Official Report 783KB pdf
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-20100, in the name of Finlay Carson, on the essential role of renewable energy in meeting net zero targets. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises what it sees as the essential role of renewable energy in meeting Scotland’s net zero targets; acknowledges what it considers is the significant growth of onshore wind farms, transmission infrastructure and energy storage developments across rural Scotland, including in Dumfries and Galloway; notes the reported concerns raised by local communities regarding the cumulative impact of large-scale developments on landscapes, biodiversity and rural economies; understands that many of these developments are advanced through planning mechanisms that limit local authority capacity and community input, including applications under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989; notes the belief that a balanced approach is needed that supports Scotland’s climate ambitions while ensuring that rural communities are active partners in shaping the future of their regions; further notes the calls on the Scottish Government to publish a clear and inclusive national energy strategy that provides guidance on cumulative impact, community benefit and transmission infrastructure, and notes the calls for reform of the planning system to strengthen transparency, local engagement and democratic accountability in energy infrastructure decisions, which ensures that all parts of Scotland benefit fairly and sustainably from the transition to net zero.
16:46
I welcome the opportunity to bring the debate to the chamber, and I thank colleagues from across the political divide for supporting my motion.
At its heart, this debate asks whether the voices of rural Scotland still matter in the national decisions that shape our landscapes, livelihoods and future. Across rural Scotland, from the Highlands to the south of Scotland, communities face growing uncertainty. Yet another wave of energy infrastructure has arrived at a pace and scale that was never properly planned, clearly explained or meaningfully discussed with those who are expected to live beside it for generations. That is the consequence of a Government pursuing energy expansion without building the democratic foundations that are required to support it.
The Scottish Conservatives, like our rural constituents, recognise that Scotland needs energy infrastructure. They are not anti-development or anti-renewables; they are pro-fairness, pro-transparency and pro-democracy, but they see a system that is currently failing on all three counts.
Nowhere is that clearer than in Galloway. My constituency has hosted extensive energy infrastructure for decades. We have Windy Standard, Scotland’s first consented onshore wind farm; Robin Rigg, Scotland’s first offshore wind farm; and the Galloway hydro scheme, which was the country’s first major integrated hydro scheme and one of the world’s earliest all-river systems, and which is still producing power nearly a century later.
Galloway has powered Scotland for generations, but recent years have brought something entirely different: not strategic modernisation but a disjointed surge of proposals arriving simultaneously, and assessed in isolation. Residents now face multiple wind farm applications, large-scale battery storage compounds, solar farms, new substations, construction and traffic disruption causing damage to our roads, and miles of monster pylons and cables. That is not abstract—it reshapes the places where people live, work and raise families, yet communities feel that they have had little meaningful say.
A clear example is the Kendoon to Tongland power line upgrade. Initially presented as a straightforward modernisation, it evolved through several iterations in which the scale, route and justification were changed. SP Energy Networks rejected undergrounding in the most visually sensitive areas and, although the independent reporter recommended refusal, the Scottish Government approved the upgrade regardless. For some, the process became so opaque that they sought judicial review simply in order to have their voices heard. That should be a warning. When ordinary citizens feel that their only remaining avenue is the courts, it reveals not just planning failure but democratic failure.
Galloway is not alone. In the Highlands, the community council convention of the Highland Council area has brought together community councils, representing tens of thousands of people who feel overwhelmed by cumulative impacts and ignored by the planning system. They unite around a simple message: rural communities are being treated as passive observers, not active partners.
Inspired by that movement, a south of Scotland convention is now emerging, too. Community councils across the Borders—and, shortly, in Dumfries and Galloway, too—have joined forces. Those communities are calling, respectfully and democratically, for a moratorium on new large-scale energy infrastructure until a strategy is published, and I join them in that call. It is not about being obstructive or about nimbyism—it is responsible citizenship. People are saying, “We will engage. We will play our part. But we cannot support limitless development with no clear end point, no assurances of fairness, and no understanding of where the burden will fall next.”
