Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am sorry, convener, but I have one more question, and I think that George Tarvit wanted to come in.

I thank the committee for securing the debate. Our homes are central to the zero-carbon vision of the future, but they also tell us stories about our past.

A number of years ago, when we started retrofitting our family home, we first discovered the hearth for the Victorian coal range. Then, the more that we progressed with uncovering the layers of the building, the more we could see its history and how the changing needs for more living space, for better sanitation and for electrification had shaped the way in which the house had been retrofitted many times over many decades, first by councils and latterly by private owners. The drive for decarbonisation is really just the latest form of modernisation, although it will probably be the most transformational since the arrival of electricity in our homes.

The aim of decarbonising Scotland’s 2.5 million homes when only 11 per cent of them currently have renewable or low-emission heating systems in place points to the scale of the challenge. Meanwhile, soaring electricity and gas prices, reflecting Westminster’s energy and taxation policies, are fuelling a cost-of-living crisis, with more than 30 per cent of households estimated to be in fuel poverty. We need to ensure that the delivery of energy-efficient housing prioritises fuel-poor homes, especially in our rural and island communities, in a way that leaves no one behind.

Programmes of Government grants and loans, energy supplier and landlord obligations, fuel pricing and regulation and area-based schemes will be critical to the delivery of the strategy. Local and community action also has a crucial role to play, and the local heat and energy efficiency strategy pilots have shown just how important the role of councils and communities will be in driving the strategy forward.

The development of the national public energy agency and the national infrastructure company, in the coming years, will be a groundbreaking step towards ensuring that councils are well equipped to take, and are leading on, the action that is required to decarbonise our homes. Local stakeholders must also be part of all stages of the design and delivery of area-based schemes and strategies, and councils must be allocated sufficient funding to deliver, too.

As we have heard today, there are real intricacies involved in delivering retrofitting plans on the ground, especially around the need to ensure that local installers and tradespeople are geared up to respond. The CITB has estimated that we need to train roughly 10 per cent of the current size of our workforce in energy efficiency by 2028 in order to deliver the vision for decarbonisation, and there is an immediate need to strengthen the skills of the existing workforce to fill labour gaps and to deliver at the pace and scale that are required.

The minister spoke earlier about certainty. I say to Miles Briggs that certainty is important for business because it drives investment, establishes the long-term trajectory and creates the market that, I think, will create jobs.

Of course, there are complexities around tenure, rurality and housing type, as we have heard. From examples of models of collective purchase and of heat as a service, we can learn how to simplify and accelerate the pace of retrofitting.

I am glad that the Scottish Government has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Danish Government, because there is much to learn from the international experience, but there is also much to learn from our communities. I am a big fan of the work that the HEAT Project does in Blairgowrie, working with individual householders on their retrofitting options and how they can get the grants and loans to deliver that in a cost-effective way.

The commitment to retrofit 1 million homes by 2030 is ambitious and complicated, but that should not stand in the way of action. It is our responsibility to deliver that vision in response to the climate emergency, to tackle increasing rates of fuel poverty and to improve our health and wellbeing. That is our commitment to people and planet.

Will the member take an intervention?

Unlike Mr Kerr, I found yesterday’s statement breathtaking—the scale of investment, the scale of the increase in renewable energy capacity and the scale of the jobs that will come to our communities. I think that any young person hearing that announcement yesterday would have been inspired, too.

Of course, it is important that we also tackle the nature emergency alongside the climate emergency. What lessons can be learned from the previous offshore consenting rounds to ensure that birds and marine life will be protected?

This is not the first time that OVO has broken its promises to staff. Hundreds have been laid off in the past. Can we expect companies that contravene the Government’s fair work agenda to face penalties as a consequence of their actions? What support can the minister bring forward through the Tay cities deal to ensure that there are new opportunities and support for workers in the months ahead, as was achieved at the time of the closure of the Michelin factory in Dundee when support was given to workers who lost jobs there?

Finally, where do you see regulation in terms of driving the innovation that can create a healthy market? Clearly, as regulatory innovation comes in, business and industry have to think about how they adapt to that and that can create a lot of economic growth and innovation. Essentially it is about creating a level playing field, but it is also about how you ensure that there is a space there for innovative regulation to drive that innovative market.

I am sorry—it was not a brief question at all.

Specifically on the deposit return scheme, if that scheme was amended, would it come within the scope of your remit?

I want to return to the topic of policy coherence, on which I have a question for Lewis Ryder-Jones. You diplomatically talked about a company in Fife. I think that you were talking about Raytheon UK and the account management that Scottish Enterprise was supplying for that arms company. Do you think that significant policy coherence issues still exist? We have talked about successes, but we have not talked about where there are some real tensions. You are working on and have been inputting into the wellbeing and sustainable development bill that is coming forward. Do you see a role for, say, a future generations commission providing some of the governance on sustainable development going forward?

I have a brief question for Mark Majewsky Anderson. You mention in your submission the need to support new EU-based foundations. We have left the EU, but do you have examples of policy areas on which we can focus and should be focusing and developing new initiatives? Should we be looking to join existing EU foundations, as well as foundations that can work outside the EU?