Prime Minister (Meetings)

First Minister's Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at 12:00 pm on 26 October 2006.

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. Nicola Sturgeon (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister and what issues they will discuss. (S2F-2491)

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

I, too, welcome the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and wish her and her colleagues in all the parties in the Assembly well in attempting, over the winter and in difficult circumstances, to implement the agreement reached two weeks ago at St Andrews. [ Applause. ]

I also welcome to the VIP gallery the world-champion Scottish curling team. We are very proud of them and their result. [Applause.]

In response to Ms Sturgeon, I have no immediate plans to meet the Prime Minister, but I will be happy to discuss curling with him when I do.

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

I echo all of the First Minister's opening remarks.

Yesterday, the First Minister asked how the Scottish National Party would deal with nuclear waste. I ask him to listen very carefully to this: Scotland should deal with our own—and no one else's—nuclear waste; it should be stored above ground and close to source; and under no circumstances should we have new nuclear power stations to generate even more waste. Is that position not far more responsible than the First Minister's daft notion of turning England into his nuclear waste dump?

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

At long last, we get some honesty from the SNP. I am very pleased to endorse the statements that were made yesterday by our own Minister for Environment and Rural Development and, in London, by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I want to be very clear with the chamber and the people of Scotland that we endorse the principle of voluntary agreement in relation to the disposal of nuclear waste. As it is likely that there will be no volunteers in Scotland to deal with such waste but that there might indeed be volunteers in local authorities in England, if the SNP is saying that we should impose it on the people of Scotland instead, it is wrong and is, in fact, being very irresponsible.

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

My position is clear; the problem is with the First Minister's position. He seems to be suggesting that Scotland can abdicate responsibility for our share of the waste that his Government and previous Tory Governments have generated. I do not think so.

Let me put it this way:

"Scotland ... creates much of the nuclear waste in Britain" so we

"have a responsibility to deal with" it;

"those who suggest that we do not are highly irresponsible."—[Official Report, 16 June 2005; c 18072.]

Those are the words of the First Minister in the chamber just last year.

Dealing with our own waste is not the issue. Is it not the case that, under Labour plans, the real risk is that all the United Kingdom's nuclear waste could end up here in Scotland? After all, we know that half of all the suitable sites for deep disposal are in Scotland. If that turns out to be the proposal—the First Minister knows that that is a possibility—would he consider that to be a dividend of the union or does he, like me, think that giving this Parliament the power to stop that happening would be a very big independence bonus?

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

The Parliament has powers over nuclear waste, and we are exercising them with great care and responsibility. We have agreed with the UK Government that, under the arrangements recommended by the independent scientists and experts and implemented by both Governments, nuclear waste will not be disposed of in areas where it is not wanted.

However, it is absolutely clear that, after 20 years of saying that it was against the imposition of nuclear waste here, the SNP has now made a U-turn and, unlike everyone else in the chamber, proposes as its party position to impose such waste on communities in Scotland. That is a shockingly irresponsible position, for which I am sure the SNP will pay the price.

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

Yesterday, the UK minister did not, and would not, rule out Scotland as the site for all the UK's nuclear waste. That is the reality. The difficulty of dealing with nuclear waste is just one of the reasons why an SNP Government will not sanction new nuclear power stations. The First Minister has said repeatedly that he will make no decision on new nuclear power stations until the issue of waste has been resolved, but now that he has accepted the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management's so-called solution and now that he thinks the issue is resolved, I assume that he can finally give us an answer to this question: is he for or against new nuclear power stations?

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

We know that the SNP's policy on new nuclear power stations is irresponsible, just as its policy on nuclear waste is irresponsible. Many issues have still to be resolved on nuclear waste, but at least some of the issues are now clear. The Executive parties support deep disposal; the SNP supports leaving waste on the surface. The Executive parties support a voluntary arrangement inside the UK for a community to volunteer to accept the nuclear waste; the SNP wants to impose it on Scotland. The SNP's policy is irresponsible and threatens the future of Scottish communities; the Executive parties are tackling the issue responsibly and now have a solution for the future.

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

The SNP's position is backed by the Liberals, the Greens, Friends of the Earth Scotland and Greenpeace to name just a few. It is a responsible position. Is it not the case that the First Minister's position is now, frankly, just embarrassing? He will not say whether he is for or against new nuclear power stations, and because he does not have any good arguments against independence he resorts to desperate scaremongering and, in this case, crude anti-English posturing. Could that be why more and more people in Scotland think that it is time for a new First Minister—one who is up to the job?

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

There is some irony in the fact that the leader of the SNP, Alex Salmond, whose sums do not add up, will speak tonight to auditors in Scotland. If Ms Sturgeon wants to talk about independence, we can talk about that all day long. If she wants to talk about what we would lose as a country by losing the union dividend, I am happy to do so. Billions of pounds of public expenditure would be lost to Scotland. The trade and economic integration that exist between Scottish businesses and businesses south of the border would be lost as a result of losing the union dividend. Family ties would also be affected by losing the union dividend. SNP members, no matter how much they shout, cannot deny that the union dividend would be lost to Scotland. SNP members had better start debating that issue. If they do not want to debate it, we certainly do.