However, the Government continues to rely on a planning framework that many find inaccessible and unbalanced. Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 is repeatedly cited as a barrier to genuine local influence. It centralises decision making, reduces the weight of local authority views and creates the perception that, once a project has reached a certain size, addressing community sentiment becomes a procedural tick-box exercise. In addition, the Scottish Government is now blocking constituents from objecting by email.
Local authorities are overwhelmed by numerous complex applications. They lack the staff, the specialist expertise and the time that is required for rigorous scrutiny. Communities face thousands of pages of environmental assessments and technical documents, often with only weeks to respond. Many residents feel that consultations are not genuine exercises in listening but performances that are carried out because the rules require it. When people are spoken at, rather than spoken with, trust collapses. Trust matters—it is the foundation of any major national transition. If we want communities to host infrastructure, they must be treated from the outset as partners, not as obstacles. That is part and parcel of a just transition.
Scotland urgently needs a clear national energy strategy, not another brochure for high-level ambitions. We need a real plan with maps, limits, sequencing and transparent reasoning—a plan that answers the questions that rural communities have been asking for years. How much infrastructure does Scotland actually need? Where should that go and where should it not go? What protections will prevent overconcentration in particular regions? How will cumulative impacts be honestly assessed? How will benefits be fairly distributed? Until those questions are answered, calls for a moratorium are entirely justified.
Groups in Galloway such as Hands Off Our Hills, Galloway Without Pylons and the Glengap Community Group, along with dedicated individuals such as Paul Swift and Elaine and Trevor Proctor, have shown remarkable leadership and professionalism. They have informed neighbours, analysed proposals and built constructive, evidence-based campaigns. Their voices should be valued, not sidelined.
This debate is ultimately about democracy. It is about whether rural Scotland’s voice carries the same weight as urban Scotland’s interests. It is about whether Government sees rural communities as partners or simply as places where decisions can be imposed because the population is dispersed and the political cost is low. We can have a strong energy future and expand infrastructure responsibly, but we cannot do so credibly unless the people who host that infrastructure are respected, included and empowered right from the start.
Let me be clear: the people in Galloway are not standing in the way of Scotland’s future—they are standing up for their own. They are demanding fairness and a proportionate and fair planning system that recognises the cumulative burden that they already carry. They are asking for balance, not endless expansion, and for partnership, not imposition. I say this to those in Galloway who feel unheard, overlooked or simply exhausted by the constant onslaught of proposals: your concerns are legitimate; you are right to demand clarity and limits; and you are absolutely right to insist that your voices be heard on future development in our region.
Galloway has already powered Scotland for nearly a century; no one can accuse Galloway of not doing its bit. We will continue to play our part in Scotland’s energy future, but we will no longer accept being treated to Scotland’s energy dumping ground. Scotland’s new Government must bring an end to the era of limitless unco-ordinated development. Until then, rural Scotland will keep pushing back, and rightly so. The people of Galloway and the rest of rural Scotland deserve fairness, respect and the right to shape the future of a place that they call home, and I will continue to stand with them and speak for them every step of the way.
16:54
I welcome the opening of Finlay Carson’s motion, which recognises
“the essential role of renewables”.
As Mr Carson has described, Galloway has a long history of onshore, offshore and hydroelectric renewables. I know many people who are in the groups that Mr Carson mentioned, and they have had a fair amount of contact with me and my team over the past nine years.
In recent years, after decades of underinvestment in innovation and underappreciation of the climate emergency, we have seen Scotland blaze a trail in the move to net zero. We are innovating and developing at pace, even in agriculture; it is nothing short of a national transformation across our society. The cabinet secretary probably expects me to mention this, but we are seeing the deployment of commercial-scale and micro anaerobic digestion on our dairy farms and across the wider rural economy to help decarbonise the grid and support economic investment and new jobs, especially in the south-west of Scotland.
Renewables have to be part of the future. Remember that they are not only turbines; they include solar, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric and, now, battery storage. We have seen that nuclear generation is simply a bottomless pit of public money with no end in sight and no limit to its costs for today’s citizens and for generations to come. Hinkley Point C had its nuclear site licence granted in 2012. It was first budgeted at £18 billion in construction costs; today, that figure tops £48 billion and will, no doubt, rise.
