LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn made a call for a “green industrial revolution” during a trip to Fife yesterday.
Corbyn addressed activists after the ‘Ready for Renewal’ march in Kirkcaldy, which was organised by the Fife Trades Council with the support of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC).
The event came after a series of blows to the region, such as job losses at furniture makers Havelock and a lack of work at the BiFab yards in Methil and Burntisland.
On BiFab, French-owned electric utility company EDF is planning to ship work in fabricating wind turbine jackets thousands of miles aboard to Indonesia, instead of building them in Fife.
Corbyn said: “It really is not credible to say that it’s the right thing to do, to build facilities that will be used for the generation of electricity on windfarms in the near vicinity of – almost in sight of – the coast and you are dragging the manufactured parts to make these wind turbines 8,000 miles by sea with steel that’s probably come from 10,000 miles away.
“Where is the sustainability in that?
“As a party we are working very hard on the principles of what I call a green industrial revolution.”
He added: “Think of the opportunities and the jobs that are there with a serious national UK strategy, and a serious Scotland strategy, for the development of renewable energy and the jobs that come with it.
“I’m here to demand that there be local investment, investment in the skill level we already have, but also in future that procurement policy is based on the socio-economic needs of communities not based on a very strange interpretation of EU law and EU directives.”
Corbyn added his belief that there needed to be a proper industrial strategy put in place to avoid situations like that experienced by BiFab in recent years.
“You cannot move from crisis to crisis to crisis and deliver on a case by case basis,” he said.
“You have to have a strategy overall which improves and strengthens the high-skilled."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel