Andrew Dyce: Money can help Scotland develop new technologies

THE Chancellor’s announcement that the UK government has found a way of releasing the monies tied up in the fossil fuel levy fund should come as welcome news to all those who have an interest in seeing Scotland realise its potential as a world-leader in renewable energy.

Making sure that Scotland sees the benefit of these monies has proved a long and arduous process.

Political parties, environmental charities, industry bodies and business organisations have all repeatedly – and often with one voice – called for Scotland to be able to draw down these funds without fear of a corresponding cut in the Scottish Government’s block grant, but until yesterday a solution that satisfied all parties appeared distant.

Both Treasury officials and Scottish ministers are, therefore, to be congratulated on hammering out a deal that allows half of this money to be injected into Scotland’s burgeoning renewables sector, with the other half going to finance the Green Investment Bank. Clearly, the burning question now is how we use the £103 million.

This money has the potential to boost an industry which can offer considerable benefits to Scotland.

For example, figures from Scottish Enterprise suggest that the renewables industry could be worth approximately £11 billion to the Scottish economy by 2020, if we are able to capitalise on our competitive advantage.

Obviously, even with an additional £103m, we cannot expect industry to realise these benefits over night; but what we can do is use this funding to put in place the right frameworks and mechanisms to encourage growth and expansion.

One area in which the CBI would like to see some of this money spent is in helping new technologies become viable. Despite originally being leaders in onshore wind a few decades ago, we let other countries overtake us, and now we are reduced to playing catch-up in an industry which has become a global force. We cannot afford to make the same mistake with the new, genuinely-exciting technologies that Scotland is currently leading on, such as wave and tidal.

• Andrew Dyce is policy executive for CBI Scotland