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Meeting of the Parliament 29 March 2012

29 Mar 2012 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Local Energy Companies

Hepburn, Jamie SNP Cumbernauld and Kilsyth Watch on SPTV

I, too, thank Patrick Harvie for bringing the issue of local energy companies to the chamber for an important debate.

We should remind ourselves of the Government’s ambition to increase dramatically the amount of energy that is sourced from renewables by 2020. It is clear that local energy companies have their merits in contributing towards meeting that aim. The Government says that it wishes to maximise the benefits for communities from renewable energy. In that regard, it is interesting that Patrick Harvie suggested that the debate might be confrontational. It has not been particularly confrontational, and it does not need to be, as there is a lot of common ground on the issue. Indeed, that was highlighted in his questioning of the minister after a statement on the renewable energy investment fund. Mr Harvie invited the minister to ensure that a wide range of bodies would be considered to be eligible to benefit from that fund, and the minister readily did that.

There is a lot of common ground in our starting positions on the contribution of local energy companies to the renewables agenda. That has been demonstrated by the Government’s actions in the past and during the debate. The Government’s willingness to agree to the Labour amendment will ensure that the Parliament is kept abreast of work to foster local energy companies. I look forward to hearing more about the matter.

The motion says that there is a perception that the renewables agenda benefits only big business. I probably agree; that is an unfortunate perception. Many large companies are investing considerably in renewables infrastructure and Patrick Harvie was right to say that much of that work is good, although there are perhaps some issues in that regard.

However, it would be wrong of anyone to believe that the renewables agenda is benefiting only big business. The Government’s ambition to fund and support the development of 500MW of community and locally owned renewables by 2020 will benefit communities. I was interested to hear about the community and renewable energy scheme, which is making a positive contribution by providing loans for the development of infrastructure. Of the 42 projects for which funding was announced in October 2011, 29 are community owned.

I instinctively have much sympathy with Patrick Harvie’s position on publicly owned companies, but we should reflect on two issues. First, it needs to be demonstrated that local authorities want to enter the market. A criticism that is often made of this Parliament, rightly or wrongly, is that we encumber local authorities with a burden of responsibilities that they do not want. Secondly, I take on board the minister’s comments about the limitations—fiscal, rather than legal. We can perhaps return to the issue in the future. I support the Government amendment.

11:12

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Meeting of the Parliament 29 March 2012

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