 Good morning, and welcome to the fifth meeting of 2023 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. I have received apologies this morning from Jamie Halcro Johnston for this meeting. Our first item of business is the decision to take items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Are members content to do so? Thank you. Our next item of business is the first evidence session of an inquiry into a just transition for the Grangemouth area. Industry is the second highest carbon emitting sector in Scotland after transport. There is currently a target for 2045 for Scotland to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. The committee is interested in looking at how we can support, incentivise and de-risk this transition, firstly in the Grangemouth area, to benefit companies and individuals. I would like to thank everyone who responded to our call for evidence, which closed last week, and all submissions will be considered during the course of the inquiry. In today's session, we will focus on the challenges that are facing businesses. I now welcome Isashi Kubiyama from the Federation of Small Business Scotland. He is the development manager for the west. He is joined by Liz McArievy, chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce. We are joined by Stuart Wallace, chief operating officer and Michelle Primrose, group HR manager, both from Forthports Ltd. As always, if members and witnesses could keep their answers and questions as concise as possible, that would be helpful. I welcome to the committee this morning. If I may be come to Isashi, first followed by Liz, I will focus the questions on both of you at the start. The Government is currently producing a just transition plan for the Grangemouth area. We expect to see the draft form of that in spring in terms of the businesses that you represent. What are you looking for in the draft report? Are you confident that the draft report will reflect the challenges that are being faced by businesses? What is your understanding of where the focus is if I come to you first? Thank you very much, convener. It is very important to recognise that the Scotland just transition to net zero cannot be achieved without getting small businesses involved. So any plan needs to be done through a thorough consultation with small business community because they obviously operate very differently from larger businesses. I think I mentioned that it cannot be achieved without involving small businesses. It is because British Business Bank research suggests that around 50% of industry carbon emissions is done by the small business. If you think about the size of a small business which makes up about 98-90% of the entire business community it is quite significantly smaller than that but still it is a quite significant chunk of the emissions. So it is very important that they get small businesses involved rather than leave them behind. It is important for us to see them as part of a solution rather than a problem. So I think in terms of things we are looking for from the government is there are barriers for small businesses to achieve net zero. They are increasingly aware of the importance of reducing carbon emissions and they have done quite a lot of things already. For example improving the energy efficiency or reducing waste or changing the transport habits. But it is not really done in a systematic manner if that makes sense. It can be quite piecemeal and also those businesses who have done some of those works did so because it makes financial sense. It is not really because of the wider net zero plan strategy. So I think there is a bit of confusion around what net zero means as well. It can get quite jagony things like carbon neutral. What is the difference between carbon neutral net zero and zero carbon as well. So quite a lot of members say to us what does it mean for us. The further we start in the first place, obviously the assessing the carbon emission is a starting point but that costs a lot of money between £3 to £6,000 to ask a consultant to do it. It takes about up to 12 months or so. The Government is focussing on Grangemouth first, which is an industry where the highest are met in areas in Scotland. You have informed us that that is a general idea for all businesses across Scotland because they are all trying to meet its target. There is a particular focus on Grangemouth. What will be the impact in that area for smaller businesses? Do you feel that you have been involved enough at this stage? I think that Grangemouth has a lot of businesses from different sectors. There are a lot of those in the supply chain of the petrochemical industry. Those who do a lot of work for the likes of Venus, for example, the transport haulage and the construction of the commission. It is quite a wide-ranging sector but a lot of businesses use big glories and vans, which can raise quite a lot of gas emissions. The engagement of the local small business community is quite key. It is identifying the needs for change and implementing some support. We have not had any significant involvement or engagement with, for example, Grangemouth's future industry board. I think that Scottish Enterprise might be represented, but I cannot see any small business representative. I understand that they are implementing some kind of engagement, wider engagement work. I think that this year in the first half of this year, we are looking to engage with them more deeply and give them feedback from a member's perspective as much as possible. Liz, if I come to you with a similar question about what you would hope to see in the draft plan, as a chamber in a position at this stage to have an idea of what needs to be included in the draft plan, what kind of support businesses need and what particular type of businesses that are based in Grangemouth? We are doing quite a lot of work around just economic transition. I sit on the city's infrastructure investment programme board and a subgroup of that is just economic transition. I chair the just economic transition group for Edinburgh. We are capturing a lot of information at the moment about what that means and how businesses, particularly SMEs, engage in the process. I think that we can inform quite a lot of that knowledge and insights to the Government. The just economic transition group for Edinburgh could be an interesting model that we would then engage with Grangemouth. We do an awful lot of work already with fourth ports, obviously part of the green free port and the wider further forth, which I think we need to look at as the whole. We have four subgroups from the just economic transition group, which is about just what is just and how to ensure that the transition to net zero is just. We have a subgroup that looks at SME supply chain and skills, because this is about enabling SMEs to access contracts, procurement frameworks and be part of supply chains, in which case they need to develop their own green credentials to be part of those frameworks. We need to look at the skills. How do we ensure that SMEs can invest in the skills they need so that they can take advantage of the opportunities? Clear opportunities are coming through the green free port and the transition of the further forth. We have to make sure that everybody has access to those opportunities. We are also looking at enablers, partners and finance. Government is obviously a enabler. Working with partners enables that transition to be fair and just. The biggest barrier at the moment for SMEs is cost and finance. We are looking at how we support SMEs to get on the journey. The other piece is about measurement impact and communication, because there is a huge amount of work going on and we need to communicate to the wider, not just to the SME community but communities. We are very interested in community wealth building and we are very interested in how the area around the further forth is going to produce massive economic benefit for south of Scotland or south east of Scotland and Scotland. How do we maximise that potential by making sure that all the SMEs, 99 per cent of businesses in Scotland are SMEs? How do we maximise their engagement, their growth, their access to contracts and that they have support to upskill and make sure that they are not left behind? If we can use local tradespeople and local businesses and help them to scale, they are creating jobs locally and that really empowers local communities to start that local community wealth building. I think that working in partnership with corporates, harnessing the knowledge that they already have, they are doing great things, they are well ahead of the game in terms of addressing their own net zero footprint. We are looking to develop a mentoring programme so that there is knowledge sharing and then clearly engage more widely with communication strategy. I think that we could inform a lot of the knowledge that we will pick up through the just economic transition group. We hope that we will have an opportunity to contribute and consult whilst you are developing policy. The moment that work has been undertaken, that is not linked specifically to Grangemouth, is it? It is broad, but I do see that it is... Have you been engaged in the Government putting together a just transition plan, which might be published in the spring, if you had engagement in the drafting of that? No, not at the moment. Before we bring in Michelle Thomson, FM Michelle or Stuart, welcome to the committee this morning. A general question. Do you think that there is a shared understanding of what a just transition is? There are a number of terms. I think that he has talked about confusion for small businesses. Is it carbon neutral? Is it net zero? Is it what we aim towards here? Do you think that there is a shared understanding within the Grangemouth area of what a just transition means and what your responsibility is to help deliver that? I think that it is an evolving situation at the moment for the wider community understanding what just transition means. In the wider sense of when you have had that petrochemicals industrial complex in the area for so long, and as we head towards the transition to net zero, there are genuine proper questions being asked about what does that mean for the local community. Therefore, the local residents are very keen to understand for them, as we see this transition happen, that it happens in such a way that the local community benefits from that. That was very much at the core of some of the assumptions, for example, on the 4th or 4th Green Freeport bid, in terms of looking at place-based investment going forward, in terms of what are the economic benefits that come out of the activity that is generated from inward investment and how can that be seen to benefit the local communities. Looking at things such as skills funds, looking at, as was talked about earlier on, how the SMEs have to interact with the Green Freeport as it develops, some of the concepts that were in the Freeport bid around specific areas for SMEs to be the inward investors. The onus now has to be on how do we get those SME investments to happen, how do we recognise local employment, and the big part of the bid will be about that engagement piece that we want to have with the local communities around that just transition. That's not just Grangemouth, that's also in areas like Midfaith and areas of North Edinburgh as well, but there's a process that we'll have to go through as part of the bid development and implementation to make sure that those communities are brought along with it and fully understand the concept and delivery of a just transition. OK, thank you. I'll now come to Michelle Thomson to be followed by Graham MacDonald. Gordon MacDonald, sorry. