Jamie Stone General Election 2024 Interview 2

Transcript

00:00One of the big differences between yourself and the SNP candidate Lucy Beattie is that

00:06your stance on nuclear. Can you tell us why you are such a supporter of

00:10new nuclear energy in Caithness? Sure. You have to go back to the 1950s. When the nuclear came to

00:17Dounreay, it meant that people could work at Dounreay and had high quality employment.

00:23And it not only stopped hand depopulation, but it reversed it and Wick and Thurso grew.

00:28And you could say that it literally helped keep the lights on in the crofting townships in Strath

00:34Halladale, Betty Hill, Melvick, all these places. And having an industry like that underpins society

00:41and a way of life. Now at Dounreay, we have a very highly skilled workforce. We have a licensed

00:48site, a licensed site. And we have a population, a local population that would warmly applaud

00:53getting a new nuclear reactor, a small modular reactor would be well accepted. But also this,

00:59we're going to need a mix of energy sources. It's going to have to be wind, yes, but what

01:03happens when the wind doesn't blow? It's going to have to be burning hydrocarbons, yes, but we want

01:08to go green. So nuclear is going to be really, really important in this mix. And simply this,

01:15are we really going to rely on buying Russian energy in? No, we're going to crack on. We're

01:21going to have to crack on with nuclear. And I stress again, they are highly skilled at Dounreay,

01:28and I will back this to the hilt. And I think maybe with a change of government,

01:33maybe a change of government in Scotland, at the moment the SNP say they'll block all applications

01:39to have nuclear at Dounreay. With a change of government in Edinburgh, that could change.

01:44And I'm waiting that moment, absolutely. And I've talked to Rolls-Royce, I've talked to other firms,

01:50it's absolutely doable. And it's what other countries are doing.

01:53Putting in small modular reactors round about the place, we should do the same.