19:48 Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)

Two undersea cables will run—one from Peterhead to Selby, and another from Torness, in East Lothian, to Hawthorn Point, County Durham. Preparatory work can already be seen on and offshore in my constituency, as a transmission station is constructed and soundings are taken for subsea cabling. What can possibly be wrong with that? Of course, it makes sense. Scotland has a surfeit of electricity and power. Scotland has been bestowed with a great natural bounty. Already, almost 97% of Scotland’s domestic electricity supply comes from renewable energy. In the north of Scotland, it has been 100% on many days.

Scotland is energy-rich, yet Scots are fuel-poor. It is no comfort to those unable to heat their homes in my constituency that they may see the turbines turning either onshore or offshore. Indeed, that just adds insult to injury. Where is the payment or financial compensation for our renewable energy, which is being taken south or even sold abroad? Where are the jobs in Scotland and its communities from the industry that should follow, never mind the supply chain to maintain it? Where are the businesses that should be locating next to this clean and cheap energy, along with the technology for it and springing from it?

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20:02 Graham Stuart (Conservative)

Scotland is home to Hywind Scotland and Kincardine—the world’s first and largest commercial floating wind farms, respectively—and Scotland’s plentiful supply of stormy skies holds vast promise. The Scotland Crown Estate’s recent ScotWind licensing round kick-started 20 new projects totalling around 28 GW of installed capacity—a frankly enormous figure. This is all sterling stuff, but increasing our renewable energy capacity is key for delivering on our net zero 2050 target, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) would strongly support. It is also crucial for guaranteeing security of supply at a time when Putin’s appalling invasion of Ukraine threatens to drive up prices and drive down thermostats, because wind energy is not just renewable, but secure and increasingly affordable.

However, installed capacity is only one part of the story. One of the challenges we have to address is how to get the electricity we are generating to the households who need it. The stakes are high, because it is not just households; it is schools, hospitals and businesses too. Right now, there are significant network constraints between Scotland and England, and no matter how many kettles are boiling across Yorkshire, when the network is at full capacity, Scottish renewable energy generation, as the hon. Member for East Lothian laid out, has to be curtailed.

With more projects coming online each year, it is all the more vital that we transform our electricity network to unlock Scotland’s potential. That is why transmission links on the east coast joining our two countries are so crucial, particularly for projects such as Berwick Bank, off the coast of the hon. Gentleman’s East Lothian constituency, with connections in both England and Scotland. In July, Ofgem approved two of these links in their final needs case—one between Torness in East Lothian and Hawthorn Pit in County Durham, and the other between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and Drax in north Yorkshire. These links will ensure that, before 2030, no Scottish renewable energy potential will go to waste, and they will reduce any potential constraint costs caused by limited capacity.

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