To ask the Scottish Government what further engagement it has had with Ineos, in light of recent reports of additional redundancies related to the closure of the Grangemouth refinery. (S6O-04432)

Ministers and officials engage with the Ineos businesses at Grangemouth regularly, recognising their role as important employers of highly skilled people within Grangemouth. The news that Ineos Olefins & Polymers UK is considering redundancies as a result of the closure of the refinery is concerning, and we stand ready to support workers who are impacted by that decision. I appeal to the business to explore all possible opportunities for redeployment of any workers who are at risk of redundancy, and I commit to exploring, with the business, all routes to mitigate any further loss of industrial activity or employment across the industrial cluster.

The minister will be aware—I have raised this point many times in our exchanges—that the closure of the refinery is significant not just for those who are directly employed there but for the wider supply chain, particularly within the Grangemouth chemical cluster.

Project willow is a vital piece of work that should give direction to investment and reassurance to workers on a foundation for the future. I know that the project willow report has been signed off by both the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments, but is the minister able to give a definitive date for its publication?

Michelle Thomson has been diligent in raising the matter, which affects many of her constituents. The project willow conclusions and recommendations will be made available via a public information document, which we hope will be published next week. We are working closely with the UK Government and other partners to finalise the details of that. I look forward to members from across the chamber engaging constructively with the project willow outputs when they become available.

The minister says that the report will published next week, but I remind him that we were told in the chamber several weeks ago that it would be published at the end of February. In responding to a similar question to the one that Michelle Thomson has just posed about the date of publication, the Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy said that the report was subject to “final checks and changes” and that Petroineos is among the parties that are reviewing the report. Will the minister explain why Petroineos is seeing the report? The report is being paid for by taxpayers’ money, so why is Petroineos seeing it? What other members of the Grangemouth future industry board are also seeing it so that it can be checked and changed?

First, by “next week”, I mean next week. Secondly, on Stephen Kerr’s point about Petroineos, I think that he would be the very first person in the chamber to complain, not without some justification, if the Scottish Government had not been speaking to Petroineos and other companies that are involved directly in the matter. As he says, the report is a Scottish Government report, but it is entirely legitimate for us to speak to the companies that are involved.

Given that we now have a financial commitment to invest from the Scottish Government and £200 million from the UK Government’s National Wealth Fund, what is the timescale for getting new projects over the line, so that we see the new jobs that we need being created using the infrastructure in Grangemouth?

As Sarah Boyack has said, there has been investment by both Governments. On 18 February, the First Minister announced to the Parliament that the Scottish Government would lodge a stage 3 amendment to the budget bill for

“£25 million to establish a Grangemouth just transition fund”,—[Official Report, 18 February 2025; c 32.]

which will expedite near-term propositions in the here and now.

The Prime Minister announced that, as part of a major intervention, the National Wealth Fund will provide £200 million of investment for new, future opportunities for Grangemouth. We understand that the funds from the National Wealth Fund will consider only investable propositions and that moneys will be provided on a co-investment basis. Timescales will be determined by those factors.

I hope that Sarah Boyack accepts that both Governments take seriously the task of finding solutions for the future and for the here and now.

Question 8 has been withdrawn.

There will be a brief suspension before we move to the next item of business.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—