Mr Angus MacDonald

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Parliament's party history for this member: Liberal Democrat (4 Jul 2024 – present).

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1. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

   Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

   I beg to move, That this House has considered long duration electricity storage systems. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I am glad to have been able to bring forward this debate on long duration electricity storage systems. I would like to focus on pump storage and the cost-benefit of hosting that technology in the highlands of Scotland. The highlands and islands hope to benefit from the new Prime Minister’s growth in every postcode plan, however we do not have a defence, artificial intelligence, tech or financial industry to rely on. Our major industry is tourism, which suffers from a short season and low pay in hospitality. It is a struggling industry. I recently wrote to the Prime Minister and laid out some harrowing facts. Remote Scotland has a 30% higher cost of living and a 10% lower income than urban Scotland. We have seen a dramatic drop in school rolls and a 71% increase in the number of people over the age of 75. I represent Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire and it would be difficult to find another part of the UK with a greater interest in renewables.

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2. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

   Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

   The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head. There is not enough in it for the communities to benefit from. Pump storage seems to be as good a way of providing electricity that we could find. In the highlands, we have the wind, water and geography that make the area so important for our national energy system. We have been producing hydroelectricity for the rest of the country for generations and we now have the opportunity to store much more of it. The highlands already generate 12 times the amount of electricity they need, but we have one of the highest levels of fuel poverty in Britain. Go figure, as my children would say. When Alex Salmond was First Minister of Scotland, he declared that Scotland could become the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”. Yes, the hills of Scotland are covered in wind turbines, but they are manufactured abroad and are often owned by overseas utilities. From a multi-billion pound industry, Scotland’s communities got only £30 million of community benefit last year and the highlands got only £7 million. That is just £30 per head of population in the highlands. The highlands already generate almost 8 GW of renewable electricity per year; roughly a third from hydroelectricity and two thirds from onshore wind. Even before factoring in pump storage, we play an important role in the electrification of the UK. I have said in this House before that I want the highlands to properly benefit from the enormous value of their natural resources. I was hopeful about onshore wind investment and the jobs and opportunities it could bring, but in practice that has been minimal. The proposed pump storage projects are now the only remaining chance I can see to bring proper money into my left-behind part of Britain. Why does electricity storage really matter? Long duration storage has an important role in our energy future and the highlands have a particular ability to help deliver it. We need to be able to store electricity when there is plenty of it and to use it when we need it. Batteries play an important role in managing shorter periods, but we need technology that is capable of supplying electricity for much longer stretches. Pump storage is a proven technology, capable of providing large amounts of electricity for long periods. These are long-life infrastructure assets, which are expected to operate for more than a century. They use electricity to pump water from a lower reservoir to a higher reservoir; when electricity is required, water is released through the turbines. As people can imagine, with our geography the highlands is very well placed for these assets. Our lochs, hills and mountains allow us to create the height differences that pump storage requires. The technical term is hydraulic head. In simple terms, the greater the height difference between the reservoirs, the more energy that can be produced with the same amount of water. This summer, Ofgem announced that it has provisionally approved three pump storage sites in the highlands: Coire Glas, near Invergarry; Loch Kemp, near Loch Ness; and Lochan na h-Earba, which is quite near Newtonmore. These three sites will produce a collective 4 GW of electricity, which is three times as much electricity as Greater Manchester uses. The development costs will be over £5 billion, which will make the entire scheme by far the biggest ever infrastructure investment ever seen in the highlands. There are also three more pump storage sites that are keen to get Ofgem’s go-ahead: Loch Fearna, near Invergarry; Loch Ericht; and Loch na Cathrach, on Loch Ness.

