Scotland to prioritise renewable energy over nuclear power
June 10, 2025
Scotland to prioritise renewable energy over nuclear power
Getty ImagesThe Scottish government will focus on renewable energy not nuclear power, a government minister has said following confirmation of significant funding for nuclear power plants in England.
Scotland has an effective ban on new nuclear facilities because the SNP has a long-standing commitment to block projects through devolved planning powers.
Acting Energy Secretary Gillian Martin told BBC Scotland News they would “capitalise on renewable energy capacity” rather than “expensive new nuclear”.
Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said a Scottish Labour government in Holyrood would reverse the SNP’s block on nuclear power stations being built.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced earlier that the UK government was investing £14.2bn in the construction of Sizewell C in Suffolk and £2.5bn in small modular reactors in the East Midlands.
Scotland has one remaining active nuclear power plant – at Torness in East Lothian – which is scheduled to close by 2030.
Although energy policy is largely set at Westminster, the Scottish government is able to block projects it opposes as planning powers are devolved.
The Scottish government has previously rejected calls to end an effective ban on new nuclear power stations.
Ms Martin said: “The Scottish government is focussed on supporting growth and creating jobs by capitalising on Scotland’s immense renewable energy capacity rather than expensive new nuclear which takes decades to build, creates toxic waste which is difficult and costly to dispose of, and does not generate power at a cost that will bring down energy bills.”
Sizewell CSpeaking to BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme, Scottish Secretary Ian Murray described the Scottish government’s ban on nuclear power as “wrongheaded”.
“I think it’s simplistic politics,” he said. “I think if you look at what’s happening today with the big investment announcement in nuclear power in England, it’s tens of thousands of jobs, it’s thousands of apprenticeships, it’s a real boost for local economies.
“But that can’t be coming to Scotland because of the de facto ban on nuclear.
Murray added: “I’m not talking to Scottish ministers about that because they made it quite clear their policy stays in place. But if there’s a Scottish Labour government come the 2026 Scottish elections, we’ll be reversing that policy and trying to encourage that investment into Scotland.”
Labour’s Rutherglen MP Michael Shanks, who is parliamentary under-secretary of state at the department for energy security and net zero, said there was “clear” opportunity for Scotland to develop new nuclear power stations.
Writing in The Scotsman, he said: “A Scottish Labour government, led by Anas Sarwar, will reverse the decades-long block on new nuclear projects in Scotland.
“The decisions by the SNP have held Scotland back, delaying our clean energy future and costing the communities the jobs and investments they need.”
Getty ImagesTom Greatrex, a former Scottish Labour MP who is now chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), said the Scottish people did not have an “aversion to building nuclear power”.
“Over half of Scottish adults in a recent poll said they wanted nuclear power as part of a mix for the future, including over half of SNP voters,” her said.
Citing a new report from Oxford Economics, commissioned by NIA, he said the civil nuclear sector added £1.5bn to the Scottish economy last year, largely due to Scottish firms working on Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C in England.
“In Hinkley, 170 different Scottish firms have contracts to work on that, over £280m spent with Scottish firms to date as part of the supply chain and there are hundreds of people from Scotland working on Hinkley,” Mr Greatrex told BBC Scotland News.
“And the same will happen in Sizewell because it’s the same design from the same approval and largely the same supply chain and a lot of the same people.”
He said a mixture of clean energy – renewables and nuclear – would provide energy security in the future.
“Torness is the single most piece of low carbon infrastructure that exists in the country but it will stop generating in the next five/six years.
“We have to a serious look at how you replace that or we end up in a position where the carbon intensity of power in Scotland will go up rather than go down in the future.”
Scotland had a pioneering role in nuclear power, at Dounreay in the far north and Chapelcross in the far south.
But the SNP Scottish government has put a planning block on approval of any new developments, for environmental reasons. It doesn’t like nuclear waste.
That means it loses out on the immense investments which are going to the south of England.
But new large nuclear was only likely to be built in the south, near the largest population centres.
The future of Britain’s electricity supply is looking to the north to provide wind power, with the next generation of offshore wind at scale around the Scottish coast, where the wind blows more strongly and more reliably than the southern North Sea.
Getting that power to the homes and businesses where it is needed requires heavy and controversial investment in grid links, with their pylons, cables and sub-stations.
These can carry wind power south when the wind blows, and nuclear power from England when it doesn’t.
Smaller nuclear plants, which are being put into the mix, could be constructed in more locations, and that may put pressure on the Scottish government to ease its restrictions and allow some baseload electricity supply to be located closer to home.
But, for now, it remains firmly opposed.
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