ENERGY powers should be devolved to the Scottish parliament, the SNP have said, as the party laid out “six times the broken Westminster system has failed” Scotland.
The party’s calls come ahead of the All-Energy & Dcarbonise renewables event being held in Glasgow on Wednesday, at which First Minister Humza Yousaf will speak.
The conference bills itself as “the UK’s largest low carbon energy and full supply chain renewables event”, and will run at the Scottish Event Campus on May 10 and 11.
Ahead of the summit, the SNP said that focusing on investing in nuclear instead of renewables was a key Westminster failure that necessitated the devolving of powers over energy.
The six “failures” laid out by the party were:
- Failing to include the Acorn project in track one of carbon capture funding.
- Failing to guarantee Acorn will be part of track two funding, heaping further uncertainty on the industry.
- Dropping a £1 billion grant to develop carbon capture technology. When this happened in 2015, Peterhead power station and the White Rose scheme in North Yorkshire were the only two bidders left in the process.
- Failing to match the Scottish Government’s £500m Just Transition Fund.
- Failing to tackle sky-high transmission charges.
- Prioritising nuclear over Scotland’s vast renewable energy resources.
The SNP’s net zero spokesperson at Westminster, Alan Brown MP, said: “For decades, Westminster has been utterly failing Scotland’s energy sector and it’s the people of Scotland who are paying the price for these serious failures.
“Labour and the Tories have treated the industry as a cash cow, choosing to fritter away Scotland’s vast resources in Whitehall rather than reinvesting the cash back into local communities here in Scotland.
“As a result, households across Scotland are struggling to heat their homes or turn the lights on in a country as energy rich as ours.
“But Westminster is also letting down the workers by refusing to match the SNP Government’s significant £500 million investment in the Just Transition to ensure there are jobs in the energy sector for generations to come.
“The sector is just an afterthought for Westminster: if they aren’t prepared to step up to the plate and provide the proper support our energy industry desperately needs today, then these powers should be handed to Holyrood so the SNP Government can put the future of Scottish industry first.”
A UK Government spokesperson said: “The UK has blazed a trail globally for green growth, having already attracted billions for over a decade in green investment, all while growing the economy and creating tens of thousands of good jobs.
"Scotland has played a key role in this, and has benefited hugely from this work. Since 2010 renewable energy connected to the grid has increased five-fold and we have the four largest operational offshore wind farms in the world including Moray East Wind Farm off the coast of Scotland.
"There is huge potential still – our plans to power up Britain are expected to attract a further £100 billion investment and support 480,000 jobs across the UK by 2030.”
