marra’s unequivocal support for Jackdaw and Rosebank. He gave that support, as any sensible loon from the north-east of Scotland would—much like Jack Middleton—but leadership means bringing his party with him. Today’s test is whether Scottish Labour MSPs will vote for the position that their leader has publicly adopted.

John Swinney says that his Government supports Scotland’s oil and gas workers, but he has repeatedly refused to say whether he backs Rosebank and Jackdaw. He and his MSPs finally have an opportunity to get off the fence. Today’s choice is straightforward: members can support responsible domestic production, Scottish workers and billions of pounds of investment in this country while we continue to build our renewables sector, or they can vote for more delay, greater import dependence and the continued erosion of our world-class home-grown supply chain. Ultimately, the decision is for the UK Government. Andy Burnham has promised pragmatism in relation to the North Sea, but the Scottish Parliament should now demand delivery.

Alexander Dennis Ltd

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

The next item of business is a statement by Stephen Flynn on Alexander Dennis Ltd. Questions will be taken at the end of the statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions.

17:44

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

I welcome this opportunity to update the chamber on developments in relation to Alexander Dennis and the ways in which the Scottish Government is working with the company to ensure that it remains a key part of our industrial base.

In June 2025, the then Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes, came to the Parliament to update members on the news that Alexander Dennis, a subsidiary of the Canadian NFI Group, had commenced consultation on a new strategy for its United Kingdom manufacturing operations. The strategy proposed to consolidate all UK bus body manufacturing operations into a single Alexander Dennis site at Scarborough in England, closing the Falkirk site and suspending production at Larbert. That devastating news meant that up to 400 roles were placed at risk of redundancy, which affected nearly one quarter of the company’s workforce.

At that time, our priority was to support the skilled manufacturing workers of Alexander Dennis. Their interests and the interests of their families, the local communities of Falkirk and Larbert and the broader supply chain have always been paramount. Our determination to support those workers has not changed.

Over the past 15 months, that determination has seen ministers engage closely and regularly with the leadership of Alexander Dennis and the unions that represent its workforce. Only last month, the First Minister met the chair and the chief executive of NFI Group alongside the chief executive of Alexander Dennis to discuss the outlook for the business, support for bus decarbonisation and any potential further support. I believe that we share a determination to ensure that Alexander Dennis is a successful business that delivers the products that customers demand and trust and offers high-quality job opportunities now and into the future.

The trade unions—Unite the Union and GMB Scotland—have also been invaluable in amplifying the voice of the workforce and engaging constructively to find a solution to Alexander Dennis’s decision to consolidate manufacturing operations in Scarborough. Both the Government and the unions have consistently and actively sought alternatives to redundancy. I am clear that, in the case of the Scottish Government, we have done everything in our collective power to protect skilled employment in this case.

We have a long and proud history of supporting Alexander Dennis to innovate in the face of intense international competition, support bus travel and help bus operators to make the switch to electric vehicles. Alexander Dennis is Scotland’s only bus manufacturer and is key to our country’s advanced manufacturing base. The company’s expertise and industrial capability are important to Scotland’s ability to participate in and benefit from the transition to net zero transport.

For those reasons, we have invested heavily in Alexander Dennis over many years to support technology development, skills and cultural transformation. Over the past decade, Scottish Enterprise has awarded £30.5 million in research and development support to Alexander Dennis to spur the development of ultra-low-emission and zero-emission technologies. In 2016, a grant of £7.3 million was provided to support the development of innovative low-carbon buses. In 2020, an additional £10 million was provided to develop zero and ultra-low-emission buses. In 2023, a further £13.2 million was awarded for the development of zero-emission technology to support the creation of new battery electric and hydrogen powertrains.

In addition to those research and development grants, the Scottish Government also offered subsidy to support the company’s furlough scheme. Last September, following a thorough review of options and in consideration of the economic value that Alexander Dennis brings to Scotland, the Scottish ministers agreed to award a grant to Alexander Dennis in support of its company furlough scheme, in line with the Subsidy Control Act 2022. It should be noted that the UK Labour Government made no such offer.

