IT is often said, although by whom it isn’t clear, that the best way to create electricity is simply plugging the National Grid into parliament chambers and using all the hot air.

I wouldn’t dream of suggesting such a thing of course as many of our politicians at both Holyrood and Westminster do a very good job indeed.

What that job actually is I’m not sure, but very good at it they all are.

What politicians are very good at though is talking incessantly about the real issue of electricity and how it can be supplied in the forthcoming years and keep our lights on.

But while they do talk a lot, none of it makes much sense and they all talk in very different directions.

This week, Sir Keir Starmer announced new plans to simplify planning procedures to allow smaller nuclear power stations to be built.

He said red tape would be “slashed” to allow small modular reactors (SMRs) to be built for the first time in the UK.

The Prime Minister said he wanted the country to return to being “one of the world leaders on nuclear”, helping to create thousands of highly skilled jobs and boosting economic growth.

Read More: The smartphone generation parenting by YouTube tutorial

Unions and business groups welcomed the move, but environmentalists criticised the government, saying it had “swallowed nuclear industry spin whole”.

In the 1990s, nuclear power generated about 25% of the UK’s electricity but that figure has fallen to around 15%, with no new power stations........

© Herald Scotland