Does the member concede that no one is proposing to build Hinkley C in Scotland? Small modular reactors are absolutely the future right here, in Scotland.
The last time that I checked, small modular reactors were still more than 20 years away. I am talking about what we need to do now in order to challenge the climate emergency and support biodiversity.
One of the issues with nuclear is the challenge of high-level nuclear waste, which is a radioactive by-product that cannot be destroyed and which requires secure, long-term isolation. High-level waste remains hazardous for thousands of years. I am deputy convener of the cross-party group on the civil nuclear industry, at which we have seen presentations on the complexity of high-level nuclear waste storage in Scotland, the process of conditioning to make it stable and the requirements of design, monitoring and long-term storage, which are required for decades.
Moving to net zero means being serious about renewables and the infrastructure and investment that are needed to get there. The transformation of the former Chapelcross nuclear power station site in Annan into a renewable energy hub demonstrates the impact of investment as it leads the way in research, development and deployment. That transformation is bringing quality, skilled jobs and employment to the south, which is only one example of how the just transition delivers real economic benefits across our country.
However, the benefits cannot come at the expense of local communities and their right to be heard when decisions are made about where that investment goes and what it delivers. I want to see international best practice, which means not only consulting communities but involving them in the planning process from the very beginning.
As I said earlier, Mr Carson mentioned many groups and people who have contacted me, and it is something that we really—
Will the member take an intervention?
I do not think that I have time.
You can take a very brief intervention.
Okay, I will take a brief intervention.
It is a simple question: does Galloway have enough wind turbines?
I recently compared the number of turbines in Galloway versus other parts of Scotland. It was quite interesting to see what is out there. We need to consider the cumulative impact of the turbines, which a lot of people have contacted me about. They are worried about Galloway being the place where all the turbines are put up. We need to consider that, but we absolutely need to ensure that our communities in the south are at the core of our renewables future. I look forward to the Scottish Government continuing that action, but we definitely need to ensure that the development proposals mean that all communities are involved, engaged with, listened to and included at the beginning of any development.
16:59
First, I congratulate Finlay Carson on securing what I think is a very important debate. The first two speakers have been from the south of Scotland, I am here representing the Highlands, and we have members from the north-east and from central Scotland, too. All of us will have received very much the same feedback from our communities.
I wish to touch on three areas, the first of which is the Moray FLOW-Park. It will not be a surprise to members that I mention it, as I am actively campaigning on the issue as hard as I possibly can, for good reason. I will go into the subject in more detail in a members’ business debate next week. Last Thursday, I asked the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy a question about it, and she seemed slightly annoyed with me about what I was saying. I want to expand on that—I will make this point again next week. In responding to me about the Moray FLOW-Park, the Government has consistently said that there is no application in yet. That is the excuse; the reason for the Government not saying anything else is because there is no application in. However, community is clearly telling me that we do not want an application to go in. Some £1.83 million of public money is being spent on a project that the community clearly does not feel is in the right place, and the community, councils and various other businesses are saying, “Work with us. We are not saying no, but come and talk to us, and perhaps we can find other locations around the Highlands where you can do this.”
First, I try never to show any annoyance, and I do not remember being annoyed with Tim Eagle at all. If it came across that way, that was certainly not my intention.
On the developer, Mr Eagle is saying that there has not been consultation at all. That is interesting, because developers are encouraged to have engagement before applications go in.
I accept that point. I am delighted that the cabinet secretary was not annoyed with me because of the point that I kept making—that is fine. However, the developer did not engage. I will talk about this story next week, but the first thing that we knew came in a message that went to fishermen—it was literally two rectangles on a map of the sea. Nobody knew anything before that. That was why, over two venues, 600 people turned up—a level of scrutiny that is unheard of post-Covid.
I want to get this point across. I do not think that it is right that we, in the Parliament, say that we have to wait for an application, because, by the time we get to the application stage, a huge amount of money, energy and time has already been spent. There should be a process before that, when the Government can listen to communities and come to the conclusion that a project is not actually in the right location and can go to the developers and say “Stop”—or “We urge you to stop”, as we cannot prevent them from putting in an application. We can urge the developer to stop and we can then carry on. That is the point that I am really trying to make. One day I might get an answer to the question—perhaps next week, during the Moray FLOW-Park debate.
