Hansard

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.

As Professor Dieter Helm of the University of Oxford succinctly put it, renewables are

“not cheap, not home-grown and not secure”.

That is where we are.

The costs are being driven by two things. First, the direct costs of renewables are very high. We can see that clearly through CFD prices at the moment. The subsidies are paid by the UK Government, on which Scottish wind is wholly dependent.

For example, in allocation round 7—the most recent funding round of CFD—offshore wind is priced at £95 per megawatt hour and floating wind is priced at £215 per megawatt hour. On some of our older wind farms, such as Beatrice, it is priced at well over £200 per megawatt hour. The prices are all index linked and on long-term contracts, so the prices are fixed to go up for nearly 20 years. We can compare that with the direct cost of gas, which is between £50 and £60 per megawatt hour.

Secondly, the system costs that are imposed by renewables are even higher, and they continue to grow. They are like the submerged part of an iceberg, making up two thirds of the cost of our bills. The reason for that is that, to support intermittent generation, we have to build a vastly larger grid—much greater than that of a conventional system—at huge expense. There is also a huge amount of ire and anger from those in our rural communities, who do not want giant pylons or battery farms across their back gardens.

We also need to maintain 100 per cent back-up. In Scotland and the UK, the back-up comes from gas; in other European countries, it comes from coal. That adds huge cost, complexity and vulnerability. Vulnerability is an increasingly serious concern, with the risks of blackouts rising, as demonstrated by what happened in Spain last summer.

Scotland is going to be especially exposed to those risks. We rely on only two ageing conventional plants—Torness nuclear plant and Peterhead gas plant—and both could close in the early 2030s, which would make Scotland extremely vulnerable to blackouts and likely to be dependent on gas plants that are located in the north of England.

We have to start facing that energy reality. Renewables will definitely be part of the energy mix, but we have to recognise the high costs and limitations of them.

That brings me to our oil and gas sector—a world-leading industry that is being crushed by deliberate policy choices. Despite the massive investment in renewables, the oil and gas industry remains essential. In the UK, 75 per cent of primary energy still comes from oil and gas. Globally, 81 per cent of primary energy comes from oil and gas. We need to acknowledge that, in all scenarios, the UK and Scotland will need oil and gas for decades. It is needed for transport fuels and key chemicals—just about every product in this room requires oil and gas—and it is vital for heating and industrial processes. Paradoxically, the more renewables that we add to the grid, the more flexible gas back-up we need.

We need to maximise our use of oil and gas resources rather than import them from neighbouring Norway or from countries even further afield. We can do that. The North Sea has a strong and vital future, if we choose it. We need to urgently remove the energy profits levy. We need unambiguous support for the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil fields and all new projects. We need unambiguous support for new licences in drilling. That would revitalise our industry.

As my amendment states, I call on the Parliament to be a vocal champion for the North Sea oil and gas industry, to apologise for previous policies that show lack of support for the industry—including the presumption against new development—and to provide unambiguous support for Jackdaw and Rosebank and new drilling, with new planning laws needed if necessary.

The benefits of a stronger UK oil and gas industry are enormous: continued jobs, major tax revenue, greater balance of payments and greater energy security, with, in particular, the opportunity to reduce imports, including greatly reducing or even ending LNG imports.

Let us talk about emissions. UK emissions now account for less than 0.8 per cent of global emissions. Scotland accounts for about 10 per cent of that, at 0.08 per cent—not even a rounding error—and that figure is just going to keep getting smaller and smaller, as large nations such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria continue to use more energy, especially from gas and coal. The UK is still about the 24th largest oil producer in the world, but it accounts for only about 0.7 per cent of world production—another rounding error in global terms.

Furthermore, the Parliament should note that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has quietly removed its RCP—representative concentration pathway—8.5 scenario, once again highlighting that the scientific consensus is that there is not an emergency but a slow, mild warming. It is a problem, for sure, but not something that requires us to commit unilateral economic suicide and decimate every industry in this country.

That brings me to another industry that this Government has tried to destroy—nuclear. Nuclear energy is emission free, 24/7 and reliable, and every industrial country around the world is now moving towards it. It is increasingly seen as vital for new technologies such as data centres, artificial intelligence and robotics. Scotland used to be an absolute world leader in nuclear. We had four large plants across the country, cutting-edge research at Rolls-Royce in East Kilbride and at Dounreay, and world-leading nuclear vessel operations at Faslane. We need to rediscover that, because the world has turned. We need to reindustrialise, because 24/7, cheap, reliable and localised energy is needed for new technologies such as AI, and Scotland needs to be part of that.

It is simple. If we want real economic growth, we need a pragmatic energy policy that focuses on cheap, abundant and reliable energy. We need energy policy that is driven by reality, not wishful thinking, and it must acknowledge that our current failing system has the highest industrial energy costs in the world. We need energy policy that is backed by the broad shoulders of the UK Government. That means maximising our oil and gas resources in the short and medium terms and transitioning to a nuclear-powered system over the long term, with renewables playing a complementary role rather than a dominant one. That is how we will secure cheap energy for everyone and ensure that we can reindustrialise, protect our world-leading oil and gas industry and keep the lights on for Scotland’s future.

I move amendment S7M-00159.1, to leave out from second “that” to end and insert:

“Scotland’s current net zero-driven energy policies are failing, contributing to deindustrialisation through high energy costs and also increasing grid instability, including with the planned closure of Torness nuclear power station, thus creating a significant risk of blackouts; recognises the continued dependence of renewables on UK Government subsidies; acknowledges Scotland’s past leadership in nuclear power; calls for renewed investment in nuclear capacity, further calls on the Scottish Government to recognise the ongoing importance of oil and gas and to fully support the sector in the North Sea, including through unambiguous support for the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil fields and new drilling and licences; calls on the Scottish Government to apologise for its previous lack of support of the industry, including for what it considers has been the presumption against new developments, and considers that, in light of the challenges facing the sector, that energy powers should remain reserved to the UK Government.”