SNP ministers have been accused of “moving the goalposts” to mask their failure to meet a green jobs target.

Finance Secretary Kate Forbes suggested the criteria for “green jobs” should be widened in response to questions over the SNP’s missed low-carbon employment goals.

The Scottish Government pledged in 2010 to produce 130,000 green jobs by 2020 but the objective has been criticised by opponents after only a fraction of roles expected had materialised.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have revealed that the number of estimated jobs in Scotland’s “low-carbon and renewable energy economy” fell from 21,700 in 2019 to 20,500 in 2020 – a drop from 23,200 in 2014.

In 2015, Scotland had 22,900 green jobs, before the number increased to 24,000 in 2016 – but fell to 22,100 in 2017 and 23,100 in 2018.

Facing questioning from Scottish Labour net zero, energy and transport spokesperson Colin Smyth, the Finance Secretary said: “In terms of green jobs, we at the moment are doing quite a lot of work internally in the government in terms of trying to measure green jobs, because there are very narrow ways of measuring green jobs.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Politics Matters