Carmichael speaks on need for greater community benefit from renewable developments

Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, has spoken in Parliament on the “disconnect” between energy generation and fuel poverty during a debate on community benefits from renewable energy projects. During the debate, led by fellow Liberal Democrat MP Angus MacDonald yesterday [Tuesday] afternoon, Mr Carmichael noted the previous successful partnership seen in the Northern Isles between the community and the oil and gas industry, and suggested that stronger community benefit from renewable development, whether in direct payments or access to quality jobs, was the best way to boost local support.

Speaking in the debate, Mr Carmichael said:

“There are two things that I want people to understand about Orkney and Shetland. 

“First, we have the highest level of fuel poverty of any community in the country. The truth is that the further north we go, the more we are likely to find people enduring poor housing standards with long, dark, cold winters. That has an impact and it is felt most acutely in Orkney and Shetland.

“The second thing I want people to understand is that when we talk about needing to find a template for making these things work, in Orkney and Shetland we have already done that. We have done it since the mid-1970s on our relationship to our oil and gas industry, which we have hosted. We have the two largest onshore terminals for oil and gas in western Europe. The reason there is such support for the oil and gas industry in Orkney and Shetland is that for the last few decades it has been a tremendous source of community benefit for us.

“If there is an energy generation source, or whatever it is, in a community and the community sees the benefit of it—in a direct financial sense of money going into a trust or just in the availability and reliability of good-quality, high-skilled, well-paid jobs—people will be much more accepting. When, as is the case at the moment, we see Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks turning on the Viking wind farm in Shetland and being paid £2 million in August alone not to generate any electricity, that is where we see a disconnect. 

“There is a great deal more I could say about this subject but just remember this: whatever the question is, the answer is to get yourself to Orkney and Shetland.”