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for attending. I mean, we've already alighted on a theme, I suppose, from the inside looking out, particularly with reference to Grangemouth town, if you like. The people who live there often refer to the economy as a diadoeconomy drive-in, drive-out, that's the sentiment and the feeling. So you've already touched your on some of the active consideration you gave to your bid, and I'd like to just put some meat on the bones of that, thinking about Grangemouth as a community. When, in your thinking, will they start to see some of the activity that has meaning to them? And I suppose it also links in with what you were saying, Liz, about frameworks for SMEs, because there's a considerable amount of work to change what is a good, thrusting sentiment about that involvement into actual meaningful engagements. So I'd appreciate some meat on the bones for that. I'd almost say it's going to feel the first bit of something just being on the board of the bid, a successful bid, a few weeks back. We're now moving into the implementation phase and we've got meetings next week with the Scottish Government and UK Government about how we move on to the next stage of the business planning process. We've already identified that one of the work streams that is in that will be about communication and engagement. So a big part of this in terms of engaging with local elected members or local community councils in terms of what do we envisage happening as a result of the green people being a success. So that engagement process will start fairly soon. The second bit of it is that we need to then work through the business cases and over the next few years cure that involvement investment that we want to see happening. So we will identify, for example, specifically a green fruit and we want to develop the free logistics hub or we want to see that transition away or to create the opportunity for alternative fuels. So the biofuel centre or the development of hydrogen in the local areas is an important aspect as to how we see that being delivered. And the final part of that journey then is if we are successful at delivering those aspirations around the green free port then what it drives is that additional non-domestic rates income which under the policy allows the local councils, be it Falkirk, Fife or Edinburgh, to retain that additional income and then for the local authority elected members to be working with their communities to say how is that additional income and benefit that's been generated from the free port then going to be spent and deliver benefit for the local community and we have openly talked with our partners about the sense of creating a sense of place around the areas at which that we're talking about. So if that is Grangemouth, yes, Grangemouth town centre how do we work with the local residents what is it they're looking for, how do they want to benefit out of that economic activity that comes from the free port but equally the same applies in areas like north of Edinburgh or in mid fife in terms of those conversations taking place and we've talked openly, for example, about 20 minute communities to actually make sure that the locals see the benefit of it and don't continue to have this drive-in drive-out view of the local economic activity that takes place. You've given me a lot of information and I know other members want to come in and a sense you want to come in as well Liz and perhaps yourself has actually but I suppose thinking about the very very important chemical cluster and the SMEs around there how we make it real because part of the problem we've got is that there might be difficult for them to get oven ready if you like in terms of being able to go on to procurement frameworks so that linkage of working at both ends of the conundrum if you want you may want to pick up some of the earlier themes but I'm also interested in exploring that perhaps you first Liz I would agree that SMEs are kind of really behind the curve on this less than 21% 21% have set themselves any targets for net zero I think there are significant barriers to them understanding what they need to do we did a survey about a year ago we surveyed our SME members and our corporate members everybody agreed with the net zero targets but they said that the cost, the resource lack of understanding there's lots of information out there you can google it to your heart's content they're business and it's really hard to know how they make sense of it all very often it's led by the founder or the business owner who do not the side of their desk they don't have the resource and the time of the knowledge and I think 60% said they could not would not pay for the support they need we've been very lucky as a chamber we've received shared prosperity funding so we put a proposal into the city council and we've got funding to run a two year programme which takes SMEs on a five point journey to net zero which looks at measuring developing their strategies and delivering net zero and then that in turn opens them up to supply chains because obviously businesses are thinking of this scope three emissions now and how they start addressing their supply chains and upstream downstream is really understanding what they need to do I mean it's a two year funding programme it can't stop there and there's only so many cohorts that we can take on it but we're also as part of that we're delivering outreach community sessions to get communities owning their own net zero journey as well so I agree with Stuart this is about engagement this is about communications sharing the knowledge but it has to be done in partnership I think everybody has to get involved in this so I don't think one section can solve this problem but I think SMEs have got a huge role to play in this and is particularly in terms of maximising the economic potential that this transition will deliver for Scotland and if I can just ask if you again start with yourself Stuart about young people in particular in targeting that I appreciate the bid that you've come up with at very early stages but again I'm interested in knowing more about how you're going to be able to drive down or if indeed you intend to do that to actively target young people in terms of job creation which is another issue that Grangemouth as a centre struggles with at the core of the bid there is the aspiration to create 20,000 jobs linked to the activity that we do at Grangemouth those 20,000 jobs are not just directly engaged with the whole supply chain but we do recognise from having looked at the bid about where we've got areas of deprivation where we've got high unemployment where we've got high numbers of children that are remaining neat and therefore these are things that we have to address as part of the bid we've identified that we want to work and have already started working very closely at the College of Edinburgh, Fife College we've been talking to Edinburgh University, Strathclyde et cetera in terms of the academic aspect of that but more importantly I think the emphasis on the people that are participating for example in the Green Freeport bid seem to be engaging with young people through education so taking people from our own business volunteers, putting them into schools talking about STEM talking about the industries that we're involved with and there's Fuel Challenge that we've been involved with as well and to really energise and enthuse that younger generation first of all on the transition to net zero and the just transition to net zero but also to get them engaged in the local industry that's there to make them excited about the opportunities that exist on their doorstep and the bid did make a commitment to say that in conjunction with working with further and higher education and the schools that the economic activity should drive the possibility to create a £2 million plus skills fund so we'd be looking at how that skills fund could be used for example to create for example bursaries where we could take applications for perhaps families or children who have not normally looked to go into further education or to gain further qualifications and to use that funding to get people involved in the local industry with the right skillset that they're trying to achieve to get into those positions there's a lot of questions I know my colleagues want to come in on so just the last one do you all feel that at this point where we are it's obviously very early days that you've got the right people contributing at this point and is there anybody else you think should we really need to bring this organisation or this group in to make sure all these views are reflected have you been able to cover everything and just a last wee question tell me if my assumption is correct on free ports expressed generally is that it displaces economic activity from my point of view the fact that so much is centred around Grangemouth that won't be the case because a lot of the economic activity is already there and it's simply galvanising that and it can only add to it so those two questions and then I'll hand over I'll pick on the displacement one to start with just in terms of governance and I'll let some colleagues come in so at the core of the bid there is a very strong governance arrangement that has to be there and from the experience that we've had of implementing the free port in England under the policy so far as well there are rules and expectations around who is eligible to receive the fiscal benefits that are part of the free port policy and those rules are very clear it's about additionality the policy is about new inward investments it's about creating new jobs new industries, new skills etc governance arrangements that will be put in place will be very strong in making sure that what we don't have is displacement so this is not about moving one business from one area to the other to just give it some fiscal incentives this is about new additional positions and inward investments so we will make sure through the governance arrangements that that displacement is not an issue or a matter that comes up as a result of the implementation of the fourth green free port policy is everyone involved at this point in time given its early days who needs to be last question I think it's early days and I think business has shown a commitment to deliver just economic transition certainly we work very closely with fourth ports we also work with developing the young workforce we work with EVOC the Adam volunteers association lots of third sectors so currently I think there's lots of conversations and lots of activity and Stuart and I have mentioned all that together because there are so many different groups doing good things but if we can combine that into a kind of a force where we're all pulling in the same direction I think that's the challenge for us now is to sort of map all the activities that's going on and pull a strong partnership together so that we can drive in the right direction okay, thank you Gordon Macdonald before by Colin Beattie thank you very much, good morning just to continue the conversation we're having from what Michelle started the Grangemouth Future Industry Board has the joint transition plan and it says the plan will outline a shared view of what the industrial cluster would look like by 2045 and it