• last year
Transcript
00:00 on the ground for minutes, and that means that we will get everybody in.
00:03 >> Douglas Ross (Pembrokeshire) (Con) It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship,
00:07 First Minister. I apologise that I will have to leave before the end of the debate, because
00:10 I have a meeting at 4 o'clock. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Pembrokeshire
00:16 and St Pancras (Ian Blackford) on securing this debate. I agreed with everything he said,
00:20 and I agree with the slight jealousy that he had that Scottish Conservative MPs were
00:23 so good at ensuring that Ministers came up to our constituencies. He also mentioned how
00:29 bad the transport is in Labour-run Wales. I can also say that it is pretty bad in SNP-run
00:34 Scotland, particularly if you are trying to get a ferry. I digress, so I want to focus
00:39 a few minutes on the issues in my constituency in Moray. We have Bucky harbour, which has
00:48 a proud history as a fishing harbour for many years, dating back to 1878. It was the first
00:56 large concrete harbour to be built in Scotland. We have seen a decline in fishing in Scotland
01:02 over a number of years. I was delighted when Bucky was chosen as the site for the operations
01:08 and maintenance of a new offshore wind farm in Moray West. That will bring 60 highly skilled
01:17 jobs to a community like Bucky. When I was at the opening and discussing this with the
01:21 developer, Ocean Winds, and the local community, I realised that it is not just the jobs that
01:26 are coming, important though they are, but the long-term effect. These jobs will be there
01:29 for the next three or four decades. It is vital work coming into communities that have
01:34 seen a downturn in their ports. It is long-term work and highly skilled work.
01:41 Immediately before this meeting, I was meeting Dave Whitehouse from Offshore Energies UK,
01:47 who is doing a lot of work with oil and gas, renewables and green energy. He was keen to
01:54 speak about the opportunities for ports across Scotland and the United Kingdom, and the UK
02:03 Government's support to ensure that the infrastructure is there and capable of taking us on to the
02:07 next level.
02:08 The final area I want to look at in this short debate is free ports in Scotland. I was delighted
02:13 that one of the Prime Minister's first announcements after taking office was to deliver the two
02:19 free ports in Scotland. In conjunction with the Scottish Government, our two Governments
02:23 are working together to deliver free ports. I have spoken with Callum McPherson, the new
02:28 chief executive officer of the Inverness and Cromarty free port, which will have benefits
02:32 for my Moray constituency and, indeed, constituencies across the Highlands.
02:37 This is not just great news that we have a free port there; it is also levelling up in
02:41 action. That area has seen a decline in the working-age population. It will see people
02:47 moving to Cromarty and moving to that area to support the tens of thousands of jobs that
02:51 could be created as a result. We have an extremely exciting opportunity, with the depths of the
02:59 Quayside at Cromarty, to be a real hub for the offshore renewable industry. Not only
03:06 is it great that the free port status has come to the Highlands and to the Firth of
03:11 Forth, but the jobs, investment and building up of the local community have been so roundly
03:17 welcomed by the vast majority of people. Sadly, there are still some representatives in the
03:22 Scottish Government who are against free ports, but the overwhelming majority of people in
03:26 Scotland, particularly in the areas where we see the free port status, can see the benefits
03:31 of that. Of course, the work is being done to ensure that Scotland—my Moray constituency
03:36 and right up and down the coast of Scotland—has the opportunity to be involved in the next
03:42 stage of the offshore industry. Oil and gas is still such an important industry in Scotland.
03:48 90,000 jobs rely on the oil and gas industry. There is a strong future for that. We have
03:54 seen that in polling this week. There are also opportunities in green renewables, and
03:58 I am delighted that the UK Government supports that. I am firmly behind it as well.