Emma Harper has talked about cumulative impact. Interestingly, she said a few times that that is something that we need to think about. We are well beyond the stage of needing to think about it; we should have been actively working on it. We should now have in place plans to ensure that communities are thinking about the effect of cumulative impact. Cumulative impact is happening not just in the south of Scotland; the Highlands has experienced it to a massive level. We are now well beyond that stage.
The Government should have application support for communities in place—and finance needs to come along with that from the companies that are applying. More importantly, there should be a regional energy strategy, so that we do not have widespread community impact.
When I said, in responding to an intervention, that cumulative impact is something that we need to think about, I probably should have said that we are already considering cumulative impact. Perhaps I did not think fast enough on my feet.
That is fair enough, and I thank the member for that intervention.
My gut feeling is that this is going to be a big, serious issue. It is not a political one, but I think that it will come up for all of us on the doorsteps in the upcoming election campaign. It is a big concern across Scotland.
I see that I have run out of time already. We have significant pressures across Speyside, in Moray and in the sea and offshore. I have not even mentioned the fishing sector and the spatial squeeze that it is feeling. We hosted the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation in the Parliament last week. I do not know which members were there, but I found, in circuiting the room and speaking with those who attended, that they were talking about that spatial squeeze and the pressures offshore.
It is great that Finlay Carson has secured this debate. The point that I really wanted to get across today is that local voice is important. If we are truly saying, in everything that we do, that local voice is important, we cannot ignore that voice just because we have a net zero aim. We need to start listening to communities.
I call Carol Mochan, who joins us remotely.
17:04
I, too, thank Finlay Carson for securing the debate. It is really important that we discuss these issues, particularly, as other members have said and as is stated clearly in the motion, when constituents raise such issues with us.
Rural communities understand how important the move to net zero is and, in my experience, they want to be part of the solution. As with many other changes, though, there are times when people feel that changes fall on their shoulders alone. However, I have also seen very good examples of people, communities, Governments and companies working together, and that must be the way in which we move forward.
We know that there are plans to substantially upgrade the existing electricity transmission network in Great Britain—other members have mentioned that—with companies planning to invest more than £10 billion in their networks in Scotland in the coming years. By some estimates, there are plans to build five times more transmission networks in the next 12 years than have been built in the past 30 years, so it is understandable that communities are considering and thinking about that—and are worried.
The building of the infrastructure and the changes that it will bring raise many issues that we must consider. Who are the companies? What are we doing to engage communities? How do we seek to ensure that community wealth building comes with that investment? How do we ensure that local communities see benefit from the often intrusive nature of infrastructure change?
Like other members, I am sure that our communities understand the complexities, and they spend a lot of time trying to understand the systems. However, although they really want to get involved in shaping the future, the current legislation and systems can be quite confusing. Communities care about the environment around them, and, without involving them in decisions, it is difficult to see how we will meet the targets that have been set out, which we all agree must be met.
While I have the opportunity, I want to mention a group in the South Scotland region that has been working closely with communities to bring people together and to develop outcomes, including community payback schemes, which are helpful for people. The 9CC Group in Ayrshire is a charitable organisation formed by nine local community councils to manage, administer and distribute community benefit funds that have been generated by wind farms across the Cumnock and Doon Valley area. The community councils have come together so that they can look at the management of funds and the strategic investment around infrastructure building, and consider how to support and empower communities.
I understand that that group is looking at one part of wind farms, but, as different infrastructure programmes go forward, some of the structures around them might be helpful for how we work with our communities. As the cabinet secretary said in her intervention on Tim Eagle, it is desirable that many of those projects work with their local communities, but we probably need to be more robust about the way in which we engage with communities.
I see that I am coming to the end of my time, so I again thank Finlay Carson for giving us the opportunity to talk about the issue and about how we get the legislation to a point at which communities find it easy to navigate and can be fully involved in every part of infrastructure planning and meeting the net zero targets, with community wealth building in place around them.
