THE creation of green freeports in Scotland could help combat depopulation in the Highlands, Rishi Sunak has said.

Speaking in Invergordon on the Cromarty Firth, the Prime Minister said the new jobs attracted to the enterprise zones would help young people stay in the region.

He said young people he had spoken to locally were “pumped up” about its arrival, and he “completely believed” that it would help stem depopulation in the Highlands.

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Mr Sunak confirmed the Cromarty Firth and Firth of Forth would be the first two green freeports north of the border, backed by £50milliion of funding from the Treasury.

The huge sites are designed to spur business growth through tax breaks, but critics say they merely move jobs from elsewhere and use public cash to subsidise private companies.

Mr Sunak also linked them to the UK Government’s levelling up agenda, saying the jobs would let more people live where they grew up, rather than be forced to leave to find work.

He said: “We’ve got a fantastic oil and gas industry here which we’re very keen to support.

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“We’re also preparing ourselves for the future, and playing a part in that is really exciting and something that people in Scotland should be really proud of their role in.

“Most importantly, it’s about optimism… The optimism that it will feed the entire community and the entire region. It’s about opportunity, and it’s about pride.

“If you’re a young person growing up, we don’t want you to have to leave home to fulfil all your ambitions and dreams.

“With a freeport, with the jobs and investment and opportunity that it’s going to bring, you shouldn’t have to do that.

“I think that’s a really exciting vision that the people here are really hungry to go and realise.”

He went on: “We don’t want our young people to have to leave home to fulfil all their dreams and ambitions. And that’s why if we can bring the investment and the jobs and the opportunity to them, that’s what levelling up should be about.

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"And that’s what freeports do, and we’ve seen them work around the world and we’ve seen them work or they’re already working in England, and that’s why we’re so excited to bring those benefits to Scotland.”

“It’s a good example of that partnership between the UK Government and the Scottish Government making a tangible difference to people’s lives, spreading opportunity.”