continues the transition can maximise social economic benefit for the surrounding area so given the target of 2045 what would you like to see in the small medium and the long term to ensure that SMEs are at the heart of this Osashi thank you very much I think that we would like to see that it will be good for the Grangemouth Future Industry Board to have some kind of SME specific engagement plan because as I think it is well known that the SMEs are at a time poor and even though they are aware of the importance of transition to net zero and they want to do something they often do not know where to start who to speak to and I think it's partly because of the a little bit confusing support landscape as well I understand the Scottish Enterprise has expertise on zero there's zero in Scotland we've seen a recent establishment of Business Energy Scotland and the council have been in this gateway support on the ground and also if you go on to the web there are a lot of UK wide organisations Carbon Trust is there and also zerocarbonbusiness.uk website and there's so much information out there and then it can be quite confusing and that contributed to the fact that a lot of small business are quite confused about the definition of it to start and things like that so I think the starting point should be quite low about raising awareness about the net zero and then engage but I think engagement has to be on the ground basically door to door basis and that's why we need a specific SME focused engagement plan from the if we really serious about getting small business involved okay, does your view on it? We're at the start of the journey and I agree with you we need the short, medium, long term plans in place and I think awareness and supporting SMEs understand what net zero means and what they need to do and at the moment there's I don't think that there's real resource being put into that I think communication engagement is difficult as we say lots of things are happening but communication I mean we've built just in Edinburgh net zero Edinburgh platform but it requires a lot of social media a lot of engagement a lot of communications to let businesses know where they can come for help we're trying to set up a mentoring programme because we're very aware that corporates are doing a huge amount of work in this space they've got departments on sustainability and bright graduates how do we share how do we tap into that knowledge and share that free of charge so we're trying to get corporates through their sort of ESG programme start giving back so I think it's early days and we know there's a lot of work to be done we've started as I say this five point journey for SMEs but there's a huge number that just don't know how to get started so I think that we've got to recognise this is not going to be fixed overnight and that it's definitely a journey but there are willing partners and a lot of support and resource into this one of the issues you touched on earlier was about the lack of financial support for SMEs to engage on this journey that we're on where did you see the nature of that financial support how would you we've been fortunate that we've been given shared prosperity funding so free of charge for the next two years we will be running programmes to support SMEs get on the journey I'm not suggesting that there's funds given out to SMEs I mean I think that we all know there's no money available so it's how do we tap in to the existing knowledge how do we leverage what we already have and how do we ensure that support is given it has to be free of charge they can't really afford to pay for the support they need I think it's about partnerships and everybody taking part in that but I do think that we need to look at the funding situation it's going to cost billions to get this delivered just in terms of SMEs sorting out their own energy efficiency insulation transport issues so I think that we do need to look at what grant funding might be available okay the funding situation the focus council has set up the specific grants for the system small businesses achieving net zero I think it's on a 50-50 contribution basis so businesses need to contribute 50% for the course and that's up to I think it was £10,000 and if you look at the cost for small businesses to really achieve the net zero to get things get work done it's really scratched in the surface I think that if small businesses which may be owned three or four commercial vans if they want to replace the fleet with the electric fans the cost would be like £100,000 or £150,000 and I think we need to really talk about the financial resources if you really want to assess small businesses to work on their just transition because they cannot achieve it themselves financially Stuart, how can we ensure that opportunities from the transition are accessible for local businesses I think there's a couple of areas that are key in that Gordon, when I think to put touch on for example the Granger Future Industries Board so we're all at the start of this journey now so we've got the Falkirk growth bid deal that's in place we've got the Green Freeport we've got GFib who've got their initiative going on so how do we collectively pull all of that together and make sure that we've got the right strategy for the local area I think we need to start to get GFib and local businesses talking a bit more about what does this actually mean in terms of delivery going forward I think we need to be clear on our view as to what is the transition so what are the technologies that we're looking to enhance and develop and implement in place what we've got today at the petrol chemicals complex or through different transport modes for example in the freight hub that we've got in the Falkirk Greensworth area and then what we need to be doing is saying what does that mean for supply chains so we specifically, for example in the Green Freeport bid in each of the three tax sites earmarked areas for land that would be available for SMEs so to look at those entrepreneurs giving them the chance to come into facilities that are suitable and adequate for what they want to see in terms of developing their own businesses, get them entitled to the fiscal benefits that are there and really attract that kind of entrepreneurial new business spirit to come in as we see some of these technologies transition over the next few years so for me there's a big picture piece that we need to start with in terms of where are we going with this petrol chemicals complex where are we going with the transport hub how do we then start to distill that down into what does it mean for supply chains for skills and then with the incentive packages that we've got like the growth bid or like the Freeport actually be communicating, marketing looking at the right investment opportunities tying in with organisations like Scottish Enterprise, SDI etc to make sure that we get the right attractiveness for those businesses coming into the Greensworth area that land that you're talking about that's been put aside is this for, would this allow existing businesses to grow or is this about encouraging innovation it's both I think if you've got existing businesses in the area that want to grow that are bringing additionality but are perhaps not the right type of facilities at the moment and looking to grow that are maybe looking for a 10,000 or a 20,000 square feet facility rather than a 10 acre site or a 100,000 square feet shed then we've looked across each of the tax sites in the bid and said where could we earmark bits of land where smaller type developments that could be developed that are more suitable for these areas we know through the growth bid deal in Falkirk and then in conjunction with the Green Freeport for example there's the concept of an innovation hub inside the Greensworth tax site and certainly in the fourth ports land areas of the port that are no longer used for port activity we've identified brownfield sites where we could develop unit type facilities to attract that kind of investment so it's about local businesses being able to grow there's an example here in Edinburgh of one business that we know that are actively involved in renewables that are very constrained they can't manufacture any more than what they're doing at the moment because they're in an industrial unit that doesn't allow them to upsize but we've had discussions with them as part of the bid that says well could you enhance or grow into a different type of facility in for example the port of Leith that we've already started about existing businesses growing adding more people, adding more output as well as other investment opportunities okay, thanks very much thank you, Colin Beattie to be followed by Maggie Chapman there's a couple of areas I would like to explore a little bit over a number of years I've heard so many projections as to the number of jobs that might be created as a result of renewables, just transition and so forth now fourth ports have projected that the economic modelling projects up to 20,000 new jobs for the area now what are the assumptions around that and importantly are these grosser net figures in other words you know the anticipation is that there'll be a reduction in jobs most likely in the fossil fuel sector in favour of renewables so is that a net figure and I guess Stuart you're the man to ask when you're going through a big process for a policy like the green free port then you follow the government recognised modelling techniques that are done so we effectively started with a master plan with the 550 hectares of land that are in the green free port across all three tax sites we looked at how you would develop that site and then there is economic data that says that over time when you have developed these are the numbers of jobs that these sectors and those industries tend to develop so if it's logistics or it's petrochemicals or it's renewable manufacturing or it's advanced manufacturing ship building for example across all the locations all of that is fed into the model the 20,000 jobs that are specific around the Greens with area or the Greens with tax site are about the wider impact of the activity that takes place there and the activity happening in the area of the Greens with tax site then the knock-on effect of all of that should be that 20,000 jobs and we know that ourselves on four ports that usually for every one job that there is in the port itself is about another eight jobs that are created in the wider supply chain and we know that inios talk about there's 2,000 direct employees on site but if you look at the wider supply chains that happens it's probably 17 to 20,000 jobs that are associated with the wider supply chains so they are all jobs that are knock-on results of the inward investment the job number that is quoted is a gross jobs number that's there but the aspiration of the policy is that it's additional it's about attracting new inward investment and therefore new jobs so we would hope and aspire to delivering that over the longer duration of the benefit of the free port policy to see those as the top jobs that are provided and not to have that loss in other areas there's a couple of points to come out of that firstly you're saying it's a gross figure do we have any projections as to the other side of the coin what jobs are going to be no longer required that are not needed that will go away we don't have that kind of modelling but I certainly know through the conversations that we've had with the partners on the bid that's not the aspiration