Scotland and Wales

What Forge Is and Is Not

The NHS, schools, social care, and housing are devolved to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd. Forge does not stand candidates for Holyrood or the Senedd. We are a party of Westminster government, and we respect what was settled in 1998 and refined since. Devolution is not a problem to be managed. It is a constitutional settlement to be honoured.

But the policies in this manifesto have direct and substantial benefits for Scotland and Wales through reserved Westminster powers, the Barnett formula, and UK-wide infrastructure investment. Voters in Scotland and Wales deserve a credible, modern UK government that works with their devolved governments, not against them. What follows is a specific, honest account of what a Forge government at Westminster delivers for each nation.

What Forge Delivers for Scotland

Scotland in 2026 faces a familiar frustration: voters who no longer trust the SNP's competence but find no credible alternative at Westminster that understands Scotland's specific economic and constitutional interests. Forge offers a Westminster alternative that does not interfere with devolved competences and delivers genuinely on the reserved ones.

Marine Energy: The Pentland Firth

The Pentland Firth between Caithness and Orkney holds a quarter of Europe's entire tidal energy potential. The water flows at 4 to 5 metres per second for hours at a time, twice daily, with the precision of a clock. This is not intermittent like wind. It is predictable years in advance. Orbital Marine Power's O2 turbine, the world's most powerful tidal stream turbine, was developed in Scotland and tested off Orkney. The technology is ready. What has been missing is the contract certainty that made offshore wind commercial.

• Dedicated marine energy Contracts for Difference at a strike price that reflects tidal's actual generation costs, not the now-mature offshore wind market rate
• Target: 1 GW of tidal energy operational by Year 5, 5 GW pipeline confirmed. Scotland generates the lion's share of this
• Tidal turbine assembly and maintenance bases: Caithness, Orkney, Shetland, and the Moray Firth. Real manufacturing jobs in communities with high youth unemployment and historic connection to marine engineering
• Export opportunity: the UK owns the best tidal resource in Europe. The companies that develop it here export the technology globally. This is Scotland's offshore oil story, but renewable and permanent

Scottish Shipyards on Double Shifts

BAE Systems Govan and Scotstoun on the Clyde, and Babcock Rosyth in Fife, move to two-shift working under the expanded Type 26, Type 31, and SSN-AUKUS submarine programmes. The skills pipeline has thinned dangerously during periods of low order flow. Double-shift working, with a 5,000 defence apprenticeship programme (Section V) providing the next generation of shipbuilders, restores the Clyde's position as a serious naval shipbuilding centre rather than a politically retained token presence.

• Type 26 City-class frigates: 8 ships, accelerated to put the first two in service by 2030
• Type 31 Inspiration-class: 5 ships, with export opportunities to Poland, Indonesia, and beyond creating further order flow
• SSN-AUKUS submarine design work at Babcock Rosyth: significant engineering employment over 20 years
• Supply chains across central Scotland: electronics, systems integration, materials, specialist engineering. Thousands of indirect jobs in the West of Scotland supply chain

UK Cyber Academy: Scotland Has a Strong Bid

The UK Cyber Academy (Section V) trains 4,000 graduates per year and is located through competitive bidding. Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dundee all have genuine, strong cases: Heriot-Watt, the University of Edinburgh, Strathclyde, and Abertay each have cyber research excellence. Edinburgh already hosts significant cyber industry employers. The bid process is open. The Scottish government is encouraged to make the case.

Energy Decoupling Benefits Scotland Most

Scotland generates more electricity from wind and hydro per capita than any other part of the UK. Yet Scottish households pay the same gas-linked electricity prices as households in England, despite their electricity coming from Scottish wind at near-zero marginal cost. The wholesale market reform in Section XI, splitting the market into a low-carbon pool priced at actual generation cost and a thermal pool priced at gas cost, delivers structurally lower bills for Scotland. The more renewable generation dominates the Scottish grid, the lower the Scottish bill, permanently, not as a subsidy but as the actual cost of the energy being used.

