SCOTTISH Labour has called on the Scottish Government to “stand up” for
domestic jobs following the decision that the multi-billion-pound Seagreen
offshore wind farm is to be manufactured abroad and built with foreign
labour. A spokesman parroted the usual platitudes on how the Scottish
Government was committed to supporting growth within the Scottish supply
chain. The SNP has controlled Scotland’s devolved legislature since 2007 so
has had adequate time to ensure that Scotland’s companies and workforce
benefited from the wind turbine tsunami. Instead the turbines were
manufactured in China, Denmark, Germany and Spain and erected with foreign
labour.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) database
revealed that Scotland has 21,800 turbines either onshore or offshore so
why was nothing secured by the SNP for Scottish companies and their
workforce? Since 2010 wind turbine owners, mostly foreign, have been paid
£726 million in constraint payments. Electricity is now four times more
expensive than gas so no wonder fuel poverty is escalating. The wind
industry sucks in grants, constraint payments and subsidies and spits out
unreliable part-time expensive electricity.
Clark Cross, Linlithgow.
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