Louise Gilmour: SNP’s outdated opposition to nuclear has to waver

In this world, the one we live in, his response to the creation of 1,600 good jobs for Scots workers and the awarding of almost £300 million of contracts to Scots firms is only sullen silence.

If anyone expects his Scottish Government to hail the immense economic boost to Scotland from the construction of a nuclear power station in the south-west of England, we have a wind farm to sell them.

Across Britain, 26,000 skilled, well-paid workers are now helping build Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which, according to EDF, the state-owned French energy company steering the huge construction project, is contributing £13.3 billion to the UK economy.

Scotland is certainly getting a welcome share but most of the benefits, the money, investment, apprenticeships, and jobs remain in the south. Similarly, the £14bn recently promised by the UK Government to build a nuclear power station at Sizewell C in Suffolk is expected to support up to 70,000 jobs across the UK along with 1,500 apprenticeships. It will only confirm the transformative impact of new nuclear energy on jobs and growth... in England at least.

In Scotland, the SNP Government refuses to even discuss relaxing its ban on new nuclear power. Ministers here remain deaf to the chorus of experts suggesting small reactors can cut emissions while securing our energy, blind to the potential economic benefits, and dumb when asked to properly explain why.

Ed Miliband, UK energy secretary and a passionate advocate of renewable energy, is clear that nuclear must underpin the drive to net zero, but Holyrood ministers have no interest. They insist renewables must be the only priority but the energy debate does not need to be binary, one or the other. We must continue building our wind and solar capacity but will still need oil and gas, in particular, for decades, while nuclear must be allowed to underpin our energy mix.

Louise Gilmour, GMB Scotland secretary (Image: GMB Scotland) Countries across the world are looking at small modular reactors to help them towards net zero but, in Scotland, we cannot even start the discussion. Instead, our politicians witter about the need for a “just transition” for workers at decommissioning plants; presumably because the “just transition” for oil and gas workers is going so well with, according to Robert Gordon University, 200 jobs set to be shed from offshore industries every week for the next five years.

Nuclear’s ability to deliver energy security is clear but the economic benefits are just as obvious. Construction at Hinkley Point has, according to the Nuclear Industry Association, helped boost the economic value of Scotland’s nuclear sector to £1.5bn, up almost a third in three years, with 5,100 Scots workers employed and 18,500 supported. That should only be the start.

Both Hunterston in the west and Torness in the east have huge potential for development, surrounded by space and communities, built on nuclear jobs, which understand the low-risk, high reward of nuclear power. The opportunity is clear, with research suggesting up to 800 good, unionised jobs could be created at Hunterston, generating up to £60m in wages annually. At Torness, 900 workers could be earning £90m a year. Millions more would stream through supply chains.

The economist John Maynard Keynes suggested that when facts changed, his opinion changed. Well, the facts have changed around new nuclear, the technologies have been transformed along with its ability to secure energy supplies and cut emissions.

The SNP’s dogmatic but out-dated opposition, however, has never wavered. It has to.

Louise Gilmour is GMB Scotland secretary