First Minister John Swinney and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar will today accuse each other’s party of failing to support Scottish industry.
Their clash over industrial strategy comes after Scotland’s top trade unionist accused both parties of driving voters towards “very far-right ideologies” such as Reform UK.
Mr Swinney, who last week refused Reform UK access to a conference on tackling extremism, will use his address to the annual Scottish Trade Union Congress to criticise Labour for overlooking Scotland’s industrial needs.
He will tell the annual STUC gathering in Dundee that the Labour government must develop an industrial strategy for the whole of Britain.
It must be “one that recognises all that Scotland has to offer and agrees to invest in that. Put bluntly, UK industrial support cannot stop at the border,” he says, referencing the possible nationalisation of British Steel.
He will repeat his call for the Grangemouth oil refinery to be nationalised if British Steel receives similar state intervention, and for the Chancellor to abandon the “self-imposed economic straitjacket” of fiscal rules. He wants closer relations with the EU and a reversal of the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions.
However, Mr Sarwar says that the First Minister should use his address “to apologise for nearly two decades of missed opportunities and decline due to lack of an industrial strategy”.
He lists a number of SNP failures while in government, including “standing idle for years while the Grangemouth refinery site was wound down, and importing foreign steel at the detriment of Scottish industry for infrastructure project.
“The SNP government with John Swinney at its heart have spent the last two decades in power without a plan and without a clue over how to support Scotland’s workers,” said Mr Sarwar.
“On the SNP’s watch, jobs and investment have been exported from Scotland with foreign companies and governments benefiting from our natural resources while Scottish industry and communities suffer.”
Roz Foyer, general secretary of the Scottish TUC, said she is not surprised by the rise of the right in Scotland as the Scottish and UK governments “have not done enough for ordinary working people”.
Reform’s Thomas Kerr, who defected to the party from the Conservatives in January, insists that leader Nigel Farage’s party is not “far right”.
Last week he told the BBC that he deplored “racism and far right rhetoric as much as anyone else”.
Carbon capture demand
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has written to the Chancellor demanding that the UK Government approves the proposed Acorn carbon capture and storage project in Aberdeenshire. Labour last week finalised a £2 billion deal for carbon capture in England.
Project Acorn is focused on St Fergus near Peterhead to transport and store industrial carbon emissions in depleted gas reservoirs under the North Sea.
The project has been cited as an opportunity to retain highly-skilled jobs in the North East, and as essential to delivering a Just Transition and economic growth.
In his letter, Mr Flynn says “the success of this project has been hindered by a failure of consecutive UK Government’s to deliver certainty on both licensing and funding. The same damaging trend appears to have continued into your government.”
Call to prioritise skills
CBI Scotland is calling on the Scottish Government to make closing the skills gap a priority in the Programme for Government to boost productivity and long-term sustainable growth.
In a letter to the First Minister, CBI Scotland argues that a coordinated national skills strategy and action plan with clear targets, metrics and bringing together business, education, and government is needed to future-proof the workforce.
Publishing its Programme for Government submission, the CBI says skills funding needs to be more closely aligned with industry skills and training needs.
LibDem appointment
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has appointed Jamie Greene MSP as the party’s economy and finance spokesperson.
Mr Greene will continue to serve as Deputy Convenor of the Public Audit Committee, which ensures that public money is spent efficiently and effectively.
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