Holyrood, made browsable

Hansard

Every contribution to the Official Report — chamber and committee — searchable in one place. Pulled from data.parliament.scot, indexed for full-text search, linked through to every MSP.

129
Current MSPs
415
MSPs ever elected
13
Parties on record
2,354,908
Hansard contributions
1999–2026
Coverage span
Official Report

Search Hansard contributions

Showing 60 of 2,354,908 contributions. Latest 30 days: 0. Coverage: 12 May 1999 — 25 Mar 2026.
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
06 Mar 2013
“Low Carbon Scotland: Meeting our Emissions Reduction Targets 2013-2027”
Thank you. The issues that you have touched on seem to be very marginal, whereas some of the failures that have been reported to the committee are of a greater order. Do you agree that the problem is really the standard assessment procedure calculation, which is not fit for pu...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
24 Oct 2012
Draft Budget Scrutiny 2013-14
That is a very good point, and I am glad that you have clarified matters.Finally, in an ideal world, we would hope that the UK Government and Scottish Government initiatives to deal with the problem dovetailed nicely, but something occurs to me every time I look with interest ...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
18 Sep 2013
Draft Budget Scrutiny 2014-15
But where best can the Scottish Government spend its resources to complement the green deal and ECO? I certainly think that there is an overlap between the two. I speak to many people who are trying to make projects work in a very complex funding situation. Many district heati...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
06 Jan 2016
Draft Budget 2016-17
What I was getting at was that, in talking to local authorities, housing associations and third sector organisations that are trying to deliver projects, I heard that those projects often depended on match funding. They would get some money from the Scottish Government, some t...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
21 Feb 2013
Renewable Energy Targets
First, I commend my colleagues on the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee for their extensive work on this important inquiry. I also commend our team of clerks and advisers for their patience and professionalism and I thank the many witnesses who gave evidence.The result is ...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
26 Mar 2013
“Low Carbon Scotland: Meeting our Emissions Reduction Targets 2013-2027”
I reject that suggestion absolutely, Ms Grant. If you want a tutorial on the cost implications of higher building standards and energy efficiency, I will make myself available to give you such a tutorial. New houses have to meet high energy efficiency standards and tougher st...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
06 Mar 2014
District Heating and Decarbonising Heating
I am pleased to speak in the debate, as it gives me the opportunity of sharing with members some of the examples that have been set by excellent district heating projects across the Highlands and Islands region. In fact, the motion mentions one of them: the Shetland Heat Energ...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
04 Sep 2013
Green Investment Bank
You talked about the investment hiatus in the whole industry. That is absolutely correct, but do you not think that, when the UK Government sets the contract for difference strike prices and gets that right, there will almost be no need for our Green Investment Bank and that, ...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
12 Dec 2013
Payday Loan Industry (Regulation)
In addressing payday loans, it is useful to consider how we got into this unacceptable position. I am old enough to remember when employees got a weekly pay packet with real cash inside. In those prudent days, bills were paid weekly and the surplus was carefully nurtured. Most...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Committee
20 Jun 2012
Renewable Energy Targets Inquiry
Good morning, Mr Davey. You might not be aware of this, but I wrote to you on 9 April and I am disappointed to note that, despite people in my office speaking to people in your office on a number of occasions, I have still not received a reply to my letter. I am afraid that th...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
24 Oct 2012
Draft Budget Scrutiny 2013-14
Yes. Do you agree that, under the green deal, digging up a concrete floor simply will not pay for itself? Are the UK measures at all helpful in tackling fuel poverty? Is the Scottish Government left trying to do the job on its own?
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
20 Feb 2013
“Low Carbon Scotland: Meeting our Emissions Reduction Targets 2013-2027”
In the interests of brevity, I will stop you there. I am very grateful to you, because I think that you have touched on a profound issue. If the landlord is not going to spend £10,000—and if, as you suggested earlier, the green deal does not make it attractive for people who a...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
08 Oct 2013
Energy Action Scotland
Does Mr Fraser agree that the green deal will not really help people in the rural areas that he describes, largely because rural properties will have great difficulty in meeting the golden rule?
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
04 Sep 2013
Green Investment Bank
