Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2025
It is fitting that, as members came into the chamber today, we passed a Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks stall, showing the practical work that it is doing. I have lobbied it endlessly about housing in our rural communities. We need to see the benefits, but we need a reformed and robust grid to maximise the opportunities from our renewable resources. We will not deliver jobs and community benefits across the country without it. It is a shame that the tone from the Tories today is about slowing that work down or—as Rachael Hamilton suggested—stopping proposals that are already in the system.
It is vital that communities be properly involved in and consulted on proposals to develop the grid and renewables. That is why the consultation that has been referenced is so important. Far from cutting communities out of the consenting process, the consultation that was published last October will give, as the minister said, pre-application consultations, which will help communities to be involved in shaping consultations in order to provide clarity that will help with effective consideration and scrutiny of applications. It is vital that, for example, environmental impacts and proposed mitigations are consulted on early, so that local communities, statutory consultees and—critically—our local authorities are informed, so that they can all feed back and ensure that concerns can be addressed before applications are submitted.
The points in Liam McArthur’s amendment are important for environment, landscape and cultural history, and that needs to be acknowledged. We need change and, ultimately, we need to deliver on renewables and deliver a grid that will work.