Miliband to attack SNP over anti-nuclear power policy

Published on Saturday 11 April 2009 20:13

LABOUR will mount a fierce attack on the SNP's anti-nuclear power policy this week.

Westminster ministers will claim that Scotland will lose out on thousands of jobs and billions of pounds worth of investment as a result of Alex Salmond's refusal to embrace a new generation of nuclear power stations.

Ed Miliband, Energy and Climate Change Secretary, will visit Hunterston nuclear power station in North Ayrshire on Thursday to make a speech calling for nuclear power to be adopted in Scotland.

The SNP has always indicated it will use devolved planning law to block proposals for new nuclear power stations. This week, Miliband will say: "When the Scottish Nationalists turn their backs on nuclear power they are turning away thousands of jobs and billions of pounds worth of investment."

A spokesman for Salmond said: "Scotland needs to capitalise on its vast renewable energy potential, as the SNP Government is doing, instead of following London Labour's blind faith in costly, dirty, dangerous and unreliable nuclear power."