AN UNELECTED Tory donor awarded a ministerial place in the Scotland Office has said he was motivated to join government after his old school was closed down.
Malcolm Offord, Lord Offord of Garvel, made his maiden speech today during a session of the Lords Grand Committee.
He was appointed last year as a junior Scotland Office minister, replacing David Dugiud MP who was axed in Boris Johnson’s last reshuffle.
Lord Offord told peers of his background and his childhood growing up in Greenock, in a “modest homely tenement” on the town’s Bank Street.
He said he received a “first class education for free” by attending Greenock Academy, which was closed down in 2011.
The Peer said he was “dismayed” by the closure, adding: It was determined by the local council that with Inverclyde depopulating after post-industrialisation, schools needed to go down from eight to six. And it was decided that it conferred to great an advantage on the students who went to that school to study there, and therefore it was closed.”
He said the closure was “an egregious example of levelling down in Scotland and a personal motivator for me in joining this government, in order to support the levelling up agenda.”
Speaking in a debate about oil and gas transition, the peer said it would be “foolhardy and irresponsible” to get rid of the sector in Scotland, and said the country was “punching above our weight” when it came to energy production.
He said Scotland had a “leading role to play in rebalancing the UK energy programme to net zero by 2050” and added: “We have all the natural resources, the existing infrastructure, plus the scientists, engineers and skilled workforce required to build a balanced scorecard in energy.
Scotland contributes 60% of UK wind and 40% of the 160,000 highly skilled jobs already working in energy across the UK.
“This is called punching above our weight in the UK, where we contribute just eight percent of the population and 33% of the geography.”
The minister also criticised Scottish Government minister Patrick Harvie, who previously suggested it was only people on the extreme right who would support keeping oil and gas.
He said: “This government does not believe that decarbonising our economy [means] shutting the oil and gas industry, and certainly does not believe in demonising a world-leading industry - the sort of intemperate language being used by Patrick Harvie [who] recently said that only those on the hard right support oil and gas extraction. What an insult to the 160,000 workers in this vital sector.”
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