Mr Angus MacDonald
MP for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“These are long-life infrastructure assets, which are expected to operate for more than a century. They use electricity to pump water from a lower reservoir to a higher reservoir; when electricity is required, water is released through the turbines.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The National Audit Office says that constraint costs reached £1.9 billion over the last year, with an expectation that the figure could be as high as £8 billion by 2030. That is a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money and hopefully pump storage will reduce it. What is the opportunity for Scotland?”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was hopeful about onshore wind investment and the jobs and opportunities it could bring, but in practice that has been minimal. The proposed pump storage projects are now the only remaining chance I can see to bring proper money into my left-behind part of Britain. Why does electricity storage really matter?”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will briefly attempt to do so, but there is a much more eloquent gentleman here today—the Minister for Energy, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks)—who would do better. [ Laughter.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If a project earns above the agreed level, excess returns are returned to the consumer through lower network charges. There is an opportunity for Scotland to develop a serious industry around pump storage. The benefits are not just the electricity stored at the end of construction.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has 34 GWh of storage capacity and around 1.8 GW of generating capacity, and its hydraulic head of 500 metres makes good use of the geography of the site to store large amounts of electricity efficiently. The project is committed to putting 5% of its annual gross margin into a community wealth fund.”
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“Remote Scotland has a 30% higher cost of living and a 10% lower income than urban Scotland. We have seen a dramatic drop in school rolls and a 71% increase in the number of people over the age of 75. I represent Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire and it would be difficult to find another part of the UK with a greater interest in renewables.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered long duration electricity storage systems. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I am glad to have been able to bring forward this debate on long duration electricity storage systems. I would like to focus on pump storage and the cost-benefit of hosting that technology in the highlands of Scotland. The highlands and islands hope to benefit from the new Prime Minister’s growth in every postcode plan, however we do not have a defence, artificial intelligence, tech or financial industry to rely on. Our major industry is tourism, which suffers from a short season and low pay in hospitality. It is a struggling industry. I recently wrote to the Prime Minister and laid out some harrowing facts.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These three sites will produce a collective 4 GW of electricity, which is three times as much electricity as Greater Manchester uses. The development costs will be over £5 billion, which will make the entire scheme by far the biggest ever infrastructure investment ever seen in the highlands. There are also three more pump storage sites that are keen to get Ofgem’s go-ahead: Loch Fearna, near Invergarry; Loch Ericht; and Loch na Cathrach, on Loch Ness.”
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“These are long-life infrastructure assets, which are expected to operate for more than a century. They use electricity to pump water from a lower reservoir to a higher reservoir; when electricity is required, water is released through the turbines. As people can imagine, with our geography the highlands is very well placed for these assets. Our lochs, hills and mountains allow us to create the height differences that pump storage requires. The technical term is hydraulic head. In simple terms, the greater the height difference between the reservoirs, the more energy that can be produced with the same amount of water. This summer, Ofgem announced that it has provisionally approved three pump storage sites in the highlands: Coire Glas, near Invergarry; Loch Kemp, near Loch Ness; and Lochan na h-Earba, which is quite near Newtonmore.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was hopeful about onshore wind investment and the jobs and opportunities it could bring, but in practice that has been minimal. The proposed pump storage projects are now the only remaining chance I can see to bring proper money into my left-behind part of Britain. Why does electricity storage really matter? Long duration storage has an important role in our energy future and the highlands have a particular ability to help deliver it. We need to be able to store electricity when there is plenty of it and to use it when we need it. Batteries play an important role in managing shorter periods, but we need technology that is capable of supplying electricity for much longer stretches. Pump storage is a proven technology, capable of providing large amounts of electricity for long periods.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, the hills of Scotland are covered in wind turbines, but they are manufactured abroad and are often owned by overseas utilities. From a multi-billion pound industry, Scotland’s communities got only £30 million of community benefit last year and the highlands got only £7 million. That is just £30 per head of population in the highlands. The highlands already generate almost 8 GW of renewable electricity per year; roughly a third from hydroelectricity and two thirds from onshore wind. Even before factoring in pump storage, we play an important role in the electrification of the UK. I have said in this House before that I want the highlands to properly benefit from the enormous value of their natural resources.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head. There is not enough in it for the communities to benefit from. Pump storage seems to be as good a way of providing electricity that we could find. In the highlands, we have the wind, water and geography that make the area so important for our national energy system. We have been producing hydroelectricity for the rest of the country for generations and we now have the opportunity to store much more of it. The highlands already generate 12 times the amount of electricity they need, but we have one of the highest levels of fuel poverty in Britain. Go figure, as my children would say. When Alex Salmond was First Minister of Scotland, he declared that Scotland could become the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”.”
