Meeting of the Parliament 27 May 2025
Both repowering and lease renewal for land can be trigger points or opportunities to achieve that. We perhaps need to go a little further than simply encouraging the private sector to maybe donate a little and instead make it a requirement, so that we see a significant increase.
There is also an opportunity to improve the situation through the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. I hope that the bill will be amended at stages 2 and 3 so that we can take advantage of that opportunity.
Before I close, I will say something about heat. There is also a huge opportunity in the urban landscape for the transformation of our energy system. It is a real necessity that we achieve that, which creates an opportunity for benefits in areas that do not have access to wind farm sites, for example.
Denmark is 50 years ahead of Scotland in that regard, and it has shown that a non-profit approach can achieve the transformational change that it has put into practice. That approach creates community benefit—it puts the community benefit first—but it can also earn and retain public support, and we need to do much more to make that a reality in Scotland.
The energy transformation that is required is not only about rural communities, although it is significant in those rural communities that have wind and solar developments, where we need to retain public support for infrastructure, rather than demonising infrastructure, as some seem tempted to do at the moment. However, our urban landscape also needs to transform, and the public and community ownership of energy infrastructure in our urban landscape is equally important.
I again express support for the Labour amendment, and I hope that the Government is supportive of the Green amendment.
I move amendment S6M-17648.2, to insert at end:
“; acknowledges that any significant increase in public, community and shared ownership of energy infrastructure will require new and increased forms of support from the Scottish Government, including making public land available for energy projects and diversifying the ownership of existing energy assets; considers that community ownership of heat networks offers further opportunities to maximise the social, economic and environmental benefit of heat decarbonisation, and calls on the Scottish Government to build on its relationship with Denmark to draw on its experience of both shared ownership of renewables and developing heat networks built and operated on a not-for-profit basis.”
15:09
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.