Why Highlands needs SNP to stop blocking nuclear power projects

But then, the UK Government decided to build a nuclear reactor at Dounreay, in Caithness. At a stroke, large-scale investment was directed to the very far north of the Scottish mainland and the highest quality local employment was suddenly on offer.

It’s hard to exaggerate the effect this had on the local economy of Caithness and adjacent parts of the county of Sutherland. It would be fair to say that Dounreay, and the subsequent reactors that were to be built there, literally kept the lights on in this remote part of the country.

Small modular reactors

This led to the building of new houses and the development of other enterprises that were part of the supply chain for Dounreay. Since then, successive generations of people have found worthwhile employment which has kept them in the communities that they love. In this way, the advent of nuclear energy not only halted, but even reversed, depopulation.

Of course, that was then and this is now. While France and other countries continued to invest in the generation of electricity by building new nuclear reactors, astonishingly the UK did not. That is why Dounreay is now being decommissioned.

For some time now, not one single volt of electricity has been generated at the site. But then, in recent days, we have seen that the new Labour government has decided to forge ahead with the construction of a network of small modular reactors (SMRs). As someone who cares about providing high-quality future employment in a remote area such as the North Highlands, this appears to me to be a golden opportunity.

Cruel irony

At Dounreay, we have a fully licensed site (and there aren’t too many of these in the UK), we have a highly skilled workforce, and we have a local population that would warmly welcome an SMR coming to Dounreay. And yet, there is a cruel irony.

In Wales, where the UK Government intends to site an SMR or two, the leader of Plaid Cymru, Liz Saville Roberts, is warmly supportive, but in Scotland there is a very different attitude from the nationalist leadership in Holyrood.

Again and again, the SNP have said that they will use their devolved planning powers to block the construction of any new nuclear facilities in Scotland. Well I wonder, in recent surveys it has become evident that the general public the length and breadth of the United Kingdom are very receptive to the idea of nuclear-generated electricity being a vital part of the way we power this country. There is no denying that it is a more climate-friendly route to energy security, compared to fossil fuels.

Renewables have their place and amen to that. But I do believe that there is a change in the air. The prospect of the SNP blocking planning proposals for more reactors in Scotland frustrates me beyond words. I hate to see such wasted potential for Scotland and the people who live here.

Jamie Stone is the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross