MACASKILL QUOTES BILLY CONNOLLY IN WESTMINSTER ENERGY DEBATE TO ASK UK MINISTERS “WHERE’S OURS?”
ALBA Depute leader and MP for East Lothian Kenny MacAskill is to lead and open a Westminster Hall Debate on “The Level of Public Ownership in the Offshore Wind Sector”. Mr MacAskill will demand that the people of Scotland benefit from the profits generated by offshore wind, not the multinational, often foreign state owned companies, which dominate the offshore wind sector and are owned furth of Scotland. Mr MacAskill will argue this can only be done by government establishing a state energy company and by taking a public stake, as Denmark has done, through a 20% share in every new offshore wind development.
Mr MacAskill will also highlight the extent to which foreign state owned companies are prevalent in the offshore wind sector. These include:
- Neart na Gaoithe, Firth of Forth – jointly owned by French state owned EDF and Ireland’s majority publicly owned ESB.
- Inchcape windfarm, Firth of Forth – 49% of shares owned by SDIC Power Holdings Co Ltd of Beijing in China.
- Aberdeen Offshore windfarm – 100% owned by Sweden’s state energy company Vattenfall.
- Peterhead Hywind – 75% stake held by Norwegian state energy company Equinor.
He will condemn the “charade of a government opposed to state owned companies allowing foreign state owned energy companies to profit and perhaps even plunder with abandon” and go on to argue “It’s a dereliction of duty and the price is paid not just in the loss of profits, but the scandalously high prices paid by struggling families trying to power their own homes.”
He will argue that “there should be a Scottish State Energy Company and it should be operating and taking a share in all fields being developed.”
Mr MacAskill will quote from the great Scottish comedian Billy Connolly’s song “Oh Sergeant Where’s Mine”:
“Oh sergeant, is this the adventure you meantWhen I put my name down on the lineAll that talk of computers and sunshine and skisOh, I’m askin’ you, sergeant, where’s mine?”
He will state: “Well all I’m asking you Minister where’s ours. All that talk of the Saudi Arabia of wind and the work and the jobs, where are they? And when other nations whether Ireland or France, Denmark, Sweden or Norway, China have a share of our natural bounty, oh Minister where’s ours?”
He will conclude “by asking the Minister to confirm that his government will neither oppose a Scottish state energy company nor Scotland seeking to take a share in its natural wealth. The absurdity of an Energy Rich Scotland yet Fuel Poor Scots must end. We demand a share in our natural bounty.”