'Scotland will not be UK's nuclear playground', says Kate Forbes

The deputy first minister has told the SNP conference that Scotland “will not be the UK’s nuclear playground”.

On Monday, Kate Forbes stood firm on the party’s longstanding opposition to nuclear energy.

She called the UK Labour Government’s push toward nuclear “bewildering” in the face of Scotland’s growing renewable energy market.

“We’re leading the world in innovation, technology, and commercialisation of renewable energy,” Forbes said.

“That’s why it is so bewildering that the UK Government would rather focus on the distraction of new nuclear rather than on Scotland’s renewable potential.”

In September, the UK and United States signed major deals to speed up the building of new nuclear power stations.

UK energy secretary Ed Miliband said it would kickstart a “golden age” of nuclear.

“Nuclear will power our homes with clean, homegrown energy and the private sector is building it in Britain, delivering growth and well-paid skilled jobs for working people,” he said.

Forbes said nuclear energy will “take longer, be more expensive, increase bills, and leave communities to deal with dangerous nuclear waste”.

“Let us be clear, Scotland will not be the UK’s nuclear playground,” she told the conference.

Forbes also called on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to lift the current energy profits levy, which oil and gas industry leaders have said is causing significant job losses.

“We are a very lucky nation, a twice-blessed nation, with the discovery of oil and gas 40 years ago and the enormous potential of renewable energy today,” she said.

“It’s not a binary choice between past and future, it’s a transition, and it must be a just one.”

Forbes accused Labour of following a “decades old pattern” of exploiting Scotland’s energy revenues by extending and increasing the energy profits levy last year, and she called on Reeves to replace it with a “fair one that protects workers” and enables the energy transition.

The deputy first minister added: “We can’t unpick the past, but we can write a better future – one that will never tolerate fuel poverty in an energy-rich nation like ours. We can only do that with independence.”