Lowering your energy bills

To reduce energy bills for consumers and give local communities a say in an affordable transition we would:

• Introduce a Community Empowerment and Support Bill to:

1. Empower communities with greater decision-making authority over local infrastructure projects through abolishing the Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit.
2. Establish a compensation fund for local communities impacted by energy infrastructure and require that approved energy infrastructure developments provide clear, tangible benefits to the community.
3. Make pylons an option of last resort for energy infrastructure projects.

• Provide every household in Scotland with a £100 energy bill discount, by using the funds accrued from ScotWind auction rounds to help households with the cost of living.

• Abolish the SNP’s 2045 target for reaching net zero emissions because reaching it would place unaffordable costs for struggling families across Scotland and put at risk our oil and gas industry and farmers’ businesses.

• Pledge not to impose any new costs on households in the lifetime of the next parliament, by opposing any attempts to make new laws requiring homeowners, landlords or tenants to pay for expensive upgrades to their homes throughout the next session of parliament.

• Support the development of a new generation of nuclear energy, including starting construction on a new generation of small modular reactors within the next five years, to replace the nuclear energy capacity lost by the closure of Scotland’s existing nuclear power stations.

• Explore the introduction of tax incentives on new forms of energy production, such as Hydrogen Hubs, to maximise the sources of energy being produced in Scotland to keep energy bills as low as possible through increased production.

• Scrap the Just Transition Fund and replace it with an Affordable Transition Fund, that would cut costs for consumers through providing funds to oil and gas companies to protect existing jobs in the sector, keep energy production levels up and help train existing workers with the skills to move into other energy industries if needed.

• End the damaging tax on our North Sea industry, by calling for the Energy Profits Levy to be phased out at the earliest possible opportunity.