The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S7M-00258, in the name of Liam Kerr, on nuclear power in Scotland.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament considers that nuclear power in Scotland produces cheap, dependable and green electricity; notes the findings of the Nuclear Industry Association that Torness Nuclear Power Station, which is set to cease production in 2030, has generated 307 TWh of clean electricity since 1988, which it believes is sufficient to power every home in the country for 36 years, and has averted a minimum of 101 million tonnes of COemissions; understands that nuclear power brings significant financial benefits and supports hundreds of jobs and contractors; believes that Scotland’s civil nuclear industry could have supported over 10,000 jobs if the sector had experienced the same growth rate as that in England; considers that the “no new nuclear” position of the Scottish Government has led to an exodus of workers from Scotland; recognises calls from the Nuclear Industry Association for the Scottish Government to end its political opposition to nuclear power in order that this can form part of a balanced energy mix that it considers the country needs, alongside its North Sea oil and gas industry; notes the view that this must be supported, encouraged and no longer subject to a presumption against oil and gas, and further notes the view that the Scottish Government must act decisively to protect jobs, deliver energy security and provide cheaper energy by unlocking nuclear energy production in Scotland.
17:59
In the years since I first contributed to a debate in this Parliament on new nuclear power in Scotland, four of the six parties in the chamber have come to support the proposition that I put forward, in some form or other. In that, they are on the side of the majority of the public, which supports nuclear power. Indeed, in Scotland, around 54 per cent of people support nuclear energy and only 29 per cent are opposed. Even among Scottish National Party voters, the majority now supports new nuclear in Scotland’s energy mix.
However, the SNP Government remains opposed, even though new nuclear is the critical piece of the jigsaw puzzle that would let the SNP achieve exactly what it wants. For years, the Scottish Government has sought to present itself—and, by extension, Scotland—as a leader in the fight against climate change. In 2019, it even legislated for a 75 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, although it scrapped that target five years later because it could not meet it. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Scotland’s climate ambitions would be much closer to realisation today had ministers been willing to embrace every available low-carbon technology. However, they were not.
We have some of the best renewable energy sources in Europe, but we must be honest about the limitations of any energy source. Wind power depends on the weather. There are regular days when wind generates more electricity than we can use, which, along with the challenges of crossing the grid bottleneck, leads to hundreds of millions of pounds in constraint payments. There are also days when wind generation drops. In fact, over the year, wind turbines operate only around 25 to 40 per cent of the time.
The point is that we must be able to guarantee electricity when homes, businesses and hospitals need it. That means baseload: electricity that is there and can be called on anywhere, any time—on days such as today, for example, when the grid put out a capacity warning due to low wind and high heat. Yesterday, prices for gas back-up were nearly £1,000 per megawatt hour. Without Torness, they would have been between £1,500 and £2,000 per megawatt hour. That is why we need nuclear.
That is just the state of play at the moment. Most credible pathways project electricity demand in Scotland doubling or even tripling by 2050. No wonder: electric vehicles, heat pumps, hydrogen production, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence and high-tech industries all require enormous amounts of reliable power. That means nuclear.
However, we do not just need reliable power. We need local power. The events of recent years, particularly the war in Ukraine, have reminded us that energy policy is also national security policy. Countries that rely too heavily on imported stocks leave themselves exposed to international shocks and geopolitical instability. The United Kingdom currently requires around 900 tonnes of uranium a year, and the UK—I stress the UK—has about 110,000 tonnes stockpiled.
The environmental argument stacks up. A nuclear station can generate vast quantities of low-carbon electricity on a comparatively small site. Producing the same amount of electricity through ground-mounted solar—a technology that I stress I support and that must form part of our energy mix—requires many times more land.
Most of us would agree that reducing emissions matters. The climate does not care whether a unit of low-carbon electricity comes from a wind turbine or a nuclear reactor. On that measure, nuclear power performs exceptionally well. Life-cycle emissions are comparable to offshore wind.
Then there are the economic benefits. Nuclear supports around 18,500 jobs in Scotland. It directly employs more than 5,400 people, and around 30 per cent of those are in Scotland’s most deprived local authority areas. Nuclear contributed around £1.5 billion in gross value added to the Scottish economy in 2024.
The case for new nuclear in Scotland is absolutely compelling. Scotland cannot decarbonise its economy, strengthen its energy security, grow its industrial base and provide baseload while simultaneously ruling out one of the world’s most reliable sources of low-carbon electricity.
