Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called on the Scottish and UK governments to work together to agree financial guarantees for fabricator BiFab to cover the supply of foundations to the 450MW Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm.
Writing in The Courier local newspaper Brown said a failure to do so would be a “dereliction of duty”.
He cited a legal opinion from the former Attorney General Lord Davidson for the GMB union, which said the Scottish government should have deferred a decision until after the end of the year when the UK leaves the EU, as state aid rules will then change.
The Scottish government had argued that EU state aid rules had prevented the guarantee.
Brown also said that Scottish government did not seem to have sought help from the UK government, which would have more flexibility over state aid.
Unite Scotland and GMB Scotland joint secretaries Gary Smith and Pat Rafferty said: “The Scottish government’s decision to walk away from its previous commitments to guarantee BiFab’s manufacture of eight turbine jackets on the Neart Na Gaoithe (NnG) project has put these yards on the brink of administration.
“Our unions have a legal view that the Minister has no reason or obligation to walk away from BiFab under EU State Aid regulations, but putting to one side the government’s argument that will cease to exist in a few weeks’ time, there is another option.”
The unions also urged the Scottish government to call on the UK government to provide the guarantees.
Smith and Rafferty said: “The UK government has the scope to intervene and an interdependent approach could hold the key to saving the best chance we have of building an offshore wind manufacturing supply chain in Scotland.
“Workers and their communities in Fife and Lewis have no time for a constitutional blame game, and both governments, given their lofty ambitions for green jobs, could and should work together to bring this badly needed contract to Scotland.”
BiFab was lined up last year to supply eight jacket foundations for the project, which is due online in 2022.