Freeport boss: 'Now we can move with purpose and energy'

It means three sites covered by the freeport - Grangemouth, Rosyth and Mid-Forth (Leith and Burntisland) - now have a special tax designation allowing them to incentivise companies to establish bases and in turn create jobs in an area spanning 550 hectares.

Firms involved in the energy transition – offshore wind, hydrogen, sustainable fuels, modular manufacturing, and logistics - will be targeted as the FGF bids to re-industrialise the area and support economic regeneration on a large scale over the next decade.

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Seed capital of £25 million will be unlocked when the final business case is approved, expected later this summer, which will be used to invest in infrastructure. That may include the development of new road or rail links and energy connections needed as building takes place on disused or brownfield sites which are being remediated.

Dame Susan Rice, a former managing director of Lloyds Banking Group and chief executive of TSB who was appointed chair in November, said a “huge amount of work” had already taken place in the development of FGF prior to the outline approval of the business case, highlighting the recent investment by electricity generator RWE in a new green hydrogen plant at Grangemouth. Now it can “move with purpose and some energy because we are all ready to go”, she told The Herald.

“It is an important time for the Green Freeport as we move through the business case development phase to delivery for Scotland,” Dame Susan said. “Through innovations in offshore wind manufacturing, assembly and commissioning, alongside innovative shipbuilding, modular assembly and hydrogen manufacture, the country’s net-zero targets can be boosted by Forth Green Freeport.

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“This is a long-term project and one which we know will deliver real benefits to the local communities through economic growth, skills re-training and training and access to high-quality, green jobs.”

Asked why she believes the FGF will deliver green jobs when promises of an employment boom pledged by political leaders in Scotland, on account of its natural resources, have not come to fruition, Dame Susan stated that “climate change is happening now”.

“I think most of business and indeed most countries have worked out that climate change is happening now,” she said. “We are talking about having to do things today to get us where we need to be tomorrow, and there is a huge urgency about this. Expectations are being built into financing agreements, rules by regulators [and] approaches to housing and transport, everything that we do. There is much more energy now and indeed growing competition to make this transition for green jobs.”

Dame Susan noted: “What we are doing with FGF is to build on some of the areas where we already have strength, which is around offshore wind, innovative shipbuilding, modular logistics and green fuels, green hydrogen for one. There are lots of new jobs to come along but they are happening now, they are required now, there is a market now [and] that makes a big difference.”

She added that green freeports are a “good way” to approach the energy transition because “Scotland has a lot of experience in energy of other forms, which means people know and understand things. People can be retrained to move into new jobs. There is a lot happening here and this is a way to pull it together.”

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Dame Susan declined to comment when asked whether freeports had come to prominence as a means of offsetting the economic implications of Brexit, stating that she had spent her career avoiding commenting on political matters. However, she said the opportunity provided by freeports was real.

Dame Susan expressed hope that freeports will stimulate the creation of economic clusters, with smaller companies, suppliers and inventors sitting side by side with large businesses, and supported by educational institutions.

And she emphasised that the FGF was not simply about tax incentives for the companies moving into the area.

“We also require that any company that is coming in pays the Real Living Wage,” Dame Susan said. “If the company does not already pay the Real Living Wage, their workers will benefit.

“What really matters around this… is the governance. It is our job to make sure that we uphold the expectations and standards relating to these financial incentives. And of course they will be monitored and checked by the UK Government and Scottish Government and everyone else who will have an interest. I am confident that these will be received and welcomed, but also used wisely.”