Meeting Scotland's Future Energy Needs

That the Parliament welcomes the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee’s report, “Meeting Scotland’s Future Energy Needs”; notes that that it was undertaken following discussions on a routine visit to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority site at Dounreay because of the committee’s concerns about the effects on the current workforce and on the area’s economy of decommissioning Dounreay, about the lack of a long-term strategy for the management of nuclear waste and about meeting the shortfall in energy output once nuclear power no longer provides part of Scotland’s energy needs; notes that none of the committee’s conclusions and recommendations advocates commissioning new nuclear power stations, and endorses particularly those recommendations urging the Government to revisit the British Electricity Trading and Transmission Arrangements (BETTA) as a matter of urgency and to invest in “clean coal” technology and research and development of emerging renewable technologies and recognising that conserving energy must be a major contributor to balancing energy supply and demand in Scotland in the future.