Hansard

This has been a short but excellent debate on the hydro nation, with wide-ranging speeches from members such as Liam McArthur and Claudia Beamish, who focused on the international element. Donald Cameron discussed the very important issue of water quality and flood risk management. Jackie Baillie and Mark Ruskell spoke eloquently about Tom Johnston, who is one of my political heroes—the less said about the ice-cream the better, so I shall move on swiftly.

Members from across the parties focused on the three main aspects of the hydro nation: the development of hydro power to maximise economic benefits by reducing energy use, improving efficiency and creating a low-carbon nation; raising the international profile of Scotland as a leader in water management; and developing a water centre of excellence with international reach.

I would like to focus briefly on hydro power—as other members have done—as a case study of a hydro nation, not least because of its strong antecedents in my region, the Highlands and Islands.

We all know that hydro power is a key renewable that can help achieve our climate change targets, reduce reliance on imported gas and coal, and increase the diversity of our generation mix. We need to get our energy mix right. The lights might not be going out all over Edinburgh any time soon but, if we get the energy balance wrong in the next decade, we will be paying over a barrel or, indeed, over a therm of gas to countries with the political stability of Burma and the civil liberties record of Zimbabwe.

We all know that hydro power is the grand old man, if you like, of renewables in Scotland. The first public hydro power supply was in the Benedictine abbey in Fort Augustus, serving 800 inhabitants in 1890. In 1896, a hydro power station was built in Foyers by the British Aluminium Company. Around 1900, a large hydro power station was basically responsible for the development of the village of Kinlochleven. As members have quoted previously, Tom Johnston, Labour’s Secretary of State for Scotland under Winston Churchill, led the hydro revolution because in the 1940s he created a network of dams and transmission towers that produced electricity for poor Highlanders for the first time. When Tom Johnston left Parliament in 1945, he went off to chair the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board; and, just to complete the record, the Labour Government nationalised hydro power in its first term in 1945.

At that time, it was estimated that only one farm in six and one croft in 100 had electricity. Today, notwithstanding Donald Cameron’s point, virtually every home has mains electricity. After the second world war, workers came from all over the world to work in the Highland hydro schemes. Germans, Poles and Czechs in particular were famed as the tunnel tigers, who earned 10 times the weekly wage of local estate workers. However, by the 1960s, the Highlands had changed beyond all recognition due to new dams on larger lochs. Rivers were diverted through aqueducts and underground tunnels to direct power from the glens to remote crofts and farms. What was once a threat to tourism is now a tourist attraction. For example, the dam and fish ladder at Pitlochry—the dreaded venue for many a Sunday school outing—is now a major tourist attraction that is visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year.

Hydro power is not some bygone relic of a forgotten age. The Glendoe project, which I visited a few years ago and which is near the banks of Loch Ness, is the largest hydro power station for half a century. It provides clean renewable energy that is enough to light every house in Glasgow. A new £14 million hydro scheme is now up and running in Lochaber, in the hills above Kinlochleven, from which villagers will get substantial community benefit. However, as has been pointed out, the reduction in UK tariffs by the UK Government makes the economies of building new hydro schemes increasingly challenging. I believe, though, that there are opportunities for a new hydro revolution. However, there are some limiting factors: the cost of grid connections; the reduction and phasing out of feed-in tariff payments; and the consent process. Scottish Renewables has also raised concerns around the route to market and the lack of financial certainty for those investing in small-scale hydro, not least community groups.

Scotland has a proud record on hydro power, which in no small measure is due to the iconic status of Tom Johnston. There is still much more to achieve in, for example, pumped electricity storage, run-of-the-river developments and streamlining planning processes. We all know that the task is great, but Scotland has both the opportunities and the necessary skills. The sustainable development of hydro power can be a crucial contribution towards meeting our global climate change responsibilities. With the appropriate development, the right technology and the proven skills of our workforce, Scotland can take the lead in Europe and beyond.