The Anonymous Widower

Thousands Pay More Tax In ‘Chaotic’ Yousaf Budget

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.

It has this sub-heading.

Efforts to plug £1.5bn funding hole put Scotland at a disadvantage, say business leaders

I have a feeling that the rise in  income tax will have unintended consequences.

The UK’s Current Hydrogen Plans

Last week, the UK Government announced grants for eleven big hydrogen projects, around the UK, with two in Scotland. The new Scottish electrolysers will be playing a large part in decarbonising the Scotch whisky industry and HGVs.

I wrote Major Boost For Hydrogen As UK Unlocks New Investment And Jobs to describe the investments scope and benefits.

The Government estimated that these grants will create 700 jobs, across the UK.

How many quality high-paid jobs will this funding create in Scotland? As two of the eleven projects are based in Scotland, it could be around 127 quality jobs.

More UK Hydrogen Plans Are On The Way

The Government also indicated that this was only the first stage of bringing hydrogen production to the UK, so I will expect more high-paid quality jobs will be created.

Projected UK Offshore Wind Power

This Wikipedia entry is a list of all installed, under-construction and proposed offshore wind farms in the UK.

Aggregating the new unbuilt wind farms says the following capacity will very likely be installed in the UK in the next few years.

• Scotland – 32, 750 MW.
• England – 25,558 MW
• Wales – 700 MW

As more proposals have been called for, particularly in the Celtic Sea, I don’t think it would be unreasonable to add perhaps another 10,000 MW.

Wind farms are also proposed for around the island of Ireland and in the waters of the Channel Islands.

Upgrading Of The National Grid

These three posts could well be forerunners of other posts, I will write in the next few months.

• National Grid Fast-Tracks Overhead Line Upgrade Project To Help Accelerate Connection Dates Of 175 Clean Energy Projects
• National Grid To Accelerate Up To 20GW Of Grid Connections Across Its Transmission And Distribution Networks
• National Grid’s London Power Tunnels Breakthrough Completes £1 Billion Project’s Tunnelling Activity

National Grid is increasing its capacity at a fast pace and will need a large number of quality engineers.

Crossrail And Electrical Engineers/Electricians

I suspect we’ll find, that when a report on the late delivery of Crossrail is published, an electrician shortage will get some of the blame.

I have friends, who are electricians. Because of the shortage of trained electricians, they were offered fortunes to work on Crossrail.

Do We Have Enough Engineers?

For all the reasons I have outlined, our path to net-zero will need a lot of trained electrical engineers and electricians and just as Crossrail showed, when there is a shortage of labour in a particular area, remuneration rises.

Electrical engineers and electricians in the British Isles will be able to pick and choose the jobs they take, just as they did with Crossrail and the other major projects being built at the same time.

Effects On Scotland

If you were an engineer, who had skills and could work on these projects, would you prefer to work on a project, where the tax rate was lower?

Scotland’s tax rise will harm their decarbonisation ambitions.

Surely, the Greens should have vetoed a tax increase, which will inevitably slow their progress to net-zero?

Or are Greens a tad short of the grey matter?

Conclusion

I believe the Scottish government has shot itself in the foot.

December 20, 2023 - Posted by AnonW | Energy, Finance, Hydrogen | Channel Islands, Crossrail, Employment, Green Hydrogen, Humza Yousaf, Income Tax, Island Of Ireland, National Grid, Offshore Wind Power, Politics, Scotland, Scottish Green Party, SNP, Tax