Meeting of the Parliament 27 January 2016
Mr MacKenzie’s approach seems to be: if two bad interventions do not make the point, try three.
I sat on a cross-party committee with some of Mr MacKenzie’s colleagues, some of whom are in the chamber this afternoon, and it was apparent to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee in 2009 that we needed a sea change. Having listened to experts such as Energy Action Scotland, we produced a report to that effect, and we all signed up to that sea change. We were told by the then minister that the Scottish Government had made that sea change and was going to put in place measures that would create it over time. That was in 2009, and it clearly and quite simply has not happened.
We have heard about the number of households in fuel poverty, but the fact is that not only are we failing to meet the target but we have gone backwards. When this Government came to power, 26.5 per cent of households were in fuel poverty; today, the figure is 34.9 per cent. In 2007, 7.6 per cent of households were in extreme fuel poverty; today, the figure is 9.5 per cent. It is therefore pretty obvious that we have not been on track for quite some time, and what the Government has failed to do is put the money behind this.
In 2009-10, it put in £68.3 million. It was obvious then that we were not moving towards the target, so the Government increased the amount to £68.5 million. It then cut it to £58 million, then it went to £67 million and then £66 million. It remained broadly static for five years when it was obvious that we were failing to meet the targets. The Government increased the amount in 2014-15 and last year, but now that it is blatantly obvious that we are not going to hit the target, what is the Government doing? It is cutting the amount once again.
I was genuinely disappointed when I asked the minister quite simply how many times she had asked the Deputy First Minister for more money and tried to champion the cause to make sure that she is fighting for the space and the resources that it deserves, and the answer, which was heard by all who were listening, was none.