Meeting of the Parliament 10 February 2026 [Draft]
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.