THE Scottish Government should have done more to keep work at BiFab, the Scottish Greens have said.
Unions say up to 500 jobs could be lost at fabrication yards in Fife and on Lewis after the firm’s Canadian owners withdrew a bid to take part in the Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm.
DF Barnes had been hoping to build jackets for wind turbines to be installed off Fife by French firm EDF but said they’d been forced to pull out after the Scottish Government failed to provide financial guarantees.
They were looking for around £65 million to allow them to work on the new yard.
But ministers said strict rules on state aid meant they were limited in the amount of support they could have offered the firm.
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Scottish Greens energy spokesperson Mark Ruskell disagreed. He said: “This decision makes a mockery of the Scottish Government’s commitments on green jobs and is a huge blow for communities in Fife and Scotland’s ambitions on renewable energy.
“Although energy policy is reserved, we have been clear ministers could use Crown Estate Scotland powers to ensure that leases for offshore wind are granted on condition of supporting jobs in the Scottish supply chain. The Scottish Government must not abandon these communities.”
The Scottish Government did not respond to Ruskell’s comments.
STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said the news was a “hammer blow for workers desperately in need of a future, and for the communities of Fife and at Arnish.”
She added: “After more than two years of valiant struggle, they have been abandoned, just at the time that construction and manufacturing in renewables should be taking centre stage.
“Despite the Scottish Government’s protestations regarding state aid, few observers of industry will doubt that governments and competitor companies in Europe would be standing up for their own supply chain and their own workers.
“We need to know when the Scottish Government took that view that BiFab would go into liquidation and we want to see the legal advice on which that view is based.
“We will not give up even if others appear to have done so.
“It’s time now to hear from the First Minister and the UK Prime Minister about how their
respective claims about a green jobs revolution squares with this bitter news.”
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In a joint statement, Unite Scotland secretary Pat Rafferty and GMB Scotland secretary Gary Smith stated: “It looks like the Scottish Government ministers have walked away from our best chance of building a meaningful offshore wind manufacturing sector, and in doing so have extinguished the hopes of communities in Fife and Lewis who were banking their future prosperity on it.
“It’s a scandalous end to a decade which started with promises of a ‘Saudi Arabia of renewables’ supporting 28,000 full-time jobs in offshore wind, and now finishes in mothballed fabrication yards and no prospect of any contracts or jobs on the horizon.”
The Scottish Government has had a minority stake in BiFab since 2018 when they took action to prevent the company from closing.
It’s been difficult for BiFab to compete with international yards who can build at scale for significantly less.
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