Removing the obstacles to our energy future

Shortly before the Scottish Parliament entered its summer recess at the end of June, Scotland’s Climate Change Bill completed its passage through Parliament and passed into law. Given that climate change falls within my portfolio, this was an enormously pleasing event for me.

Scotland now has the most ambitious climate change legislation in the world, with a legal commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 42% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. These are extremely challenging targets, but they are targets that Scotland can achieve and in doing so lay down a challenge for the rest of the world to play its part in fighting climate change.

Key to success will be the enormous potential that Scotland has to be a renewable energy powerhouse. With 25% of Europe’s offshore wind and wave energy potential and 10% of Europe’s tidal energy potential located off our shores, the environmental and economic opportunities that Scotland has are massive.

However, if we are to be successful in this area we need the UK Government to do its bit by removing the barriers that currently stand in the way of Scotland’s developing renewables industry. As things stand, transmission charges for the national grid penalise energy companies north of the border - particularly those in remote areas – for sending their electricity to consumers.

If the UK Government is serious about tackling climate change, there is a clear need for the transmission charging regime to be overhauled to create a level playing field. It cannot be right that it is the companies producing clean, renewable energy that are paying the most for transmitting their electricity.

There is enormous economic potential in producing green, renewable energy in Scotland in coming years but we cannot afford for the UK Government to threaten this with unfair charges. The SNP group in Westminster is pushing strongly for the necessary changes to be made and I hope that they will succeed in their efforts.

Coordinating our food and drink sector

Recent weeks also saw the launch of Scotland’s first ever national food and drink policy, something that could have profound implications for the future of Banff & Buchan’s fishing and farming sectors. Scotland has an international reputation for producing top quality food and drink and the food and drink manufacturing sector already generates £7.3 billion for our economy every year through sales.

Yet there is enormous potential for growth in the sector, something that this new policy aims to encourage. With the right targets and programmes in place, the sector can increase to the point of generating £10 billion a year by 2017. Through marketing Scotland as a ‘Land of Food and Drink’, the Scottish Government aims to build upon our already excellent reputation for quality produce and maximise the opportunities available to sell Scottish food and drink around the world. By helping people to learn new skills related to the industry, we can help ensure that there are more new entrants into a wide range of food and drink related jobs and enable successful businesses to recruit more people as they expand. With carefully targeted funding, the Scottish Government can help many food and drink businesses flourish.

By developing a holistic, joined up approach, the national food and drink policy has real potential to increase the profits of everyone involved in the manufacture or sale of food and drink. Given the high number of people involved in the sector in some way in Banff & Buchan, there are few places that stand to gain more from the new policy.

Celebrating the Homecoming

As school pupils across Banff & Buchan start their summer holidays and many families head off for well earned breaks, it seems an appropriate time to consider the success that Homecoming Scotland 2009 is having in attracting visitors from all over the world to Scotland.

Thousands of people have already taken part in large numbers of events so far this year, with many more yet to come. Many annual attractions with a Homecoming theme all over Scotland have reported record attendances as visitors from across the globe flock to the wide variety of events taking place. The indications are that the Homecoming celebrations are proving to be highly successful, both with visitors and people from Scotland.

As well as being an extremely fitting way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, the success of the Homecoming is also a timely economic boost to many businesses across Scotland. There is still much more to come this year, something confirmed when the First Minister Alex Salmond was able to announce that an additional 44 attractions were being added to the Homecoming programme while he attended one of Banff & Buchan’s key Homecoming events, the Portsoy Traditional Boat Festival.

The four day celebration of the traditional skills and boats that were historically common in the coastal villages of Banff & Buchan was an enormous success this year, having been expanded from its usual two days especially for Homecoming Scotland 2009, and has proved a wonderful part of the Homecoming calendar. Many residents of Banff & Buchan will have attended and I am sure that they will have found the experience thoroughly enjoyable.

I extend my warmest congratulations to the organisers of the festival and everyone involved in making this year’s event such an enormous success. Clearly the other Homecoming celebrations taking place in Banff & Buchan over the course of the year, such as the Peterhead Scottish Week or the Fraserburgh Heritage Fair, will have to work hard to meet the standard that the events so far this year have set.

Scotland’s dangerous relationship with the drink

While we may be celebrating many aspects of Scottish culture as part of the Homecoming festivities, statistics released recently reveal a disturbing picture of one side of our culture that nobody will be proud of. New research has shown that alcohol could be responsible for the death of up to one in twenty people in Scotland, a truly shocking statistic.

This number is twice as high as had previously been thought and could mean that one person in Scotland is dying from alcohol related causes every three hours.

This has massive cost implications for the NHS, the police and other relevant professions in financial terms, but an absolutely incalculable one in terms of the suffering endured by those who lose loved ones through circumstances relating to alcohol. Clearly something fundamentally has to change in our society.

The Scottish Government is determined not to shy away from this difficult issue and recently held an Alcohol Summit so that people from all political parties, retailers, health professionals, the alcohol industry and others could come together and discuss the problem and some of the ways to improve the situation that have been suggested.

While some of the solutions that are being discussed are not universally popular, it is clear that in order to confront the damage being caused by Scotland’s relationship with alcohol we must be prepared to go further than has previously been attempted. With so many lives at stake, inaction is simply not an option.