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“Excuse me for stating the obvious, but gas still sets the price for electricity when gas-fired generation is needed, even at a time when a great deal of electricity is coming from renewable sources. Mains gas is 8p a kilowatt at the moment, whereas electricity is 26p a kilowatt, or more than three times as much. Broadly speaking, people in rural areas across the whole of the UK do not have mains gas. In my patch, only those people in Inverness city and Dingwall receive mains gas.”
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“I think that hydro is a far better source of electricity than wind. It has much less visual impact and it is available when we really need it; we have quite a lot of wind, but it is obviously dependent on the wind blowing. The future energy scenarios report of the National Energy System Operator, or NESO, for 2025 suggested that Britain could need between 13.2 GW and 16.6 GW of long duration storage by 2050. The six sites in the highlands that I have mentioned will go a long way towards providing that storage. The second point I wish to make is about the implication for the electricity market and the people paying their bills. One aspect of this is the way that the wholesale electricity market works.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Until I received the hon. Lady’s email yesterday, I had never heard of sand batteries; sand is not one of the big features of my constituency. Nevertheless, I agree that we should consider all sorts of technologies. The bottom line is that Britain will not transition to electricity when it costs three times as much as carbon fuel imported gas does.”
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“It has 34 GWh of storage capacity and around 1.8 GW of generating capacity, and its hydraulic head of 500 metres makes good use of the geography of the site to store large amounts of electricity efficiently. The project is committed to putting 5% of its annual gross margin into a community wealth fund. The estimate is that the fund could receive £20 million a year. Compared with the highlands only getting £7 million, that is significant. The Highland Council said that the fund could be worth around £3 billion in today’s money over the 125-year operating period. Glen Earrach has bravely volunteered a model where its host community will share in its success. I strongly urge the Government to recognise it as a model that can be adopted by other developments.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is particularly important for the highlands, where our fuel costs are prohibitive, major developments can be very visible, the costs of providing public sector services are high, and we have a serious problem with the availability of housing and opportunities for young people to stop them emigrating to the cities. I welcome the Scottish Government’s recent proposal to bring pump storage hydro within its updated community benefit guidance, but I suspect that it will result in an underwhelming consequence. Glen Earrach is a model case study. It has not yet received Ofgem’s provisional approval, but it is an example of the scale of opportunity we have. It has an expected operating life of approximately 125 years.”
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“I have attended hostile meetings of the convention of community councils with hundreds of attendees, and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Scottish Government Ministers have declined to attend. There is very much a feeling in the highlands that this is being done to us. If locals had jobs at these projects, if legacy housing were built rather than temporary modular constructions, and if the communities got significant community benefit or, even better, were shareholders, I guarantee that there would be much better support. When we ask communities to host major infrastructure, it should be beneficial to them.”
