THE head of trade association Scottish Renewables has launched an attack on the Scottish Conservatives over the party's opposition to expanding wind power.
Niall Stuart accused the party of being "at war" with wind power, peddling "myths" about its cost, contradicting Conservative policy at Westminster and undermining efforts to create jobs in Scotland.
The attack follows the appointment of Murdo Fraser as the Scottish Conservatives' enterprise and energy spokesman last week.
The Mid-Scotland and Fife MSP was co-author of a Scottish Conser-vatives' energy policy paper which argued wind power was costly.
Mr Stuart said: "It's also a bit rich for the Conservatives to be blaming wind power for fuel poverty. What is really putting families in fuel poverty?
"Is it the reduction in take-home pay and cuts to tax credits and benefits which has cost families hundreds of pounds per year, or is it subsidies for renewables which add £10 to £20 to fuel bills per year?"
He said SSE was the biggest employer in Mr Fraser's area, "with 800 staff dependent on wind power".
In reply Mr Fraser suggested Mr Stuart visit Australia, "the latest country to elect a leader committed to turning the tide against unreliable, intermittent and expensive forms of energy".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article