Scotland: New Nuclear Power Generation

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend knows that on powers relating to nuclear the issue is that, in Scotland, nationally significant infrastructure projects, including nuclear, are broadly reserved. However, Scottish Ministers have devolved executive competence for planning decisions for improving applications to build, operate or modify electricity-generating stations with capacities exceeding 50 megawatts in Scotland. We are not in a position to make a change to that. Scotland has a rich nuclear heritage, and the work being done at Torness is extremely valuable in providing clean energy to Scotland. As I have said already, we very much support EDF’s decision to extend the life of Torness by a couple of years.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

The Net Zero, Energy and Climate Change Interministerial Group met on 6 March and the communiqué came out yesterday. It has a section in it about what was discussed, and nuclear power is not mentioned. The interministerial group met in October and March last year, and nuclear power is not mentioned in either of those two communiqués. Can the Minister assure us that nuclear power will be on the agenda of the next meeting of the interministerial group?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we are always open to discussing nuclear power in that group, and with the Scottish Government. However, it is very difficult to make progress in view of the current Scottish Government’s position on nuclear. I can say that, on 6 February in the Scottish Parliament, Anas Sarwar, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, called on John Swinney, the First Minister, to drop his ideological opposition to nuclear power in Scotland.