I can see that. The bank needs to grow quite significantly in order to make the required difference, but I do not see how you square that with the very tight operating parameters. Obviously, you need early success and in order to get that, you are perhaps risk averse, but I do...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
18 Sep 2013
Draft Budget Scrutiny 2014-15
I am interested in Elizabeth Gore’s point about the various fuel poverty measures dovetailing so that they work effectively.Do you agree that one of the real difficulties is not so much the amount of money allocated in the budget in any given year and particularly this year bu...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
18 Sep 2013
Draft Budget Scrutiny 2014-15
More funding would always be better, but we do not have a money tree. How do we achieve maximum impact with scarce public resources? Bearing in mind the failure to deliver of the previous community energy saving programme and the carbon emissions reduction target, I wonder whe...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
06 Mar 2014
District Heating and Decarbonising Heating
Does the member agree that the green deal, ECO and their predecessor schemes, the carbon emissions reduction target programme and the community energy saving programme have failed to tackle the rural fuel poverty that the member has referred to and, indeed, have manifestly fai...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
29 Oct 2014
Draft Budget Scrutiny 2015-16
Does the green deal suffer from similar shortcomings and failings?
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
17 Sep 2015
Renewable Energy
Ever since Margaret Thatcher began the privatisation of our energy system in the early 1980s, UK Government energy policy has been progressively failing. Back then, we had a robust system with inbuilt resilience and spare capacity. The term “fuel poverty” had not yet been coin...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Committee
25 Nov 2015
Draft Budget 2016-17
My question is principally for Dr Gardner. I recall—as I am sure you will—that WWF Scotland did an analysis a few months ago that suggested that it would be possible to have all power generation from renewable sources by 2030. You were looking for MSPs to endorse and sign that...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
06 Jan 2016
Draft Budget 2016-17
Although the committee recognises the 16 per cent increase in funding in the area of fuel poverty and home energy efficiency, in the draft budget 2016-17 there is an overall reduction of £22.8 million in funding for energy and energy efficiency. I understand that not all of th...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
27 Jan 2016
Fuel Poverty
I am glad that the member said that to a large extent the matter is beyond the Scottish Government’s control, given that the Government has no control over energy prices. Does he agree that the United Kingdom Government’s curtailment of the energy company obligation and abando...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
05 Oct 2011
Draft Budget Scrutiny 2012-13
It seems that we are suffering nationally and internationally because of a failure to properly resolve the banking crisis that arose three years ago; part of that seems to be to do with the tendency of the banks to be the architects not only of our misfortunes, but of their ow...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
12 Dec 2012
Skills
I was struck by what Jacqui Hepburn said about 15 per cent productivity in the first year and so on. That is all right for a big company, which obviously accepts that—it may not like it, but it accepts it and it can deal with it. However, no SME could live with that level of p...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Committee
19 Jun 2013
Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Mr Myles’s reading of the bill makes me very curious. I would have thought that he would welcome those aspects that seek to free up resources for environmental regulators, take them away from some of the petty things and allow them to deal with the bigger problems that they se...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
08 Oct 2013
Energy Action Scotland
Fuel poverty is a measure that captures many related problems, including low incomes, poor insulation, high fuel prices and, in the Highlands and Islands, the associated fuel transport costs.Fuel poverty is important because it tells us something about inequality in our societ...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
30 Oct 2013
Bankruptcy and Debt Advice (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
We are perhaps making too much of the sophistication of the tools. Mr Micawber had a pretty good tool that describes quite well what the tools seek to do. When I started to explore the area, I hoped that there would be a more scientific analysis of the tools that perhaps illus...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
30 Sep 2014
Housing
No, not yet. I wondered whether we were going to hear the Labour Party’s ideological opposition to the idea of shared equity or shared ownership housing, because that is what we heard in previous housing debates. However, Labour members seem to have changed their mind. Now th...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
19 Mar 2014
Traditional Housing Stock
I congratulate Nigel Don on securing this debate and on sponsoring the excellent event in the Parliament last night, which I thought was really terrific. I know that a lot of other members enjoyed it and felt the benefit of it. I am pleased to speak in the debate because I sp...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
