What happens at Grangemouth is not just a litmus test for a Just Transition in Scotland, but also, said Scotland's Just Transition Commission co-chair, Professor Dave Reay, “how the Scottish and UK Governments work together on what is a fundamental challenge for both administrations.”

Speaking ahead of the launch, today, of the Just Transmission Commission’s reports on Grangemouth, he described the sense of possibility of change, following the talks held and announcements made by both governments as “palpable”.

“Grangemouth is nationally important on a UK level as well as a Scottish level,” he said. “Both administrations need to get this right, and there is a great deal of pressure because of the mistakes of the past and the lack of progress in the last few years.

“The awful relationship that appeared to exist between Scottish and UK governments has got to, for the sake of people in Grangemouth and across Scotland, improve rapidly.”

The commission launched two reports today: one assessing the progress of Just Transition in Grangemouth and providing key messages about what needs to be done, the other a piece of research into “worker’s perspectives”, about lives and livelihoods, as well as impacts on the community, based on interviews conducted by University of Glasgow researchers, Riyoko Shibe and Dr Ewan Gibbs.

The report follows the announcement in November by Petroineos that it would close the UK's last remaining oil refinery in 2025. It also comes in the wake of seven months of failure to find answers for the company’s workers, as well as the growth of a powerful campaign by Unite the union to Keep Grangemouth Working.

It also follows, more recently, announcements that the new UK Government and the Scottish Government would work together on Grangemouth, a pledge by the new UK prime minister that he would "safeguard jobs", and by the UK Energy Secretary that he would "leave no stone unturned".  

 Yesterday the commission wrote to Scotland’s to Rachel Reeves, Ed Miliband and Ian Murray, welcoming “a positive strategic reset” in the relationship between Holyrood and Westminster and sharing its new report setting out the key next steps to support people at Grangemouth as operations are decarbonised.

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The report contains five key messages, the very first of which regards trust. “The Just Transition plan for Grangemouth,” it says, “must earn the trust of the workforce and the local community.”

Lack of trust, said Professor Reay, is the biggest barrier. “That’s why this is such an important moment, with a new administration down south, we’re playing catch up with Grangemouth in terms of achieving a Just Transition.”

For instance, a Unite the union survey, found that only 3% of workers had confidence in the Just Transition process.

“The lack of trust we picked up," he said, " from talking to the community in Grangemouth was really apparent. A lot of people in Grangemouth feel like they have warm words in the past but they feel like they’re disconnected from the industrial complex. They feel disconnected and uninvolved in terms of the discussions of the future for them as a community.”

That catch-up, he said, “is now really urgent”.

To create that trust, the report calls for a draft plan to be agreed through social dialogue “with workers and meaningful participation of the community and other stakeholders” by the end of September. Trust, it notes, would also “not be established without enforceable outcomes against which progress can be measured”.

The report also states that “a new intergenerational social contract” is needed to safeguard local young people and their community’s future. These include widening age restrictions on eligibility for modern apprenticeship funding, a review of career’s advice, “strategic alignment across the various employability and training programmes”.

For Prof Reay, one of the most inspiring of the commission’s visits was to Forth Valley College in Falkirk. “Quite a few of the students there were from Grangemouth and they were inspirational. A lot of them are doing apprenticeships right now within the complex. That kind of hub role that the college represents, and colleges across Scotland do, is another conversation we will have in the future. They can be the real engine room for this Just Transition.”

Just Transition Commission meets apprentices at Forth CollegeJust Transition Commission meets apprentices at Forth College (Image: Chris Watt Photography)

Another key message in the report is that Grangemouth “needs a new economic model that goes well beyond the refinery, leveraged to deliver enduring community benefit.”

"This," said Prof Reay, " is not just about the workers. They’re crucial, but actually the wide Grangemouth community needs to be part of that Just Transition.”

“I think Grangemouth is really telling because you’ve got somewhere where huge wealth has been created from oil and gas over the decades. That is not borne out by the community in Grangemouth, apart from those who work directly in the complex. A lot of them were saying that they don’t see those benefits.”

This is not, he said, just about creating jobs. It’s about addressing issues of inequality. "The Just Transition plan actually needs to address the existing inequalities and the existing lack of trust the community has in that process.”

The Grangemouth area, as the report outlines, suffers from higher levels of deprivation than nearby Falkirk, lower levels of household income and a declining population.

The report also talks of an “investment plan for the Grangemouth ecosystem” and stresses that the Scottish Government “needs to develop a compelling case with limited fiscal resources to secure the right type of investment that will deliver long-term economic, social and environmental benefit.”

Many of the issues faced by Grangemouth are also likely to be faced by other sites around Scotland and the report states that the Grangemouth plan “must be the first in a series of rapidly developed just transition plans for Scotland’s highest emitting sites”.

One issue for some of these sites is that workforces are employed by multinational or foreign companies, in the case of the Grangemouth oil refinery, Petroineos, a fusion of a UK-based multinational, INEOS, with China state oil company PetroChina.

Prof Reay said: “When you look around most of the industrial sites in Scotland which are facing this kind of transition is that there is often going to be a conversation with other states in terms of state-owned companies and private institutions and Grangemouth is an example of that.”

Just Transition Commission visits INEOS officeJust Transition Commission visits INEOS office (Image: Chris Watt Photography)

He stressed the importance of “conditionality around support that’s coming from public money”. “If we’re going to put public money into supporting the transition  that should come with conditionalities in terms of the long term investment of employers and good job protection and that community engagement.”

But Prof Reay was also positive and emphasised the potential of the area. “Grangemouth is going to have, I think, a bright future. It’s got so much in terms of the skilled workforce. Its location geographically makes it vital for the future for carbon capture and storage in Scotland and its position on the Forth means that in terms of logistics and its role in offshore renewable energies. There is a lot of talk about it having a role in sustainable aviation fuel and green hydrogen as well.”

Unite the union has called for the refinery to be kept open as long as necessary until those new jobs and industries arrive – rather than leave a jobs gap, following the closure.

For Prof Reay, still more important than whether the life of the refinery is extended is, that planning for the new industries happens “fast and rigorously right now”.

“Talking to the employers around the closure time frame," he said,  "as the unions are doing, is really important, but always that is going to be a finite time. It can’t be wasted now in terms of realising those new jobs.”

The climate scientist and commission co-chair also  said he did see hope – and that it lay  in the people. “There are a lot of highly skilled people who work in Grangemouth, a lot of them travelling from across the central belt into the area. They are an amazing resource which give huge hope in terms of the transition for the whole of Scotland to net zero.”

“My biggest hope is that, if that trust can be rebuilt, Grangemouth can be a core part of a future net zero Scotland and UK. But the risk is we lose those people. They leave and go elsewhere in the world.

“Our big hope is the people. Our big risk is that we lose them. That’s the urgency and the opportunity for people in Grangemouth and the wider area to stay here and be part of the future prosperity in Scotland.

“You look at Scotland as a whole in terms of the transition. We’ve got the best renewable energy resources in the world, a highly skilled workforce. The potential is just massive but it’s nt going to happen by itself and it’s not going to happen just relying on the private sector to deliver it. It needs good conversations between all the stakeholders and that includes the workers and the communities, and it needs really good plans and good working across both the administrations, UK and Scottish government."