The member keeps talking about baseload. Does he realise that, as long ago as 2015, the then chief executive of National Grid said that baseload was an “outdated” concept? Further, does he acknowledge that, on average over the long term, nuclear power stations are operational only 78 per cent of the time, so we cannot even rely on nuclear power being available when we absolutely need it?
For the member to stand up and say that baseload is an outdated concept is an extraordinary intervention. As I reminded him about three weeks ago, he does not seem to know what he is talking about when it comes to energy. He does not seem to realise that nuclear is operational 90 per cent of the time and is non-operational only when it is entirely planned.
I am grateful for the member’s intervention, because it allows me to put him straight yet again. He actually adds to the counterarguments that I will no doubt face from the Minister for Europe, External Affairs and Energy.
In previous debates, I have had thrown at me, “What about safety?” Well, the UK has operated civil nuclear power stations for more than half a century without a major nuclear accident affecting the public.
On economics, Alan Brown asked me the other week about Hinkley Point C. In the latest contracts for difference allocation round, fixed-bottom offshore wind was priced at £95 per megawatt hour; that is around £125 per megawatt hour when back-up is factored in. Floating offshore wind comes in at £230 per megawatt hour. The current strike price for Hinkley C—the Scottish National Party’s bête noire—is £131 per megawatt hour.
Finally, on waste, nuclear power is unique in that its waste is fully identified, regulated, contained and managed. Carbon emissions are never released into the environment, while the radioactive waste is safely stored and monitored. The volume of that waste is remarkably small. In fact, I would be exposed to more radiation on my next flight to Ibiza than I would—[Laughter.] What? I would be exposed to more radiation on that flight than I would were I standing on top of the Torness reactors.
The choice facing Scotland is not between renewables, nuclear, and oil and gas; it is whether or not we want to be able to meet the huge demand that is coming down the track with a mature, evidence-based approach to all three.
My view is that Scotland should continue to lead in wind and other renewable technologies, and give full support to oil and gas, but we should not exclude a proven source of reliable, low-carbon electricity. Nuclear power supports our climate ambitions, strengthens our energy security and provides the firm power that is needed for future economic growth. Let us follow that evidence and pursue informed, long-term, strategic planning choices that recognise the importance of oil and gas, acknowledge the need for new nuclear baseload and strive for a future alongside, and in partnership with, renewables.
18:07
I congratulate the member for securing the debate, which seems, in effect, to be on behalf of the trade body the Nuclear Industry Association. It will come as no surprise to the member that I disagree with a lot of what he said, but I also have to say that his motion contains several inaccuracies.
Nuclear is not green. It is low carbon, but producing radioactive nuclear waste, which in some cases must be stored underground for thousands of years, cannot be classed as green.
As for energy security, we were originally told that Hinkley would be required to be online by Christmas 2017 in order to keep the lights on. Once the contract was signed, the project was to be delivered by 2025. Hinkley is now delayed to 2030, while three existing nuclear stations have now shut down, yet there is still no panic for energy reliance. The reality is that a new station that has taken 15 years to build does not address energy security.
The other point concerns low cost. The projected cost of Hinkley Point C station is now £50 billion, but the original estimate was £18 billion. Sizewell C has an upper estimate of £48 billion, and all the financial risk on the project is borne by bill payers.
I will look at the strike rates, as I interpret them differently from Liam Kerr. He is right that the Hinkley Point C strike rate is currently £130 per megawatt hour, which is indexed to 2024. That is far more expensive than onshore and fixed offshore renewables. Critically, however, the Hinckley strike rate is over a 35-year contract, unlike the 15 to 20-year contracts for renewables.
What the member has said is not true. As I said in my remarks, Hinkley Point C’s strike price is about £131 per megawatt hour, and the strike price for floating offshore wind is about £230, so the member has just misled the chamber.
The member is not listening to me. Okay—I said that the strike price was £130 for Hinkley Point C, and it is £131, so I stand corrected there.
The strike price for floating offshore wind is listed at £216 per megawatt hour, but that is for a 20-year contract. If we compare the unit price over different contract periods, we see that floating offshore wind is actually comparatively cheaper than Hinkley, so the member is wrong on that.
A recent national audit report confirmed that the equivalent strike rate for Sizewell C is £131 to £155 per megawatt hour. Nuclear is the only energy technology that has not got cheaper over the years, whereas subsidies for renewables bring cost reductions. Then there are the hidden subsidies for Hinkley and Sizewell, which are paid to connect to the grid, whereas Scottish renewable projects have to pay to connect to the grid.