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“If a project earns above the agreed level, excess returns are returned to the consumer through lower network charges. There is an opportunity for Scotland to develop a serious industry around pump storage. The benefits are not just the electricity stored at the end of construction. There is the civil engineer, the tunnel and the electrical equipment required—billions of pounds’ worth. Can we ensure that a significant amount of that supply chain work will remain in Scotland or even in Britain? Are we educating our young with the skills they need to be employed in these multi-billion pound infrastructures? I really do not believe we are. I want to move on to community benefits. Do the communities impacted by wind farms and pump storage sites welcome them? They absolutely do not.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The National Audit Office says that constraint costs reached £1.9 billion over the last year, with an expectation that the figure could be as high as £8 billion by 2030. That is a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money and hopefully pump storage will reduce it. What is the opportunity for Scotland? Pump storage sites are very expensive to build and, historically, it has been difficult for developers to secure private finance, because future electricity market revenues are uncertain. The UK Government have introduced the cap and floor scheme to unlock investment in this type of infrastructure. The floor provides a minimum level of revenue certainty and, if a project’s market revenues fall below that agreed floor, support is provided to cover the gap, funded through consumer bills. The cap limits the excess revenue.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will briefly attempt to do so, but there is a much more eloquent gentleman here today—the Minister for Energy, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks)—who would do better. [ Laughter. ] As I understand it, the tariffs and the distribution charges go on the electricity—the home-produced renewable electricity—and not on the carbon fuel imported gas, which in my opinion is the wrong way round. However, I am sure that the Minister will enlighten us and provide a bit more detail. Another problem is constraint payments—when we are paying to stop renewable electricity being produced. When the electricity network cannot carry power from where it is being produced to where it is needed, the systems operator has to intervene. That means paying wind farms to reduce their output.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have always believed that tide is probably the single best energy source, because it is entirely predictable and operates well in the estuaries where our cities are, so we do not need to transform it. I am not up to date, but it is something that we should really concentrate on.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As things stand, these multibillion-pound pump storage sites will produce few local jobs, no legacy housing and minimal community benefit for the people of the highlands. That is completely unacceptable. Pump storage sites are an essential part of our national energy portfolio, and they are great for Britain. Let us make them great for the highlands, too.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Hopefully, we will have all these different renewable energy sources coming through, but geothermal is a big one. We have an enormous opportunity in rural Scotland to facilitate the electrification of Britain, and long-duration storage can help us make better use of the renewable electricity we generate. It can improve the security of supply and support a more efficient electricity system. Rural Scotland plays a role in enabling Britain to achieve its net zero ambitions. However, the impact on our communities is currently almost entirely negative. It is like telling the inhabitants of Norway or Aberdeen in the 1970s that there will be an oil and gas boom, but the locals should not benefit from it.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister mentioned one of the pump storage sites and the £7.5 million investment, which is a one-off payment. For example, Glen Earrach is offering £20 million a year for 125 years, inflation-linked. That is what we have to move to: an amount of money being invested year after year that is agreed and controlled by the Government. What does the Minister think of that?”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“British soldiers in my day were always able to depend on the support of the British public, the Government and the judiciary. In my time in Northern Ireland, we knew that we had our backs covered, and that we had to abide by the law. What we did not have then was sharp-suited lawyers looking for any opportunity to pursue us in court, possibly for decades. The recruitment of soldiers is extremely poor at the moment, and unless the concerns of those serving, and of veterans, are put to rest, we will not be able to rebuild our fighting force to the strength we need.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I told him that I was coming to this debate, and he told me an anecdote. He said, “Well, let me tell you a story. There are four guys, all armed, and they are clearing a building in the middle east. They go upstairs, and as they go along the corridor, out of the back of the building comes a man, and in front of him is a female. Over her shoulder he is firing AK-47 bullets, and spraying them. They shoot that man and that woman—they kill them, but they had no option. It happened on the spur of the moment, and they could not really decide how to get out of it, or they would all have been dead.” Is there any chance that those British soldiers could be charged with murder? If there is, I would strongly recommend the young I meet not to join the Army.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would like to speak to amendment 130 and clause 36. My son, myself, my father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather—and pretty well all my ancestors forever—have served in the Army. I was a subaltern in Northern Ireland at the peak of the troubles in 1984, and my regiment, the Queen’s Own Highlanders, saw the death of the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel David Blair, and 17 more soldiers who were killed in the two explosives in Warrenpoint in 1979. The pain of those deaths was still very live among many of the regiment who were serving five years later when I was serving, but despite the pain, I do not recollect a single person who felt any desire to take revenge. The professionalism of the British soldier could be depended on. I have a son who has just left the Army after several years as a trooper.