17:08
As a Borders MSP, I thank Finlay Carson for this debate. We all agree that it is essential to meet our net zero targets and deter further global warming, which has affected the Borders with increased flood risk, and that we need alternative sources of energy, with turbines and pylons taking that green energy to the grid—mainly to meet the demands for energy from England. That said, I certainly agree that, as a result of significant growth in wind farms, battery storage projects and new electricity transmission infrastructure, there are real concerns in the Borders about overdevelopment.
Communities are concerned about the scale and pace of development. They want fairness and meaningful local benefit, and they feel that decisions can seem remote. I have raised their concerns about the cumulative impact of wind farms, battery storage and pylons in the Borders at First Minister’s question time. This was the exchange, which I have truncated in the interest of time.
I asked,
“whether the Scottish Government has carried out an assessment of the potential cumulative impact on the wildlife and the landscape, in light of the importance of tourism to the area.”
The First Minister replied:
“I appreciate the point that Christine Grahame makes on cumulative impact, and—
I emphasise—
“I have asked that work is taken forward to consider what further steps we can take as part of our strategic spatial energy plan. Through the plan, we will work to balance the need to deliver net zero with the need to protect our natural environment, tourism and rural communities.”
I pursued the issue further:
“I hope that there is progress …I understand that there are 30 sites in the Borders operating more than 440 turbines, with three more being built and others being applied for”
and
“the SP Energy Networks project—the cross-border connection—will require … 400 pylons”—
or thereabouts—
“to take Borders-generated energy”
south.
“That application … seems to me to be taking segmented parts of the impact in isolation, and not considering the cumulative impact. That cannot be fair when communities are certainly left getting absolutely nothing out of this but an industrialised landscape.”
The First Minister answered:
“Issues of cumulative impact are a legitimate consideration in the planning process … Indeed, there will have been examples of developments that have not been able to proceed because of the concerns about cumulative impact.”
He hoped that
“the consideration that we are giving to the implications for the strategic spatial energy plan will assist in addressing the point that she has raised with me.”—[Official Report, 22 January 2026; c 16-17.]
That is as it should be, together with improving statutory benefits to communities from developments, which currently arise mainly through agreement with the developers, and consideration of regional electricity pricing, albeit that I understand that that is a reserved matter.
Not all applications are agreed. CWP Energy wanted to build 60 turbines of up to 250m—820 feet—in height at Scoop Hill, a few miles south-east of Moffat. Dumfries and Galloway Council objected to the scheme on the grounds of its visual and landscape impact. The Scottish Government has concluded that it is
“not the right development in the right place”
and has refused permission for it to go ahead. We can look at that in the balance of the Government’s taking forward the real issues that people have—
Will the member give way?
Yes.
I appreciate your taking part in the debate and your giving way. However, your example is an exception to the rule. We hear over and again of local authorities objecting, matters going to appeal and the Government overturning decisions on appeal. In recent years, 13 applications have been turned down by the local authority in Dumfries and Galloway but nine of those decisions have, on appeal, been overturned by the Scottish Government. Your example is an exception to the rule; it is not what normally happens.
Always speak through the chair.
I gave it merely as an example; I did not claim that it was the standard reply.
The key is to have meaningful consultation with groups throughout the south of Scotland and the Borders. They may not always get the answer that they wish for—as happens in many consultations—but, at the moment, we definitely need more serious consultation, particularly on the cumulative impact of turbines and pylons.
17:12
I thank my friend and colleague Finlay Carson for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is a very good debate and could easily have been taken, at any time, as a main debate in the chamber.
Last week, members may have heard my colleague Douglas Lumsden ask the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy about the decision of the energy consents unit to move from receiving public representation by email to receiving it through an online portal. In response, she talked about regulation on energy transition being reserved to the United Kingdom Government and the need for developers to engage with communities. That was all very interesting but was not even close to answering the question. It was a bit like asking somebody the time and getting the reply, “Norway”.
To me, that sums up everything that has gone wrong with how we seek to maximise the benefits of Scotland’s renewable energy potential. Far too often, it has become a debate in which those who have competing viewpoints talk past, not to, each other. On one side, we have those who are determined to achieve clean power by 2030 and net zero by 2045 whatever the cost. On the other, we have campaigners who believe that the agenda will do so much damage to their communities that the proposed developments are an existential threat to rural Scotland. That is not where the debate on renewable energy should have ended up, because, fundamentally, most people are somewhere in the middle.
