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Question Time
SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE
Enterprise, Lifelong Learning and Transport
Electricity Generation
To ask the Scottish
Executive what its policies are in respect of the future of the
electricity generation industry. (S2O-7940)
Mr
John Home Robertson (East Lothian) (Lab):
To ask the Scottish Executive what its policies are in respect of the
future of the electricity generation industry. (S2O-7940)
The Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson):
Policy on the electricity generation industry is generally reserved to
the United Kingdom Government and is subject to the commercial decisions
of the industry and the regulatory framework that is put in place at UK
level.
The Scottish Executive and its agencies continue to work closely with
the UK Government and the energy companies to ensure that an appropriate
balance is struck between our economic development objectives, our
targets for growth of renewables generation and climate change, and
ensuring security of supply.
Mr Home Robertson:
Excellent. Now that the Prime Minister has called for an assessment of
all options, including civil nuclear power, to meet our future energy
needs without emitting greenhouse gases, and since our First Minister
has said that we must keep energy options open, can we have an assurance
that the Executive intends to maintain Scotland's share of the British
electricity generation industry, particularly when the UK Government
makes necessary decisions about a national repository for nuclear waste?
Notwithstanding Ayrshire's ambition to get Scotland's next nuclear power
station, can I restate East Lothian's claim for it to be located on the
site that has already been earmarked for Torness B?
Allan Wilson:
There are quite a few questions in there — I will try to address them
all.
The Prime Minister is correct, as is our First Minister. He was
restating the UK Government's position that the Government must, in
order to ensure security of supply, consider all options.
We have always been supportive of an energy mix that meets our
renewables targets as well as our carbon emissions targets and,
crucially, which also ensures security of supply. I want Scotland to
remain a net exporter of energy rather than to become an importer of
energy. Four major power stations are due to come off supply in the next
10 to 20 years. If that picture does not change, Scotland will become a
net importer rather than a net exporter of electricity, which is
something that we should avoid.
On the last question, Governments do not build power stations and
neither does the Scottish Executive. Those are commercial matters and it
is for the generation companies to make proposals, which would have to
be considered in that context.
Rob Gibson (Highlands and Islands) (SNP):
I would like to turn the minister's attention to other electricity
generation and away from the love-in that he is having with his friend
who has another nuclear power station in his backyard.
The minister was able to answer two questions from the previous member,
so will he tell me, first, when the interconnector between the Western
Isles and the mainland will be agreed and set up and secondly, when the
decisions about the applications from AMEC Wind Energy and Beinn Mhor
Power Ltd will be made, so that people in the islands can know that they
can share in Scotland's security of energy supply?
Allan Wilson:
I dispute the contention that Mr Home Robertson and I have been engaged
in a "love-in". John Home Robertson and I, and indeed many other
colleagues, have always been supportive of an energy mix that meets our
renewables targets, addresses issues of carbon emissions and ensures
security of supply. That means that we must consider all sources. On the
question of upgrading the grid and the particular issues that Rob Gibson
raises on island connections, those are primarily matters for the grid
companies and electricity-generating companies in the first instance
and, latterly, for the Executive.
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