is to achieve a just transition so those jobs that are in certain sectors at the moment that may well decline how do you introduce the new technologies how do you introduce the new fuels the new energy sources of the future that will prevent that happening so there's been an element of transition and the Scottish Government's own document that came out in terms of the plan and even the hydrogen strategies about how many new jobs get created from these evolving industries so there will be a change there will be a transition but overall the modelling at the moment says that we are aiming for those to be additional new jobs in total and a clarification on your opening statement there these jobs are not just simply about renewables and the actual change to new technologies there are also expansions and changes in existing sectors would that be correct? so we don't have a figure of the new jobs that hopefully are going to be created as a direct result of the transition to net zero I want to be clear that the bid document that was submitted through the modelling that was done on the land mass that we have and the sectors that we've focused in on has indicated that it should create 20,000 new jobs linked to what happens in Grangemouth those should be new jobs created as a result of the green free port coming through the position in terms of whether it is from existing there will be elements of growth of existing businesses so if you take something like the logistics and the freight that's already happened but we want to see that grow Grangemouth is already Scotland's freight hub the port of Grangemouth is already Scotland's largest container terminal we want to see that volume grow and we've been working through Scottish Government by stuff that's been led by Ivan McKee we've been looking at freight flows freight leakage out of Scotland how do we get some of that freight to be going back in and out of our own ports using our own rail connectivity etc so part of that 20,000 will come from existing industry that will go and develop part of the 20,000 will come from the new industries that will be created or the new technologies that will be introduced as part of the just transition Liz, do you have a comment on that? It was interesting if you look at Skills Development Scotland they produced a green skills report they are suggesting that about 9.9% of the existing 2.5 million jobs that we have in Scotland will be due to increased demand because of the green economy we're looking at 4.3% for emerging jobs so I think it's a very interesting landscape it's really hard to be definitive of what it's going to be but what we're certain of there's going to be new technology, new innovation but there's also going to be jobs around waste management engineering, professional occupations trades that all need to upskill to be part of the green economy and I think there's also a difference between green jobs and green economy jobs it's going to have to be a green job at some point and what's really interesting is the research shows that the high skill jobs are higher paid so what we're looking at is instead of an average salary of about 23,000 we're looking at 29,000 because of that enhanced skill that these new jobs will bring and the new businesses and industries will create all these new jobs where are the people coming from? That's a great question to ask, I mean that's one of the biggest issues right now is labour shortage I mean most of the businesses we're dealing with are working under capacity so that clearly is having an impact on productivity so that is a huge challenge so you're absolutely right how do we attract talent to Scotland how do we upskill we've also got to look at mature workers in the workforce we've got to look at encouraging those far from the workforce being brought into the workforce and this is where we talk about community wealth building if we can have communities use local trades people and local businesses and they have access to these larger contracts they can scale and grow and create jobs and we want to work with them to say how do we offer flexible working so that those people who have care responsibilities or are far from the workforce how do we bring them back in and allow them through flexible working and other resources to be able to start to work so I think there's a lot of things that we can do to increase the workforce there seems to be a great optimism that projecting all these jobs that we'll be able to to fill them from some place and at the moment isn't that a bit doubtful? I think we have to be optimistic but at the same time it's going to be a huge challenge I mean I don't underestimate the challenge that as I say the biggest challenge at the moment apart from inflation costs of doing business is labour shortage for businesses Sasha do you have a comment on this? Not necessarily but I think as it is mentioned the recruitment is a very very significant issue we talk about businesses not really sure whether they could find suitable people to employ in the next few months so if we talk about 5-year plan 10-year plan there's a lot of work needs to be done and where do people come from that's a really important question because for those people to come we need to make sure that the public transport links are in place and often businesses find it difficult to employ people who do not have the major transport to basically go to work in a back home if they don't own a car so I think there's need to be some serious work to be done on the jobs to be created that'll be good but where do people come from and make sure that the transport links are in place Michelle Michelle you're a bit of an expert on employment where are they going to come from? I think that's a particularly challenging question given both the UK challenges and global challenges on resourcing personally we have found resourcing challenging over the last two years not under resourced in any of the ports in Scotland and not in Grangemouth and the majority of our employees have 15 years plus service in Scotland so we are a real sustainable employer once you're in our employment and we offer real good strong skills and growth in those areas but as Liz has already referred to we need to be able to attract employees into Scotland into these new jobs and be able to offer the training and the skills so again the collaboration and partnership is essential to be able to do that because we won't be able to do that on our own Let me just move on from that Scottish Government strategies have highlighted the potential economic opportunities from carbon capture utilisation of storage and hydrogen what are the key risks around those technologies and what would the enablers be that need to be put in place to ensure their success? I'll start with you I'm not a chemical engineer so therefore I'm not the best person to answer specific questions around risk of a particular product however what I would say is that for example in the Grangemouth area there are now decades of experience knowledge and understanding of the petrochemicals process and how you manufacture example products like hydrogen so we're not starting from scratch in terms of doing that I think there's a huge amount of work that's already been done around carbon capture utilisation in storage so it's not just about capturing and storing but then ultimately how can you use the carbon that's captured as well and from a policy point of view then certainly for example being able to see the ACORN project in conjunction with the UK Government moved off the reserve list and moved into the agreed funding position I think would be a huge step forward in Scotland's position of wanting to achieve net zero by 2045 I mean any of us who are a huge customer of Forthport's group and are our neighbour at Grangemouth are committing vast sums of money to the development of hydrogen and carbon capture technology they've already made the commitment based load of a million tonnes a year to a project like ACORN in terms of capturing and then feeding that carbon up the gas pipeline back up to St Fergus and also being very proactive at looking at the wider central belt so how can any of us be a facilitator with other businesses in and around the central area of Scotland to act as an enabler for that carbon capture so how can the benefit of the petrochemicals complex all of that infrastructure that exists around all of that knowledge then for them to work with partners be it in energy from waste plants be it in cement production facilities etc to see how do we gather all of us together and really at peace then collect the vast amount of CO2 that's emitted in the central belt and transmit that up to the storage capability that we've got up in the northeast so that in conjunction I would say with a very positive and inclusive view towards things for example like planning and consenting so I think we need to get better at streamlining that and have a Team Scotland view to actually giving certainty to planning and consenting so that in a controlled way that we can get to a position where there is certainty to develop this technology and bring it to reality those are key parts for me so risks are around for example timeline, scales hitting issues with consenting and approval I don't see a risk from my understanding of lack of technical knowledge or lack of technical understanding to bring it to reality because we've got that in abundance at the moment with the industries that we've got we just need to give the mechanism by which that can now be converted and brought to reality What about enablers? What would help push these forward? As I say, I think for example to see Projet Acorn come forward as approved from the storage capability that technical work that's already been done moved to the next phase of delivery when it comes to being able to implement new production facilities and to see that transition to whether it's biofuels, whether it's sustainable aviation fuel whether it's hydrogen production having certainty around the consenting and the approval process for that I think would be a huge enabler in terms of industry working in collaboration with Government and other authorities to see how do we get to this end result Louie I'd just like to make some progress and let other members come in so there's time at the end we can come back to this line of questioning Maggie Chapman to be followed by Colin Smyth Good morning to all who've joined us this morning thank you for being here Following on from Colin Beattie's questions I might have different views on technologies that you've just been talking about Stuart and some of the risks associated with him I suppose particularly around the potential displacement of activity and resource for technologies that we know are carbon neutral now and you talk about the petrochemical industries and the different facets of that CCUS and hydrogen obviously relying a continued reliance on that petrochemical extraction continues continues a drag I suppose on carbon emissions I suppose one of the questions I'm interested in is in the Just Transition Commission report they talked very much about the need for test sites demonstration sites and what is your view around the risks of what we currently have at Grangemouth and what we could potentially have around the different technologies that we haven't been either proving the concept of or trying to prove the concept of for the last 20 years what are the different genuinely carbon neutral technologies that you see having potential at Grangemouth I'm