The SNP is usually adept at picking its battles so, in relation to the winner of this week’s Worst Motion of the Week, perhaps Marco Biagi MSP is too wet behind the ears to know when it is best to quit while one is only slightly behind. Or, perhaps young Marco is being put out to bat as a sacrificial lamb but, either way, a call to “make GIB a Scottish Company” can only ever fail in today’s climate.
The Green Investment Bank was recently placed in both Edinburgh & London and renamed the ‘UK Green Investment Bank’, for obvious Nationalist fox-shooting purposes. Many may grumble that this was a political decision but that, I’m afraid, is Westminster’s wont. The message from the coalition is clear – ‘here are some jobs and investment opportunities that would not be of the same level if Scotland was independent. Vote Yes in 2014 and we’ll take those jobs and that money back to London’.
The referendum is not going to be won and lost over 70 jobs and £2bn of renewable investment but this was a rare example of a union dividend coming Scotland’s way and the SNP’s posturing of calling for a UK Government to place a UK institution in Scotland, less than three years away from an independence referendum, is foolishly drawing attention to this UK benefit and, on top of that, has always sounded a bit childish.
Anyway, here is the motion (and a Lib Dem amendment to it):
Motion S4M-02542: Marco Biagi, Edinburgh Central, Scottish National Party, Date Lodged: 29/03/2012
Make GIB a Scottish Company
That the Parliament welcomes the recent announcement that the Green Investment Bank (GIB) is to be based in Edinburgh and considers that this is in recognition of the tremendous strength of Edinburgh as a centre both for financial services and the new green industries; understands that the new Edinburgh-based GIB is registered with Companies House at an address in London; considers it important to have the GIB headquarters in Edinburgh in more than just name, and calls on the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to transfer the company registration to Edinburgh once a suitable venue for the GIB has been identified in the city.
Supported by: Bill Kidd, Annabelle Ewing, Stuart McMillan, John Finnie, Adam Ingram, Christina McKelvie, Mike MacKenzie, Joan McAlpine, Kevin Stewart, Angus MacDonald, Maureen Watt, John Mason, Jean Urquhart, Mark McDonald, Bill Walker, Roderick Campbell, Kenneth Gibson, Dennis Robertson, David Torrance, Margaret Burgess, Linda Fabiani, Fiona McLeod, Bob Doris, Dave Thompson, Gil Paterson, Christine Graham
Motion S4M-02542.1: Liam McArthur, Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats, Date Lodged: 30/03/2012
Make GIB a Scottish Company
As an amendment to motion S4M-02542 in the name of Marco Biagi (Make GIB a Scottish Company), leave out from “that the Green Investment Bank” to end and insert “by the UK Government that the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) is to be based in Edinburgh and considers that this is in recognition of the tremendous strength of Edinburgh as a centre both for financial services and the new green industries; recognises that the headquarters of the GIB will be located in Edinburgh, with the main transaction team based in London, in order to enable a greater commercial reach nationally than could be achieved from one location; believes that basing the GIB’s corporate headquarters, asset management and administrative functions in Edinburgh and its transaction team in London will harness expertise across the country to deliver a strong and successful GIB for the UK, make Edinburgh a centre of excellence for green investment and provide a welcome boost to the city’s economy, and looks forward to the GIB playing a vital role in the UK’s drive toward a sustainable and green future.”
It was an easy riposte for Liam McArthur really, let’s be honest. The UK GiB is an example of London and Edinburgh working as a team, stronger together, weaker apart etc and Scotland being given something and wanting more is not the type of behaviour that is suited to a nation arguing to be mature enough to stand alone on the world stage.
Independence will inevitably involve compromises, and looking to nab UK institutions before the referendum is called rather than gracefully accept the forfeiture is unbecoming of the otherwise typically positive approach adopted by the SNP. If an independent Scotland wants a Green Investment Bank, it can build one. End of. If rUK wants to keep its bank in a foreign country, that’s its decision.
If the 2014 referendum results in a No vote, then by all means call for the UK GiB to be based in Scotland if that’s where the headquarters are but simultaneously looking to move away from the UK while calling for its institutions to be based here seems hypocritical or naïve.
Furthermore, the call is so easily countered by the opposition that a frustrated silence is surely immeasurably preferable, not that silence tends to be preferred over an MSP’s opportunity to submit a below-par motion.
#1 by dcomerf on April 6, 2012 - 12:42 pm
Disgree, and strongly hope that the GIB will survive independence as a transnational institution!
