We are about to enter a new era of pylon politics

Earlier this week, Rona Mackay, the SNP MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, tabled what’s known as a government initiated question in Holyrood.

It’s a way to allow ministers to make announcements on very specific subjects. They get a friendly backbencher to ask a written and they provide a written answer.

Ms Mackay was asking about the King’s Speech and if any of the Bills in Labour’s plan for the years ahead would affect devolved legislation and need the approval of MSPs.

Jamie Hepburn, the Minister for Parliamentary Business, said that while the Scottish Government’s analysis of Sir Keir Starmer’s legislative agenda was “ongoing” there were at least seven Bills that would need to be run by the Scottish Parliament.

They included the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the GB Energy Bill.

The scope of the changes being proposed by the UK Government are still not entirely clear. It may be that the impact on devolved legislation is relatively minor.

However, when it comes to GB Energy and planning, and despite the matching climate ambitions of ministers in Edinburgh and London, the cordial relationship between the two governments could come under some strain.

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We are about to enter a new era of pylon politics, with politicians having to balance their desire to save the planet and their need to keep their constituents onside.

It's a dilemma perfectly illustrated by one of Westminster’s new Green MPs who called for a “pause” on a proposed 114-mile (184-km) electricity pylon route across East Anglia.

Adrian Ramsay, the co-leader of the party in England and Wales, said: “There's a controversial proposal... where there's huge local concern about the impact on agricultural land, on traffic, on local communities, on the landscape.

“So what I'm arguing for is a pause while the other options are considered because, of course, we need the infrastructure; it's a matter of doing it in the right way that has a long-term benefit.”

There’s a climate emergency, the planet is dying and we need to decarbonise pronto, but Ramsay’s constituents don’t want a pylon in the back yard.

(Worth remembering here that the Greens in England and Wales and the Greens in Scotland are separate parties.)

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The problem is, that decarbonising the UK’s electricity production by 2030, as Labour wants to do, requires a lot of infrastructure.

Removing fossil fuels from the power system will require at least a doubling of current onshore wind capacity and a three to fourfold increase in current offshore wind and solar capacity. All within four years.

Readers might remember the row over the Beauly-Denny line, the 137-mile-long power line separating the east and west of Scotland, supported by 615 pylons.

The project supported more than 2,000 jobs over seven years, but attracted about 20,000 objections and led to a lengthy public inquiry.

And now we’re in the middle of round two.

As my colleague Vicky Allan has detailed extensively in this paper, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) is set to build 1,800km of new line over the coming years as part of its Pathway to 2030.

This includes around 500km of new overhead line across the north of Scotland, around 1,200km of cable, some of which will connect the waters off Scotland to England, and around 100km of underground cable.

Some of the pylons will be 57m high.

Many residents are understandably upset.

But overhead lines can carry roughly three times more power than subsea cables. They are more efficient and cost-effective for energy bills. So, given the urgency, it looks like they’re here to stay.

Neil Collar, partner at Brodies LLP and an expert in planning law, told me: “What is clearly beginning to dawn on a lot of people is that meeting these targets means you don't just need the wind turbines or the pumped hydro, we need the transmission infrastructure.

“That means new overhead lines. Lots of people don't like these things.”

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He predicts that there will be a “whole new chorus of opposition to the overhead lines for understandable reasons.”

“And the implications of that aren't clear at the moment. Referring back to Beauly-Denny, does that mean there's going to be more inquiries, or are the Scottish ministers going to soak up the pressure?”

The SNP administration has, he says, taken the hits with a number of onshore wind projects. 

Will they do the same for Labour as we move towards what could be a close Holyrood election?