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have had an 18% fall in the number of care homes, despite the rising number of elderly people; there are only 45 care beds in Skye for a population of 10,000. NHS Highland is paying £77,000 a day for delayed discharges. In short, people in rural coastal communities earn less money. Their housing, food, heating and fuel for their vehicles cost more, and public transport costs more because of the distances. They have less access to public services, find it harder to access equivalent education, and their young leave. When they need care as elderly people, it is often not available, and if it is, it is more expensive. Remote Scotland is spiralling towards being unviable, and neither the Westminster Government nor the Holyrood Government are stepping forward to support it.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The small schools do not get science, technology, engineering and mathematics coverage; they do not get the physics, mathematics or computing teaching that the big urban schools get. That means that parents with children who are gifted in those subjects move into the cities, so there is a downward spiral at those schools. The University of the Highlands and Islands is a brilliant concept, but, again, it does not teach science, technology, engineering and maths in Fort William or Portree, say. Our kids leave—they go to Inverness or Glasgow, never to return—so we have a greatly ageing population. The highlands has seen a 71% increase in the number of over-75s, and that is set to increase by a further 34% in the next five years.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Scotland has, except that has produced very few local jobs, little legacy housing and minimal community benefit. It is not a boom. Scotland as a whole received only £30 million of community benefit in 2025, and the highlands, which are covered in wind farms, got only £7 million. Westminster could have legislated for community benefits at any time over the last 20 years, but it did not. Rural Britain will be generating electricity for urban Britain, but at the moment there is precious little in it for rural communities. We have a major demographic crisis; it has come up in debates before. In primary and secondary schools all the way up the west coast, the school roll has dropped by 50%. The school in Portree on the Isle of Skye was built less than 20 years ago for 1,000 children, but fewer than 500 children go to it.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the highlands, powers and funding have also been moved back to Inverness city, at the expense of Wester Ross, Skye, Caithness, Sutherland and Lochaber. Capital investments, such as city deals, have been hogged by cities. In January 2024—before I joined it—the Scottish Affairs Committee produced a report showing that the cost of living premium in remote Scotland was up to 30% higher than in urban Scotland. As hon. Members will know, mains gas is really available only in towns and cities, at 7p per kilowatt. Those in rural areas pay for electricity, which costs 26p per kilowatt—four times as much—to heat their houses. Food costs a great deal more in rural shops than in supermarkets. Of course, the distances to central services such as banks, doctors and medical centres are far greater. The rest of the UK has not had the renewables boom.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A week before his election, Boris Johnson promised that not a penny of funding for rural areas would be lost as a result of Brexit. That money funded skills training, community projects and infrastructure, including roads and bridges. Between 2000 and 2018, EU structural funds contributed €1.2 billion to the highlands and islands, while in the past three years, the UK shared prosperity fund contributed £9.4 million to the highlands and islands—that shows the disparity. Boris Johnson’s Government broke his promise immediately, and the Labour Government have not replaced the shortfall. Centralisation of services in the UK, and in Scotland in particular, has seen powers move from councils back to Whitehall and Holyrood.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Isolation comes as a result of many of the issues that I will point out, and deprivation, as has been mentioned, is much less obvious in a small, pretty croft house on the lochside than in a deprived inner-city housing estate. An 82-year-old widow in Gairloch wrote me to say that she is living in her croft house in the winter and paying as much to heat it as she receives in her state pension of £182 per week. There is no daily bus to the town, she does not have a car, her carer comes intermittently and her daughter lives near Glasgow. She is both isolated and deprived. I will focus on four things. Being part of the EU was extremely important for remote areas. They received funding commensurate with the additional costs of delivering infrastructure and services across a remote, dispersed and sparsely populated area.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) on securing this debate on a fantastic subject. What I am about to say is specific to the highlands and Scotland, but it is relevant, to a lesser extent, to all hon. Members in the Chamber. I have written a brilliant report called “Remote Scotland: Spiralling towards Unviability?”—I imagine everyone will be scrambling for a copy after the debate. It is about education; childcare; health and social care; energy demographics; centralisation; housing; work and economy; transport; and digital connectivity—all subjects that have been covered in this debate.”
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“After close inspection of the detail on Pride in Place, we found that 50% of the evaluation was based on data that was not available even to MPs. We could not understand in any way how the distribution of that money was decided, and it completely avoided what many of us thought were relevant data.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister acknowledge that the highlands and islands produce a disproportionately large amount of our renewable energy? Will he also acknowledge that last week’s Ofgem go-ahead for three pumped storage schemes will produce almost no jobs, no legacy housing and no community benefits, along with minimal, if any, advantage to the highlands of Scotland?”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this debate. This weekend, I watched the coastguard rescue a kayaker very close to my house. I spoke to the coastguard, who brought me up to date on the situation. There are two things to say. First, it is clear that the MCA management has made a right mess of this. It should listen to the petitioners and put its plans on hold. Secondly, will the Minister confirm whether he has discussed the volunteer fire service’s terms and remuneration with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and whether, for example, an honorarium, a stipend or another of its policies could be adapted?”