Funding of up to £4.1 million was offered to support the company’s furlough scheme for up to 26 weeks. It was applicable only to shop-floor workers based in Scotland whose roles were linked directly to bus production. The grant that was offered was a time-limited, proportionate and targeted intervention that was designed to preserve zero-emission bus production in Scotland, while limiting the burden on taxpayers.

Our aim was to retain a valuable skills base during a period of market uncertainty and to prevent the loss of capabilities that would be difficult, costly and time consuming to recreate. This was a truly innovative and exceptional intervention—the first and only time that the Scottish Government has offered subsidy to support a company-administered furlough scheme. As we made clear to Parliament at that time, if all the conditions of the furlough grant were met, including evidence of head count retention and contracted orders for buses to be built in Scotland, Alexander Dennis would be entitled to recover from the Scottish Government up to 80 per cent of the basic wage costs of its manufacturing staff in Scotland, up to a maximum claim of £2,500 per employee per month.

The terms and conditions of the grant were developed and negotiated jointly with the business, with a view to making our shared objective of sustaining the workforce through a temporary gap in orders. Alexander Dennis accepted those terms and conditions, including those on the evidencing of contracts and continued bus building in Scotland before any payment from the Scottish Government could be made.

However, since the furlough grant was offered, the company has changed its plans and is now pursuing a different option, based on all bus production taking place at Scarborough and chassis production work being brought in house at Larbert. As a result, the grant conditions are not met and the Scottish Government is not able to make payment to Alexander Dennis. Although extremely disappointing, that is consistent with the arrangement that we agreed with the company. However, as I said earlier, we continue to work closely with the company to secure continuity of employment for the highly skilled workers at Alexander Dennis and the future of manufacturing in Scotland.

I emphasise that the Government has taken the actions needed to promote the best outcomes for the workers at Alexander Dennis. Since the company’s announcement in June last year, ministers have worked intensively with Alexander Dennis and trade unions to pursue every possible initiative to retain the jobs in Scotland. We have always sought to understand the core issues and explore all available avenues of support. That is why we agreed a unique furlough support grant worth up to £4 million, based on a set of conditions that included securing a minimum number of orders and safeguarding a minimum number of bus manufacturing jobs in Scotland.

The fact that those conditions have not been met is deeply disappointing. We are encouraged, however, that the company has invested in chassis manufacturing at Larbert to retain skills and keep open options to return future bus building to Scotland. The Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise are continuing constructive discussions with the company as part of our engagement to protect jobs and keep skilled manufacturing in Scotland.

I will be happy to answer members’ questions, and I commit to returning to the chamber when further updates are available.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

I will allow around 20 minutes for the cabinet secretary to answer questions on the issues raised. Members who wish to ask a question should press their request-to-speak buttons now.

Graham Simpson (Reform UK, Central Scotland and Lothians West)

I thank the cabinet secretary for the advance sight of his statement, which merely reaffirms the Government’s position that Stephen Flynn has already outlined this week.

Stephen Flynn described the mooted furlough scheme that was announced by Kate Forbes as

“a truly innovative and exceptional intervention”.

It would have been had it happened, but it did not. Had the reopened Scottish zero emission bus fund—ScotZEB2—process, which he did not mention, delivered the expected volume of buses in the timescale expected, the terms of the furlough scheme would have been met. It was the Scottish Government shifting the goalposts on ScotZEB2 that forced Alexander Dennis to pursue a different outcome for Larbert. Alexander Dennis feels that it has been hung out to dry by the Government. It expected at least some of the furlough money but instead has had to heavily invest in turning Larbert into a chassis-making centre. All the while, taxpayers’ money is being used to buy buses from China.

Here is an idea that I would like the cabinet secretary to consider. Could the £4.1 million that was allocated for furlough be repurposed as part of a wider package of financial support from the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise to help to pay for some of the infrastructure investment at Larbert and/or to support the company’s new product development? However we have arrived at this point—it kind of does not matter—that would be a constructive and positive outcome for Alexander Dennis and its workforce, as well as for the Scottish Government.

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

I am not entirely sure from Mr Simpson’s remarks whether he believes that we took the right course of action on the furlough. I will be explicit to him, as I was yesterday to his party colleague: the conditions of the furlough were not met. It would not be correct, nor would it be right, for the Scottish Government to make payment given that those conditions were not met. I hope that Mr Simpson would agree with that principle, given that we are talking about public money.

