Full Fact have concluded that senior SNP politicians have been guilty of making false statements to suggest that Scotland is close to self-sufficient in renewables (see here and here).
Nowadays – to avoid being accused of making blatantly false claims – the SNP are generally careful to include the qualifying phrase “the equivalent of” when making statements about the extent to which Scottish renewables meet Scotland’s electricity demand. But as Full Fact have also made clear, this phraseology is still misleading:
The SNP are clearly wedded to this misleading statistic – take just three recent examples:
- Responding to Full Fact: “A Scottish Government Spokesperson said: Scotland has a hugely positive story to tell in renewables, which provided the equivalent of 96% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption in 2020″
- Nicola Sturgeon correcting the record in Holyrood: “Corrected text: Under this Government, the equivalent of 98.8% of our gross electricity consumption is already provided by renewable energy sources.”
- Ian Blackford in Parliamentary Debate: “and nearly 100% of the equivalent of our electricity consumption already comes from renewables
… I … you know I’ve said equivalent on many occasions but I thank the right honourable gentleman for that […] I think if the honourable gentleman checks Hansard he’ll find that I’ve said that on a number of occassions”
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