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On a point of order, convener. I notice that we have with us the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, the Minister for Transport and the Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning. Why do we not have the Minister for Communities, who has responsibility for housing?
We did not invite him. In December we discussed which ministers we would invite. If you are suggesting to me that we could make recommendations to the Scottish Executive Development Department on the basis of the evidence that we have taken in the past few weeks, you are pushing at an open door. We asked specifically to hear from four ministers; by the end of the meeting, we will have done so.
I welcome the ministers, but the evidence as it has developed shows that we need to hear from the minister who has responsibility for housing. I am just sorry that we were not able to alter our plans to hear from him.
That is not the fault of the ministers who are here, to whom I am grateful for turning up. I know that this meeting is a bit of an exception. The backdrop is that we have spent two years scrutinising the budget and asking detailed questions about climate change, but we have not got a sense of how cross-cutting policies on climate change have worked. We heard useful evidence last week from the Minister for Environment and Rural Development, which set the overall context and enabled us generally to ask about the Executive's climate change policy.
Thank you and good afternoon. The Executive's commitment to delivering sustainable development and securing environmental justice is central to the partnership agreement of our coalition Executive. You will be aware that the two most recent spending reviews have included sustainable development as a key cross-cutting issue and that we have made it central to our spending decisions across each and every portfolio. Along with sustainability, climate change is a key element of our overall approach to sustainable development.
Climate change is clearly an important issue for the transport sector. It is a global issue and all countries should endeavour to reduce their impacts on climate change. We believe that Scotland's transport can play an important role.
Thank you—it is good to be back before the committee. In the three or four minutes that are available, I will concentrate on the part that energy supply and demand play in climate change.
Thank you. We said that we would allow three or four minutes to get some questions in, so I thank the ministers for packing quite a lot of helpful information into their time. As I suggested, we shall kick off with broad overview questions to all three ministers, before we move on to ask questions relating to individual portfolios.
Emissions by the public sector and the business sector are going down, which is really good news. However, emissions from energy and from transport are rising and are set to continue to rise. Does the Cabinet believe that we should allow emissions from transport to increase and that the emissions reductions that transport could provide should be met elsewhere, such as by business or the public sector? Can we take up the slack from transport elsewhere in your portfolios?
I shall start because the question is first about the rising emissions trend in transport. We must do whatever is realistically possible to limit that continuing growth. As with the congestion target that we set—to return congestion levels by 2020 to what they were in 2001—we need to be serious about achieving it. We also need to be serious about reducing carbon emissions from transport. It is difficult to achieve that against the long-term rising trend in traffic growth.
This is a matter of joined-up government. I support the basic contention that there ought, in the context of developing a sustainable development strategy, to be greater interdepartmental liaison on how targets and indicators are achieved. In my portfolio, there are two ways in which we can do that. The renewables obligation has been remarkably successful in driving the private sector in a certain direction. The European trading scheme is another means by which we can entice the private sector, by direct reference to companies' bottom lines, to reduce carbon emissions. From the point of view of improving energy efficiency, all the work that we do with the Carbon Trust—and, to a certain extent, at the micro level with the Energy Saving Trust—is directed at improving the bottom line for business in energy efficiency and resource use in areas such as waste symbiosis. We can drive forward private sector organisations by making such measures attractive to their profit and loss accounts.
To try to compensate for increased emissions from road traffic through the work that is done in other portfolios would be the wrong approach. We obviously need to pursue the targets that we have through every portfolio in the Executive and we must continue to look for innovative ways of minimising, in relative terms, emissions from road transport. I do not think that it would be right to say that we should simply give up in one area and try to do more in another.
I have a brief supplementary question. Those responses were interesting. Obviously, transport is a difficult sector to tackle, but there is reluctance to address the problem in other Executive portfolios. Is that an argument for setting achievable and meaningful sectoral targets? Do you plan to do that?
Ross Finnie has indicated in evidence that we will examine the practicality of that suggestion. The issue has been addressed in a number of submissions on climate change. He will consider what is suggested, but he wants to do so in a way that can be achieved and monitored, so he will examine what is sensible and realistic. However, Ross Finnie accepted that the position as it was set out in 2000 is not sustainable—we cannot simply make our general contribution to the UK target. He wants to look at ways of breaking it down.
