Meeting of the Parliament 04 March 2025
I am pleased to be opening today’s debate on rejection of new nuclear power plants in Scotland and the Scottish Government’s commitment to renewable energy. I am grateful for the opportunity to set out to the Parliament the Scottish Government’s continued opposition to new nuclear, while illustrating the exceptional opportunity that clean renewable energy presents for Scotland’s economy and energy security.
At the outset, I take the opportunity to reiterate the Scottish Government’s position that we do not support the building of any new nuclear power stations in Scotland. Instead, our focus must be on accelerating the deployment of renewables technologies. To put it simply, renewables are safer, cheaper, faster to deploy and better for jobs than nuclear. Nuclear generation has gone on in Scotland for some time, but for the future we have better sustainable energy options due to advances in renewables technology.
The people who have staffed nuclear fission stations in Scotland—and those who continue to do so at Torness—have played a vital role in keeping Scotland’s lights on, and I thank them for that. The contribution of nuclear to electricity generation in Scotland is decreasing, however, and will continue to do so.
Generation of electricity from nuclear fission presents a number of challenges—not the least of which is that nuclear generation creates a legacy of radioactive waste that will have to be managed for thousands of years, and requires complex and robust management to ensure the protection of people and the environment. Cleaning up Scotland’s existing nuclear sites safely and securely is extremely expensive and will take many decades.