Kate Forbes, the former deputy First Minister and Economy Secretary, has warned that a failure to manage the energy transition properly could see Scotland lose both its skills base and its status in renewables.
She fears the country is heading for a ‘neither-nor’ scenario in which North Sea production and jobs decline so rapidly that the country loses its edge in the transition to clean power.
Ms Forbes says in a weekend interview that a string of poor decisions, such as “snail’s pace” regulatory changes, the transmission charging regime and auction round blunders means the progress made is at risk of being squandered.
“By its very nature, a transition requires you to have both [oil and gas and renewables] in play at the same time,” Ms Forbes told The Sunday Times.
“I contend that there is a grave risk that we are heading for a ‘neither-nor’. In other words, we won’t be a world leader on clean energy and neither will we have the depths of talent and the infrastructure in the oil and gas sector.”
Her comments may raise eyebrows among those, including SNP colleagues, who will question why she was not more vocal on supporting oil & gas during her time in government.
While Forbes enjoyed a cordial relationship with Scotland’s business community, she largely shied away from the sensitive energy issue, preferring the photo-calls provided by technology and life sciences companies in which she could share a steady flow of good news stories about breakthroughs and funding support. Her final speech was to announce the government’s AI strategy.
In 2023 Ms Forbes lost out to Humza Yousaf in the final round of voting for Nicola Sturgeon’s successor as SNP leader and therefore First Minister. She was shunned by the victor who left her on the sidelines. Following his abrupt resignation she was brought back into the Cabinet By John Swinney.
Afer a decade in frontline politics Ms Forbes decided not to seek re-election in May and has spent the summer enjoying more time with her family. She now says she is ready to rejoin public debate on a range of issues.
Among them is a more critical view of a six-band income tax regime and regular changes that she supported while a member of the Cabinet. “My sense is the less complex a tax system is, the better,” she now admits.
Ms Forbes is also adopting the mantra that “you cannot tax your way to growth”, which was first attributed to a speech by Winston Churchill in 1904 and has been echoed by entrepreneurs, such as Sir Tom Hunter, the CBI director general Rain Newton-Smith and even Sir Keir Starmer.
In what appears to be a conversion to lower taxation, Ms Forbes is adopting another popular phrase that “it is important to increase the number of taxpayers, not the amount of tax they pay”. She adds that the root problem in the economy is anaemic growth.
“We are at some of the highest levels of taxation that the UK has known in recent generations,” she says.
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