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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. We must move to the next debate.

Electricity Generation (East Lothian)

1.30 pm

Mr. John Home Robertson (East Lothian): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this subject, which is obviously very important to many people in my constituency. East Lothian is literally the powerhouse of Scotland. It has the capacity to generate almost half the electricity that the country needs, from power stations at Torness and Cockenzie. With the deep mine at Monktonhall, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Clarke), who is in his place, and the opencast site in Blindwells, East Lothian people produce a significant amount of coal too.

There are limits to the amount of opencast activity that any area should have to put up with, and I shall be bringing a delegation to see the Minister next month to discuss the case for fairer and more effective planning controls over private opencast developments. Today, however, I want to concentrate on East Lothian's two power stations.

With capacity to generate 1,320 MW at Torness and 1,200 MW at Cockenzie, East Lothian can satisfy fully 42 per cent. of Scotland's peak winter demand of 5,962 MW. Torness employs 630 people and Cockenzie 240, so the industry is crucial to my constituency's economy.

I am obviously not happy about the fact that Scottish Power, and now Scottish Nuclear, have been privatised by the Tory Government, and I am particularly concerned about the irresponsible privatisation of the nuclear industry. Of all industries, the nuclear industry is uniquely sensitive, and should remain under public control and in public ownership.

The privatisation of Scottish Nuclear and Nuclear Electric was the biggest public rip-off of them all. All eight power stations, including the best and newest advanced gas-cooled reactor at Torness, were sold to private speculators for less than the cost of building just one of them--Sizewell B. It was a matter of, buy one power station cheap and get seven more free. Sadly, Torness is one of the freebie stations. It also happens to be one of the best. According to British Energy, Torness power station produced 0.9 TW hours in October--the highest output of all eight nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom.

Having bought Torness cheap, the board of British Energy wants to run it on the cheap, too. It has announced plans to cut the work force from 630 people to 550--80 job losses on a nuclear site where safety considerations must be paramount and undermanning could create risks. I should like to cite one example of such risks, which has been drawn to my attention by employees at Torness power station.

I understand that, ideally, teams of staff should be dedicated to each of the two reactors. That principle is already being breached by the penny-pinchers of British Energy. Towards the end of August, an operations engineer from reactor II was sent to do some work on reactor I, which was off load for refuelling. He received an instruction to shut the main steam isolator for the turbine, which he duly did, but, unfortunately, he shut the valve on reactor II, which was on load, instead of that on reactor I, which was shut down; so reactor II tripped, and it took a day to bring it back on load.

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I offer that as one cautionary tale of the false economies of undermanning at such a power station. We shall have to be extremely vigilant now that the Government have given the nuclear generating industry to private owners. I use the term "given" deliberately, because that is what has happened to Torness.

I turn to the imminent Government decisions that will be crucial to the future of Cockenzie power station. As the smaller of Scottish Power's two main coal-burning stations, Cockenzie currently operates as a major standby generator, available to produce electricity if there is a problem at another station or for export to England and Wales.

Cockenzie is very good at that job. Its engineers can fire up their plant very quickly, and the costs are very competitive for that purpose. The plant is in good order, and Scottish Power intends to invest in further improvements. The station should have a secure future until 2010. Since Scottish coalfields produce low-sulphur coal, the environmental impact would be acceptable.

If Cockenzie could gain access to wider markets, its output would increase and its costs would become even more competitive. Conversely, if a predatory competitor in the electricity market were to dump cheap electricity on to the already over-supplied Scottish market, the future of Cockenzie power station and the jobs of 240 of my constituents would be in serious jeopardy. I ask the Minister to face up to the Government's responsibility on both those counts.

Scottish Power is striving to increase the capacity of the transmission system to make it possible to export electricity. There is 9,323 MW of generating capacity in Scotland, which is 1,870 MW more than what is required to cover our peak demand, plus a reasonable planning margin. As Scotland's standby station, Cockenzie could be seen as that spare capacity. Its average load factor last year was just 21.3 per cent., so Cockenzie must export if it is to survive. In financial terms, it is very competitive, so Scottish Power is able to export much electricity from Cockenzie to England and Wales through the recently upgraded cross-border interconnector.

Mr. Phil Gallie (Ayr): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Home Robertson: I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would bear with me, since I want to make a number of points, and time is short.