When Liam Kerr talked about managing waste, he did not mention that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority estimates the legacy clean-up costs to be £136 billion and that a new geological disposal facility will cost up to £69 billion. That is more than £200 billion of costs that are conveniently forgotten and disregarded.
The member makes some good points about Hinkley Point C, but that probably highlights issues with the planning and regulatory regime in the UK, as is the case with a number of high-profile projects that have extended budgets and not met deadlines. However, does he acknowledge that there are great examples of nuclear projects around the world that have succeeded, notably in South Korea, which has delivered eight nuclear power plants at a cost of around £8 billion? That is because South Korea’s approach was to build eight at the same time. That might be a great way forward to reduce costs for nuclear.
I thought that the member would return to the South Korea example. Clearly, it had lower labour costs, material costs and so on, and a different regime. However, if the plants are so good in South Korea, I would like an explanation of why South Korea has changed tack and dropped its nuclear strategy, because the new president says that they take too long to deliver.
I thought that we would hear from Liam Kerr that small modular reactors will save the day, despite the fact that the only operational SMRs are in Russia and China; despite the fact that SMRs are not small and produce more waste pro rata than large-scale nuclear; and despite the fact that NuScale’s SMR project in Utah collapsed once costs spiralled to nearly £7 billion for a single station. Rolls-Royce has promoted SMRs for about 10 years and, in June 2025, Ed Miliband confirmed that a final investment decision for the first unit was several years away. However, somehow, a few months later, the Labour Government placed an order for three SMRs to be built at Wylfa. It beggars belief that the process was that far advanced in three months. [Interruption.]
I will take—
The member is already in additional time so he should not take any interventions.
Okay—thank you, Presiding Officer.
Of course, it is undeniable that new nuclear will create jobs. Give me £400 billion and I could create jobs in marine energy, supply chain development, manufacturing, greater energy efficiency installation, carbon capture, pumped storage hydro and battery storage. Jobs in all those areas could be created for that sum of money.
The reality is that, if nuclear were so cheap, dependable and deliverable, there would not be the failed market system that exists in the UK. It seems ironic to me that the biggest free marketeers in the Parliament—the Tories and Reform—are the biggest cheerleaders for the billions of pounds of subsidies for nuclear and the many false dawns and promises. Our position is vindicated.
18:13
Alan Brown says that nuclear is not clean energy. He should tell his beloved European Union that, because it has redesignated nuclear as green and clean. He tied himself up in knots over the costs. I am afraid that he is denying the reality of the most recent contracts for difference round.
Alan Brown is dismissive of what has happened at Hinkley Point C. One of the great opportunities that I had as a member of the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee was to visit Hinkley Point C. As I wandered round the site, I heard Scottish voices—those of young Scots with a career in nuclear energy in mind, who had left their beloved Scotland. In the past 18 months, I have sat in a committee room of this Parliament with Scottish apprentices in the nuclear industry who lamented the fact that, if they were to pursue their career in nuclear, they would have to leave their own country.
As a nationalist, Alan Brown should be ashamed to be responsible for such a luddite, anti-science approach to our country’s future energy needs. Scotland should be one of the world’s great leading energy nations, and Liam Kerr spelled that out in terms of renewables. We are for renewables. Alan Brown might seek to deny that, but renewables are with us today at the scale that they are because of the very subsidies that he was just attacking.
Liam Kerr also mentioned oil and gas. The SNP should take note of the result of the Aberdeen South by-election, which was a referendum on the future of oil and gas licences. For all the charade of the SNP claiming that it is for oil and gas, nearly 50 per cent of the voters of Aberdeen South voted for a retention of that sector and for new licences to be granted. That is not the SNP’s position but, in my opinion, it is anti-science to oppose that.
That is not the only issue on which the SNP has taken an anti-science position. Nuclear power is one of the lowest-carbon forms of electricity generation available anywhere in the world. It provides dependable electricity regardless of the weather, it strengthens energy security and it supports highly skilled employment. Countries around the world are increasingly recognising that achieving net zero will be far harder without it. The story of Torness demonstrates exactly why that is. It has generated reliable, clean electricity for Scotland for decades. It has produced more than 300 terawatt hours of electricity, it has prevented more than 100 million tonnes of carbon emissions and it has supported hundreds of highly skilled jobs.
I will go back to the point about the reliability of nuclear power. Aside from the stat that I gave earlier—that nuclear is operational only 78 per cent of the time, on average over the long term—is it not a problem that, given that nuclear power is churning out all the time, if too much nuclear power comes on, even higher constraint payments will be required to turn off turbines? Nuclear cannot be turned off or ramped down.
