Carmichael raises need for meaningful community benefit with Energy Minister

Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, has raised the need for meaningful community benefit with the Energy Minister Michael Shanks, in a debate in Parliament. Speaking during a debate on the potential merits of a levy on energy developers, led by Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Carmichael called on the government to “learn from the experience of Shetland and Sullom Voe” in the 1970s, which negotiated a funding stream from oil and gas production for the local community.

Speaking in the debate, Mr Carmichael said:

“The energy companies that are building and installing the renewable capacity are making a lot of money out of it. In my constituency, there are turbines whose owners are being paid for not generating anything, while we have the highest levels of fuel poverty in the country. Does that not speak to the fact that we need wholesale reform of the way the energy market is regulated?

“I urge the Minister to learn from the experience of Shetland and Sullom Voe, 50 years ago. We took the most important step on North Sea oil and gas coming ashore in Shetland, but on our terms: there was a genuine funding stream coming to the community. If we give the whip hand to the corporates, they will always use it to their benefit.”

Responding for the government, the Minister for Energy, Michael Shanks MP said:

“The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point; a generation of lobbyists should look back at the history books of Shetland Islands council at the time, because it is an extraordinary story of how it seized the opportunity of what it knew then would be decades North Sea oil and gas and has still benefited from it.

“I was also going to come to the right hon. Gentleman’s other point, around the Viking wind farm, which I have seen in Shetland myself. The scale of it is extraordinary, but the community benefits are not where they should be and the community is not feeling enough of the benefit of it. It is important that we do everything we can to reduce the constraints on wind, so that local communities benefit directly from it and the country as a whole benefits from cheaper power on the grid, bringing down bills.”

Reacting after the exchange, Mr Carmichael said:

“The minister is well-versed in his brief and I know takes these matters seriously, but patience really is running low in the isles about getting a fair deal on renewables and cutting fuel poverty.

“That the government acknowledges the problem is a start – but we need meaningful progress sooner rather than later so that islanders can feel the benefit of the energy infrastructure that we host, as we did during the oil and gas boom.”