Swinney relies on his ‘improbable’ list – Daily Business Magazine

The SNP leader is making demands he can’t achieve in order to avoid the party’s shortcomings and widen the divide with Westminster, says TERRY MURDEN

The First week proper of the Scottish election campaign has seen SNP supporters and candidates pressing John Swinney’s new slogan “It’s Scotland’s Energy”, a re-boot of its previous claim on North Sea oil. It is being sold as a chest-beating symbol of the country’s power and a means to finance and sustain an independent country.

Holyrood hopefuls are now knocking on doors telling voters that a tick in the yellow box will not only repatriate control of energy from the greedy English, but an independent Scotland will cut their bills by a third.

So far, none of those taking to social media and waving placards in the streets trumpeting this argument have managed to explain how they will achieve either of these aims. Filling the information channels with noise is preferred to setting out the process that leads to lower costs.

The claims being made conveniently overlook who actually owns Scotland’s natural resources and, just as importantly, who fixes the price of energy.

For the most part, ownership is in the hands of foreign energy companies who were handed huge chunks of seabed at discount prices by Nicola Sturgeon’s government. That’s the same former First Minister who, in 2017, promised the SNP would create a publicly-owned energy company. Four years later Daily Business revealed that the pledge had been dropped. The Scottish government still does not own any wind or wave energy and, short of finding billions of pounds, it is not in a position to acquire [nationalise] any of the incumbents.

Currently, electricity prices are high because they are tied to the price of gas. The Scottish Government would therefore have to sever that link, something that has so far eluded the UK government because of the country’s historically high dependence on gas.

Green levies also contribute to higher prices, but as the Scottish government wants to promote green energy it would have to continue subsidising it, and if this is not through consumer bills it would mean re-directing funds from other areas of the budget.

With a few exceptions there is no appetite for zonal pricing that might lower bills. Opponents say it would create too much uncertainty among investors. Should the Scottish government somehow ‘order’ lower prices, it would almost certainly persuade those same investors to move their money elsewhere. This would undermine investment in the grid network which is required for lowering bills.

To keep the lights on at times when the wind isn’t blowing, the wind turbines are currently backed up by gas-powered stations and nuclear power. The Scottish Government would therefore have to find new sources of gas power and/or reverse its opposition to nuclear, and this is conspicuously absent from the SNP’s campaign literature.

These falsehoods about energy have another underlying purpose for the SNP. They form part of an “improbable”, or most unlikely, list that John Swinney is now promoting. In order to preserve his lead in the polls he just needs to take the ball to the opposition corner flag. Do nothing with it, play for time, frustrate the opposition.

In campaign terms, this involves avoiding discussion about the Scottish government’s record on health, housing, education, crime, the economy and all the day-to-day messy stuff in which it has hardly excelled and leave it exposed to the opposition. Hence, the First Minister’s reluctance to appear in TV debates. He must, at all costs, stay clear of the opposition, in particular, face-to-face confrontations.

Instead his list of campaign targets will be those things he knows are only achievable if granted by Westminster and which he also knows Westminster is unlikely to support.

As well as an independence referendum and zonal energy pricing, this “improbable” list includes a Scottish immigration visa, abolition of the House of Lords, a reversal of Brexit, re-entry to the EU customs union, and even a Bank Holiday to mark Scotland’s return to the men’s World Cup finals.

When the answer from Westminster is a firm “no”, they provide the SNP with more ammunition to blame the UK Government for “disrespecting” devolution and Scotland itself. As Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said of Mr Swinney’s election strategy: “He wants to make it about a government somewhere else, not the government here.”

Terry Murden was Scotland Editor and Business Editor at The Sunday Times, Business Editor at The Scotsman, and Business and City Editor at Scotland on Sunday. He is now Editor of Daily Business

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