The Union Question: No Interference, No Encouragement

Forge has no view on Scottish independence. That is for the Scottish people to decide through proper democratic processes. If Holyrood requests a Section 30 order on the basis of a clear electoral mandate for another referendum, Forge will not block it. We also will not encourage one. The Union holds because it works, or it does not. Our job is to make it work. Not to lecture Scotland on whether it should stay, but to govern in a way that makes staying the obvious sensible choice.

• Barnett formula honoured with no cuts to the block grant
• A formal needs-based review, conducted jointly with the Scottish Government, to update the Barnett baseline for the 21st century
• Crown Estate Scotland (already devolved since 2017) is untouched and respected
• Defence Bonds available to Scottish savers on identical terms to the rest of the UK

What Forge Delivers for Wales

Wales in 2026 has the longest NHS waiting lists in the UK, the widest productivity gap with England, and has been governed by Welsh Labour for 27 years. Forge does not claim to fix what is devolved. But there is a great deal within Westminster's power that would materially benefit Welsh communities, and it has been substantially neglected.

South Wales Compound Semiconductor Cluster

South Wales is already home to the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult in Cardiff and the Newport Wafer Fab, which produces compound semiconductors used in 5G infrastructure, electric vehicles, and power electronics. This is not a sector to create from scratch. It is a sector to scale from an existing base. The British Strategic Accelerator (Section VI) commits 500 million pounds to this cluster over the parliament.

• Co-investment alongside IQE, Siemens, and the existing Catapult programme to scale manufacturing capacity
• Newport and Cardiff as the UK centre for compound semiconductor production serving the automotive, telecommunications, and defence sectors
• Welsh manufacturing jobs in a sector that cannot easily be offshored: compound semiconductor fabrication requires physical proximity to specialist facilities and engineers

Morlais Marine Energy Zone

The Morlais tidal demonstration zone off Holy Island, Anglesey, is one of Europe's largest tidal stream development sites. Dedicated marine CfDs apply to Welsh tidal projects on the same basis as Scottish ones. The Bristol Channel additionally has significant wave energy resource. Wales has the geography. Forge provides the contract certainty.

Welsh Water and the Cleanup Programme

Dwr Cymru Welsh Water is already a not-for-profit company owned by a company limited by guarantee, with no shareholders. It does not extract dividends. But it carries significant debt (around 2 billion pounds) and faces the same sewage infrastructure challenges as English companies. The 25-year water cleanup programme (Section X) extends explicitly to Wales: a Wales-specific remediation plan, jointly managed with Welsh Government, funded from the same UK-scale capital programme.

Crown Estate Devolution to Wales

Scotland has Crown Estate Scotland, managing Scottish seabed revenues for Scottish public benefit. Wales does not have an equivalent, despite Welsh seabed generating significant offshore wind income. Forge will devolve management of the Crown Estate's Welsh portfolio to a Welsh public body on the Scottish model. Welsh seabed revenues serve Welsh energy infrastructure investment.

Honest About Devolution

NHS Wales, Welsh schools, Welsh housing, and Welsh social care are devolved. Forge will not pretend a Westminster government can fix A&E waits in Wrexham or school attainment in Rhondda Cynon Taf. What it can do: fund the Welsh Government properly through Barnett, deliver UK-wide reforms that directly benefit Welsh households (energy bills, water quality, defence manufacturing, semiconductor investment), and never use Welsh devolved policy as a political football at Westminster. The Welsh Government and Forge can disagree on plenty. That is the nature of devolution. The disagreements happen in the open, with mutual respect for each other's democratic mandate.

Standing in Scotland and Wales

Forge stands candidates for Westminster constituencies in Scotland and Wales. We do not stand for Holyrood or the Senedd. A voter in Edinburgh South or Cardiff Central can support Forge for Westminster while supporting whichever party they prefer in devolved elections. These are separate mandates for separate governments with separate competences. We are in competition with the two-party Westminster drift, not with devolved government.

Forge Clubs operate in every nation: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham, and Bangor. Members in Scotland and Wales shape the manifesto through the same amendment process as members in England. Scottish and Welsh members can propose nation-specific policy additions; 60% Club support refers them to the policy committee.