Meeting of the Parliament 26 October 2017
I welcome the hydro nation debate. It has been particularly heartening to hear about the international development work that has been taking place. I went to Malawi a number of years ago and met people who are directly impacted by the issue. Whether people have access to irrigation and sanitation is hugely important and can be the difference between life and death.
I turn to Scotland. One of the most dramatic benefits to have come as a result of our membership of the European Union has been from the directives that have improved the quality of our water at every turn of the water cycle. From the tap to the treatment works, and from the rivers to the seas, EU directives have set standards that have protected the health of our bodies, our beaches and our watercourses. It is vital that EU directives remain as the solid base for our environmental standards, whatever our future relationship with the EU might be.
Without the backstop of the European Court of Justice to enforce standards, I remain concerned about future Scottish Governments rolling back good progress. In closing, perhaps the minister will tell us what will replace the ECJ, given that the Government has now rejected environmental courts.
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands is critical to delivering on public needs at a time when pressures for post-Brexit market liberalisation will only grow. Alan Sutherland, who is the chief executive of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, said recently that, in his personal view, the introduction of competition for household water
“would be a derisory idea”.—[Official Report, Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, 12 September 2017; c 23.]
Scottish Water has done little analysis of the impact of the trade deal between the EU and Canada—the comprehensive economic and trade agreement. However, if the public status of Scottish Water is not challenged under CETA, it certainly could be under future trade deals that are cobbled together as part of empire 2.0. There are risks that the Scottish Government should be mindful of as it seeks to further develop its position on trade.
We started the week with a debate about technologies from the past that have no future, so it is good to shift the debate to a technology that had a critical role in our past and will have such a role for centuries to come. Like Jackie Baillie, I am a big fan of Tom Johnston, a former West Stirlingshire MP. The Labour Party’s early work was, of course, always its best, and the post-war vision of the hydro board brought hope and power to the glens. I doubt whether all the projects would have got through today’s environmental regulations, but they delivered Scotland’s first renewables revolution.
I was privileged to meet Pat Agnew, who was an engineer, a pamphleteer and a Green Party energy spokesperson in Scotland for many years. He worked on the Cruachan project and many others during the Tom Johnston era. Some 30 years ago, he envisaged a second renewables revolution based on wind working with hydro. Sadly, Pat Agnew is no longer with us, but his vision is definitely still alive in the aspirations of the Government today.
In this century, communities are using hydro’s strong social licence to build new generation projects. I join Bruce Crawford in paying tribute to the Callander Community Development Trust, whose project on the Stank Glen fits seamlessly with the landscape while delivering great financial benefits to the town. There is huge potential with hydro capacity, but we have to look at how to add certainty and de-risk the development of projects.
The UK Government’s cut in support for renewables has been damaging—especially for hydro, given its high up-front capital costs. The constant tinkering with the subsidy regimes destroys certainty for projects that seek commercial finance. Dramatic increases in business rates, although they have been averted for the time being, grid capacity constraints and charging regimes that do not recognise the benefits that hydro brings to the energy system can combine to make projects collapse and, if we do not get projects, we do not get community profit sharing.
I appreciate that many of those issues are not within the Scottish Government’s direct control, but building a unified position in the Parliament to support the next chapter in our hydro nation story is certainly worth fighting for.
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