In a furious rant to the BBC’s ‘Any Questions?’ yesterday Murdo Fraser MSP slammed Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon for misleading the public on Scotland’s renewable energy industry. He claimed that despite Sturgeon saying Scotland will be the “Saudi Arabia of renewable energy” jobs in the sector are in fact “going overseas”. He branded the SNP for not doing enough to bring renewable energy jobs and projects to Scots and said the industry had been “hollowed out” over a decade because of mismanagement.
Mr Fraser was responding to claims made by the SNP’s Minister for Trade, Innovation and Public Finance, Ivan McKee who claimed that the SNP’s environmental policies are “world leading” for renewable energy.
But Mr Fraser interjected, saying: “Ivan talks about all the energy coming from renewable sources, which is welcome.
“The problem with this is that we were promised that Scotland would be the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.”
He then slammed the SNP saying: “All these renewable energy projects, all the jobs are going overseas!”
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The MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife went on to highlight how the Scottish government are making “no attempt” to solve the renewable energy jobs crisis.
He said: “They are all going to other countries because the Scottish government, which grants the planning consent for all these offshore wind farms, has made no attempt to build into the contracts the requirement that some of the work comes here to Scotland.”
And in a damming rebuttal of the SNP ministers claims, Mr Fraser took aim at the state of Scotland’s renewable energy industry under Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party.
He stressed: “We’ve seen a hollowing out of our industrial base over the last decade because the jobs are going elsewhere!”
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“And that’s against a backdrop where we have a stubbornly wide attainment gap, between pupils from better off backgrounds less well off backgrounds.”
The Scot went on to highlight how “we have far too few pupil’s achieving basic skills and numeracy” and added how “Scotland is slipping down international league tables.”
He said: “This is a real worry, because historically Scottish education was prized as being world leading.”
And in a damming final statement the Scot slammed how the sitaiton is “a source of considerable embarrassment to people in Scotland” adding that “against almost every measure, outcomes in education in Scotland are worse than they are in England.”
