Chisholm breaks ranks with cabinet against nuclear plan

azzuri · Chisholm breaks ranks with cabinet against nuclear plan

see - http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1035872006

Chisholm breaks ranks with cabinet against nuclear plan

HAMISH MACDONELL

SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR

MALCOLM Chisholm yesterday became the first senior Labour minister to declare his total opposition to new nuclear power stations in Scotland.

Mr Chisholm, Jack McConnell's communities minister and a member of the Scottish Executive, also claimed that most Scots shared his view.

Speaking on BBC Scotland's The Politics Show, Mr Chisholm said: "I think the majority of people in Scotland would like to see a mix of non carbon-based energy production, without nuclear, if it can be done."

He added: "I personally don't think the case has been made for new nuclear power stations in Scotland."

Mr Chisholm is the minister in charge of planning, and last week he launched a new initiative to make the process easier for renewable energy projects.

Mr Chisholm has always been on the left of the Labour Party and his opposition to new nuclear power stations will not astound his colleagues.

What is surprising, however, is his decision to go public with this opposition while a member of an Executive which has managed to project a unified public position on nuclear power for so long.

The Executive's official position is that no new nuclear power stations will be contemplated until the issue of waste has been resolved.

This has been stressed by ministers from both Labour and the Liberal Democrats over the past year, whatever their personal views, in an attempt to keep some sort of collective Cabinet unity on the issue.

Mr Chisholm has now broken that consensus, exposing the strength of anti-nuclear feeling among some senior Scottish Labour figures.

Mr McConnell has been treading a difficult path recently, trying to keep on the right side of Tony Blair, the Westminster government and indeed his own Scottish party, all of whom believe in the principle of new nuclear stations - and his Liberal Democrat partners, who do not.

The First Minister has managed to do this through a combination of bland public statements and off-the-record hints but he has relied on his Cabinet members to toe the agreed line, at least in public.

Mr McConnell's aides will dismiss Mr Chisholm's remarks in public as nothing more than the "personal views" of one minister, but they will be angered privately that the communities minister has exposed such a lack of unity on what is the most sensitive political issue in Scotland.

SLG

I was expecting that Labour would come out in favour of nuclear after the next election. This will be much harder if there is dissent from within. Did the last Scottish Labour conference not come out in favour of new build nuclear?

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Well Elaine Murray Labour MSP for Dumfries and Galloway or somewhere in there, has already pledged her full support for new nuclear power stations - and I believe she said something to the effect of - if the scottish executive oppose the development of new nuclear power stations, we know we have the full backing of westminster - could be the beginnings of a split..

George

SLG

Is Chapelcross not in her constituency though? And in general, for employment reasons, fairly popular. Given that she also only has a majority of about 1000, I can understand why she would take that stance.

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I believe so - still it was a bit unexpected for her to come out and say that whilst McConnell is still waiting to see which way the wind blows (no pun)

SLG

The MP for the region, Russell Brown, is also in favour of the site continuing as a nuclear plant. He was on Newsnight a couple of weeks ago and seemed to take great joy in handing over all responsibility to the Executive.

SF102

Isn't that fairly typical of all MP's though. I find that most of them once they get into positions of power they don't want to have to take responsibilty for anything incase it all goes tits up and they end up losing their well paid job.