I assure Mr Simpson and members that our engagement with Alexander Dennis will continue on a constructive basis. Scottish Enterprise is fully engaged with the company to ensure that it has a successful future in Scotland. We have a shared ambition in that regard, and I am keen to ensure that it happens.

Daniel Johnson (Labour, Edinburgh Southern)

I, too, thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement. There is a key question about timelines. The furlough window closed at the end of March, and I understand that Alexander Dennis sought to draw down at that time. My understanding is that all the facts that are being relied on by the cabinet secretary were known at that time. Therefore, why has it taken until now for those facts to be brought forward by the Government? Why did the Government not set those facts out to the Parliament before the summer? Did the delay create any impediment to the management and the trade unions that have worked so hard to preserve jobs? It would be a matter of public concern if there were any delays that caused issues.

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

In response to a question on the same theme this morning from Mr Rennie at the Transport Committee, I outlined my written response to a question—I believe from Mr Stephen Kerr, whom I spot at the back of the chamber—in which I was explicit about the non-payment of the furlough because the conditions had not been met. I am here, in the chamber, now, to answer questions from members on why that was the case. I have been explicit to the Parliament that conditions were not met. Given that is the case, it is right and proper that the Scottish Government does not pay out.

Gary Bouse (Scottish National Party, Falkirk West)

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for his statement this afternoon on an important manufacturing business that is based in my constituency. The cabinet secretary will recognise that the workforce and my constituents are concerned that Alexander Dennis failed to meet the agreed conditions of the furlough scheme, which were put in place last year. The company should set out clearly why it failed in that regard. What ongoing work is the Scottish Government undertaking to support bus manufacturing? I asked that question earlier this afternoon, but I would like to hear the answer this time, because there was a certain amount of hilarity when I first asked it. There should never be hilarity when we are talking about people’s jobs. Will the cabinet secretary also assure me that the Scottish Government continues to press the UK Government to make the necessary legislative changes to the Subsidy Control Act 2022?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

For members who were not here earlier in the afternoon, the hilarity that Mr Bouse refers to was laughter from the Reform benches with respect to this issue, which was deeply regrettable in my view—and clearly in Mr Bouse’s view, too.

Over the course of recent years, the Scottish Government has, through the ScotZEB scheme and its predecessors, been able to provide significant sums of money to companies in order to allow them to procure buses from Alexander Dennis, which has helped to sustain the company. Over the course of the past year or so, we have engaged proactively and constructively with Alexander Dennis on the furlough. Unfortunately, the conditions have not been met. On top of that, some £30 million-worth of R and D funding has been provided to Alexander Dennis to allow the company to innovate and compete in a robust international market. That was done in good faith.

We will continue to act in good faith with the company, because we want to do everything that we can to support the workforce that Mr Bouse represents.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

I call Gillian Mackay, who is participating remotely.

Gillian Mackay (Green, Central Scotland and Lothians West)

The cabinet secretary has laid out a number of measures that have been taken to help to support Alexander Dennis, but those measures will not be helping the workers, who will be concerned for their livelihoods, given what is now unfolding at the business.

Other schemes have been put in place for people who have lost their jobs around the Falkirk area, including at Ineos in Grangemouth. Is any such work being undertaken in the event that that is the way that jobs go at Alexander Dennis? What other support can the Scottish Government provide in the light of the ongoing issues?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

As I outlined in my statement, the company has committed to chassis manufacturing at Larbert, which I think is a positive step. If the opportunity arises for the company to return bus manufacturing to Scotland, I would be very supportive of that.

The workforce deserves our continued support, and we will certainly continue to provide that on behalf of the current and future generations.

Stephen Kerr (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

It is no wonder that Gillian Mackay’s son was crying.

Thank goodness I asked a written question, because if a written question had not been asked, we would never have had a statement. I say to the cabinet secretary that, frankly, it is a disgrace that he would not have volunteered the information to the Parliament unless I had asked that written question. I think that that is appalling. The First Minister, by the way, was busy claiming that the jobs in question had been saved. At election time, SNP candidates were busy parading around all over the place with leaflets that said, “We’ve saved these jobs.” It was an election con. That is how it comes across.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

We need a question, Mr Kerr. A lot of members want to ask questions.

