Chamber and committees

Okay. I am thinking of the reforms around biodiversity enhancement and the challenges with forestry planting across the south-west to meet targets for carbon sequestration. There are impacts on ground-nesting birds, for instance; I have learned so much about curlew, peewits and all these other birds. How will the bill support improvements in biodiversity, for instance, while maintaining sustainable regenerative farming and economic development?

I will start, as others have, by discussing the development of nuclear power and highlighting the calls for increased spend on nuclear power. We know that one plant alone, Hinkley Point C, is projected to cost around £46 billion in construction costs. I am a bit dumfoonert as to how we can call nuclear “clean and green” when hazardous and toxic waste needs to be handled safely. There is a reason why nuclear decommissioning—

I visited Chapelcross recently and part of the conversation was about the on-going clean-up. There is a reason why nuclear decommissioning takes decades and requires many different highly skilled professionals to safely decommission sites such as Chapelcross, on the other side of the Solway from Sellafield.

The massive cost of new nuclear is no way to run an energy policy and no legacy to leave future generations—it simply adds nuclear waste to the carbon waste that we are already bequeathing them. We need renewables not only to reduce the pollution that is emitted now but to minimise the impact on our descendants who will live in our land decades and centuries from now. That is why I want to recognise Scotland’s renewables revolution and remind members of the huge role that South Scotland is playing in it.

We have one of the biggest offshore wind farms in the country at Robin Rigg in the Solway Firth, although it is a source of continued annoyance that all the energy that is generated goes to the south side of the Solway and the marine support is carried out from Workington port rather than from Galloway.

The Galloway hydro scheme is now over 90 years old. It was designed and built at a time when terms such as “renewables” and “net zero” were not part of our daily lingo. The generating stations run by Drax along the route have a generating capacity of 110MW. That hydro power legacy continues to be shaped in the present day, marrying the old with the new. Right now, just outside Kelloholm, the former Glenmuckloch opencast coal mine is being repurposed into a major hydro-pumped storage facility.

I thank the First Minister for visiting The Carbon Removers at Crofthead farm near Crocketford in January this year, where I also went on an earlier visit with the cabinet secretary. The First Minister was able to witness the technology that is being developed there for carbon capture, storage and processing. After the visit, The Carbon Removers announced a deal for carbon capture and storage in the North Sea, securing existing jobs and creating new high-quality, high-skilled roles in the technologies of the future, not just in that area but in Dumfriesshire as well. That is exactly what the just transition should be about; it is for all of us.

I have visited, on a number of occasions, a local employer that contributes well to Scotland’s renewables industry—Natural Power, near Dalry in the Glenkens area. I was able to secure a British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly economy committee visit to Natural Power as part of that committee’s inquiry into energy policy across the islands. Jeremy Sainsbury, who is the Great Britain policy director at Natural Power—

Just give me a wee second.

Jeremy Sainsbury and his team made us so welcome and provided an excellent overview of some of Natural Power’s work in managing the energy that is generated by onshore turbines across the whole UK.

I will take an intervention from Mr Carson.

Yes—I am conscious of the time.

As a final point, if we had full control over energy in Scotland—over pricing, distribution and everything else—a just transition is what we could achieve. We could make things better for people if we had independence.

Nearly 48,000 Ukrainians have found refuge in Scotland over the past three years, and about 800 of them are housed in Dumfries and Galloway. Their transition to life here has been hard, but it has been made easier by the huge amount of work that has been carried out by local agencies and volunteers, including my constituent Peter Kormylo, who has worked tirelessly to help Ukrainian refugees to navigate our national quirks. Does the First Minister agree that, as well as official support from local government and national Government, support from Peter and many thousands of people like him across Scotland should be valued? That support has been invaluable and is a shining example of humanity across our borders.

I thank Mr Carson for that intervention speech.

We need infrastructure to back up the new renewables, but it needs to be balanced. I know that a controversial decision was made last week on the Kendoon to Tongland pylon replacement project, but I think that the people in Galloway acknowledge the need for power—they just wanted the line to be undergrounded where appropriate, so I have a lot of sympathy with what Finlay Carson talked about in his intervention. Nevertheless, I am clear that we need to focus on what we can do to improve our renewable energy in the south of Scotland, not only in Dumfries and Galloway but across the Borders.

The south, like the country as a whole, is awash with renewables operating right now, as well as future potential. However—and there is a “however”—it is scandalous that the price that every household in my region pays for its electricity is so much higher than in other parts of the UK. Standard charges for southern Scotland are 54 per cent higher per day than for customers in London. Even with changes that are coming soon, the cost will still be 22 per cent higher for a constituent who is living literally right next door to our generating sites.

I am conscious of the time, Deputy Presiding Officer—

I am also a member of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and we just did an inquiry into healthcare in remote and rural areas. The big issues that came out of that inquiry included access to housing and recruitment and retention. However, a lot of people were not very happy about the use of the term “remote and rural”, because they felt that it made them seem like the “other” who is seen as being “somewhere over there” rather than being part of everything. That committee even heard from proponents of an agency being created to advocate for people in remote and rural areas, not just in healthcare. I know that the Scottish Government has created a national centre for remote and rural health and care, which was launched in 2022. Do people know that that centre of excellence exists and that it has been created in order to support healthcare?

It has also come to my attention that people do not really talk about the Scottish graduate entry medicine—ScotGEM—programme, which is tailored specifically in order to get rural general practitioners in the Highlands and in the south-west of Scotland. I am interested in hearing a bit of feedback on those healthcare aspects among the people who were interviewed—for instance, whether they were aware of the national centre for remote and rural health and care, or of ScotGEM.

I have a quick question, Professor O’Hagan. You said that you are coming to the south of Scotland. How will you let people know that you are coming, so that they can engage with the next part of your engagement?

Good morning to youse both. It has been interesting to hear what you have said so far. I am interested in your methodology and how the information was obtained. The committee’s papers say that 146 individuals were interviewed across multiple locations. I think that there were about 20 locations across the Highlands and Islands, which would mean that, on average, about 7.3 folk showed up at each session. I know that it was a mixed methodology, because there was desk-based work and interviews, and there were probably phone calls and so on.

I would be interested to hear about participation in the process. The people who went to the sessions self-selected, and, as MSPs, we know that people come to us and to our caseworkers when there is a problem—they do not come to us when everything is going okay—so I am interested in hearing about the methodology and about how the information was gathered.