In the recent reshuffle a new Government Department was created to deal with Energy and Climate Change. These issues had previously been dealt with separately but, recognising the close link between them with respect to meeting our emissions targets, the Government saw that there was a need for these areas to be more closely co-ordinated.

This means a new Select Committee has been created to monitor the work of the department and I will sit on this committee when it starts work in the new year.

As a result of the issues being brought together in the one department we should see more progress on reducing emissions – we have already surpassed our Kyoto target for 2012 but we cannot let up on this and the Government has agreed to far more challenging targets alongside these. One of these – to reduce 1990 greenhouse gas levels by 80% by 2050 - was the first announcement by the new department following the recommendation by the new body set up to advise on this.

Many people in our constituency wrote to me on this and will be encouraged at this positive start from the department and the advisory committee on climate change. This has now been put into law and I look forward to working on the new Select Committee to make sure we meet this challenge.

Another looming challenge is of course meeting our energy needs and this week I contributed the following short piece to the House magazine about planning and nuclear power in Scotland, which I feel we need in order to succeed:

As a nation two of the most fundamental issues we face are climate change and energy supply. Recognising this and the need to tackle them as a country, the powers and indeed resources to deal with these issues were reserved to the UK Parliament in the devolution settlement, because the only way we can meet them is by working together. However, both this and our ability to successfully deal with these challenges are being frustrated by the Edinburgh Executive through planning powers and the Calman Commission should highlight the need to remedy this as soon as possible.

In any planning decision there should always be local involvement and engagement in granting or withholding permission and this will be raised by the SNP in objection to any change. But there will be no hint of local consultation on nuclear energy in Scotland. The communities of Hunterston and Torness for instance won’t be asked whether a new station should be built when the current ones reach the end of their life span - and having benefited from millions of pounds of investment in jobs, in the community and in infrastructure, the polls show overwhelming support for new plants in these areas.

Surely if anyone is able to distinguish fact from fiction when it comes to nuclear energy it is people who have lived alongside it? But they won’t be asked their opinion and this won’t be a planning decision at all. Rather it is an energy prejudice which will be imposed from executive ministers.  

I feel this is a dangerous and worrying response for Scotland. Nuclear energy is proven, operational, affordable, low carbon and safe energy source which we have relied on in Scotland for the past 50 years; so to my mind it clearly meets the right criteria.

We need a baseload alongside renewables in order to keep the lights on and the blanket dismissal of nuclear will either leave us without this, and reliant on England for energy – much of which may come from nuclear – or dependent on the heavy carbon emitters coal, oil or gas. This latter scenario would not only be folly with regard to climate change, but also with regard to our security of supply and our national interest.

Our future energy supply and climate change are enormous challenges which call for serious and responsible decision making. To reject a technology which ticks the right boxes and will enable us to meet these doesn’t make sense and is gambling with the country’s future. We need to return to the devolution settlement so nationally important decisions we need to make together as a country are made at this level, and so locally important decisions involve the community. The current administration in Scotland however, seem determined to prevent both of these, and this jeopardises our efforts to meet our needs for energy, and the climate's need for low carbon.