Alan Brown is again finding some spurious reason to deny the reality of the reliability of nuclear power. Yes, there may be bottlenecks in the transmission system, but it is for us, as policy makers, to deal with those issues.
Most Governments would look at the achievements of Torness, for example, and ask how they could build on that success—but not the SNP Government. Its answer has been to say no—no to new nuclear, no to investment, no to jobs and no to opportunities. That is not a serious industrial strategy. The SNP would rather stick to outdated ideological positions, trying to tie in nuclear power with nuclear weapons and spreading fear and disinformation that has no basis in science or reality, rather than showing ambition for Scotland.
England has expanded its nuclear ambitions and has attracted billions of pounds of investment. Ironically, that happened under the nuclear energy minister Andrew Bowie, who is a Scottish member of Parliament. Scotland has watched those opportunities pass by. Skilled workers have left, and expertise is migrating elsewhere. Projects that could transform local economies—as Liam Kerr pointed out, some of the areas involved have the most deprived local economies in Scotland—simply never materialise because of a simple denial of reality. Those are not abstract statistics. The apprenticeships were not created, the engineers were not employed and the scientists were not retained. Families were denied the security that comes from well-paid, highly skilled jobs.
Now we stand on the threshold of another thing that Alan Brown is happy to dismiss: small nuclear reactors. I ask him to consider France, which is an interesting case study for serious energy policy. We should consider how France has been able to weather the shock of global energy prices. Why? Because it has determined to become truly—[Interruption.]
The member cannot take any further interventions.
It is because France has determined to become truly independent in terms of energy sources, including nuclear, which is the backbone of its energy system.
The SNP may choose dogma and decline, but the people of Scotland and the Scottish Conservatives choose a future that is much brighter than that. We need our oil and gas, but we also need nuclear. A serious Government and a serious political party that believed in putting the interests of Scotland first would support all of that.
I remind members that they must show courtesy and respect to other members at all times.
18:19
I thank Liam Kerr, who is a member for North East Scotland, for lodging this motion for members’ business, which I was pleased to sign.
Scotland gave the world the compound steam engine, the foundations of thermodynamics and the pioneering brilliance of figures such as Sir Samuel Curran and Nobel prize winner C T R Wilson, whose invention of the cloud chamber allowed humanity to see subatomic particles for the first time, and it was at the University of Glasgow that another Nobel prize winner, Frederick Soddy, formulated the concept of isotopes, which unlocked the fundamental chemistry required for nuclear fuel. The atomic age was built in no small part due to Scottish laboratories and research, yet we stand today at a crossroads where our reputation as a global engineering powerhouse is being sabotaged by political ignorance.
For too long, the debate that surrounds our energy future has been clouded by an ideological opposition to nuclear power that ignores basic engineering principles and our own successful history. We are told that we must choose between a renewable future and a nuclear one, but I believe that to be a false dichotomy. If we are to truly become a clean energy superpower, we must recognise that wind and nuclear are not rivals but essential partners in a reliable and optimal energy system.
The figures speak for themselves. Scotland’s unique environment is perfectly suited for wind and tidal power, yet wind technology is available only between 25 and 45 per cent of the time. To maintain a stable grid with firm power, we require 90 per cent firm power supply, which is exactly what nuclear energy provides. We cannot legislate for the weather, so when high-pressure systems settle over the North Sea and plunge us into a wind drought, no amount of installed turbine capacity will generate a single watt of electricity.
Furthermore, a stable electricity grid requires physical inertia—the heavy, spinning mass that traditional thermal generation provides—to maintain frequency and prevent blackouts. Without that stable, firm power, Scotland, which was once a leading exporter of secure, low-cost power, is now frequently reduced to importing electricity from English power stations on calm days just to keep the lights on.
This is not a new frontier for us; it is our heritage. Chapelcross opened in 1959 as one of the world’s first civil nuclear power stations, and it provided secure, uninterrupted baseload electricity to the grid for more than four decades. The late Sir Donald Miller, the visionary electrical engineer who designed our post-war electricity system, expanded that legacy of reliability. He warned that decommissioning our nuclear generating capacity without replacement would leave us with the least reliable and most insecure electricity supply in our country for a century.
Under Sir Donald’s leadership in the early 1990s, Scotland enjoyed a system where 60 per cent of our energy was generated by nuclear power, making it one of the greenest and most cost-effective electricity systems in the world. Today, that legacy is being dismantled. By refusing to support a new generation of reactors, we are not only losing energy security but exporting highly skilled jobs and billions of pounds in potential investment. We see the consequences of that at Grangemouth—
Will the member take an intervention?