House of Commons1 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister knows that in the highlands we have had three massive pump storage sites move to the next level of development. Cumulatively, they will store 4 GW in an area that has the highest fuel poverty in Britain, at a cost of £5 billion. At the moment, the pumps will do very little for the highland economy, as there will be almost no local jobs, no legacy housing and no community benefit. It is a sorry state; it is all downside and no upside for the people of the highlands. I would love to see that addressed.”
House of Commons30 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“More importantly, I believe that as Members of Parliament, we have an overriding moral responsibility to protect the most vulnerable in our society, especially children. In our induction as MPs, we were told that we had a duty to speak out when things were wrong. It is clear to me that allowing possibly irreversible medical research to be carried out on 11-year-old girls and 12-year-old boys, when we know that some of these children at least will reconcile themselves to their biological sex at birth, is completely inhumane and uncivilised. Many of us feel uncomfortable about using beagles for medical research. How on earth can it be right to use children for irreversible and life-changing medical research?”
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“Like his predecessor, the Secretary of State has declared that he is uneasy allowing this trial to proceed, and cites clinical advice and a need for scientific evidence as a cover to allow him to support it. I have worked with many scientists, and we should be wary of thinking that all scientists are working for the betterment of the world. There were clinicians who said that the drug thalidomide was safe and clinicians who promoted lobotomies as a breakthrough mental health treatment. There were also clinicians who assured parents that puberty blockers were safe and reversible. It was in the name of science that clinicians prescribed puberty blockers to children at the Tavistock clinic for more than a decade, with an estimated 2,000 children receiving these powerful drugs. Where are these children now? How have they got on?”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a great shame that this debate has been broken up along party lines. It should have been had as the debate on assisted dying was, where people from across the House could stand up and make their own case. Indeed, many Members from across the House have been supportive of what I am about to say. Following the publication of the Cass review in 2024, the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria in children and young people was restricted by the then Secretary of State for Health due to an unacceptable safety risk, with their use limited to clinical trial settings. Polling by Whitestone Insight in ’25 showed that the public do not support a trial, with 67% of respondents agreeing that puberty blockers should never be given to under-18s, even as part of a clinical trial. That figure was 70% among parents of children under 18.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our report recommends one specific way in which the Government could achieve that: their scheme should include a requirement on energy companies building projects in rural areas to construct legacy worker accommodation to a standard suitable for permanent community housing, rather than temporary modular buildings. That would go some way towards addressing the acute housing shortage in the highlands, which requires an extra 24,000 homes to meet the demand of the next decade, according to Highland council. With that, I will conclude my statement. The Scottish Affairs Committee looks forward to the Government’s response, which I hope will reflect serious consideration of our recommendations on delivering a fair deal for rural communities across Scotland.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our report makes it clear that meaningful community benefit extends beyond financial payments, and that housing availability, access to skills training and the creation of long-term local jobs are just as important. If delivered successfully, the influx of vast amounts of renewable energy could provide an opportunity to leave a transformative legacy of housing, skills and quality employment. That would be especially valuable for communities in remote rural Scotland, which have seen little private or public sector investment. The Committee calls on the Government to seize this opportunity and ensure that their mandatory community benefit scheme is significant enough to reflect the needs and priorities of Scotland’s rural communities.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The report also calls on the Government to consider carefully the Highland council’s view that £12,500, the upper end of that scale, is a fair figure. That proposal reflects the Highland council’s first-hand experience of supporting communities that bear the brunt of clean energy development. The Committee’s report also highlights that, no matter what figure the Government adopt, it is equally important that a mechanism is included to maintain that value over time—otherwise, Scotland’s communities will eventually find themselves short-changed as the real-terms value of the figure is eroded. Financial payments will be an essential part of a fair deal for Scotland, but they are not the whole story.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In 2015, they introduced voluntary community benefits guidance for onshore renewable developers, which recommended community benefits of £5,000 per megawatt, with inflationary increases. They have recently proposed increasing that to £6,000. However, the UK Government have, in their policy paper on how their mandatory scheme will work, proposed a benchmark contribution of only £5,000 per megawatt. Our report finds that that sum is insufficient and does not reflect fair compensation for rural Scotland. A £5,000 contribution may have been an appropriate amount in 2015, when the Scottish Government adopted it, but it is now worth around 40% less in real terms. Our report makes it clear that the UK Government must be bolder. The Committee recommends that a figure in the region of £10,000 to £12,000 per megawatt would be more appropriate.