Graeme yesterday took part in a debate on energy efficiency.
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- Graeme Dey (Angus South) (SNP):
The energy efficiency route map that the Scottish Government published last week shows welcome commitment to improving Scotland’s housing stock. The investment of £54.5 million, as part of the wider investment of £146 million to which the minister referred, will help people to stay warmer, assist people on low incomes and help us to play our part in tackling climate change.
It perhaps will not surprise members, given that I am convener of the Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, that I want to focus on climate change, because in that context the route map is meaningful news.
In designating energy efficiency as a national infrastructure priority, as it did in 2015, the Scottish Government acknowledged the role that energy efficiency has to play in tackling climate change. Today, as we debate a matter that will have a major impact on our climate change efforts, two ministers and a cabinet secretary, none of whom has climate change in their title, have been drawn to the front bench.
I think that that reinforces a point that is often made in the Parliament and in the work of the committee, which is that all ministers and cabinet secretaries in this Government must be climate change ministers and cabinet secretaries. If Scotland is to respond fully to the challenges that climate change poses, all its MSPs, all the committees of its Parliament and all the portfolios of its Government need to be dialled in. The route map on energy efficiency, backed as it is by the cash that I mentioned, is evidence that that is happening, as is this debate.
As was noted in the climate change plan, the energy efficiency programme will not just save consumers money but support thousands of jobs, creating a substantial domestic market and supply chain for energy efficient and renewable heat services and technologies as well as related expertise, which can transfer to international markets.
The low carbon and renewable energy sectors already support some 49,000 jobs in Scotland. Moreover, every £100 million that is spent on energy efficiency improvements in 2018 is estimated to support approximately 1,200 full-time equivalent jobs in the Scottish economy. Our ensuring that we act to tackle climate change is good news not just for the planet but for our economy and jobs.
Energy efficiency is a key area that requires attention, as is evidenced by the fact that Scotland spends £2.5 billion every year heating or cooling buildings, which represents more than 50 per cent of our annual energy use. Almost 120,000 households, including those who were helped in 2017-18, have benefited from the home energy efficiency programmes for Scotland, and another £116 million has been allocated in this year’s budget, with the aim that, by 2020, 60 per cent of walls will be insulated. I will talk more about HEEPS in a moment.
In its report, “Reducing emissions in Scotland—2017 progress report”, the Committee on Climate Change noted that domestic buildings accounted for 13 per cent of emissions in 2015, with 5 per cent of emissions coming from non-residential buildings. Significant progress has been made in reducing emissions in Scotland. A billion homes and non-domestic properties have been improved since 2008. However, I think that all members acknowledge that we must go further.
The route map shows what “further” looks like and sets out a course to reducing emissions from all buildings to as near zero as feasible by 2050. I hear and sympathise with calls to quicken the pace, but I am not hearing how that would be incentivised and funded. That is important.
Sitting alongside our approach is, of course, the need to move to renewables. It is estimated that in 2017, the equivalent of 68 per cent of gross electricity consumption came from renewable sources—that is up 14.1 percentage points on the 2016 figures. Whether we are looking at wind, wave, solar, tidal or other renewable technologies, renewables have a role to play, but ultimately improving energy efficiency will be pivotal to ensuring that we green the energy-related element of the economy.
- Claudia Beamish:
Will the member give way?
- Graeme Dey:
I want to crack on, if the member does not mind.
It is important that MSPs do not just talk the talk but walk the walk. Last summer, having replaced my radiators and had a new central heating boiler installed in the family home, I re-insulated my loft. That was something of a physical undertaking, I have to say, but the difference that it has made to the warmth of our 26-year-old house has been pronounced.
I can therefore stand here today and say that implementing energy-saving measures is not just the right thing to do morally but also good for our pockets and our comfort. I could add that I have switched to a green electricity supplier that sources electricity entirely from renewables, but I reckon that that would be pushing my luck, as I could be open to accusations of self-satisfaction—perish the thought.
It is vital that we get maximum bang for our buck when we invest public money in energy efficiency measures. I have seen an example in my constituency where such an opportunity was perhaps not fully exploited. A couple of years ago, Angus Council secured more than £1 million of funding under a HEEPS area-based scheme to externally clad privately owned houses that lacked wall cavities. The council had identified clusters of such properties in Arbroath, Forfar and Montrose. However, rather than focusing on a single location, or maybe two, and squeezing the maximum return from that sum, it decided to do a number of houses in each location.
The net result in Arbroath, in my constituency, was that just 30 homes were addressed, with a number of properties being left out of the project, and it was a similar story elsewhere. I was told that the council would apply for a further tranche of money under the scheme in the following year and, if successful, would pick up where it had left off in all three towns. However, that would have involved moving back into those areas, with all the costs of re-establishing the footprint that was needed to carry out the work eating into the budget. I would argue that smarter thinking would have made the money go a little further.
On the issue of smarter thinking, can we please encourage more holistic thinking when it comes to implementing measures that are aimed at reducing emissions and our carbon footprint? We will all have heard or come across examples where home insulation, for example, has been carried out by firms that have travelled considerable distances to carry out one-off pieces of work. I am aware of an example where properties just north of Aberdeen had loft insulation installed by firms that had travelled from Elgin and places even further afield, such as Inverness. Can those who are charged with delivery of such schemes please give some thought to shortening the supply chain and, through that, reducing transport emissions?
Angus South is, of course, a partly rural constituency, and I recognise some of the points that Liam McArthur made. We must make sure that our energy efficiency schemes are open to and publicised to those in rural areas.
We face a big challenge in tackling climate change, but take that on we must, and the plan from the Scottish Government has an important role to play in ensuring that our buildings are front and centre in that work, as they require to be.