Stephen Kerr (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I understand that.

Why did it take three months from the point at which the company requested that a portion of the grant be paid for the Government to get back to it and tell it that it was not going to get a penny? Why did that take three months? Was it because of the election? Why has Stephen Flynn not spoken to a UK minister about the biggest issue in connection with this whole saga—the imported Chinese buses? Why has he never had a single contact with the UK Government about that? Why has he not spoken to the company even now? That needs explained. What is he going to do to secure manufacturing jobs at Larbert? Will he answer the question that Graham Simpson asked about other support that might be better for the company?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

The member seems very interested in my diary arrangements, but let me be very clear with him. There is no higher office in this land—[Interruption.]

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

Mr Kerr, if you ask a question, please wait for the answer.

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

Presiding Officer, I will deal with him, if you are happy for me to do so.

There is no higher office in this land than the office of First Minister. If Stephen Kerr had listened to my statement, he would have heard that the First Minister met NFI and Alexander Dennis on 31 August. We are keen to ensure that there is constructive and continued dialogue with the company, to help ensure that it is able to maintain operations in Scotland. We have a shared interest in that regard, and we will continue to work to that end.

Willie Rennie (Liberal Democrat, Fife North East)

It looks as though we have to guess what the cabinet secretary is hiding before he is prepared to tell us.

The cabinet secretary now has £4.1 million that he was not expecting to have in his budget. As we have a joint determination for the company to succeed, is he now trying to find a different avenue for getting that funding to the company, so that we can have more Scottish buses on Scottish streets?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

As I outlined earlier, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Government remain in continued dialogue with Alexander Dennis to discuss its plans at present and, indeed, its plans for the future. I assure the chamber that, if there are any further updates to be provided in that regard, I will provide them.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

Thank you. Every party has had a member ask a question, and we are already 12 minutes in. I am afraid to say that not everyone is going to be able to ask a question, given the length of questions.

Clare Haughey (Scottish National Party, Rutherglen and Cambuslang)

I share the cabinet secretary’s concern that Alexander Dennis did not meet the agreed conditions and welcome the continued efforts of the Scottish Government to support skilled workforces and preserve manufacturing bases here in Scotland. It is vital that, across Scotland’s industries, we continue to support Scotland’s supply chains and manufacturing capabilities. Can the cabinet secretary say any more about the Scottish Government’s work to that end?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

We have spent a significant amount of money—and rightly so—on ensuring that we decarbonise our bus fleet across Scotland. Alexander Dennis is one of many companies that have been able to receive that support. I think that around 40 per cent—37 per cent, if I remember correctly—of ScotZEB money has been linked directly to Alexander Dennis.

That builds on the wider investment that we are making across Scotland in our bus network, whether it be the direct financial support through the network support grant to ensure that our buses can run—the £6.5 million due to recurring costs—the £55 million bus infrastructure fund that I announced this summer or the considerable concessionary card payments that we make to companies to ensure that people right across Scotland can benefit from bus travel. That package is intended to deliver for the people of Scotland, and we are very proud of it.

Amanda Bland (Reform UK, Central Scotland and Lothians West)

The First Minister has met the company, but the cabinet secretary has not done so since being appointed on 20 May 2026. Does he now plan to meet the company?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

As I made clear to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee just yesterday, I was unable to attend the meeting with the First Minister on 31 August.

Craig Hoy (Conservative, Dumfriesshire)

Where were you?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

Where was I, Mr Hoy? I was at a funeral.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

Excuse me—speak through the chair, please.

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

I was at a funeral for a good friend of mine, who had sadly passed away. I am sorry that I was not able to meet the company on that day, but I will endeavour to engage with it proactively and constructively moving forward.

Martyn Day (Scottish National Party, Falkirk East and Linlithgow)

I understand that Transport Scotland has been working with the UK bus manufacturing expert panel to develop a demand pipeline for zero-emission buses. Can the cabinet secretary provide an update on that work, which could have huge potential for domestic manufacturing?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

The UK Department for Transport published on 16 March 2026 its 10-year zero-emission bus order pipeline, which brings together data on anticipated zero-emission bus orders from local authorities and bus operators for the period from 2026 to 2035. That welcome, though much-delayed, development shows the size of the prize that is available. The challenge for UK ministers now is to ensure that their subsidy and procurement rules do not impede domestic manufacturers from claiming that prize.

