Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

A proper plan for jobs would have Scottish renewables at its heart. There are four simple steps that the Minister could take today to unleash that proper plan’s potential: first, persuade the Treasury to create a pot dedicated to tidal energy in the fourth contracts for difference auction; secondly, instruct Ofgem to reform transmission charges to stop disadvantaging Scotland; thirdly, fund energy interconnectors from the island generators to the mainland; and fourthly, back the Acorn carbon capture and storage project. Those Government decisions would not only transform the UK energy sector, but create a Scottish jobs legacy from COP26. Will the Minister demand that his Cabinet colleagues act now to create a proper jobs plan for Scotland?

[Iain Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. Scotland has enormous potential in the renewables sector. I can reassure him that the Acorn project is not dead; it did not get through to the first two, but it is the reserve project and we will be working closely to ensure that it is in a future round. Through my Department, we are funding a number of renewable energy schemes such as CoRE—the Community Renewable Energy project—in East Ayrshire. Tidal energy, which the hon. Gentleman referred to, can form part of the Orkney islands growth deal. More generally, I would be happy to facilitate a meeting with my colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy so that the hon. Gentleman can discuss the wider issues.

[Ian Murray]

I would certainly accept a meeting with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to go over the issues, but I would have thought that the Minister and the Scotland Office would also want to champion them. If one outcome from the conference of the parties is quite clear, it is that we need action, not just words.

The Chancellor’s Budget last week did not have a plan for jobs either; in fact, he barely mentioned it. Despite paying more, Scottish taxpayers are getting much less after a decade of devastating Tory and SNP austerity. It is no plan for jobs to increase taxes on businesses and hard-working people at a time when households and businesses are struggling with rapidly rising costs. Are the Minister—as a Conservative Minister—and his Department comfortable that under his Government, hard-working Scots now face the highest tax burden since the 1950s?

[Iain Stewart]

On income tax, the Scottish Government are responsible and it is indeed true that they have higher taxes than the rest of the UK. I will leave the hon. Gentleman to take that up with the Scottish Government.

On his wider point about unemployment and employment, if the hon. Gentleman casts his mind back to the Budget last week, the forecast for unemployment after the pandemic was originally about 12%, but it is going to be less than half that. The changes that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is making to universal credit tapers, for example, will leave more money in the hands of hard-working people.