13 Jan 2015
Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Much of the territory that we are covering this morning has already been covered by the Justice Committee, and Mr Harvie’s response to at least some of—if not all—the points that have been made is that he is perfectly willing to consider amendments to deal with difficulties th...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
18 Nov 2015
Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
I have one brief further question, with which I hope to get some perspective on the problem of antisocial behaviour. It is on criminal justice generally and the typical penalties for bad behaviour. How bad a boy would I have to be for a judge to evict me from my home, given th...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
30 Nov 2011
Fuel Poverty
I am working on my brevity, convener. First, I declare an interest: my community benefited greatly from the Scottish Gas green streets programme, which provided a range of energy efficiency measures. I did not benefit from that personally, but I have a warm place in my heart f...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Committee
28 Mar 2012
Renewable Energy Targets Inquiry
I am interested in comments that Linda Greig made, as they fit with my question. I got the strong impression from some of the written evidence that some youngsters are reluctant to consider working in renewable energy as a career choice. To what extent has the anti-wind lobby ...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
21 Mar 2013
Scotland’s Financial Strength
The debate is timely, as it comes shortly after the latest GERS figures have been announced. Those figures, which are up from last year’s figures, clearly show that Scotland is on a successful trajectory. Scotland has been in a better fiscal position than the rest of the UK fo...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
12 Jun 2013
National Planning Framework 3 and Scottish Planning Policy
I think that you are deliberately misunderstanding that. It is difficult to say in a few words precisely what the meaning is but, nevertheless, I think that we all understand exactly what the term means.I would have thought that Patrick Harvie would welcome NPF3, with its ambi...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
01 May 2013
Energy
If we are to place Scotland’s energy future in context, we must look at the world energy situation overall. World energy consumption is set to rise sharply over the coming years. The World Energy Council has said that“Even with improvements in energy efficiency, we expect glob...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Committee
04 Sep 2013
Green Investment Bank
I have been listening to all this with great interest. It strikes me, though, that fundamentally there is an issue. You talked about a £200 billion investment being required over the next 10 years or so. Some commentators are suggesting that much more than that is needed. Give...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
04 Sep 2013
Green Investment Bank
Actually, I am an optimist, but if I do not ask you such questions—
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
04 Sep 2013
Green Investment Bank
I am just exploring the possibilities, but—
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
04 Sep 2013
Green Investment Bank
Yes. Surely you would get more bang for your buck investing in the risky areas—the new technologies that nobody else is prepared to touch. There is a part b to the question. I wonder whether you are interested in investing in interconnectors? It seems to me that that is low ri...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
04 Sep 2013
Green Investment Bank
I hope that you will look at that area very carefully. It seems to me that you want what everybody else wants: low risk and steady, moderate success. For new technology, though, with its exciting possibilities, everybody is standing by hoping that the other guy will do the pio...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
10 Oct 2013
Carbon Capture and Storage
I add my thanks to those from the minister to the good folk who gave us an excellent and very interesting briefing this morning. It has reinforced my belief that carbon capture and storage is yet another exciting opportunity for Scotland, in which we can once again be at the c...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
02 Dec 2014
Fuel Poverty (Pre-1919 Residential Properties)
I am pleased to speak in the debate because, as a Highlands and Islands member, I am acutely aware of fuel poverty, which runs at over 50 per cent on many of our islands and in many of our off-gas-grid areas on the mainland. Part of the explanation for that is, as we have hear...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
07 May 2014
Energy and Climate Change
I welcome the Scottish Government’s precautionary approach to hydraulic fracturing and unconventional gas extraction and, therefore, I have some sympathy—but only some—with Alison Johnstone’s motion. I am proud of Scotland’s world-leading climate change legislation because it...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
25 Mar 2015
Economy
Next, they will be telling us that we are not genetically suited to taking these big decisions for ourselves. However, the really disappointing thing about this afternoon’s debate is that only the SNP, and to a certain extent the Green Party, has put forward credible proposal...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
