Meeting of the Parliament 10 May 2018
We do not have a monopoly on wisdom and will always consider examples from around the world. We very much support solar energy and other renewables at a domestic scale. Building regulations are a matter for Mr Stewart and I do not want to overstep the mark, but we would certainly be interested in any ideas in that regard, and we are considering ways of making it easier to allow properties to get renewable energy installations through permitted development rights and other means. That is one way in which we can support those important technologies.
We are working with the United Kingdom Government, the wider academic community and energy experts to identify the right long-term solution or solutions. We must take the time to research, evidence and plan our approach so that people can invest with confidence, knowing that our route map is not only sufficiently ambitious but grounded in reality and deliverable. Our “Energy Efficient Scotland” route map focuses on what we can do now and on what is certain in the context of much uncertainty in another place. That will mean focusing first on the things that we can control: energy efficiency, which underpins our current and future efforts to reduce emissions from our heat supply, and low-carbon heat solutions, including district heating, where it is an appropriate solution for the long term.
We are also continuing to support low-carbon and renewable heat. As announced in the programme for government, we have made a further £60 million available to accelerate low-carbon infrastructure projects, through our hugely successful low-carbon infrastructure transition programme. Of course, that is on top of the £41 million of capital funding that is already offered in co-investment through that fund.
We are confident that the energy efficient Scotland programme is not only challenging and ambitious—and rightly so—but also, crucially, deliverable. There is no single or quick fix to improving the energy efficiency of, and reducing emissions from, our homes and non-domestic buildings. It will take work, effort and commitment. The energy efficient Scotland programme provides a framework of support, advice and standards that will work together to operate across all parts of Scotland to improve lives.
Over its lifetime, the energy efficient Scotland programme will transform Scotland’s buildings so that they are warmer, greener and far more efficient, and it will support jobs and boost sustainable economic growth in doing so.
I move,
That the Parliament welcomes the publication of the Energy Efficient Scotland Route Map and continued recognition by the Scottish Government of energy efficiency as a national infrastructure priority; acknowledges that, by 2040, the Energy Efficient Scotland programme will make the country’s homes and buildings warmer, greener and more efficient, remove poor energy efficiency as a driver of fuel poverty, help achieve Scotland’s climate change targets and maximise the local economic benefits across all of Scotland arising from an investment programme that has a “whole economy” value of around £10 billion; welcomes Scotland’s ambitions to tackle climate change and fuel poverty as a huge opportunity to transform the energy efficiency of existing domestic and non-domestic buildings, drawing together action at a national and local level that is undertaken by individuals, businesses and the public and third sectors, and notes that this will build on the work of the Scottish Government, Scotland’s 32 local authorities and partners that have improved over one million homes and non-domestic properties since 2008.
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