On 17 May 2023, the Supreme Court decided that electricity company SSE could claim tax allowances for its Glendoe hydroelectric scheme, discharging water into Loch Ness. The project was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in June 2009, so this decision represents nearly 14 years of wrangling. And its implications go way beyond the tax allowances issues on which the court ruled.

The case itself turned on the particular use of the words “tunnel” and “aqueduct” in the context of their inclusion in lists of items that did not enjoy tax allowances, and the court decided that the project’s meaning of those words was separate to and narrower than the lists’ meanings of them and so could benefit from the allowances.

Although it is good that a company providing renewable energy is not having to pay millions in additional taxes for building such a beneficial project, it is a pity that it took so long to resolve and had to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

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