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3. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

   Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

   I think that hydro is a far better source of electricity than wind. It has much less visual impact and it is available when we really need it; we have quite a lot of wind, but it is obviously dependent on the wind blowing. The future energy scenarios report of the National Energy System Operator, or NESO, for 2025 suggested that Britain could need between 13.2 GW and 16.6 GW of long duration storage by 2050. The six sites in the highlands that I have mentioned will go a long way towards providing that storage. The second point I wish to make is about the implication for the electricity market and the people paying their bills. One aspect of this is the way that the wholesale electricity market works. Excuse me for stating the obvious, but gas still sets the price for electricity when gas-fired generation is needed, even at a time when a great deal of electricity is coming from renewable sources. Mains gas is 8p a kilowatt at the moment, whereas electricity is 26p a kilowatt, or more than three times as much. Broadly speaking, people in rural areas across the whole of the UK do not have mains gas. In my patch, only those people in Inverness city and Dingwall receive mains gas.

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4. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

   Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

   Until I received the hon. Lady’s email yesterday, I had never heard of sand batteries; sand is not one of the big features of my constituency. Nevertheless, I agree that we should consider all sorts of technologies. The bottom line is that Britain will not transition to electricity when it costs three times as much as carbon fuel imported gas does.

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5. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

   Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

   I will briefly attempt to do so, but there is a much more eloquent gentleman here today—the Minister for Energy, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks)—who would do better. [Laughter.] As I understand it, the tariffs and the distribution charges go on the electricity—the home-produced renewable electricity—and not on the carbon fuel imported gas, which in my opinion is the wrong way round. However, I am sure that the Minister will enlighten us and provide a bit more detail. Another problem is constraint payments—when we are paying to stop renewable electricity being produced. When the electricity network cannot carry power from where it is being produced to where it is needed, the systems operator has to intervene. That means paying wind farms to reduce their output. The National Audit Office says that constraint costs reached £1.9 billion over the last year, with an expectation that the figure could be as high as £8 billion by 2030. That is a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money and hopefully pump storage will reduce it. What is the opportunity for Scotland? Pump storage sites are very expensive to build and, historically, it has been difficult for developers to secure private finance, because future electricity market revenues are uncertain. The UK Government have introduced the cap and floor scheme to unlock investment in this type of infrastructure. The floor provides a minimum level of revenue certainty and, if a project’s market revenues fall below that agreed floor, support is provided to cover the gap, funded through consumer bills. The cap limits the excess revenue. If a project earns above the agreed level, excess returns are returned to the consumer through lower network charges. There is an opportunity for Scotland to develop a serious industry around pump storage. The benefits are not just the electricity stored at the end of construction. There is the civil engineer, the tunnel and the electrical equipment required—billions of pounds’ worth. Can we ensure that a significant amount of that supply chain work will remain in Scotland or even in Britain? Are we educating our young with the skills they need to be employed in these multi-billion pound infrastructures? I really do not believe we are. I want to move on to community benefits. Do the communities impacted by wind farms and pump storage sites welcome them? They absolutely do not. I have attended hostile meetings of the convention of community councils with hundreds of attendees, and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Scottish Government Ministers have declined to attend. There is very much a feeling in the highlands that this is being done to us. If locals had jobs at these projects, if legacy housing were built rather than temporary modular constructions, and if the communities got significant community benefit or, even better, were shareholders, I guarantee that there would be much better support. When we ask communities to host major infrastructure, it should be beneficial to them. That is particularly important for the highlands, where our fuel costs are prohibitive, major developments can be very visible, the costs of providing public sector services are high, and we have a serious problem with the availability of housing and opportunities for young people to stop them emigrating to the cities. I welcome the Scottish Government’s recent proposal to bring pump storage hydro within its updated community benefit guidance, but I suspect that it will result in an underwhelming consequence. Glen Earrach is a model case study. It has not yet received Ofgem’s provisional approval, but it is an example of the scale of opportunity we have. It has an expected operating life of approximately 125 years. It has 34 GWh of storage capacity and around 1.8 GW of generating capacity, and its hydraulic head of 500 metres makes good use of the geography of the site to store large amounts of electricity efficiently. The project is committed to putting 5% of its annual gross margin into a community wealth fund. The estimate is that the fund could receive £20 million a year. Compared with the highlands only getting £7 million, that is significant. The Highland Council said that the fund could be worth around £3 billion in today’s money over the 125-year operating period. Glen Earrach has bravely volunteered a model where its host community will share in its success. I strongly urge the Government to recognise it as a model that can be adopted by other developments.