not sure that I'm completely the best person to answer that question or for the existing petrochemicals cluster to answer what I would say is that we as both ports and I know that any other businesses in the local area work to very strict health and safety rules and protocols around the way that processes work today etc and that overall wider safety management and I would certainly not see that in our business or in Elsie's business changing as you move from one technology to another that's a change management process of doing that so I wouldn't see it as being done in any riskier way than what we do today what I would say though is that in the 4th Green Free Port bid it is wider than just the position of Grangemouth and the petrochemicals complex so yes whilst we're talking about Grangemouth here there's a big part of this is about for example the creation of Scotland's largest offshore wind marshalling and consolidation yard at the Port of Leith so that's taking assets that for the last 50 years are used in the oil and gas sector and converting them into how do we make sure that we've got the right supply chain to deliver offshore wind at pace in Scotland but the important bit of the bid and the important bit about the land that we have at Leith is about the aspiration and I would say the determination we've got to introduce manufacturing with that as well so that's a different set of skill set that's about metal fabrication it's about mechanical electrical technology made construction or towers whatever it ends up being in terms of that local supply chain element but we've got a strong thread all the way through the bid about that aspiration both at Leith now but then equally also going forward as we see genuinely carbon neutral so using renewable sources like wind or like tidal or like wave and saying how do we use the Green Free Port bid to really push some of that technology forward and we're already working with some of the developers for example as to how we move to larger scale floating offshore wind and we've got a strong aspiration for the forth to be at the core of that using the assets that we've got for example at Leith and Burnt Island for example in terms of how we can use the estuary in a different way so the first part of your answer I can't genuinely because I'm not on that side of industry but certainly as part of the bid there's a very very strong aspiration in there to be really focused on those renewable sectors that are not linked to petrochemicals genuinely offshore wind tidal and wave and even the ports have got a strong history of handling components for onshore wind and I know in the Scottish Government plan for the just transition we've got aspirations to further grow what we've got as onshore wind electricity generation so that will all factor into the capability we've got on the forth to help enable that Okay thank you and I accept what you say about the first part can I just explore a little bit more in terms of the demonstrator capabilities for the supply chain what else what else are you looking for I suppose it's similar to the enabler question but specifically for the supply chain there are two parts that I would say that were in the bid that we have in Scotland then we also had elements of this and we had the bid that we pulled together down south as well so the first part is a bit innovation elements of the free port policy is about developing innovation so we will be looking to use the fiscal benefits that are there to effectively provide a kickstart from a cash flow management point of view to allow innovation to take place so that goes back again to whether it's at large scale perhaps on investment in for example one of the petrochemical sites or whether it's small scale in the SME type business arrangement that is there another aspect that came forward as part of the wider UK and now Scottish Government policy around the free port is what they call the free port regulatory engagement network, the FFREN so we have an absolute need to make sure that we get the regulatory body so in that I'm talking about people like CEPA like SNH like health and safety executive like the local authorities et cetera together to make sure in a controlled way and a collaborative way that we can make sure that the regulatory framework actually works in favour of some of these demonstrator projects so if we want to be moving forward with innovation we want to be moving forward with new technology back to the point about consenting and licensing let's use the FFREN as a mechanism to do that whereby collectively we can get to the right result and allow those demonstration projects to kick off okay thank you Stuart that's interesting Liz if I can come to you you spoke about the just economic transition and you quite clear that that's how you phrase it we've heard already this morning about the importance of shared understanding of what that means and I suppose I'm just curious as to why you use just economic transition rather than just transition and what yeah what what why is that your framing of this because I think obviously this provides a huge opportunity for economic growth and I think if everyone can benefit from that then we're going to have wealthier communities we're going to have more successful businesses to me it's about creating the right environment in which businesses can thrive and grow the economy because we all then benefit we create jobs and we create wealth for Scotland so I do see it as a mixture of kind of as Gordon said socioeconomic I think they are very symbiotic you can't have one without the other so if we want to adjust society and a strong society and strong communities we have to have a strong economy and I don't think that we should shy away from the fact that we need to grow and we need businesses that are profitable and successful and if they are then we will benefit but the key to this is making sure that everyone does benefits from it and how do we share that and ensure that everybody's engaged in that process because I think the just transition as a phrase, my understanding and I think many people's understanding recognises the vital importance of social infrastructure within that health, social care, culture all of those things and I understand what you say about the economy underpinning that but actually those things underpin the people who drive the economy so we're almost trying to go deeper down and I'm just curious to understand what you think your role, your members' role are in ensuring that we don't just focus on the economic aspects of this but we are actually looking as the just transition commission urges us to looking at the social infrastructure that actually underpins society which is much bigger than just the economy Absolutely and I think businesses are very cognisant that they are place based and very much part of the communities in which they operate. We sit on the fair work the living wage group, the climate group, we're not just about driving economic growth we engage across the whole spectrum of business with purpose the fair work agenda so we recognise that it's our role to not only support business to be successful and to thrive but to create the right environment in which they can operate properly and with purpose so I do think it's not just about businesses being profitable although there's nothing absolutely nothing wrong with making profit but it has to be business with purpose and the fair work agenda we are working very hard with businesses to make sure that we all follow that and create strong societies as well as a strong business environment Thank you Colin Smyth we followed by Fiona Hyslop Thanks very much convener and good morning to the panel just to follow up on the points raised by Colin one of the biggest criticisms of the current transition to renewables is that it may have reduced emissions but it hasn't delivered the economic benefits particularly for example around onshore wind to Scottish businesses so how do we avoid the same mistakes when it comes to offshore wind Stuart, can I talk specifically about investment in ports? What level of investment in port infrastructure in Scotland is needed to ensure that its resources are able to benefit from the opportunities particularly for example from the leasing of the Scotland projects where will this investment come from? That investment is happening now so we've already invested in excess of £40 million in the port of Dundee that was signed off and delivered a number of years back on the basis of knowing that this market was coming and wanting to make sure that we could deliver marshalling and consolidation capability in Scotland and that does drive local content in terms of for example onshore logistics contracts that have to happen about moving components around there are marine aspects that happen with these offshore wind so we own a toyage business that will also pick up benefit out of these vessels going in and out and in the second phase of that investment for us is that we are now investing £50 million for example in Leith and what will be Scotland's largest offshore wind marshalling consolidation yard so four times larger than what we've got in Dundee or four times bigger than what exists in Scotland at the moment and as I said earlier on that will have land that is earmarked for manufacturing capability and SME capability at different aspects of aspirations around port so we know up in Cromarty they've invested heavily on further developing their capability either at Port of Cromarty Firth or at NIG so we've seen both of those organisations develop forward and that was the other successful green free port bid in terms of Inverness and Cromarty and we know that some of the developers are looking across the east coast of Scotland particularly at the moment because that's where the development is happening to look at places like Mintrose like I-Mouth who are getting successful outcomes of this in terms of operational and maintenance bases for these facilities going forward so I would say that the port sector absolutely recognises the need to invest in infrastructure to create land to create facilities for this market as it's coming on and I would say as a sector then we are stepping up to that plate we are already making the investment and private sector investment to deliver that and to make sure that we get as much local content as we can that is in conjunction with the scotland around a bidding that went out with some of the requirements that are there in terms of local content that has to happen and therefore that ecosystem around something like offshore wind is starting out to develop and grow out as a result of the investments that the port sector is making so what will make sure that we absolutely get the maximum benefits from that you mentioned earlier the consenting process obviously that steady stream of work is increasingly important but what other role does Government and the policy makers have to make sure that investment continues when we will all come from the private sector as a need for government investment what else do we need to do to maximise the potential of scotland I think back to your point at a second ago about that consenting process so when you go through the bidding process of the developers curing for example in scotland and the next rounds of that that will come then how do we get certainty of that consenting process as quickly as we possibly can to make sure that there is a constant pipeline of activity so that then gives certainty to investors and manufacturing