Renewable energy is the future. Oil and gas are a valuable national resource, and we should make the most of them.
However, in a world where fossil fuels are finite, their prices are increasingly volatile and energy security is a growing concern, we must be prepared for what comes after them. Scotland is in the fortunate position of being well placed to capitalise on the shift to renewables. Our engineering talent has only grown thanks to oil and gas, and now we have the opportunity to apply that talent to offshore renewables on our coasts and, I hope, around the world.
I cannot stress enough how big an opportunity renewable energy can be for Scotland if we get it right. Today, we are not getting it right. Instead, there is a piecemeal approach to the development of renewable generation, which, in no small part, is being driven by the lack of a clear plan for our future energy needs and has left more and more communities finding themselves facing an ever-growing number of renewable developments.
Although the developments are often relatively small, the cumulative impact of a few small turbines here, a few bigger ones there and a solar farm somewhere else ends up with residents in some part of the country feeling surrounded and overwhelmed, with their views treated as an afterthought.
The voices of communities should be heard in the process—they should feel that their opinions matter and that they have been thought about seriously before a planning decision is taken. Right now, all too often, that is not the case. Without that confidence in the process, every time that a decision is taken that does not acknowledge community concerns or the Scottish Government overrules a local refusal, as my colleague Finlay Carson said, the public’s trust erodes a little more. That does not help anyone, and it means that the planning process for every renewable project on important modernisations and upgrades to our electricity grid ends up becoming far more contentious than it should be. That means economic opportunities lost, infrastructure holding back growth, jobs going overseas and energy costs remaining tied to a volatile fossil fuel market for even longer.
Scotland needs renewables in the right place. In saying that, I know that there will be those who believe that the right place is somewhere else, but, as with any issue with competing points of view, that is where compromise and pragmatism are supposed to enter the equation. It should be where a proper and effective community benefits system offers real and lasting gain to communities, but that system is not ready. It should be where a smooth and transparent planning process offers developers and the public confidence that their respective views are recognised before offering a considered decision, but instead we have a black hole: the energy consents unit. It should be where a majority of people who do not mind renewable energy, who recognise the need to strengthen our grid for energy security and economic growth and who want to see that delivered with the minimum disruption to their lives are comfortable that that is what they will get.
Scotland should be all those things, but right now it is none of them, which is of no help to anyone. It seems to me that the situation that we find ourselves in today is a consequence of declaring our destination and arrival time without taking the time to draw the map first. Yes, we need to know where we are going, but, before charging off, we should have spent more time planning our route. However, as we did not, everyone—developers, energy companies, network operators, Governments, politicians and communities—is scrambling to find the right direction. We need to get it right, because if we waste this opportunity, we will never get it back.
17:18
I thank my good friend and colleague Finlay Carson for securing this important debate. It really is a shame that the issue is never debated in Government time—it is always down to members to seek to debate it during members’ business debates or for it to be covered in Opposition debates.
This key issue fills my inbox, surgeries and doorstep conversations. Communities throughout our beautiful north-east are telling me, time and time again, that the overindustrialisation of our countryside is not welcome. The cabinet secretary might hear that if she spent any time meeting those constituents who are concerned about the issues—but, no, she is too busy meeting the companies that are intent on destroying our countryside, riding roughshod over our communities and carpet bombing our countryside with monster pylons to line the pockets of energy transmission companies that use every greenwashing tactic in the book to hide the fact that this is all about increasing their share price at the expense of our communities.
Time and time again, this Scottish National Party Government has shafted the people of rural Scotland—whether we are talking about help with storm damage, wood-burning stoves, ferry links or pylons, it seems to be tone deaf when it comes to rural communities.
The Government does not understand the anger, because it is unwilling to listen to it. We heard an example of that from Brian Whittle. The energy consents unit launched a new online portal and, at the same time, it removed the ability for residents to email in an objection. People must fill in a web form or send a letter by post instead.