Yes.
I point to my entry in the register of members’ interests as a serving councillor on Renfrewshire Council.
The Scottish councils committee on radioactive substances engaged fully with the cross-party group on the civil nuclear industry, which, funnily enough, the Conservatives chaired. It mentioned the importance of investing in highly skilled jobs in decommissioning of the sector, which remains to be a focus. Does the member agree that that is important?
Absolutely. Inevitably, existing nuclear reactors will have to be decommissioned. That is an important part of the sector. However, we need to look at how to succeed in generating capacity in Scotland. The refusal to consider a small modular reactor at Grangemouth to power the complex, for example, left our petrochemical industry vulnerable to soaring energy costs.
The fallout of that extends far beyond energy-intensive industrial sectors such as Grangemouth; it hits communities in Ayrshire and East Lothian, where the high-quality, well-paid jobs provided by Hunterston and Torness are under threat. When we turn our backs on the nuclear sector, we tell our brightest science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates, engineers, physicists and technicians that their future lies not here but overseas or south of the border; we bleed the very talent that we desperately need to build the clean industries of tomorrow.
The solution does not lie in overengineered and, frankly, obsolete designs of the past. I believe in the United Kingdom’s own Rolls-Royce small modular reactor technology, which is available today. Those reactors are roughly one third of the size of the current fleet and offer a revolutionary path forward to have more flexible load-following baseload capacity. We can repower the existing advanced gas-cooled reactor sites at Hunterston and Torness by capitalising on their established grid connections and vital cooling water infrastructure. Those SMRs are built in factories, modularly assembled and transported to sites, which drastically reduces the crippling construction delays that have plagued megaprojects such as Hinkley Point C.
That is not a hypothetical future. A European nuclear race is already under way, and Scotland is currently watching from the sidelines. Just this month, Rolls-Royce SMR secured a landmark multibillion contract to build three nuclear reactors in Sweden, following its selection by GB Energy as the preferred technology partner. Let us consider the huge scale of that untapped potential on our doorstep; we also have the capacity to build the heavy-pressure vessel fabrication and advanced modular assemblies that are needed for those reactors at the Rosyth and Govan shipyards.
If the Government dropped the ideological ban, there could be opportunities for export across the entire continent. Instead of merely exporting electricity, we could be supporting the engineering.
The ambition is written into our history. We can see it across Scotland. It is time to abandon the sunk-cost fallacy, which keeps the Government tethered to outdated dogma. Let us honour the legacy of electrical engineering in the country and integrate a modern nuclear baseload with our renewable wealth, which would unleash the industrial might of our shipbuilding capacity. We could secure an industrial future and provide clean, reliable power for generations to come.
18:25
I thank my colleague Liam Kerr for securing the motion for debate. He has done a sterling job of representing the nuclear industry for many years. It was also nice to hear about Ibiza; he must enjoy the infamous electronic dance scene there.
I am speaking in the debate because I was introduced to nuclear many years ago for a short period. Way back in the early 2000s, I was a police officer in Caithness, which has Dounreay. I did not know much about nuclear before I went there but, when I was going around Thurso, I got to know just how important the industry is. Stephen Kerr spoke about skills—the entire economy in that area is focused on nuclear. Young people were excited to work in the sector, even though the site was being decommissioned. That is the point: there were good, skilled jobs, which allowed young people to stay in the area, so that they could have crofts and families and build houses. That is why things such as nuclear power are so important, but when there is ideological opposition—the Greens are not even in the room for the debate; they are not even willing to discuss it—it is not a good place for the Government to be.
I learned at that moment, as I am sure is the case down in Torness in the Lothians—[Interruption.] I am happy to give way.
The member might want to note the heritage of Dounreay, in his part of the world. The pioneering development there is to try to create a closed-loop zero-waste solution for nuclear, which is now in the site’s grasp, with molten-salt technology on the horizon. Using thorium, the current stock of nuclear waste could be recycled into new reactors, which presents an opportunity to solve the waste problem once and for all. Does Tim Eagle recognise that we should be at the frontier of those developments and not simply a laggard?
I absolutely recognise that. The member has just taken me back to a tour that I was given of Dounreay, which was an experimental site—did it have fast reactors, or something like that? I am not an expert, but the member is absolutely right that work was being done. We could have continued with it—we did not need to stop.