Jenny Young (Labour, Central Scotland and Lothians West)

This is a deeply worrying development for my constituents in the Falkirk area, and my thoughts are very much with the workforce and trade unions based at Alexander Dennis.

I want to press the cabinet secretary on a question that he has avoided answering a couple of times now. The Government knew in March that Alexander Dennis was moving to chassis manufacturing and that, as a result, the conditions had not been met. Why did it take three months to inform the company of that, and why has it taken six months for this to be dragged out of the Government by the Opposition?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

Members on the Labour benches seem very vexed at my being in the chamber today to give a statement on this particular issue, but not a single one of them has yet mentioned that not a single finger was lifted by the UK Government to offer any sort of financial support to Alexander Dennis. Perhaps they should have conversations with their colleagues in London on why they did not seek to provide further support, whereas we did.

Dawn Black (Scottish National Party, Angus North and Mearns)

Can the cabinet secretary provide details of the Scottish Government’s latest engagement with employees and trade union representatives to ensure that their voices inform the Scottish Government’s next steps?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

Dawn Black’s question gives me an opportunity to reiterate my thanks to the unions for their constructive dialogue over many months on this deeply challenging situation. I met them shortly after coming into office and I had a discussion with them earlier this afternoon. They should be incredibly proud of their determination to do the best by their workforce. I assure them and the chamber that I will work with the unions to try to do our level best to support people in the local area.

Patrick Harvie (Green, Glasgow)

When a once locally owned business can be bought by a foreign owner, leaving local jobs at the mercy of remote decision makers, that is surely a reminder that the private sector cannot be relied on to deliver the investment that we need in a just transition. What we need is a Government with an active industrial strategy so that skilled workers are not at the mercy of corporations.

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

If Mr Harvie has any suggestions that he would like to propose to me that are fully costed and deliverable, I am more than happy to engage with him on that basis.

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

The cabinet secretary outlined that there were two conditions for the furlough scheme: head count retention and the retention of bus manufacturing orders in Scotland. Did the company keep the head count? How many jobs are at risk? The cabinet secretary said that the company wants to keep open the option to return to bus manufacturing in Scotland. How realistic is that?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

That will very much be determined by the number of orders that the company can secure from the market across the UK. As I alluded to earlier, it is important that the UK Government reflects on its procurement and subsidy rules in that regard.

With regard to the workforce numbers, the company did not meet the expectations that were agreed between the Government and the company, which is why the furlough grant was not paid.

Paul Sweeney (Labour, Glasgow)

Given that the UK Government has explicitly confirmed that shifting to a direct state procurement model would allow Scottish contracting authorities to use the Procurement Act 2023 to legally disregard bids from non-treaty state suppliers such as China and embed domestic social value, will the cabinet secretary commit to scrapping the failed ScotZEB model in favour of a state-backed purchase and leasing scheme in order to legally ensure the return of full bus manufacturing in Scotland?

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine)

Labour members have finally found their voice with that suggestion—perhaps they could have used their voice more acutely when the company required support. Of course, only the Scottish Government chose to step forward at that point.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

That concludes the ministerial statement on Alexander Dennis Ltd.

Business Motion

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

The next item of business is consideration of business motion S7M-01390, in the name of Jamie Hepburn, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, on the business programme.

Motion moved,

That the Parliament agrees—

(a) the following programme of business—

Tuesday 6 October 2026

2.00 pm Time for Reflection

followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

followed by General Questions

followed by First Minister’s Questions (Backbench Members)

followed by Ministerial Statement: Improving Outcomes for Neurodivergent People, Autistic People and People with Learning Disabilities

followed by Scottish Government Debate: Scotland’s Prosperity and Future in Europe

followed by Committee Announcements

followed by Business Motions

followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

5.30 pm Decision Time

followed by Members’ Business

Wednesday 7 October 2026

2.00 pm Parliamentary Bureau Motions

2.00 pm Portfolio Questions: Deputy First Minister Responsibilities, Finance and Local Government, Parliamentary Business and Veterans; Public Service Reform, Europe, External Affairs and Energy