capability that knows that they have a long-term pipeline of activity to take place from our business we don't see the need for government intervention we've got long-term shareholders who are predominantly pension funds who are there to look at long-term value creation to pay people's pensions over many years and we are in this for the long-term recognising that this is a sector that probably has the best part of 25, 30 plus years of an industry going forward ahead of us so for us for me it's about that certainty that consenting planning aspect that government needs to do to give that certainty to the industry that this is something that will get delivered in the short, medium and the long-term to give that confidence to the supply chain to then come through and you mentioned the Scottish cluster of the ACON project and the fact that it has been awarded track 2 status how important is that project to adjust transition for the Grainsmouth area and what are your expectations of it actually receiving the ultimate I suppose go-ahead from government is there any barriers here or is it just simply a case of waiting for that go-ahead? I'm not completely close to the end of the project however what I would say is that I know and talking to some of the people that are involved in ACON for example at the NHS complex we've already seen the emissions on that complex go from 5 million tonnes a year to 3 million tonnes a year and they have made the commitment that should ACON go forward then they will underpin that tonnage that will feed into that system by another million tonnes of CO2 capture per annum so they will go from 3 million to 2 million tonnes on-site that's a fundamental commitment by any of us to underpin that volume activity to go through that as I said earlier on I do know that those conversations are now taking place with other industrial emitters in the central belt bearing in mind that 40% of all of Scotland's industrial emissions come from the central belt so how do we use the infrastructure that we've already got to make sure that we can capture that and transmit it so I do see ACON as a fundamental step in Scotland's journey to net zero that's a huge amount of carbon to capture, to transmit and then to store so I do see it as very important that that gets approved and signed off but there are other aspects of that which are conversations that are already taking place for example with Scottish gas networks to make sure that we reconfigure existing infrastructure properly and if you look at the just transition plan or the hydrogen plan where we've got aspirations in Scotland to be an exporter or hydrogen or an importer of CO2 that's where there is the role of for example the port sector be it the trust model or the private model to be recognising that that sector has the ability to develop and grow and therefore you need to be either repurposing existing infrastructure that's either been used for oil and gas or for a different sector or to create new to handle the ships that will bring in either the carbon that's been captured elsewhere or to export the green hydrogen hopefully at the end of the day in terms of once we have implemented all the renewable energy generation that we can actually use that for the production of green hydrogen and become a net exporter of hydrogen out of Scotland just before I bring Fiona Hyslop in the just transitions commission as well as the climate change committee there have been some issues raised around private finance the committee is interested in looking at how you de-risk this process I don't know if you are able to comment on this so a key challenge is linking the considerable quality quantity of private finance available with the need it's how to get the flow through to power all the proposals that are on the table to see what we need to do in terms of reaching net zero the committee has an interest in the Scottish National Investment Bank as one of the kind of players in this I suppose you want to give an overview of what needs to be done in order to support private finance coming into Scotland I certainly know that there's been a lot of conversations with, for example, SNP about their role to help some of this investment stuff to go forward I can only speak from our perspective on the long-term shareholders they are all pension funds from around the world as well as the UK and they are in our business for the long term we have just, in the middle of the moment of going through refinancing some of our private placement loans that we've got that are underlying lending and I would say that the response to that has been exceptional recognising that Scotland has a huge opportunity in terms of the markets evolving and things like the renewable sector and recognising that that investment needs to be made but you're going to get a return over time as a result of that so when you're out talking to lenders and potential investors then there's a very strong and keen interest that comes through from that and I would say back to the whole question of net zero and just transition we know through our own shareholders and the funds that they hold there's a very strong interest now in where funds have been used and very much a stronger greener agenda that comes through from that so much of this just transition or looking at new sectors like offshore wind the re-powering of onshore wind and the infrastructure and things that's needed for that is a very positive story to be talking to investors who have money to invest in sectors where the green agenda is much much more important for them now and therefore I think we have certainly in our business we have a strong opportunity to raise the required funds that are needed for investment going forward Thank you, I recognise that you're here just representing four supports and not going to broader issues but I don't know, Liz, if you want to say something about the businesses that you represent in terms of the flow of private finance and to support and just transition are you finding that people are able to access and we have heard from other witnesses this morning as well as in previous sessions that there isn't an appetite and there's a recognition there's investment in returns being made here but do you find the flow of money is positive? I think this is the conundrum we know there's plenty of money out there and we've just got to make sure that we've got investable propositions to attract that money when you speak to investors and even City Council there's a recognition that Edinburgh particularly is one of the top five destinations for investment globally so there's no shortage of attracting money here but I think at the moment the modelling it's very very difficult to find out how you get that return on the investment I think there's a lot more modelling to be done in fact I had a meeting with Adrian Glesby chief executive of the Scottish Enterprise last week and he's keen that we look at a net zero investment conference to be held in Scotland but a European conference I was very involved 30 years ago in the low carbon investment conference I worked with Adrian then that was at the time when the Crown of States ran three offshore licensing and how did we fund this massive offshore wind potential that kind of died a bit and now it's picking up again but we've got the same issue now for net zero I think we need to start engaging with potential funders and what are the models that we can drive Royal Bank of Scotland are doing a lot of work supporting SMEs providing funds for this but it's just the return on the investment is so long it's really difficult to make it work right now so I think there's work to be done and there's certainly a building of momentum now that how do we leverage a lot of the infrastructure investment already happening to benefit some of the smaller businesses Thank you I feel a heads up to your thoughts Good morning and thank you for joining us I want to focus on skills particularly you've already talked about Labour shortages so I'll leave that to one side this is about skills development and maybe come to the business organisations first and it's about the timing of developing skills within the supply chain to meet what we know in the future will be needs but how do you do that in a way that means that you're developing new skills now even though they're not being deployed now but they'll be needed to be deployed in the future because we've got this conundrum that if we don't do that now if we wait until five years the skills won't be there and then the supply chain means that it'll be other countries and other manufacturers that will be benefitting from the domestic capability of potential we have here so I can maybe come to you first to Liz if you can maybe give me a perspective of how do we bridge that using that skills base what does it mean for SMEs and how do we bridge that gap that's a difficult or interesting question I think what's happening within the SME communities is that when they find it difficult to rely on their graduates either from schools or colleges or universities to employ because they might not have they tend to start their own skills academy for example and then they just take the training in-house and then provide necessary skills and training for those who come to their skills academy and then they employ people later on rather than straight from colleges and universities or schools so what's happening is I think that the business is finding it difficult to find local colleges and schools so that the young people coming through the education system have the necessary skillset so they tend to take things in-house and then they do just training provision of skills training themselves so I think it's because of how the college system or school system is made up it's at the moment it's quite difficult for SMEs to find the right skillset from those who graduate from the education system I think that that really means the close collaboration between smaller businesses and colleges might have to be improved for the future we really find a solution to the skill gap situation at the moment but the skill gap is going to be for five years time not now now all the jobs it can't just hang out for five years I think the I could come and give you a really good example of how this could work so the infrastructure investment programme for Edinburgh is set up to deliver a green investment plan for the city so it involves the Scottish Power, Scottish Gas, Scottish Water the NHS, the universities and by developing a green investment plan we're looking at the key infrastructure projects that are going to happen anyway so whether it's building substations to increase demand whether it's building district heating systems for the Royal Infirmary we will develop a plan and we will know the big projects that will happen over the next 10, 15, 20 years when you've got that line of sight of those projects know the workforce that's needed to deliver those projects and you can see the skills that are required of those workforces so I think the more that we can start looking at green investment plans across Scotland not just Edinburgh it's just a good model we need to see that line of sight because if you invest in skills too soon and then they can't get the jobs then they're obviously going to get jobs elsewhere and that skilling and retraining will be wasted so the timing is really important as you say so we need to sort of and skills developed in Scotland are really interested in this because they're not seeing this anywhere else