As Paul Sweeney mentioned a minute ago, the way in which we talk about nuclear in the political discussion often sees us thinking about the nuclear of the past, but that is not where we are any more. Small modular reactors are changing. Wales and England are embracing that; we could, too. We could have highly skilled jobs and good incomes, which are deeply important in rural communities such as Caithness and north Sutherland.
I have received an email from one of the nuclear associations, which said that an electricity margin notice was issued last night. I am sure that members will know what that means, but for anyone who does not know, it means that there was high demand for electricity. I do not know how many members had fans on or the air conditioning on in their hotel last night, because it was so warm. That was the first time since January 2025 that that has happened, but it is predicted that it will happen more often. Apparently, Torness was at full power when that happened. If it had not been there, which the SNP wants, we would be thousands of megawatts of electricity down. I do not know what to make of that, but I think that prices would surge and, potentially, we would have blackouts. That is not a world that I want to live in.
In the communities that I represent in the Highlands, people are getting fed up with having wind turbines on every hill that they come across. Nuclear is important and we need to have a grown-up discussion about it. The SNP needs to change its ideological opposition to nuclear.
18:29
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate on nuclear power in Scotland, and I congratulate my friend and colleague Liam Kerr on securing it.
Like others, I recognise the immense contribution that Torness power station has made not only to East Lothian but to the wider Scottish and UK energy supply sector for almost four decades. When I visited Torness power station last October, I was impressed by the apprentices I met. However, as has been noted, many of them were already looking towards their future careers being south of the border, so we should all reflect on the human cost of switching off nuclear power in Scotland. Whatever views members may hold on the nuclear power sector, there should be broad agreement that Torness has been one of the most significant economic and industrial assets that our country has ever had.
During the election, I was pleased to meet many residents of Dunbar and East Lothian who have made their careers at Torness and who are hugely proud of the professionalism of the workforce and the plant’s safety record, but there is great concern about the economic impact of ending nuclear power generation at Torness. Torness has been one of the largest employers in East Lothian for decades, with the site providing hundreds of highly skilled jobs. The impact of its closure will be felt not only at Torness but in small and large businesses across the county. Given that Torness generates about £45 million annually for the East Lothian economy, its closure will hit local contractors, hotels, restaurants, pubs, taxis and shops.
As has been said, since operations commenced in 1988, Torness has produced more than 307 terawatts of energy. We need to reflect on that. SNP members have all been sharing on social media the fact that it is Scotland’s energy, but, as we heard last night, it might not be Scotland’s energy—in years to come, we might be reliant on nuclear power produced south of the border.
Stephen Kerr and Paul Sweeney made important contributions to the debate. Scotland has led the world in the training and development of nuclear technicians, and we are about to throw all that away. The Nuclear Industry Association estimates that Scotland’s civil nuclear industry could have supported more than 10,000 jobs if the sector had experienced the same growth as has been evident south of the border, in England. The Scottish Government must reflect on the opportunities that the country will miss out on in years to come.
Nuclear power in Scotland delivers cheaper and cleaner electricity more reliably than any other source. Sadly, the Scottish Government is not taking into consideration those key factors. Political parties can often become entrenched in arguments that are not fit for the times that we live in and that are not appropriate for the science and policy choices that we should be taking for the long term when it comes to safety, sustainability and providing opportunities for our young people.
With the ongoing instability in the middle east and the consequent volatility of global gas prices, households and businesses are vulnerable to price shocks. New nuclear energy would put energy back in our own hands, protect us from fossil fuel price volatility and deliver much-needed energy security. As we start this new session of Parliament, we have an opportunity to reflect on the opportunities that our country can realise over the next five years. The Scottish Government must review and end its political opposition to nuclear power so that it can be part of what we should all want—a balanced energy mix that takes account of not only our country’s current energy needs but its future energy needs and the future threats that it faces.
I agree with Liam Kerr, and I urge SNP Government ministers to follow the evidence, to pursue informed choices and to acknowledge the need for nuclear to be part of our future energy mix. I thought that more voters would have responded to the issue in the recent election. In five years’ time, Green and SNP members will pay a heavy price for their opposition on what is a key energy issue.
18:33
I, too, congratulate Liam Kerr on securing the debate. As he knows, I share the concern, which has been echoed by Stephen Kerr, Paul Sweeney and Miles Briggs, that the Scottish Government’s opposition to new nuclear sends a worrying message to Scotland’s nuclear workforce—the message that its future somehow lies elsewhere. I will build on that point, but I want to begin by highlighting the vital importance of decommissioning and, in particular, the exceptional work that is being undertaken at Dounreay, in my constituency.