Last year, 2,154 GW hours were exported from Cockenzie down the interconnector to England and Wales--so far, so good. To use Cockenzie to its real potential, however, access is also needed to markets in Northern Ireland and--hopefully--the Republic of Ireland. An interconnector between the electricity systems of Scotland and Northern Ireland would be good news for the Scottish electricity and coal industries, and very good news for consumers on the island of Ireland.

The two parts of Ireland are the only parts of the European Union that do not have access to electricity supplies from other countries. I know from contacts with people in the Republic--through the British-Irish parliamentary body--and hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies that they would welcome access to competitively priced electricity from Scotland.

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Scottish Power and Northern Ireland Electricity have worked up detailed proposals for an undersea interconnector, which have been considered in great detail at public inquiries in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Both inquiries led to recommendations that the project should go ahead with overhead pylons carrying 275 KV lines from Coylton in Ayrshire to the coast, and an undersea cable to connect it to the system in Northern Ireland.

A written answer from the Minister that I received only yesterday confirmed:

"The Reporter"--

at the public inquiry--

"considered that undergrounding of any part of the proposed line was unnecessary."

I am very well aware that electricity transmission pylons are detrimental to any landscape; we have plenty of them in East Lothian. I clearly remember the public inquiry into the Torness pylon lines, which was very controversial. The original proposal was to take the lines by the easiest route along the foot of the Lammermuir hills, but the inquiry proposed a less obtrusive alternative route between the hills, and it was accepted by the reporter and the Secretary of State at the time.

A suggestion that all the visible stretches of the lines should be laid underground at massive expense would not have been taken seriously. If that was now on offer, I would be truly delighted if sections of the cable at Johnscleugh, Mayshiel and Humbie were put underground, but I do not honestly think that that is realistic. The pylons are a sacrifice that we had to make for the benefit of the wider Scottish and national economies.

Today, the Secretary of State for Scotland seems to be playing by different rules. I do not criticise people in South Ayrshire for seeking to minimise the impact of that important development on their landscape, except that I must say that some of them seem to have slightly short memories. It is not all that long since coal and electricity were important elements in their local economy, too. The reporter at the inquiry considered those representations, and he concluded that the Scottish-Irish electricity interconnector should go ahead.

Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley): Is not my hon. Friend aware that South Ayrshire produces more opencast coal than any other part of Scotland and, indeed, the United Kingdom? A number of applications are also currently being considered by the local authority. Coal still plays an important part in the economy of South Ayrshire.

Is my hon. Friend also aware that we have to take account of environmental considerations? Hundreds of people turned out to public meetings in Maybole--not rich landowners, as suggested by my hon. Friend, but ordinary people--to object to the siting of the pylons. Is it not reasonable that the Secretary of State for Scotland should make a proposal for undergrounding just part of the line where it passes through the most beautiful scenery in Scotland? Is not that sensible, and a reasonable compromise that should be accepted by Scottish Power?

Mr. Home Robertson: With respect, no. The Secretary of State is changing the ground rules. If we could start all over again, I would love to put lots of sections of the transmission system in East Lothian

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underground, but it is simply not fair to apply completely different rules in South Ayrshire to those which apply in other parts of the country.

The position now is that the Secretary of State for Scotland made an announcement, not in the House but elsewhere, two weeks ago, and he brought his political perspective to bear--at the behest, I suspect, of the President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Struan Stevenson and other people who should know better.

The Secretary of State announced that he was minded to grant consent only if four sections were put underground, at a cost of £28 million, which could put the whole enterprise and the jobs of 240 of my constituents in jeopardy. He has given Scottish Power until 20 December to respond to that unwarranted and unprecedented imposition, and I can only speculate about their reaction. I have serious fears about the news that my constituents at Cockenzie might get for Christmas. In the name of fairness to my constituents and of consistency in planning decisions, I appeal to the Minister to reconsider that extraordinary decision.

I refer to another reply that the Minister gave me yesterday. I asked him what estimate he had made of the value to the Scottish economy of an electricity interconnector with Northern Ireland. His reply was, "None." He simply said that it was a matter for the private companies concerned, Northern Ireland Electricity and Scottish Power.

With respect, it has enormous potential value to the Scottish economy. The agreement with Northern Ireland Electricity would run for 15 years and would represent a coalburn of 600,000 tonnes, which is worth about £20 million a year. The interconnector would also attract £61 million of European union grant support. All that could be put in jeopardy.

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