Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Official Report 615KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Financial Assistance for Environmental Purposes (Scotland) (No 2) Order 2022 (SSI 2022/278)

Agenda item 7 is consideration of a negative instrument. As the instrument has been laid under the negative procedure, its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees a motion to annul them. No such motion has been lodged.

Do members have any comments?

I will make a brief comment. I think that, to make progress in the area, we will need community approaches, and it is important that funding mechanisms are available to registered social landlords and the public sector in order to establish heat networks. Understandably, a lot of the focus at the moment is on individual households getting assistance and applying for finance, but I think that it will be some of the broader, community-wide approaches that will crack the nut with regard to retrofitting and decarbonisation. I do not have any specific comments on the SSI beyond saying that we need to accelerate the work.

Just to clarify, Mark, I think that the point that you have made is about the need to accelerate the work and to look globally across the whole sector. You do not wish to object to or make criticisms of the order—you have just made some observations.

Yes. Community-wide approaches are needed in this particular area, and it is important that RSLs, councils and others have the ability to drive this in order to get the scale of roll-out that we need in our communities. The mechanisms in question will enable funding to come in and achieve that.

So can we make those comments on the order? I am looking at the clerks. [Interruption.] The clerks have told me that the comments have already been made.

I am happy for what I have said to sit as a comment.

The point is that that is on the record. We do not need to take things any further than that, if everyone is happy.

Okay. That concludes that item, unless anyone has any other comments.

The next agenda item—[Interruption.] I have to formally invite members to agree that the committee does not wish to make any further recommendations on the order. Apparently, that is the procedure. Does the committee agree on that?

Members indicated agreement.