How the UK failed to save Grangemouth - Christine Grangemouth

There have been calls to nationalise the Grangemouth refinery. Picture: Michael Gillen

Now much will be said about this but I want to reflect on the demise, the fragility of the UK economy and in particular manufacturing, which has been brutally exposed by a sequence of events.

They include Covid, the war in Ukraine, the vagaries of Trump executive orders, tariffs, the folly of the UK coming out of the EU despite Scotland voting to remain by 62 per cent and, of course, the lamentable damage inflicted by Liz Truss.

That vulnerability flows from decades of successive UK governments at least from the 60s onwards, slipping happily into an importing nation, at least of goods, and relying on being a service economy.

I recall, perhaps you do too,when the label on goods as “Made in China” or “Made in Taiwan” provoked scorn and even laughter. Well we’re not laughing now, are we?

Skoda, Lada, the same goes for them. Practically every device we use has Chinese components and Taiwan, which I visited many years ago, is impressive with so little in the way of natural resources but it has invested in Research and Development with great success.

To protect itself from patent theft, it invests just as heavily of legal protections, and licenses the production flowing from its patents.

At home it is a fact that across the Border wool production, while of high quality, is a shadow of its former self. Coal mining in Midlothian is consigned to a museum and memorials. Penicuik’s famous papermaking site is now residential housing.

Some of this was the natural evolution of a changing international manufacturing landscape. However, the UK missed the boat in anticipating modern manufacturing requirements. Take for example the many windfarm developments across Scotland.

Which companies manufacture the turbines? I understand the two main manufacturers are Vestas, an American company based in Portland and Siemens Gamesa of Madrid, Spain.

Even the nine largest public owners of windfarms are foreign, including Danish wind company DONG, Swedish power company Vattenfall, Norwegian Statkraft and Munich's municipal energy company. The UK government owns not one.

To rub salt into the wound, we have high energy costs both domestically and commercially.

The UK government failed Scotland in the late 60s and 70s by selling off the oil and gas and failed to build a Norwegian-style Pension Fund Global from their oil and gas revenues, now amounting to in latest figures to £1.5bn.

The Scottish government can only tinker at the edges. It is successive UK governments with substantial economic powers which has failed over the decades.

Christine Grahame, SNP MSP for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale​​