#2 by Jeff on April 6, 2012 - 2:00 pm
I hope the UK GIB will survive independence too but it’d be downright foolish to expect it to.
#3 by Douglas McLellan on April 6, 2012 - 3:32 pm
I cant see how the GIB would survive. Its like a great many Nationalist positions – that all UK things that happen in Scotland will stay in Scotland (not that nasty nasty stuff on the Clyde though, no no no, we dont want that to stay but we want everything else).
#4 by Cameron on April 6, 2012 - 3:57 pm
Surely if the plan for 100% equivalent renewables by 2020, and the plan for renewable energy technology to constitute a large part of the Scottish economy doesn’t change post independence then we’ll need some sort of green bank.
Douglas are you suggesting the Scottish government would not fund a Scottish Green Investment Bank post independence? If so why not?
#5 by Jeff on April 6, 2012 - 4:26 pm
Surely that would be a wholly separate Green Bank, distinct from this British Green Bank that would move down South in the event of independence?
#6 by Don McC on April 6, 2012 - 5:13 pm
Would that move be made out of spite, Jeff? The arguments for placing the GIB North of the Border will still, by and large, be true post independence. A little cross-border co-operation would be a good thing and should be encouraged, not dismissed as impractical.
#7 by Jeff on April 6, 2012 - 6:06 pm
No spite at all, I’m delighted that the UK GiB is (partly) based in Edinburgh. I just think it’s illogical to expect the UK GiB to be based in a foreign country. I think to talk about ‘cross-border co-operation’ is stretching things a bit too far. What else should rUK base in Scotland? The BBC? Scotland Yard?
The UK GiB would, and should, move to London, York or Bristol if Scotland wins independence.
#8 by Iain Menzies on April 7, 2012 - 9:02 am
Why would an English government subsidies the development of a green energy sector in scotland that it would either not benefit from, or have to pay to get power from?
There are plenty of places down south that could use redevelopment money so i would expect, and im sure most english voters would too, that the money would move south.
#9 by Cameron on April 6, 2012 - 6:54 pm
That’s definitely fair enough. It’s far too easy to overstate the importance of this bank though. If the bank were purely to serve Scotland two billion would still be much too low a figure. That it’s to serve the whole UK is laughable.
Two Billion that’s nearly the cost of a bridge, less than the costs of decommissioning a nuclear plant, less than the cost of a single one of the aircraft carriers currently being built. It’s so inadequate I really don’t see why such a fuss is being made over it
#10 by Craig Gallagher on April 7, 2012 - 12:45 am
I don’t think it’s childish for the SNP to be calling for continued UK Government investment in Scotland, nor do I think it draws attention to “union dividends” as you call them. That’s a very dangerous line of thinking Jeff, one that assumes that the UK Government only makes pro-Scotland decisions in order to keep us from breaking away.
If that is indeed your logic, we have to ask ourselves why they are then placing this in Edinburgh (and London) and the answer becomes that the SNP must be doing their jobs properly. I expect the elected government of the entirely-expenditure Scottish Parliament to be doing their damndest to improve Scotland’s revenue streams, whether that’s through demanding greater UK Government investment through the block grant or through projects, or by demanding greater revenue-raising powers of their own.
The Green Investment Bank is a huge win for Scotland, and highlights exactly why the UK Government is so determined to get the referendum out of the way. The longer this goes on, the more they actually have to be the elected government of the whole country, instead of just London and the Home Counties as they normally are.
#11 by Barbarian on April 7, 2012 - 9:49 am
It reminds me of the demands for the HSL to be built all the way to Scotland. But if the SNP are so confident about independence, why would Westminster fork out a few extra billion?
#12 by Craig Gallagher on April 7, 2012 - 6:04 pm
Because it’s their job? Until the independence matter is resolved, it would be extremely craven of the UK Government to withhold funding from Scots in a deepening and worsening recession of Westminster’s making just because they think they might split off and become another country in a few years.
This hits at the fundamental failing of modern democracies: government isn’t about politics, it’s about making people’s lives better. This would be an example of a UK Government putting people above point-scoring, and the SNP should duly accept such actions without crowing and attaching their own political spins to such investments. But I don’t hold out hope for that.
#13 by Callum Leslie on April 7, 2012 - 9:35 pm
Interesting – isn’t Bill Walker still “suspended” from the SNP and the group?