Statement made regarding "lower energy bills" in the publication 'A Fresh Start with Independence': EIR release

Information requested

A Fresh Start with Independence, published on 8th October 2025, includes the following remark: “being in charge of Scotland's energy resources would enable us to lower energy bills”

The paper does not explain how energy bills would be lowered, and provides no evidence for why this would be possible. If the Scottish Government can explain how energy bills would be lowered, please provide that explanation, along with all relevant evidence.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Some of the information you have requested is available from a UK Government publication “Electricity Generation Costs”. The report presents levelised costs for electricity generation technologies. A “levelised cost” is the average cost of the lifetime of the plant per MWh of electricity generated. They reflect the cost of building, operating, and decommissioning a generic plant for each technology. This is a recognised and widely used method for comparing the average costs of energy generation across different technologies. The latest UK Government publication can be found here: Electricity generation costs 2023 - GOV.UK

Under current market arrangements, gas almost always sets the wholesale price of electricity in Great Britain, meaning that, even when it is windy in Scotland with an abundance of renewable generation, Scotland faces high electricity prices.

As set out in the publication to which you refer, with independence, Scotland would decide its own energy market arrangements, including decisions about the determination of energy prices and resulting energy bills.

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.