Chamber and committees

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—

Rufus AI data centre, which was proposed at Hurlford in my constituency, will use the equivalent power output of the United Kingdom’s largest wind farm, Whitelee. Twenty-four data centres are proposed across Scotland, which is why there is a call for a centralised impact assessment. Can the cabinet secretary explain how the assessments that are being undertaken will feed into individual planning assessments?

Is she aware that my local authority of East Ayrshire is seeking clarification on what constitutes green data centres? Indeed, it is looking for guidance on assessing planning applications, which are applications only in principle and do not have enough detail from developers who are looking to get approvals and to flog those centres for a quick buck.

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.

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

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to carry out a cumulative impact assessment of the number of planning applications proposed for artificial intelligence data centres, including the power and water resources required and the impact on climate emissions. (S7O-00115)

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.

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.

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?

In relation to nuclear energy, can Angela Ross explain the current costs of Hinkley Point C and the projected costs of Sizewell C? Will she tell us how not spending that amount of money is somehow ruining our economy?

Will Duncan Massey take an intervention?