and very excited of what's that line of sight so that we can start planning when it's going to happen what skills do we need and then when do we engage with the colleges to make sure that we can provide those skills and we've obviously had a number of examples from Edinburgh and Leith etc we're focusing on Grangemouth so do you think that that kind of model that you've just talked about exists or is in development in Grangemouth or is that something that really needs to be pushed I can talk about that it definitely already exists as four sports we already partner with fourth valley college for example to ensure that we've got a pipeline of skills we have an established apprentice programme and an adult apprentice programme and a really good graduate programme and we also look internally at our own employees in terms of upskilling, re-skilling and emerging technologies particularly in digitalisation and automation so they're already on our existing plans and we're already working with those local partners in that area in terms of obviously future as part of the fourth green fourth bid process there's also a 2.1 million investment fund to again enhance those skills around those same kind of principles but looking at again upskilling, re-skilling, emerging technologies with those partners particularly in the Grangemouth area and beyond but definitely Grangemouth will benefit from that as it does now we also partner with local SMEs in the Grangemouth area to help them with any skills that they currently need we have a skills centre in the Grangemouth and they deliver training externally and help those SMEs to upskill where they might be lacking at the moment and we do that in partnership again with Fourth Valley College or just directly with them to support the local community and those SMEs develop so you've all spoken about schools and colleges which is obviously young people but obviously we've got a lot of existing workforce in the area and you talked about your employees so what engagement have you had today or will you have with the existing workforce in order to identify the skills you have that can be then adapted or re-skilling etc and also work with the trade unions is that a joint thing in terms of developing the kind of that sight line for them as individuals we do have in Fourthport an effective employee voice so our apprenticeships aren't just focused at young people we do a lot of adult apprenticeships and even in our port operations as part of their development they go through a modern apprenticeship programme again updating their skills and giving them an increase in terms of accessibility to skills and development we don't just focus on the young people it is about being able to develop our existing workforce and that's why we do the SME engagement as well so we are accredited and we can provide our own apprenticeships and we also have RTITB training in terms of canes and other equipment that we can deliver internally so it isn't just primarily focused at young people it is an existing workforce as well to make sure that they continually develop and as I've said supporting the SMEs at all levels in their workforce not just young people so we've talked earlier on about the corporates being able to help develop the SME base in terms of business opportunities but also in training do you think that that will be a shared responsibility to incorporate, obviously, the ones yourself and others you work with we'll do that There's also plans Fiona as part of the working groups or the subcommittees of the governance around the fourth green free port there'll be a skills one and we plan to have trade union representation on that skills group so a combination of education providers private sector and the trade unions looking at what the need is for the wider skills development and the benefits of the free port come through so that will be an individual working group that will work on that and that will feed up through into the governance body to make sure that we're delivering on that for today and for the future I can ask something completely different because that's okay Obviously you're talked about Acorn and the importance of that and actually the next zero committee in this Parliament did an inquiry last week last year and was very supportive of it Interesting, we know that obviously we don't necessarily see it within the heat network and the UK's decision on hydrogen isn't due to be made I think until 2026 but do you see as part of that community just transition an opportunity to have the area, the people and the housing in Graves mouse potentially using hydrogen as a heat source as part of that just transition as what does the community get from this in scope do you think? I don't have a detailed answer to that other than I certainly know of conversations that we've had over many years so if I was personally involved in what was the potential development of a biomass power plant at Graves mouse a number of years ago and as part of that we openly talked about heat networks and local heat distribution so I see no reason why and the bigger concept of just transition when you look at the draft energy policy and the just transition plan that's been published by the Scottish Government it very openly talks about how we see things like fuel and energy security how we see fuel pricing being dealt with how we deal with enabling local communities across the whole of Scotland to switch away from the reliance on fossil fuel type development so I think all of that should be in the mix as we see some of these emerging technologies come through and as we develop either more onshore wind in terms of repowering or installing more and as we see offshore wind develop I think that's an important part of the strategy going forward as to what does that mean for us in terms of the wider communities in which we stay Thank you so that was a bit of diversion but I thought I'd ask is there anything else on skills that any of you want to let us know about or what you would ask for or need this is your chance to ask another question on skills it probably does fall on from that you know, from Michelle I've set out fourth ports activities and the work with the college and the support that's there but I suppose from Liz and sorry my mind's gone black it's actually I was just trying to get it right it's actually apologies because Liz you've set out the plans in Edinburgh taking a strategic a longer term view and planning do you feel that for your sectors you represent that that is happening that you have access to the skills that you're confident that your businesses can get access to what is needed and whether that is broader than just the energy sector so while that is key to the changes that need to happen in Grangemouth I just transitioned because we earlier talked about the interpretation of a just transition and I think Maggie's tried to pull out that it's about more than just the energy sector and the wellbeing economy aligns as well there's kind of bigger issues here about the whole region and what the energy changes will have a bigger impact than just what happens in terms of energy so that's quite a broad question but I suppose I've come to Liz first of all because you've described in Edinburgh a kind of strategic view do you think a strategic approach is being taken in Grangemouth setting aside the work that fourth ports is doing? I think what would really if you go back to the first part of your question could help quite a number of years ago there used to be ILA's independent learning and individuals were given £500 or something like that that they could spend on their own development and training and I think when that was taken away we ran a lot of training programmes for SMEs and when that was taken away we just saw an absolute drop in businesses that were investing in their people so I think if I was to make an ask knowing that there's kind of no pots of money hidden away anywhere it would be to think about reinstate in some form of independent learning allowance so that people could take ownership of their own training as well and then Hisashi you had said at the beginning that in terms of the future industry Grangemouth Future Industry Board that there's not a small business represented upon that board and many of your small businesses some of them will be part of the supply chain other ones are just businesses that are based in Grangemouth but will still be impacted in terms of skills and that agenda do you feel there's a recognition of the role that your members play and the support that they need? I think we have to see the future industry boards engagement plan works and at the moment the small businesses are aware of the importance of reducing carbon and they're doing what they can but the I don't think there's a significant sort of the sense of ownership from them if that makes sense they are aware but it's not like for example a concrete plan to achieve net zero by 2045 because they don't know where to start and they don't know how far they should go so what we'd like to see is the engagement exercise to understand the need of those in the petrochemical sector and also others as you mentioned because Grangemouth has hundreds of businesses I think there from all the sectors and then we want to we need to understand what they know at the moment and what they need to achieve net zero from the area's perspective and as I said earlier I think it's important to see them as part of a solution rather than leave them behind as a problem Thank you We talked about this being a just transition I think it's worth mentioning something like only 25% of these jobs are filled by women at the moment and I think it's something that we need to address that how do we encourage more women into this sector as well because they've got a lot to contribute We did have the publication on a Sture report and recent days the committee does take an interest in this area so thank you for that contribution Graeme Simpson I mean it's been fascinating so far and the convener has helpfully mopped up some of my questions but I'll go back if I can just go back on this future industry board because it's a little bit concerning that there's no SME involvement in that at the moment has there been any dialogue at all with them? No but as I mentioned we need to have the wider engagement plan starting this year so if they approach us we are more than welcome to to work with them and then help working with our members and wider small business committee Could you approach them? I could yes they're probably through SME contacts or council It might be useful but perhaps they're watching this session and they'll pick up on this and they might reach out The council has they do engage with local SME community so they did work through that channel but not with us at the moment Okay I want to ask about the engagement with colleges because that's been mentioned a few times and fourth valley colleges the local one so I guess it might be for you Michelle actually because you seem to know all about that When you're speaking to college like fourth valley are you talking about the jobs of the future is there the future planning involved or are you just designing courses for things that you need now are you looking ahead? We're absolutely looking ahead in terms of some of the good work we've been doing with fourth valley there's a lot of carbon literacy in there as well for schools and higher education and our workforce so fourth valley we're instrumental in developing fuel change challenge