The new system allows for the submission of 6,000 words, which equates to 20 pages per representation. With regard to the ability to put forward views or objections, what capacity is the member asking for that exceeds that amount? Indeed, an email address is still available to people—it is the official email address. What does he think has been taken away?
If there is an email address, that is fantastic, but the letter that we were sent by Ivan McKee is quite clear: objections have to be made by filling in a web form or sending them in by post.
We have to make it easy for people to lodge an objection, but it seems that everything that the ECU has done over the past month has been an attempt to make it harder for people. I think that that is an outrage to democracy.
The Government has been trying to shut up rural communities, because it does not want to listen. We know that the recent proposals for the Tealing to Kintore and Peterhead to Beauly power lines generated more than 10,000 objections—most of them by email, I would think. The Government wants to shut up those communities and railroad all that infrastructure through.
There is a reason for that. We currently have 4.5GW of operational capacity in offshore wind, but the Government’s target is to increase that to 11GW by 2030, and then to a staggering 40GW by 2040. If you think that there are a lot of substations and battery storage, you ain’t seen nothing yet, because things will get a lot worse in order to support that intermittent energy source.
Let us burst the cheap energy bubble right now: offshore wind is not cheap. The amount of floating offshore wind that is planned is horrendously expensive, and when we add to that the storage, network and stability costs, we can see why our bills are going through the roof.
How good it would be if the Government had an energy strategy so that we could actually see what it was trying to do. I suspect, however, that we do not have an energy strategy because the Government does not want us to see what it wants to do. It does not want to show people how much more of that infrastructure they will have to put up with, and it does not want workers in the oil and gas industry to know that it does not want to see the industry continue.
Communities in North East Scotland are fed up with being ignored. They have had enough—they are fed up with being the ones who suffer in our headlong dash for net zero without any view to the real-life consequences of energy transmission projects. Most of all, those communities are fed up with being ignored by the out-of-touch, out-of-sight, out-of-ideas SNP Government. Communities such as Kintore, Tealing, the Mearns, Peterhead and New Deer are all fed up. The Government should stop shutting them down, stop building monster pylons in our back gardens, stop being cloth-eared, and start listening to the communities throughout Scotland that are saying no to monster pylons.
I call the cabinet secretary, Gillian Martin, to respond to the debate.
17:23
I thank Finlay Carson for lodging the motion. His motion is right to say that the renewable energy sector plays an essential part in meeting our net zero targets, but it will also be extremely important for UK energy security.
Scotland has a chance to grasp the opportunities that renewables offer for economic growth and job creation, but we must ensure that everyone benefits. Mr Carson, in his opening speech, highlighted concerns that some communities have about engagement with developers, and I was interested to hear Tim Eagle say, with regard to the proposed development that he is concerned about, that developers have not engaged with those communities. For any developers, it is in their interests to ensure that communities come along with them. I find it disheartening to hear of any situation in which the developer involved in a planning application, whether in energy or anywhere else, does not take that aspect seriously, because they are actually causing themselves an awful lot more bother in the long term.
On that point, I simply ask: where such engagement has not happened—the Moray FLOW-Park is a clear case of where engagement did not happen beforehand—should the Government step in and say to the developer, “Go back to the drawing board and don’t persist with this, because you have not consulted at that point”?
The engagement that is undertaken by any developer must be evidenced in their application, and it is expected that they will have that evidence. However, the planning laws are the planning laws—I am not proposing to stand up and say that I will make any changes to planning laws on the hoof. I do not think that anyone would thank me for that.
I will go through some of the points on strategic energy planning that the First Minister referred to at FMQs, as Christine Grahame mentioned in her speech. The Scottish Government and the UK Government—I am not sure about the other devolved Governments; I would need to check that—have jointly commissioned the National Energy System Operator to produce the first strategic spatial energy plan—
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
Yes, I will—in a second.
The intention is to plan the transition to clean, affordable, secure energy across the whole of Great Britain by providing greater clarity on the shape of a future reformed energy system.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the National Energy System Operator have recently taken the decision to rerun that process because fresh data was published last October. The hope is that that will ensure that the modelling and subsequent pathway options are based on the most credible and current information.