I anticipate that the energy efficiency strategy that we are working on will be cross-sectoral.
Will that strategy have targets?
There are already targets to improve the efficiency of domestic residences and so on. We intend to take a cross-sectoral approach to improving energy efficiency and to viewing how it relates to, for example, the development of biofuels in the transport sector.
What does the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform think?
The evidence that the committee has received from previous witnesses does not conclude that everyone agrees that sectoral targets are necessarily the best way forward. One of your witnesses—I think that it was the Energy Saving Trust—said that it does not necessarily view sectoral targets as the way ahead. That is how I interpret its evidence. The Executive does not rule out sectoral targets, but our thinking on the best approach is yet to be concluded.
I should have said in my introductory remarks that you are also in the middle of your consultation on the climate change strategy. We are keen to contribute to that discussion.
I have two quick general questions. The first is a bit of a daft-laddie question and the second will be more intellectual.
Can we tell you which is which afterwards? Sorry—that was too obvious.
The daft-laddie question is this: how do you measure the impact of your policies on climate change? How does that work within Government? Do scientists give you reports on the impact on climate change? How does it work when you are trying to determine how to spend your money and the impact that your policies will have on climate change?
If we try to build sustainability into our spending review, to have a target to ensure that all our energy is from renewable sources, to have targets for the kind of paper that we procure, and to have targets for other things that I mentioned in my opening remarks, we will have an impact. If an organisation the size of the Executive uses only recycled paper, that will have an impact on sustainability.
That is an obvious example. There must be hundreds of thousands of less obvious examples when you are spending money to implement policies.
I am attracted to obvious examples.
You might not need a scientific expert to give an opinion on recycled paper, but there must be other budget areas for which you would. Whose advice do you take? How does it work? Do you commission research on the impact of emissions on climate change? Do you have a central unit in Government that advises all ministers? Do all ministers have their own advisers?
That varies depending on the scale and nature of projects. Strategic environmental assessments are coming in for all major projects. For many of those projects we get professional advice. We need to pull that together better; that is an issue for the climate change and sustainable development reviews.
I take it from what you have said that each department approaches the issue differently in terms of their policies and how they measure the impact of climate change.
There are differences between the approaches of the departments. Various approaches are taken depending on the nature of the project—for example, whether it is to do with recycling and the use of recycled paper, renewable energy or a major public transport project.
The work that is done comes together through the sustainable development indicators that we publish at the level of the Cabinet sub-committee on sustainable development. The targets that we set for carbon emission reductions and cash savings from better business resource use and energy efficiency measures feed into the pool of indicators that we use to measure our progress towards more sustainable development, which obviously contributes towards combating climate change.
My second question is slightly more philosophical and deep. How does the Government determine the concept of value? You have policy objectives to achieve and certain set amounts of money with which to achieve them. Let us take central heating as an example, although I know that none of the ministers present is responsible for it. If you had the choice between buying a lesser number of high-tech, state-of-the-art—in terms of sustainability—central heating systems or a greater number of central heating systems of a lower standard, where would you draw the line? How would you determine which would get you the biggest bang for your buck?
Individual decisions would be taken in the context of wider policy objectives. In terms of energy efficiency, we measure prospective carbon emission reductions and the bottom-line cost. There does not seem to be a shortage of organisations that are keen to help us in that process. The areas of better environmental management and better use of resources are well served both commercially and in terms of policy development. Indeed, there might well be an argument that the field is too cluttered. We are considering the issue in the context of a more general energy efficiency strategy.
We also have pre-expenditure assessments that would help us to make a judgment on the sustainability of any purchases. That is an important part of the process.
Presumably, there must be rules relating to Government contracts and you must be under pressure to take the cheapest tender in some cases, even though that might not be the most sustainable option. Does that create a tension?
There can be a tension on some occasions, but the public sector is increasingly being encouraged to take a more comprehensive view of what provides value, which is not necessarily the lowest price. There is an increasing realisation that sustainability and, for example, the energy saving aspects of a purchase must be factored into the overall consideration of best value.