It is striking that, in many discussions about energy policy, the role of decommissioning is often overlooked. However, at Dounreay, it is not only a major industrial operation but, as Tim Eagle said, a cornerstone of the local economy and the local community. The site directly employs about 1,400 staff, 96 per cent of whom live locally, and there is a wider supply chain that supports hundreds more jobs. In total, that accounts for almost a quarter of the economy in Caithness and north Sutherland, with a local economic impact of approximately £180 million. In short, a fifth of the local economy is directly connected to Dounreay.
Dounreay is also deeply embedded in the social fabric of the community. Its funding programmes support local sports clubs, charities and individuals, providing more than £1 million annually and leveraging further match funding from other organisations.
David Green makes an excellent point about Dounreay, but does he recognise that one of the key advantages of repowering existing sites is that they are already connected at gigawatt scale to the national grid and that that reduces massively the costs associated with new generation?
Yes, I absolutely agree with Paul Sweeney, and I will come on to talk about the connection between decommissioning and the opportunities for new nuclear energy shortly.
As I said, the contribution of the Dounreay site goes far beyond the industrial activity; it helps to sustain the very fabric of the far north. The site is also unique in Scotland for the innovation and emerging technologies required to address its complex legacy. Many of the solutions that have been developed at Dounreay have been world leading, and many more will be needed as work continues on the facilities, such as the shaft and the silo, which are among some of the most challenging decommissioning projects in all of Europe. I am therefore pleased that the energy minister recognises that, and I am grateful that I have this opportunity to put on the record my thanks to him for agreeing to visit Dounreay.
All the lessons learned at Dounreay are highly relevant to the future of nuclear energy, which is the very question that Liam Kerr has brought to the chamber. New nuclear power stations that are being designed and built today will benefit directly from the experience gained in Caithness. The knowledge developed at Dounreay will ensure that future facilities—I emphasise that I am talking about future facilities, not some of the facilities that we have heard about from SNP members—are safer, more efficient and better prepared for their full life cycle.
I am very much enjoying David Green’s contribution. When I took an intervention earlier on decommissioning, which the member concerned was right to raise, it was clear that one of the things that the SNP was unaware of was that new nuclear power stations are required to fund their own decommissioning and waste management costs. I presume that David Green knows that, so perhaps he could advise the SNP.
Liam Kerr has been able to advise the SNP himself, and I absolutely agree with his point. These matters are interconnected, and I will continue with that point.
Despite all the success at Dounreay that we have heard about this evening, the Scottish Government still has an ideological opposition to new nuclear energy. I remind members that the UK Climate Change Committee, which is an expert-led body, has made it clear that nuclear energy is essential to the UK’s decarbonised electricity mix. Meeting our climate obligations will require significant volumes of low-carbon generation, and nuclear energy has to be part of that mix. I have said this before, and I will say it constantly: good public policy is all about context. Whether SNP members like it or not, the UK Government has made a decision. We will have new investment in new nuclear energy. Therefore, the question is whether Scotland seizes the opportunities to create jobs and investment here at home. We will benefit from the energy, but will we benefit from the opportunity to create jobs? That is the question that I put to the Government tonight.
Let me also emphasise that the success at Dounreay depends on a highly skilled workforce of engineers, project managers, scientists and technicians. Those skills do not exist in isolation, as Paul Sweeney and Liam Kerr said. They are sustained by a thriving nuclear sector that needs to have long-term careers, investment and innovation. I pay tribute to the highly skilled workforce at Dounreay and recognise the potential of a community that is ready to seize those opportunities. As I said to the Dounreay stakeholder group only a few weeks ago, I will fight in this Parliament for their interests, and I hope that the Scottish Government is willing to think big and do likewise.
18:39
I put on the record my thanks to Liam Kerr for bringing this debate to the Parliament. We do not always agree, but the ability to debate and discuss—which we have heard in many of the speeches tonight—is valuable. I also thank other colleagues for their speeches.
Liam Kerr started by reflecting on the opinion polls. I reflect on what people actually vote for, and a majority of members in the Parliament agree with the Government on this particular issue.
There are big increases taking place in renewables, and thanks to the policies that this Government has put in place, Scotland is a massive exporter of electricity.
I will go through some of the speeches—there were several of them—and I will start by picking up on something that Liam Kerr said. He talked about the war in Ukraine, which is one thing that we all agree on. We all know that European energy security is vital, so why we are turning our back on the rest of Europe is beyond me.
