Claim city starved of industry

The failure to bring decommissioning jobs to places like Dundee is “one of the biggest scandals” in Scottish politics, says a former UK energy minister.

Brian Wilson said the lack of government support for a potential £100 billion industry is seeing work lost to England, which he said is better prepared for the jobs boon.

In a fringe event at the Labour conference in Dundee, the ex-MP Jim McGovern demanded the workforce is local when the jobs do land, as he criticised the V&A project for bussing in people from the rest of the country.

Mr Wilson said the “total failure” to capitalise on the decommissioning and renewables industries is “one of the biggest scandals in Scottish politics over the past decade”.

“We are in the process of seeing the decommissioning industry pass us by,” he said.

“All of that was foreseeable, all of that should have been planned for, all of it should have been exploited to the benefit of the Scottish manufacturing base.”

In its draft energy strategy published in December, the Scottish Government said the supply chain is “already capturing a large share of the value of the decommissioning contracts available”.

Paul Wheelhouse, the energy minister, has said millions of pounds has been distributed by the Scottish Government’s Decommissioning Challenge Fund to support infrastructure, adding it is a “clear signal to the market to think seriously about decommissioning and to plan and invest accordingly”.