Hansard

I direct members to my entry in the register of members’ interests regarding renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Although members across the chamber will agree that our focus should be on tackling the coronavirus, it is vital that we do not let the virus undo our commitment to tackling the climate emergency that our world faces.

If anything, the recovery from the pandemic will give us further opportunities. Drax Power, which operates—among other assets—Cruachan power station in Argyll, which provides 35 per cent of the UK’s storage capacity, has noted that, from an energy perspective, Covid has provided a glimpse of how our system will work in the future, when we will have an even larger supply of renewable energy.

That is why the energy inquiry by the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee has been so important. However, this is not the first time that an economy committee of the Scottish Parliament has put forward detail on how to tackle Scotland’s energy future. In 2009, the then Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee’s seventh report outlined its determination to deliver on Scotland’s energy future. The Scottish National Party was in power in 2009, yet here we are, 11 years later. It is worth looking at a couple of points from that report.

The report states:

“The Committee reaffirms its call on the Scottish Government for a rapid publication of its detailed energy efficiency action plan. Delay beyond 2009 is not acceptable.”

It continues:

“The Committee recommends the rapid introduction of heat initiatives”.

It also says:

“On heat, the Scottish Government has committed itself to an objective of 11% of heat demand being produced by renewable energy by 2020”.

However, here we are, in 2020, still debating energy efficiency action plans and still to pass a heat networks bill.

In fact, it took several months of working with Opposition parties to ensure that energy efficiency plans for homes were introduced by 2030 and not a decade later, as the SNP initially proposed. Currently, the SNP Government is on course to miss its renewable heat target, with only 6.5 per cent of heat demand met from renewables in 2019, which is a 5 per cent increase on the 2018 figure. At that rate, the 2020 target will not be met until after 2040—some 20 years too late. [Interruption.] I cannot take an intervention, as I am short of time.

The déjà vu feeling of a wasted decade and failed targets is nothing new when it comes to this tired SNP Government. It has been in power since 2007, and Government ministers have nobody but themselves to blame for missed targets and opportunities wasted. There is no use in setting the most ambitious targets in the world—just to get a headline—when the ambition is matched only by an inability to understand the businesses that are needed to deliver them.

The latest in the list of disappointments lies in the incompetence of the SNP and is Derek Mackay’s legacy to Fife. A failure to back up £40 million of taxpayers’ money with any consent requirements for local employment or training strategies has made the future of Burntisland Fabrications bleak. Although Scotland will still see the benefit from the offshore wind projects through their contribution to our energy mix, SNP ministers will not be forgiven for failing to deliver on their promises of what the green energy revolution would mean for the Scottish economy.

Just yesterday, Renfrewshire Council abandoned its £4.5 million investment in improving the energy efficiency of 75 homes because only one suitable bid was received and it was too expensive.

In my constituency of Aberdeenshire West, the admirable but underresourced Warmworks Scotland, which delivers the Scottish Government’s flagship programme, recently told me that it had improved 147 homes, but that was over the past five years. With more than 68,000 homes in Aberdeenshire requiring improvements, the work will take 465 years at that rate.

We find local companies losing out on contracts and local projects not being delivered because the SNP Government does not understand that warm words in Holyrood are not turning into warm homes around Scotland. The energy industry itself has been ready and willing to work with our Governments to move forward, but the green jobs are not being created at the speed that is necessary to tackle the issue.

However, none of those failures should detract from the hard work that the committee has done on its inquiry, and we must recognise that many organisations, including the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scottish Renewables, Ombudsman Services and Smart Energy GB, are supportive of the committee’s recommendations. The broad support for the committee’s report should be a driving force for the Government to make changes and implement the recommendations, because we do not want to be back here in 11 years’ time, reviewing recommendations that were—yet again—not taken forward.