followed by Scottish Government Debate: Supporting Scotland’s Fishing Industry

followed by Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Debate: Scottish Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund

followed by Business Motions

followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

5.30 pm Decision Time

followed by Members’ Business

Thursday 8 October 2026

1.30 pm Parliamentary Bureau Motions

1.30 pm General Questions

2.00 pm First Minister’s Questions (Party Leaders)

followed by Ministerial Statement: Planning for Winter and Improving Hospital Flow

followed by Scottish Government Debate: Strengthening Scotland’s Cyber Resilience

followed by Business Motions

followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

5.00 pm Decision Time

followed by Members’ Business

Tuesday 27 October 2026

2.00 pm Time for Reflection

followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

followed by General Questions

followed by First Minister’s Questions (Backbench Members)

followed by Scottish Government Business

followed by Committee Announcements

followed by Business Motions

followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

5.30 pm Decision Time

followed by Members’ Business

Wednesday 28 October 2026

2.00 pm Parliamentary Bureau Motions

2.00 pm Portfolio Questions: Justice; Health and Care

followed by Scottish Liberal Democrats Business

followed by Business Motions

followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

5.30 pm Decision Time

followed by Members’ Business

Thursday 29 October 2026

1.30 pm Parliamentary Bureau Motions

1.30 pm General Questions

2.00 pm First Minister’s Questions (Party Leaders)

followed by Committee Business

followed by Business Motions

followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

5.00 pm Decision Time

followed by Members’ Business

(b) that, for the purposes of Portfolio Questions in the week beginning 6 October 2026, in rule 13.7.3, after the word “except” the words “to the extent to which the Presiding Officer considers that the questions are on the same or similar subject matter or” are inserted.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

I call Max Bannerman to speak to and move amendment S7M-01390.1.

18:13

Max Bannerman (Reform UK, Highlands and Islands)

I rise to oppose the Government’s business motion. Last week, utterly appalling statistics on drug deaths were released, which showed that 1,133 of our fellow Scots died because of drug use in 2025. That was an increase of 11 per cent nationally on 2024 numbers. In Aberdeen, it was an increase of 32 per cent; in Falkirk, an increase of 71 per cent; in the Borders, an increase of 86 per cent; in North Ayrshire, an increase of 108 per cent; and in East Ayrshire, an increase of 128 per cent. That is happening in every constituency that is represented by MSPs in the Parliament. It is no longer just another national issue; it is a national emergency that must be tackled through direct political intervention.

On this, more than any other issue, what the Parliament directs the Scottish Government to do will be a matter of life and death. Members across the chamber, many of whom have personal experience with addiction and drug deaths, have explained more eloquently than I can that those deaths cannot be seen as just another yearly statistical event. Behind every death is an individual loss, with friends and family whose lives have been changed for ever.

Last week, after the Minister for Mental Wellbeing, Public Health, Sport, Alcohol and Drugs made a statement, the Parliament had a paltry 20 minutes to question the Government on the figures. Although, sadly, this is not a new topic of discussion in Holyrood, the new drug deaths numbers are significant.

Since the national mission was declared, the number of deaths had been going down year on year. However, this year, for the first time, we have seen the number of deaths go up. That is why the Government must be held to account.

Reform proposed a motion of no confidence in the minister last Thursday to force a debate in the Parliament on the issue. At that stage, we did not receive the support required. I am today proposing an amendment to the business motion so that, next week, we would hold a plenary debate on addressing Scotland’s drugs emergency on Tuesday, to replace the Government’s proposed debate on Europe.

The point is as follows. There are differences of opinion across Parliament on the right way to tackle the drugs emergency. That divergence in approach was clear in the chamber last week. There was discussion of renewed focus on access to rehab facilities, bringing back the right to recovery bill, the success or otherwise of the Thistle in Glasgow, and placing the emphasis on harm reduction and safe consumption. All of that speaks to the reason why Parliament should have the opportunity and the time to discuss this; we are in a debating chamber, after all. This ought to be a Parliament that is not afraid to test ideas, look at new solutions and scrutinise policy.

