Meeting of the Parliament 25 February 2015
I am sorry, but I do not have the time. I might come back to the member in my closing speech.
The central conundrum for the Scottish Conservatives is this: as I have made clear ad infinitum, we agree that we need more conventional thermal generation in Scotland—indeed, I gave consent to 1GW of new gas generation at Cockenzie—but the fact is that no one is going to build those stations, because it makes no economic sense. The great irony, therefore, is that the Tories are calling for something that is economically impossible. No one is going to do this. The discrimination with regard to transmission charging must be addressed in the long term, and that is a crystal-clear problem to which the Scottish Conservatives with, I am sad to say, their flawed motion have brought forward no solution whatever.
I move amendment S4M-12395.1, to leave out from “contributing” to end and insert:
“brought about by the UK’s discriminatory transmission charging regime; further notes that cleaner thermal generation progressively fitted with carbon capture and storage technology will continue to play an important role in securing Scotland’s future energy mix, alongside the expansion of renewables, as set out in the Scottish Government’s Electricity Generation Policy Statement 2013; recognises that UK energy policy and regulation actively discourages the construction of new conventional thermal generating plants in Scotland compared with other locations in the UK, given the higher transmission charges faced by Scottish generators; shares the Scottish Government’s disappointment at the further delay in implementing transmission pricing reforms stemming from Ofgem’s Project TransmiT; recognises the significant progress in renewables deployment in Scotland, with over 44% of gross electricity consumption met from renewable sources in 2013; supports the need for increased investment in large-scale flexible electricity storage solutions, including pumped storage, to complement the increasing deployment of renewable technologies, and further supports the First Minister’s call for the UK Government to undertake a dedicated electricity capacity assessment for Scotland and to transfer to the Scottish Parliament the authority to set a Scottish security and quality of supply standard for electricity.”
14:59Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.