The Tories have been left red-faced after asking the SNP Scottish Government to do the sums on their own policies.
In February the Tories published an energy and climate plan which included proposals for two new nuclear power stations – but bizarrely failed to include any detail on the cost to the public.
The insubstantial proposals said that the nuclear plants “would be delivered by the private sector and construction costs would therefore not have to be covered by the public sector”, ignoring the eye-wateringly large multibillion pound facing the public to subsidise the £18bn Hinkley Point.
After being asked by the Scottish Parliament’s Information Centre (SPICe) for costings on proposals included in the plan, the Tories pointed to parliamentary questions they’d submitted to the Scottish Government after the event to try to explain the plans they already published.
Commenting, SNP MSP Graeme Dey said:
“These aren’t even back of the fag-packet calculations. The Tories have published a policy wish list and then gone to the Scottish Government and asked ministers to do the sums for them.
“And, staggeringly, they still insist that new nuclear power plants wouldn’t cost the public a penny – despite the public ultimately picking up the bill for the £18bn Hinkley Point.
“The Tories’ obsession with costly nuclear projects is driven more by their hatred of green energy than anything else, and they can’t even say how much it would cost. This just isn’t credible – in fact, it’s laughable.”