I want to touch on other points about Ukraine. The first point is on the attacks on the Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl nuclear plants, which I am sure that we would all wholly condemn. We all agree on that, and it is important to put that on the record. The other point relates to sanctions. Although the UK has sanctioned Rosatom’s subsidiary companies, we have not sanctioned Rosatom itself, which leads me to worry about our continued strategic vulnerability in that particular area. That is something that we should all be concerned about.
Alan Brown made several good points, as we would expect. One was that nuclear power is not green. Hinkley Point C was meant to be built by 2017 but has now been delayed to 2030. The expenses that come with that, along with clean-up costs, which cost billions, and the challenges—
Will the minister take an intervention on that point?
I will not at the moment—I am just coming on to the points that were made by my good colleague Stephen Kerr, who highlighted the European Union. As he knows from being in the House of Commons at the same time as me during debates on that, different member states can have different views, and Scotland would have a lot more freedom to take a different view if it were an independent member of the European Union.
Stephen Kerr also raised a point about apprentices. Only this morning, I launched the oil and gas transition training fund, along with colleagues in the UK Government, which is backing the fund.
This speaks to David Green’s point, which I will shortly address more fully, but I should have said at the start of my speech that nuclear power has been a part of Scotland’s energy mix, but renewables are the future. I also put on the record my thanks to the workforce that has kept stations running. The Government values those workers, and they, too, deserve to have a just transition.
I was in Aberdeen this morning—we are a leading energy nation, and we want to continue to be a leading energy nation. I again congratulate Douglas Lumsden on his victory in Aberdeen South, and I look forward to working with him.
rose—
I suspect that Douglas Lumsden would be delighted for me to bring Liam Kerr in on that point.
I am not Douglas Lumsden—perhaps regrettably—but I am very well informed about Hinkley Point C. The minister said earlier that there is a great cost to building it. He will presumably acknowledge that the entire construction cost of Hinkley Point C is being met by EDF Energy, and that not a penny of it is being met by the UK taxpayer.
Costs are going up as a result of nuclear power. I also point to the delay, which, as Alan Brown rightly pointed out, is a challenge.
I should have finished what I was about to say. Liam Kerr and I are both proud to be members of the Scottish Parliament for the north-east. I congratulate Douglas Lumsden, but I would love to see him do a bit more down in Westminster for the energy sector than his party has managed to do so far. I also congratulate Lara Bird on her recent victory in a north-east constituency, where she managed to get five and a half times the size of majority that I had.
Stephen Kerr made a point about dogma and decline, but I struggle to accept that from a parliamentarian who backed Liz Truss and Boris Johnson. We must look at the reality, which is that renewables are where our future lies.
I want to reach as many members’ points as I possibly can. Paul Sweeney talked about the smaller plants, but they still have the same challenges with waste and cost. I point to France, which has nuclear plants that are struggling with weather constraints at the moment due to the heat. [Interruption.] I want to make progress, given the time, but I will try to swing back to the member later.
Tim Eagle talked about Dounreay and also the weather. I return to the challenges in France—for example, Saint-Alban on the Rhône is having challenges because of the weather.
Miles Briggs talked about parties getting entrenched. Yes, that can be the case, given that European security is such an important issue and the climate emergency is pivotal. However, I am glad that the Conservatives at least acknowledge the climate emergency. Miles Briggs comes from a party that has seen £400 billion from our oil and gas industry, but we are one of the few countries not to have a future generations fund as a result of oil and gas. Then there is the energy profits levy, and the transmission network use of system charge is also having a significant impact.
That takes me to David Green, whom I come to for two reasons. The first is the work on decommissioning at Dounreay, which he is right to highlight. I thank the workers there who are conducting that work, but the plant closed in 1994, and work is due to go on there until the 2070s—and full decontamination will take another 300 years. Therefore, there is plenty of work going on there, but maybe not for all the reasons that we want.
Secondly, just across the water, we see some issues around the west of Orkney in bringing those offshore wind farms on board, which David Green and his colleagues have highlighted. Hinkley took a long time—[Interruption.] I am going to conclude now. Hinkley was due to be completed in 2025, but we keep seeing that date going back.
The case is straightforward: Scotland wants to be part of the solution in relation to European energy security. Nuclear is wasteful and expensive, and given that we have so much potential in renewables, including exporting them, and there is such a massive market for our expertise and our resource, this Government continues to back that technology.
That concludes the debate.
Meeting closed at 18:46.
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