Meeting of the Parliament 24 June 2026 [Draft]
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.