A multimillionaire Highland MP co-owns a wind turbine firm despite branding wind power an “eco scam” and helping set up an anti-wind farm group, The Ferret can reveal.
Angus MacDonald, who won the Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire seat for the Liberal Democrats in July, co-owns and directs a company that makes and repairs turbine parts, despite rubbishing the green technology years earlier.
MacDonald told The Ferret he was “somewhat of a convert” to wind power, and said he was proud of his turbine firm’s impact though he had yet to make money from the business.
But critics argued he had displayed a “blatant and cynical conflict between stated political beliefs and personal financial interest”, or “undergone a Damascene conversion”.
MacDonald helped establish the Scottish “Anti-Wind Farm Fighting Fund”, according to a 2007 Spectator profile. “Wind farms are an eco-scam, only 25 per cent efficient and unattractive,” he told the magazine. “Tidal energy is far more appealing.”
He also wrote off the potential of wind power in a 2011 interview with the Independent. Promoting his now-defunct biomass firm, which he set up with one of Scotland’s richest people, Ann Gloag, he said: “Biomass is particularly attractive as it’s deliverable – not like wind or solar.”
But Companies House records show that less than two years later, in 2013, MacDonald became a director of the Renfrew-registered Renewable Parts Limited, which supplies turbine components.
He bought a plurality of the firm’s shares in 2017 and currently remains the only major shareholder, while his son, Archibald, was appointed as a director in 2021. The MP lists the shareholding in his register of interests.
During his maiden speech as an MP in the House of Commons, MacDonald championed wind power’s potential in the Highlands, whilst acknowledging the visual impacts.
“We have the most fantastic land to benefit from the move to renewables,” he said. But he added: “What was a beautiful view of the mountains is now rows of 200-metre-high whirling turbines.”
With renewables firms and workers coming from overseas, and Highlanders paying far higher energy costs than other parts of the UK, locals were losing out, the MP argued. He reiterated calls he first made as a Highland councillor for five per cent of revenue from all future renewables projects to be paid to community benefit funds.
‘Damascene conversion’ to wind power proponent
Entrepreneur MacDonald reportedly made around £20m from selling a financial firm to Dow Jones, and previously lived off the profits he made from buying up Sitka spruce forests in southwest Scotland – a staple of the timber industry.
But his apparent u-turn on onshore wind power has drawn the ire of critics.
“Either Mr MacDonald is a cynical hypocrite or he has undergone a Damascene conversion from staunch critic and opponent of wind farms to someone who is not only enthusiastic about all things renewable but is making money from the industry as well,” said Dr Richard Dixon, a researcher and board member of Environmental Standards Scotland.
He noted: “His conversion is not quite complete since he couldn’t stop himself from complaining about turbines spoiling the view.”
SNP Highlands and Islands MSP, Emma Roddick, said: “This is a really blatant and cynical conflict between stated political beliefs and personal financial interest, and it – understandably – harms trust in politicians.”
Edward Mountain, Conservative MSP for the same region, said: “Angus in his maiden speech said Highland communities and Highlanders should benefit from wind farms and whilst they don’t, it is clear he does.”
He added: “Most Highlanders don’t want ‘one off’ bribes from companies developing wind farms or those building pylon lines. What they want is to be consulted and to see and feel long-term benefits to offset the environmental cost of the industrialisation of the Highlands.”
MacDonald told The Ferret: “I was an early outspoken critic of wind farms, and yes it is fair to say that I am somewhat of a convert. They are not as obtrusive as I and many others thought they would be and as other forms of energy have or are becoming redundant, coal and nuclear, wind plays an important part of the energy mix.”
His involvement in Renewable Parts began when he was “approached by a local from Lochgilphead”, and the business, he claimed, employs around 50 people worldwide, including 20 in the Argyll town.
“I am proud to be a part of this successful Scottish company that has won many awards for its environmental impact,” MacDonald added. “As for making money from the business, no money has been paid to shareholders – the company is very much in growth stage.”
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Main image credit: Pixabay (CC0 1.0 ) and UK Parliament (CC BY 3.0)