In your bilateral meetings with Ross Finnie on sustainable development, to what extent is climate change a distinct part of the agenda? What analysis do you do to ascertain whether action that you take in that regard is successful? The question perhaps follows on from Richard Lochhead's question.
I have had one bilateral meeting with Mr Finnie on sustainable development. Implicit in any initiatives that were proposed was the understanding that their success would have an impact on climate change. Indeed, such an outcome was regarded as an automatic consequence. I do not know whether it was specifically suggested, for example, that the efficient government agenda is being promoted because it will have an impact on climate change. However, through efficient government we will use fewer resources to achieve the same or better outcomes, so there is a sustainable development aspect to that agenda.
You are saying that consideration of such matters is more implicit than explicit.
Yes.
We consider what works. The classic example is the criticism of the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets of the renewables obligation as offering a more fuel-expensive, less value-for-money means of promoting renewables, reducing carbon emissions and addressing climate change than does, for example, the emissions trading scheme. We constantly assess what we do against other UK and European parameters.
My bilateral meeting will take place next week and it would be wrong to comment ahead of the meeting. However, I will ensure that we discuss climate change and sustainable development in relation to transport projects.
It is clear that the development of the bilateral meetings process is at an early stage, particularly for Nicol Stephen—I do not know whether he has taken part in such bilateral meetings in the past. A sustainable development directorate with a cross-cutting interest has been established in the Executive. Clearly, that directorate could have a major impact in helping ministers to work on specific aspects of policy.
That is a relatively easy question for me to answer. I have concentrated on energy use, supply and demand as the principal means by which we would tackle climate change and benefit future generations. Of course, spending decisions that we take in that context must have regard to the bottom line for business and industry—the wealth-producing sector of the economy—and that is how we incentivise their approach to resource efficiency.
I will mention three aspects of my portfolio, the first two of which are capital grants for land decontamination and the strategic waste fund over the period 2004-05 to 2007-08. Some £35 million will be spent on land decontamination and £450 million will be spent on the strategic waste fund over the same period.
I will be brief, as I have mentioned much of the investment that the Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department is now making in public transport. I simply ask committee members to reflect on the position back in the 1990s. A huge proportion of the investment went into the roads network and many new transport projects were road improvement projects or new road building projects. We now have proposals for tramlines in Edinburgh and for a range of improvements relating to rail lines, such as proposals on reopening rail lines, rolling stock improvements and station improvements. There is the freight facilities grant and there will be the new waterborne freight grant this month. There is the concessionary bus fares scheme and the bus route development fund, about which we will make announcements later this month to try to kick-start new bus routes. We have a range of rural transport initiatives.
I want to follow up on best value, on the relationship with local authorities and on the cross-cutting nature of what we have to do. We are at the start of a major change as we move from traditional energy sources to renewables, but I feel that we might miss the boat on some big opportunities because of the way in which local authorities have to work with private partners.
On the school building programme, I agree with the Minister for Education and Young People that there should be no problem, as the design is specified by the public sector body that issues the contract. Many public-private partnership contracts for school buildings include energy-saving initiatives, so I do not understand why that should not be possible in Highland. Energy saving has certainly been promoted in PPP procurement schemes because it provides opportunities for efficiency and cost savings. Those have been welcomed both by the public sector and by private partners.
The problem is not so much whether the new buildings are energy efficient as whether they can use, say, biomass rather than oil-fired central heating.
In part, that is why we set up the Scottish community and householder renewables scheme and increased its resources to £6.6 million over the next three years. The scheme addresses that dilemma by enabling public and community bodies to access funding support so that micro or other community renewables projects can be built into local developments. We are in the process of undertaking an evaluation, which will shortly be put out to tender, to study issues surrounding the operation of the Scottish community and householder renewables scheme, including whether PPP projects can receive funding and whether the state-aid considerations that need to be taken into account limit the amount of support that we can give such developments.
I thank the minister for that helpful response.
I am interested in how the Executive is supporting and developing Scotland's biomass industry, which has such tremendous potential but has lagged slightly behind. What action is the Executive taking to move it forward?