and we use that it goes into schools it goes into higher education and we use it with our apprentices both young apprentices and adult apprentices in their learning and development of that so yes we're definitely talking about that we're also working with fourth valley and other partners still in university Edinburgh college particularly depending on what the discipline is in skills development Scotland on meta skills of the future and that now forms very much part of our apprenticeship and existing employee training as well to be honest Having gone through the experience of a bid down south I would say I was hugely encouraged by the collaboration that was there across Fife, Edinburgh, Falkirk college and the universities be it at Strathclyde or Edinburgh and those conversations that we had as part of the bid process now we're at the start now of the business plan and the implementation of that but there was a very very strong collaboration and desire to work collaboratively across FE and HE establishments to make sure that we deliver those skills for the future and one of the learnings that we had from down south and we will take to Scotland as well is to actually say what are those industries of the future and to start to map out what are the qualifications that are required as a result of that so is that a graduate or is a modern apprenticeship type programme what can a level of SQA qualification will require and those will range quite widely across the different sectors that we're talking about but that mapping exercise will be done to then work in collaboration with the HE organisations to say how are we going to level this training for the future going forward that's very encouraging and I think it partly addresses Colin Beattie's concerns earlier about where do we find the workers from where we can actually in part develop our own and that's what that's about and Michelle you mentioned earlier that you're working with SMEs on skills how many companies are you working with and is it possible for us to as a committee to get a flavour of the type of businesses that you're working with we absolutely can we have open days with SMEs into into the skills and business centre to be able to again engage with them and also be able to share information on what we can provide and help them with last year and we intend to do that again this year to kind of build on that but certainly we can provide that information on who we've engaged with and what skills we're talking about that would be great I'm just going to talk about it a bit because I'm the last one up now Stuart you can't speak for it any often it's a shame that we haven't spoken to it any often in this session I think we may get to meet them they're clearly a key part of this I mean you mentioned Stuart things like sustainable aviation fuel and biofuels and they're really important you know if we can you know if we can be producing sustainable aviation fuel at Grangemouth that is that could be really important to the Scottish economy and now you're not any os but I wonder if you could say I'm not any os but what I can say is part of the bid then we openly talked in the bid process about how for example you get alignment with the Falkirk growth deal and you get the aspirations that were there with the Green Freeport bid that went in and we talked in the bid about how you used the skills the expertise, the infrastructure for example that exists in that petrochemicals complex and we got into the area of master planning for example so back to the comment earlier on how you're creating jobs so we earmarked an area of land that any os over the past few years have taken redundant plant equipment out and it's now a brownfield redundant site and we identified potential there for biofuel technology so if I talk about our business that part of our journey to carbon neutral is about how we shift to the greater use of for example HVO rather than full blown diesel then we all have to make sure that we've got this supply chain and a sustainable and credible supply chain of an alternative fuel like HVO so that biofuels complex was there, the hydrogen hub concept was there as well in terms of an area of land that would be used to do that as well as an area that would set aside for innovation so I totally agree with him I think that if I look at the petrochemicals complex and the skills, the knowledge, the expertise that exists in that sector in Scotland in central Scotland and in Grangemouth at the moment then I know that they have and the Green Freeport has aspirations to use that to be moving into those alternative fuel sources that is Scotland's only refinery it is supplying all of Scotland's fuel aviation fuel as well as areas like for example Ireland and the north of England so that is hugely important as we find the very smart innovative engineers who will come up with the fuels of the future then how do we use that skill set and infrastructure that exists there today to create that capability for tomorrow I completely agree and that of course if we manage to produce more biofuels and that helps the freight sector it helps small businesses we can run vehicles on them for example everything helps I have been trying to get a picture while listening to this session of how a thing is going to look in the town of Grangemouth and in the port in 5, 10, 15 years in terms of how a thing is going to improve and if we can look at the town of Grangemouth first because Fiona's question led to you, Stuart I have been trying to get a picture while listening to this session led to you, Stuart mentioned there was a talk of a district heating scheme in Grangemouth I think that idea came from the council but it never progressed for me if we were able to find the investment or the money that could roll that scheme out that would be a huge bonus for a place like Grangemouth so have there been any further discussions on that? Not at that level of detail at this point in time I think the concept of the success of the fourth green free port however in terms of the additional non-domestic rates revenue that gets generated from that of which the UK and the Scottish governments have agreed gets retained 100% locally then those discussions that we had as part of the bid and subsequent to the bid with the local authorities is that they will be wanting to engage fully with their members to say how we're going to take the uplift and receipts that we've got from this and make a difference locally so that concept of the 20 minute community or how do you actually develop and make Grangemouth feel differently than what it is at the moment so if I reflect back in my time in fourth ports the port of Grangemouth is a way different place than what it was 5, 10 years ago we continue to be Scotland's largest container terminal but we've also developed half a million square feet of warehousing we've got Scotland's only maximum length rail freight siding inside the port if you look at the work that's been done on the M9 and some of the signalisation around about some things that has improved the flow of traffic around the town the way that we've worked with the council and the local community to make sure that traffic flows to the town residents I think they're all important so I think the aspiration that's there in terms of the green free port is that we will see this just transition and retention of economic benefit in the Grangemouth area that we can hopefully aspire to and succeed in making sure that we see SMEs develop and grow so we'll retain much more of that economic activity in the town and we can address some pretty dire deprivation and unemployment statistics that exist in that town by working with schools with working with the local colleges to teach to provide the information to the local community that needs to understand about the opportunities that should exist on their doorstep to keep that economic activity there and you get a feel for the town some of the work that's been done recently in things like the Zetland park where there's been a lot of investment in terms of doing that, there's open discussion about and me personally if I look back to things that have happened all the years of things like the Kelpies and when that was created and the connection a bit more strongly again between Falkirk and Grangemouth and the way that the Forth and Cyd canal has changed there's a very different feel around that local area than what there was 10, 15 years ago and I would like to see that continue to happen and for the town to benefit out of the free port economic activity that happens Liz? To make a point I'm going back to your really point about how communities can benefit from potentially district heating systems and things like that I'm not an expert on it but Elhys are really kind of being developed now so Elhys are the local heat and energy efficiency strategies that all local authorities will be developing I think it's a six point plan to get to this strategy and that really looks about utilising energy efficiency in district heating systems and developments having to be part and utilising this strategy so I think that that will help that process as well Yeah, none would help some of your members as well cos they get to work out of it which is a good thing Just one final point and it's about engagement with the community we put out a call for views we didn't have a huge response but of those that responded from the local area the clear message coming across was that they weren't hearing very much about what was planned for Grangemouth or indeed what's going on it seems to be that there's a bit of a disconnect between full ports and those who live in the town so I think if I can reflect on that it's good that you contact local elected members and community councils but I think you do need to go beyond that We're actually facilitating port tours on Grangemouth in the summer so we've already got that planned we're coming up to a bit of an anniversary in Grangemouth so we're inviting the local community into those port tours updates on what's happening in Grangemouth and particularly in Forthports and today's further awareness about some of the work that we've done about just what is on your doorstep and the prospects that it can bring so we recognise that and that's a key focus for us this year those dates are already planned I can provide them So how's that being advertised? We've literally just signed it off last week I've promised you we had to meet it in Leith so we're working on it but we will use our community channels and we'll certainly connect in with our partners to do that as well We're fully engaging a lot with the primary schools around the 150th anniversary of the town of Grangemouth and where it came from and where it is now and that culminates in an event at the library celebrating 150 we've got an ex-employee who's written a poem about the town and then on the back of that we're doing the tours around about the port Yes, the port used to be completely open and it was the linkage between the old and the new time but unfortunately in the back of 9-11 and some security arrangements that had to come in then that's not the case so we are going to invite the public in to see what happens in the port of state Okay, thank you That brings us to the end of this evidence session I would like to thank the panel members for their contribution this morning you've helped set the scene for the inquiry we're about to undertake and raised some key issues we'll explore in the coming weeks on their move into private session