Easter Ross MP's impassioned Cromarty Firth green freeport push uses social impact of Nigg and Kishorn yards as example of what is at stake
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AN Easter Ross-based MP has made an impassioned call for so-called green freeport status for the Cromarty Firth and the vital role new employment opportunities have in allowing communities to thrive.
MP Jamie Stone made his remarks while speaking on the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.
Making the case for the Opportunity Cromarty Firth's green freeport bid – on which an announcement is still awaited – he attributed the abandoned houses that can be seen across the far north to depopulation, naming this the "curse of the Highlands.
The local bid led by Port of Cromarty Firth features a consortium of businesses and regional stakeholders and is up against four other ports across Scotland.
"It is all well and good debating more or less housing in our communities, but if we do not have quality employment for the young generation for the future, the finest housing plan – however we put it together – will be undermined."
Two Scottish locations will be given green freeport status, with investment of up to £26 million each. A decision to be taken by the UK and Scottish Governments is understood to be imminent.
The MP said it was the advent of the Dounreay nuclear establishment which "halted and reversed that depopulation" by providing jobs for local people.
Mr Stone said: "It is all well and good debating more or less housing in our communities, but if we do not have quality employment for the young generation for the future, the finest housing plan – however we put it together – will be undermined.
"Dounreay and the establishment of the oil fabrication yards in Nigg changed the course of history in the Highlands. It meant that local people could remain local. For me, it meant that I could get married and have children where I grew up.
"That is why I am throwing my full weight behind the Cromarty Firth Green Freeport bid. It was a real shame that no MPs from the party that runs the Scottish Government were present at the debate, because I would have liked them to hear that message loud and clear.
"As ever, I will contribute to the debate from a Highlands perspective. I hope that all honourable members will one day visit my constituency and see Caithness and Sutherland. If visitors drive across Caithness in a north-westerly direction on a road called the Causewaymire, they will see abandoned houses to left and right. That is because for far too long depopulation was the curse of the Highlands, and that is why we have so many people with Highland surnames in Canada, in the Carolinas and in Virginia.
"The advent of the nuclear facility in Dounreay halted and reversed that depopulation in the 1950s. The Labour Government in the 1960s established the Highlands and Islands Development Board, which in turn led to the fabrication of oil facilities at several yards in the Highlands. That, too, helped to halt and reverse depopulation in the Highlands, and it is why I got married and had children myself – I worked in one of those yards at the time.
"My point is a fundamental one: we talk about the definition of infrastructure and, in my mind, it is about quality employment. If we do not have quality employment for the young generation for the future, the finest housing plan, however we put it together, will be undermined. It is no accident that, after Dounreay came to be, we saw house-building on a very large scale in Caithness, around Wick and Thurso.
"When the yards at Nigg and Kishorn in Ross and Cromarty opened, we saw large-scale housing developments—private housing and social housing—in my home town of Tain, in Alness and in the village of Balintore. Without that part of infrastructure called employment, it ain’t going to work, folks, I am afraid.
"That is why I go on quite a lot in this place about space launch in Caithness and, in particular, Sutherland—because it is about jobs. This is an unashamed sales pitch, Mr Deputy Speaker; I hope you will forgive me. I hope that His Majesty’s Government and the Scottish Government will look favourably on the bid to establish a green freeport on the Cromarty Firth."