Presiding Officer, you were very clear in your guidance last week that there are legitimate parliamentary methods to oppose the Government’s business programme. That is why we in Reform will not nod through a pointless, predictable, ultra vires debate on Europe—an area that this Parliament has no direct legislative competence over. At the recent election, 2 million Scots did not even bother to vote. That should focus everyone’s mind.

Instead of being a talking shop, Parliament should devote its energy to fixing problems. The scourge of drugs has been a blight on Scotland’s political discourse for far too long. The question that members of Parliament must decide this evening is whether they will join us in forcing proper parliamentary scrutiny of the Government’s drugs strategy. I believe that there is a broad consensus in the chamber that such a debate is timely and needed now more than ever. That is why I am putting this question to Parliament today.

I move amendment S7M-01390.1, to leave out “followed by Scottish Government Debate: Scotland’s Prosperity and Future in Europe” and insert:

“followed by Scottish Government Debate: Addressing Scotland’s Drug Deaths”.

Kenneth Gibson (Presiding Officer, Cunninghame North)

I call the minister, Jamie Hepburn, to respond on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau.

18:17

Jamie Hepburn (Scottish National Party, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth)

In that vein, I should make it clear to Mr Bannerman that he is speaking against not the Scottish Government’s business motion but the Parliamentary Bureau’s motion. Let me remind Mr Bannerman that he is, in fact, a member of the bureau.

I should also say at the outset that I have no problem, in principle, with the notion of us scheduling a further debate on the impact of, and the challenges that we face in relation to, drug harms in this country. However, I regret the manner in which Mr Bannerman has sought to bring forward the issue.

I have a fairly positive and decent track record of hearing requests for scheduling parliamentary business from other parties and taking those forward positively. Indeed, we just had a statement on Alexander Dennis, which we scheduled in response to a request. On 17 September, we scheduled a statement on the programme for international student assessment statistics, after a request. On 9 September, at Mr Carson’s request, we scheduled a statement on bluetongue virus serotype 3. Indeed, the current business motion, which I hope that members will vote for, schedules a statement on improving outcomes for neurodivergent people, autistic people and people with learning disabilities, following a request for such.

Let us remember that there are means by which people can reasonably come forward and make a request, without going through the palaver and the nonsense and the performative nature of lodging an amendment, as Mr Bannerman is doing today.

The Parliamentary Bureau agreed to the business motion just yesterday. I know that “Europe” is a four-letter word for Reform UK, but we agreed at the Parliamentary Bureau to debate Scotland’s prosperity and future in Europe next Tuesday, and that is what I think that we should do.

Let me make another point. Mr Bannerman understands and knows, as do all members, that there are many ways in which—

Graham Simpson (Reform UK, Central Scotland and Lothians West)

Will the member give way?

Jamie Hepburn (Scottish National Party, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth)

I will not be giving way to Mr Simpson.

There are many means by which members can bring issues to the chamber.

We made a statement on addressing drug harms last week, which Maree Todd delivered. That gave members of all parties an opportunity to ask questions on the back of the statistics that were published. Incidentally, Mr Bannerman said that the time assigned to that was paltry. I did not hear him say at any stage before we scheduled that statement that there was not sufficient time for it. He could have raised that as an issue at that time.

All parties can, of course, use regular parliamentary question sessions, such as the two general question times, back-bench and party leaders First Minister’s question times and portfolio question times, to scrutinise the Government. The First Minister answered further questions on drug deaths last week, including one from Malcolm Offord. This week, on Tuesday, not a single one of the three general questions and the three back-bench FMQs from Reform UK MSPs was on that particular issue; tomorrow, Helen McDade’s general question is not on this issue of seemingly great importance to Reform UK, and Max Bannerman’s question is about surveillance of students by Police Scotland, which is an interesting notion—maybe it is an insight into where Reform UK wants to take Scotland.

Thomas Kerr (Reform UK, Glasgow)

Will the minister give way?

Max Bannerman (Reform UK, Highlands and Islands)

Will the minister give way?

Jamie Hepburn (Scottish National Party, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth)

I will give way to Mr Bannerman.

Max Bannerman (Reform UK, Highlands and Islands)

Could the minister address the matter in hand instead of dancing around the issues?