DAVID STEWART: Families will have to choose between heating and gifts
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You may not have noticed, but summer ended on Friday and the autumnal equinox heralds a new season, with cooler weather approaching.
Across the Highlands and Islands, hard-working families and hard-pressed small businesses face an uncertain future with soaring energy costs.
I welcome new Prime Minister Liz Truss’ proposals for caps on bills although I am not sure how this balances out with tax cuts. But we have additional problems in the north – our more severe weather, higher proportions of poorly insulated homes and fewer households on the mains gas network. All factors which make living and working here more costly.
The Prime Minister came up with other policy initiatives to deal with the UK’s security of supply of energy – an end to the effective moratorium on fracking and a “speeding up” of new nuclear capacity.
In my view, it is crucial that we ensure our lights stay on by having a long-term energy policy that emphasises security of supply, affordability and climate change. The war in Ukraine has concentrated the minds of politicians across the globe who believed complacently that oil and gas, as internationally tradable commodities, would always be available – while forgetting the key factors of energy mix, storage and price.
So that takes me back to the Prime Minister’s proposals – she is right to be concerned about energy security, but wrong about fracking.
Communities across Scotland, in my assessment, will mount vigorous campaigns to oppose localised fracking exploration for frankly marginal energy returns and disproportionate environmental damage.
New nuclear power capacity is perhaps a different proposition. Nuclear power can provide a crucial base load to balance the important contribution of renewable energy.
While we have our effective UK national grid, the Scottish nuclear contribution is on the decline. Torness is expected to decommission in 2028, but currently generates low carbon electricity for 2.7 million homes. Hunterston B nuclear power station ceased generation in January. Nuclear power currently generates around 16 per cent of the UK’s electricity. New nuclear is planned at Hinkley Point in Somerset, but lead-in times are long for construction and cost overruns are a fear.
However, scientists have developed small-scale mini-nuclear power which can be developed quickly at much more affordable costs and heightened safety and security.
These are complex, global issues, but for too many families in the Highlands it is a simple choice of heating the home or Christmas presents for the children.
n Along with millions of viewers in Scotland and across the world, I watched the state funeral of the late Queen at Westminster Abbey on Monday.
It was a sad day, culminating with the Queen’s burial at the crypt at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, alongside her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.
As a junior backbench MP in 1998, I was invited to Buckingham Palace with around 100 colleagues. I still remember meeting the Queen at the palace, and her kind words about my new Stewart kilt!
She will be remembered for her dedication and unfailing service to duty – as well as her love of Scotland.
