Alba Party hit out at Labour’s Scottish Carbon Capture Snub

Former First Minister, Alex Salmond, has accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of snubbing the ACORN Carbon Capture Project in the North East. 

The Alba Party leader has warned that the new Labour Government looks set to join successive Westminster Governments that have reneged on every Scottish carbon capture project since 2007.

In her speech at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, the Chancellor set out the Labour Government’s green priorities in the years to come. 

The speech raises the prospects the government will imminently finalise the long-awaited policy and subsidy framework that developers have argued is necessary to ensure the UK's pipeline of carbon capture and storage projects can reach a final investment decision.

However alarm bells have now been sounded by Alba Party who have accused the Chancellor of snubbing Scotland. 

Speaking of progress the UK Government wished to make, the Labour Chancellor said: "Jobs in the automotive sector of the future in the industrial heartland of the West Midlands, jobs in life sciences across the north-west, clean technology across South Yorkshire, a thriving gaming industry in Dundee, and jobs in carbon capture and storage on Teesside, Humberside and right here on Merseyside too."

Alba Party have now accused Labour of a “betrayal in waiting” after the Acorn Project at St Fergus in the North East of Scotland was not mentioned. 

Commenting former First Minister and Alba Party leader Alex Salmond said: 

“In the last 17 years successive Labour then Tory governments have committed to carbon capture projects in the North East of Scotland and then reneged on these commitments. 

“They have promised support and then rolled back on Scottish carbon capture proposals since the Miller project at Peterhead in 2007. Given that track record of betrayal, we should be extremely concerned at the Chancellor’s decision to snub the Acorn project in her speech. The UK Government must urgently confirm if Scotland is set to miss out yet again due to a UK Government decision. 

“Since 2007, £80 Billion has flowed in oil revenues from Scotland to the London Treasury. If a bare fraction of that had been invested in carbon capture then Scotland would right now be leading the world in planet saving technology and advancing into the hydrogen economy.

“Thus we need the cash for ACORN offered immediately and scaled up. In addition it should be made a consent requirement of all new oil and gas projects to have a carbon capture commitment. In that way we can both save jobs in the North East of Scotland and save the planet.

“Scotland needs both control of our own resources through independence and grown up politicians directing the nation’s destiny.”