SNP MPs have called for a “full environmental audit” of the Ministry of Defence’s activities in Scotland.
In a proposal to the party’s October conference, put forward by Deidre Brock, pictured, and Stewart McDonald, the MPs claim there has been “little to no monitoring of the environmental impact” of the MoD’s environmental footprint.
In particular, the “dump sites around our coast where millions of tons of high explosives, chemical weapons and radioactive waste was dumped in the sea, the catalogue of nuclear safety events at Faslane and Coulport, and the firing ranges from Cape Wrath to Kirkcudbright”.
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The two say there should be a “full environmental audit of defence operations, current and historic, across Scotland’s land and waters as a precursor to environmental remediation and rehabilitation by the MoD.”
The motion appeared in a draft agenda for the SNP’s conference seen by The National. If selected by the Conferences Committee, it will be debated and voted on by party members at the gathering in Aberdeen later this year.
There are also proposals calling for the creation of a Scottish Energy Development Agency to stop local authorities standing in the way of the Government reaching its target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2045.
The proposers say this new agency would develop new energy models and “accelerate local energy system transformation” by “nationally directing the development of energy infrastructure, generation and sustainable fuel supply chains”.
Other resolutions which could be debated by the party’s members include one calling for a study to look at the feasibility of the Scottish Government getting into the hotel business and redeveloping historical buildings considered at risk.
The proposers say this could enhance tourism, and urged the Government to look at Spain’s state-owned Paradores de Turismo de Espana chain of luxury hotels.
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