11 Nov 2015
Energy Storage Network
I am very grateful to Mr Salmond for that further information. Like midges, a lot of small Scotsmen are equally difficult to exterminate. Energy storage is also used to provide a degree of energy security. The pumped storage facility at Cruachan provides the initial black-sta...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
29 Jun 2011
Energy Prices
I think that we all understand that there are significant underlying reasons why wholesale energy market prices are rising and are likely to continue to rise into the future, but we must have an innovative and efficient market in energy provision so that the consumer gets the ...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
28 Sep 2011
Independent Commission on Banking
I am concerned about what lies outwith the report. Does the commission have a duty of care—a moral obligation—to comment on factors that are outwith the scope of its remit but which are pertinent to the general problem that we are trying to deal with? Several issues that we wo...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
23 Nov 2011
Tourism
Do you agree that we could make a great deal more of it?
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
30 Nov 2011
Fuel Poverty
As you know, about 30 per cent of the housing stock has been designated as being hard to heat, more in the middle range is a bit easier to deal with, and a small percentage that was built recently is well insulated. What would be the rough cost of bringing the energy efficienc...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
18 Jan 2012
Land Registration etc (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
I am concerned that, as Mr Langlands said, it is common practice to produce an initial title plan to a high degree of accuracy, at 1:200 or whatever. Following the jigsaw analogy, if we produced title plans to that degree of accuracy for every single title in Scotland and put ...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
14 Mar 2012
Land Registration etc (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate. Although I am what Murdo Fraser has described as “a non-lawyer”—I wonder whether that is a Latin legal term—in my previous career I had various practical experiences of the difficulties that are sometimes presented b...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
31 May 2012
Land Registration etc (Scotland) Bill
I compliment my fellow members of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee for their considered and intelligent scrutiny of the bill, and the clerks, who provided their usual high standard of support. Most of all, I want to record a personal thanks to Professor Kenneth Reid, ...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
21 Mar 2012
Renewable Energy Targets Inquiry
Yes. I have asked one question, but I am stringing together a few in the interests of getting through this quickly.How do you weigh competing interests in such a way that people understand that there is a rational process, albeit one that is attempting to deal with something t...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Committee
26 Jun 2012
Instruments not subject to Parliamentary Procedure
Michael McMahon is correct to suggest that all this touches on a much bigger issue. A tug of war seems to be developing here. The committee can apply only a very minor scrutiny mechanism to instruments from the Lord President, when the Parliament itself should be able to deal ...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
26 Apr 2012
Localism
Through the innovation and investment fund a number of housing associations have come up with some really good, innovative housing projects that have delivered far better value for money than we ever dreamed of under the previous Administration.It is perhaps worth going throug...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
26 Apr 2012
Localism
I point out that I did not accept a second intervention from Mr McGrigor. To accept one was quite generous.Local planning authorities now have full powers to deal as they see fit with smaller local applications, which are generally no longer subject to appeal to the Scottish G...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
15 Jan 2013
Planning Reform
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate, not just because I have been wrestling with, reading about and thinking about our planning system since I lodged my first application, nearly 35 years ago, but because few subjects merit more attention. The planning ...
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) SNP Chamber
19 Dec 2012
Marine Renewables (Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters)
I congratulate Rob Gibson on securing this debate on an issue that is important not just for the Pentland Firth and Scotland’s islands but for all Scotland and indeed for the UK. It is estimated that the Pentland Firth accounts for about 50 per cent of the UK’s tidal resource,...
Mike MacKenzie SNP Chamber
14 Nov 2012
Further Education
If Mary Scanlon is prepared to wait and listen to my speech, I will deal with that very point.In the previous system, success was often measured by the success of the institution but not always by that of the students. A few colleges may have done well under that system, but o...
← Back to list
Committee

Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee 06 March 2013

06 Mar 2013 · S4 · Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee
Item of business
“Low Carbon Scotland: Meeting our Emissions Reduction Targets 2013-2027”
MacKenzie, Mike SNP Highlands and Islands Watch on SPTV
Thank you. The issues that you have touched on seem to be very marginal, whereas some of the failures that have been reported to the committee are of a greater order. Do you agree that the problem is really the standard assessment procedure calculation, which is not fit for purpose?I have read the 2007 Sullivan report, to which you have referred. That report indicated that the payback time for some of the technologies—for example, heat pumps—was of the order of 60 years. Although that timescale will have changed somewhat because of rising energy prices, are you concerned that it points to a massive failure in the thinking behind the green deal? Given such payback times, nobody is going to take a loan for technology such as heat pumps. That points to a fundamental flaw in the green deal; and if it does not do its job, that inhibits our overall ability to take advantage of the green deal and reduce our carbon emissions.

In the same item of business

The Convener Con
Item 2 is an evidence-taking session on the Scottish Government’s report on proposals and policies 2. This morning, we are joined by Fergus Ewing, the Minist...
The Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism (Fergus Ewing) SNP
My remarks will be shorter than those of last week, which were on a similar topic.Thank you for inviting me here today to talk about the second draft report ...
The Convener Con
Thank you, minister.We are fairly tight on time and we have a lot of ground to cover, so I ask members to keep their questions short and focused. If the mini...
Fergus Ewing SNP
Government policies are inherently complex by their nature. In response to the accusation that it is difficult to read across between RPP1 and RPP2, we point...
The Convener Con
Okay. In a similar vein, another issue that has been raised with us is whether there is enough transparency in the draft report on who is responsible for the...
Fergus Ewing SNP
As I said, if there are ways in which we can make the document clearer, we would be very happy to consider them. My colleague Mr Peart can consider the pract...
Gavin Peart (Scottish Government)
The consultation is about the new-build standards, as far as building regulations are concerned, for energy. In 2007, the Sullivan panel, which was commissio...
The Convener Con
Thank you. I remind members that we need to be careful not to stray into the territory of other committees when we are scrutinising the RPP2. We have a fairl...
Dennis Robertson (Aberdeenshire West) (SNP) SNP
Minister, in your opening statement you mentioned decarbonisation. The Scottish Government has set a target for decarbonisation. How helpful would it be if t...
Fergus Ewing SNP
I sought to cover some of that last week. We are consulting on setting a 2030 decarbonisation target for the electricity generation sector. That follows the ...
Rhoda Grant (Highlands and Islands) (Lab) Lab
Some of the witnesses from whom we have heard believe that RPP2 will have any chance of meeting the targets only if all the policies and proposals in it are ...
Fergus Ewing SNP
As I said in my opening statement, we are more than halfway towards achieving our target of reducing emissions by 42 per cent by 2020. Our performance has be...
Rhoda Grant Lab
I direct you to the table on page 163 of RPP2, in which “Additional Technical Potential in Fabric and Energy Efficiency” is a heading. We heard evidence that...
Fergus Ewing SNP
To be quite candid, I cannot, but I know a man who can and his name is David Fotheringham. From the look of the table on page 163 of RPP2, the matter appears...
The Convener Con
Please do.
David Fotheringham (Scottish Government)
The technical potential for fabric improvement that RPP2 sets out is based on our modelling for the Scottish housing stock. Our annual Scottish house conditi...
Rhoda Grant Lab
So you do not know what technologies will be used to realise it. You compare that additional technical potential with some of the other proposals and policie...
David Fotheringham
No—we know what the measures are.
Rhoda Grant Lab
What are they?
David Fotheringham
There is a long list of measures, which includes things such as solid wall insulation, draught proofing, advanced heating controls and boiler upgrades—
Rhoda Grant Lab
But we are already doing those things, whereas this will kick in only in 2018.
David Fotheringham
You are right—we are already doing that work, and the national retrofit programme will take it further. However, we recognise that, even with the level of in...
Rhoda Grant Lab
But the same chart shows that the national retrofit programme will have less of an impact. You say that the national retrofit programme includes insulation a...
David Fotheringham
No—just to clarify, I am saying that the additional technical potential is over and above what we expect to achieve from the national retrofit programme and ...
Rhoda Grant Lab
I really do not follow what you are trying to say. You have mentioned things such as solid wall insulation, which I imagine is in the national retrofit progr...
David Fotheringham
In RPP2 we have made assumptions about the level of investment that would be available through programmes such as the national retrofit programme and through...
Rhoda Grant Lab
What are the further measures?
David Fotheringham
They are measures such as solid wall insulation, advanced heating controls and boiler upgrades.
Rhoda Grant Lab
Surely they are included in the retrofit programme.
David Fotheringham
They are. I am saying that the investment that we project from current programmes will do an awful lot of the upgrades that we need, but it will not do all t...