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As our report highlights, that disconnect is a key driver of the sense of unfairness felt by communities across rural Scotland. It is for that reason that our report welcomes the UK Government’s commitment to introduce a mandatory community benefit scheme for new-generation infrastructure. The scheme, which is expected to be introduced by the end of 2027 at the earliest, could be key to ensuring that Scotland’s rural communities are adequately compensated for the disadvantages that come with enabling the whole of the UK to meet the Government’s clean power mission. However, that raises the thorny issue of what fair compensation looks like. As the report highlights, the Scottish Government were widely regarded as leaders in this area.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As one of our expert witnesses put it, highland communities see that “the turbines are generating lots of revenue for somebody but not for them.” That presents an acute problem of fairness. The communities across Scotland that host industrial-scale renewable infrastructure in their backyards are the very same communities that pay among the highest prices for energy. Although fuel poverty rates across the UK cannot be directly compared, it is also clear that those same communities are enduring among the highest levels of fuel poverty. Indeed, many will be among the 34% of Scottish households that are classified as fuel poor while looking on at the massive wind turbines generating renewable electricity nearby—that cannot be just.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It was declared that Scotland had the potential to become the Saudi Arabia of renewables, and there has been massive investment in onshore wind. However, those wind farm developments are seldom owned locally and offer few local jobs. In 2024, only £7 million of community benefit was generated in the highlands, and less than £30 million across Scotland, from that billion-pound industry. That was a disappointing outcome from a potentially transformative opportunity. Throughout our inquiry, we had a clear consensus that the communities in Scotland that shoulder the greatest impact of the energy transition by hosting renewable energy infrastructure must also share in its benefits.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last autumn, we published an interim report for the inquiry on the future of North sea oil and gas, and I commend that report to all hon. Members. The report before us today—our second and final report for this inquiry—explores a wide range of issues. We cover the achievability of the clean power by 2030 mission, the role of GB Energy in delivering it, the urgent need for grid upgrades, and the community ownership of clean power. However, I will focus in my brief remarks on the issue of community benefits. Community benefits are key to ensuring the fairness of the Government’s clean power mission, particularly for the communities of the highlands and islands, many of which I represent in my Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire constituency.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for affording me the opportunity to make a statement on the publication of the Scottish Affairs Committee’s first report of the Session, on the Government’s clean power 2030 mission. It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of the Committee. This is the Committee’s second report on our inquiry into Great British Energy and the net zero transition. We launched the inquiry in November 2024, and it has been our longest-running piece of work to date. We have received more than 50 pieces of written evidence, held 11 oral evidence sessions and carried out numerous visits, both in Scotland and internationally. I thank all the stakeholders who have engaged with the inquiry.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Lady for chairing the Committee—she was the driving force behind the report. The curtailment costs demonstrate quite how meagre the community benefits are. I do not have the curtailment cost figures to hand, but hundreds of millions of pounds are often being paid to utilities and infrastructure funds that own the wind farms but are not local—they are neither highlands-based nor Scotland-based. Basically, we are rewarding people for something they have not done to help the area. I could not agree more that the transmission lines, and the speed of getting them in, are crucial.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It would have been helpful if the Conservative Government had made it mandatory 12 years ago, but they did not. Although I applaud the Scottish Government for doing so, they should have increased the benefit every year, rather than leaving it at £5,000. The £6,000 figure that they have now come up is completely ridiculous, because, with inflationary increases, the 2015 contract figure should be £8,500, so they have effectively reduced the community benefit. Two years ago, I wrote to the Scottish Energy Minister and the First Minister to make my case. Indeed, I met the Energy Minister about it. I am afraid that, by making it £6,000, they have taken the easy option.”
House of Commons11 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Scotland exports 10 to 12 times more electricity than it needs. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is doing a review of community benefits, and we are very concerned that that review will produce a poor outcome for the people of rural Scotland. Could the Secretary of State make representations on that?”
House of Commons10 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are waiting for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to come up with the results of the community benefit consultation. The highlands only got £9 million of community benefit last year, and Scotland as a whole got less than £30 million. There are tens of thousands of jobs in renewables in the highlands, but they are not for locals; they are imported teams. Very often, offshore firms are doing the construction. We sell 10 times more electricity than we produce. Effectively, there is nothing in it for the people of rural Scotland to produce electricity. Does the Minister agree that the community benefit conclusion from DESNZ is crucial?”
House of Commons9 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