Scotland has lost a big opportunity

In Scotland nearly two millionhomesandover22,000 commercial businesses are connected to gas – 78 per cent of domestic heating is provided by gas and 43 per cent of all gas consumed is by industry.

Transferring homes to heating by low-carbon sources is not viable. It will be prohibitively expensive and would condemn more people to fuel poverty.

The Committee on Climate Change, independent advisers to the UK and Scottish governments, described the idea as “unlikely to be feasible”.

The government’s reluctance to consider a role for onshore gas in the energy mix, despite its own experts saying regulation is robust, means that we will be importing significant quantities of gas – with the impact that will have on our economy and, ironically, the global environment.

Onshore gas exploration was pioneered in Scotland more than 150 years ago. Over the last 20 years 30 wells have been drilled in the central belt with no effects on public health or the environment.

The government cherrypicks evidence to match dogma. It would rather our industry imports shale gas from overseas rather than use our engineering skills and create jobs at home.

Why ignore technologies such as carbon and capture storage (CCS) and decarbonisation, which demonstrate that gas has a role to play in a low-carbon future?

This is where Scotland could have developed a world-leading industry alongside North Sea oil and gas, but now that opportunity is lost.