I will take the intervention from Christine Grahame.
I keep on pressing the wrong button to speak instead of making an intervention. The wrong one has come on, but it is nothing to do with me.
I think that the Welsh Government is also involved in spatial planning, so it is a UK-wide issue, and I am sure that the same issues will arise in the Welsh countryside as in the Scottish countryside.
Yes—there are similar issues throughout the UK. A great deal of transmission infrastructure is planned for the north of England and, I believe, in the Norfolk area.
Very similar issues are coming up around engagement, too. On community engagement, Christine Grahame rightly made the point that a lot of the ability to mandate or compel developers to have any degree of community engagement in any kind of development lies in reserved policy and reserved legislation. I think that there should be a compulsion in that regard, and there are good practice principles around engaging with communities.
A number of members have mentioned community benefits. I want community benefits to be made mandatory, and the current UK Government has brought forward legislation in that space that will allow the mandating of community benefits. I have been calling for that for a very long time, but I would like us to go further—
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
I will—in a second.
As Tim Eagle set out, if community benefits are voluntary and not mandatory, and the guidance is not associated with mandatory compulsion to engage with communities, some developers may not do that in a way that brings communities with them and allows those communities to have their say.
I will take the intervention from Finlay Carson.
Does the cabinet secretary appreciate that it is not just about community benefits? Some communities simply do not want the developments at any cost, with any community benefits. Some communities are fighting application after application, with big companies putting in new applications when previous ones have been turned down, and people’s whole lives are spent fighting those. No matter how much community benefit there is, a community should have the right to simply say no.
I cannot talk about particular applications and particular instances in that regard, but I note that there are some areas in which critical national infrastructure might be proposed.
One type of development that has been long overdue, for a good 20 or 30 years, involves the infrastructure that takes electricity around the whole UK. That is happening not just because there is onshore and offshore wind but because the infrastructure is very old and can be quite unreliable. Communities’ views have to be taken into account, and, given that we want to improve communication in Scotland, we have published guidance on effective community engagement in local development planning, which we would expect developers and operators to use. However, we cannot compel them to use it.
The ECU has also published guidance on how to deliver consistent and meaningful pre-application consultation and engagement, which transmission operators are expected to follow for transmission projects that require an environmental impact assessment. Again, however, we cannot mandate them to follow that.
The passage of the UK Planning and Infrastructure Act has been helpful with regard to the community benefits, but I believe that we need to go further. At a UK level, we need to be able to see that communities’ concerns are taken seriously, and the issues around that need to be mandated.
I will end on that point.
Thank you, cabinet secretary—
On a point of order, Deputy Presiding Officer.
During the debate, the cabinet secretary seemed to suggest that people could still raise an objection by sending an email to the ECU. The letter that members received from Ivan McKee on 15 January says:
“Previously, representations could be submitted by email or post. Under the new system, online representations must now be submitted through the ECU Portal during defined consultation windows. Postal submissions will remain available for those who cannot access the portal.”
It seems that the cabinet secretary has misled Parliament, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can you advise how the record could be updated to correct that?
I thank Mr Lumsden for his point of order. I would advise, of course, that the chair is not responsible for the substantive contributions of any member, including ministers. However, all members are expected to make their contributions in accordance with accurate information.
On a point of order, Deputy Presiding Officer—
I am responding to Mr Lumsden—thank you.
Accuracy is important, and if it is felt that there is a need to correct the record, members—including Government ministers in particular—are encouraged to do that as soon as is practical.
I call the cabinet secretary for a point of order.
On a point of order, Deputy Presiding Officer. I have misspoken.
This is directly from the ECU:
“Members of the public remain free to use any tools or resources to help formulate their views but they must submit representations directly using their own verified email address.”
I have misspoken, but the portal is available and there is a 6,000-character—sorry, 6,000-word—limit. I should have checked this, but I reiterate that people
“must submit representations directly using their own verified email address.”
That is what I meant to say.
I thank the cabinet secretary, although that was not a point of order. Anyway, the cabinet secretary has put the matter on the record.
Meeting closed at 17:32.
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