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6. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

   Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

   I have always believed that tide is probably the single best energy source, because it is entirely predictable and operates well in the estuaries where our cities are, so we do not need to transform it. I am not up to date, but it is something that we should really concentrate on.

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7. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

   Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

   Hopefully, we will have all these different renewable energy sources coming through, but geothermal is a big one. We have an enormous opportunity in rural Scotland to facilitate the electrification of Britain, and long-duration storage can help us make better use of the renewable electricity we generate. It can improve the security of supply and support a more efficient electricity system. Rural Scotland plays a role in enabling Britain to achieve its net zero ambitions. However, the impact on our communities is currently almost entirely negative. It is like telling the inhabitants of Norway or Aberdeen in the 1970s that there will be an oil and gas boom, but the locals should not benefit from it. As things stand, these multibillion-pound pump storage sites will produce few local jobs, no legacy housing and minimal community benefit for the people of the highlands. That is completely unacceptable. Pump storage sites are an essential part of our national energy portfolio, and they are great for Britain. Let us make them great for the highlands, too.

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8. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

   Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

   The Minister mentioned one of the pump storage sites and the £7.5 million investment, which is a one-off payment. For example, Glen Earrach is offering £20 million a year for 125 years, inflation-linked. That is what we have to move to: an amount of money being invested year after year that is agreed and controlled by the Government. What does the Minister think of that?

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9. 19 Oct 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

   Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

   I would like to speak to amendment 130 and clause 36. My son, myself, my father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather—and pretty well all my ancestors forever—have served in the Army. I was a subaltern in Northern Ireland at the peak of the troubles in 1984, and my regiment, the Queen’s Own Highlanders, saw the death of the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel David Blair, and 17 more soldiers who were killed in the two explosives in Warrenpoint in 1979. The pain of those deaths was still very live among many of the regiment who were serving five years later when I was serving, but despite the pain, I do not recollect a single person who felt any desire to take revenge. The professionalism of the British soldier could be depended on. I have a son who has just left the Army after several years as a trooper. I told him that I was coming to this debate, and he told me an anecdote. He said, “Well, let me tell you a story. There are four guys, all armed, and they are clearing a building in the middle east. They go upstairs, and as they go along the corridor, out of the back of the building comes a man, and in front of him is a female. Over her shoulder he is firing AK-47 bullets, and spraying them. They shoot that man and that woman—they kill them, but they had no option. It happened on the spur of the moment, and they could not really decide how to get out of it, or they would all have been dead.” Is there any chance that those British soldiers could be charged with murder? If there is, I would strongly recommend the young I meet not to join the Army. British soldiers in my day were always able to depend on the support of the British public, the Government and the judiciary. In my time in Northern Ireland, we knew that we had our backs covered, and that we had to abide by the law. What we did not have then was sharp-suited lawyers looking for any opportunity to pursue us in court, possibly for decades. The recruitment of soldiers is extremely poor at the moment, and unless the concerns of those serving, and of veterans, are put to rest, we will not be able to rebuild our fighting force to the strength we need.

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10. 1 Sep 2026·Parliament·Mr Angus MacDonald

    Face-to-Face Banking: Rural Areas

    The metropolis of Gairloch in Wester Ross—[Laughter.] It is a major town, I will have you know. It has seen its only bank closed, and Dingwall has seen its bank closed, so people have to travel two hours, each way, to get to Inverness city, and there is only one bus a day. That is bringing the town to its knees, and it is happening up and down the west coast. Does the hon. Member agree that this sort of thing is an enormous reason why we are seeing such major depopulation in remote areas?

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2024 General Election: Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire

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