NICOLA Sturgeon ditched her flagship “simple” plan for a publicly-owned energy company because it was much harder than expected under Holyrood's powers, one of her closest allies has suggested.

Social Justice Secretary Shona Robinson said the project had been “very, very challenging to do under devolution”.

The apparent admission contrasts with the First Minister’s repeated claim that the failure of the idea was related to the Covid pandemic.

A publicly-owned, not-for-profit energy company was the centrepiece of Ms Sturgeon’s main speech to the SNP conference in 2017.

She said it would be set up before the 2021 Holyrood election so that consumers would pay  “as close to cost price as possible”.

She said the idea behind it was “simple”, with the state-owned company acting as a selfless middle-man between energy wholesalers and customers. 

She said: “Energy would be bought wholesale or generated here in Scotland - renewable, of course - and sold to customers as close to cost price as possible. 

“No shareholders to worry about. No corporate bonuses to consider.

“It would give people - particularly those on low incomes - more choice and the option of a supplier whose only job is to secure the lowest price for consumers.”

However, after spending £500,000 on consultants and an outline business case, the Scottish Government went cold on the idea, and it was finally killed off last year. 

Last month, as she said state-owned energy companies should be considered to help keep bills down in the cost-of-living crisis, Ms Sturgeon was asked by Channel 4 News what happened to the company she had herself proposed five years ago.

She said: “The reasons we haven’t made progress on that are largely impacted through Covid over the last couple of years, and people can make a judgment about whether that is reasonable or not, but all of the efforts of government for much of the last two and a half years have gone into focusing on the Covid pandemic.

“I thought it was a good thing to do. I’m not shying away from the fact that, for reasons I’ve set out, we haven’t progressed in the way that we had intended to.”

But on BBC Radio Scotland this morning, Ms Robison took a markedly different line when asked about the energy company idea, and made no mention of the pandemic at all.

She said: “Well, these are very, very challenging issues to do under devolution. That's why we need the powers to do these things.”

Reminded by presenter Gary Robertson that Ms Sturgeon hadn’t said it would be very difficult when she announced the plan, Ms Robison said: “Well, it is very, very difficult to do.”

Asked if Ms Sturgeon didn’t know it would be difficult when she announced it, Ms Robison said: “Well, I think many of these things are very, very challenging to do under devolution, as we find out on a day-to-day basis when we really look to see what more we can do.”

She then seemed to blame the opposition parties at Holyrood for asking too much of the Scottish Government, despite the energy company being the SNP’s idea.

“But the opposition quite often ask us to do things as if we already have the full powers of independence in the demands that they make,” she said.

“And of course, we are very constrained by what we can do, which is why of course the UK government needs to do far more than they are doing to help family budgets.”

After Ms Sturgeon set out her Programme for Government on Tuesday at Holyrood, she was taunted over the missing energy company by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

He told her: “We should not forget that the SNP first promised to create a publicly owned, not-for-profit energy company in 2017. 

“That policy was ditched before the pandemic, so there can be no using Covid excuses there. It is a perfect demonstration of the SNP promising big, making announcements to get the headlines and then failing to deliver. 

“As an energy crisis hits Scotland, we must make sure that the lofty rhetoric of today does not become just another in the long list of policies announced with fanfare but never, ever delivered.”