As I mentioned, we recently received a report on biomass from FREDS. The report demonstrates that, as we suspected, considerable opportunities—and challenges—exist for biomass to make a bigger contribution towards achieving our renewables targets. The ability of biomass to contribute base-load energy generating capacity is, to my mind, a great advantage that represents an opportunity for the sector.
I am greatly encouraged by what the minister said.
You should be.
I will talk about not biomass but biofuels. The Minister for Transport said again that he has given grant aid to a biodiesel project, which is welcome. However, the problem is that when demand is created in the Scottish economy for biodiesel, it seems simply to suck in imports. Can ministers do anything to ensure that biodiesel that is produced in the Scottish economic environment is used here and is not supplanted by subsidised imports, which I believe come from Germany in particular? Does the UK Government need to consider changes in regulation to make that happen?
UK Government action to grow the market significantly will achieve that. As the member knows, European Union targets have been set. The UK Government is considering the issue seriously—I am a member of a joint committee that is doing that with UK ministers and ministers from Wales. The UK Government is considering seriously how we increase the level of biofuel in the fuel that we purchase, whether local filling stations will have separate biofuel tanks, as they do for liquid petroleum gas, or whether over time all fuel will have an element of biofuel, which is more likely. The argument about whether we can shift to all fuel having a biofuel element is a bit like the argument about leaded and unleaded petrol.
I agree entirely. As Alex Johnstone knows—much as he may dislike it—we live in a single European market, which properly has rules and regulations about state aid that govern public investment in such private enterprises as have been described, as I said. However, I agree with his basic contention that we should examine—as we do—current market incentives for biofuel production and whether we can better incentivise the indigenous UK market. That is a fair point.
Can I make a general point?
I will wind up general questions and move on to specifics—we have already delved into individual portfolios. I ask members to keep to one question that focuses on Tom McCabe's portfolio, which covers public sector, local government and finance issues.
Mr McCabe mentioned building regulations. They are fine for new buildings, but can he give us any indication of how the Scottish Executive is focusing on the upgrading of existing building stock?
The energy efficiency of buildings will be addressed partly through initiatives such as the warm deal, the central heating programme and our programmes to improve the insulation of domestic properties.
Is the spend-to-save programme going to impact on large public buildings?
A £20 million capital grant is now available to public bodies in Scotland that make applications for grant assistance for energy-saving projects—for instance, condensing boilers and improved lighting. Up to now, 31 of Scotland's 32 local authorities have applied to that fund with proposals for improving the energy efficiency of their public buildings.
I was told recently in answer to a parliamentary question that only 4.4 per cent of the heating of the Executive's 14 biggest buildings comes from renewable sources. Are you disappointed with that figure? What action are you taking to address that? I understand that the matter is your responsibility.
It goes without saying that we are always aiming to improve our performance. I hope that the evidence that my colleagues and I are giving today underlines the Executive's commitment to seeking continually ways in which to improve our performance. If our performance is not at levels that are internationally recognised, we will strive to improve on what we do currently.
Is any programme under way to address the fact that only 4.4 per cent of the heating of the Executive's 14 biggest buildings comes from renewable sources? Heating is a large component of our energy needs. Is any programme under way to adapt Government buildings or improve on that figure?
I think that the fund that I have just mentioned would be available for Executive proposals, too. It is about improving the energy efficiency of public buildings. The people who are responsible for managing the facilities that are in those buildings are always considering projects to improve their energy efficiency and would have access to some of the funds that I have made reference to.
I know that we do not have a major budget review planned for this year, but I have a question about the next budget round. Through the evidence of the past week, it has hit home forcibly that although we tend to think about how we can reduce climate change or stop it happening, it is equally important to think about how we can deal with the climate change impact that we are already going to see. Nicol Stephen announced some review work that the Executive is going to do on adapting to climate change, building on the experience of big storms in the Western Isles.
Yes. That would follow on from the approach that was taken in the previous spending review. I earlier mentioned the fact that, as a direct result of climate change, we have allocated a considerable amount of money—more than £40 million—for flood prevention programmes to protect more than 4,000 additional homes. That review of what is required to deal with the consequences of climate change will continue at the same time as we build into our future spending plans as many initiatives as we can to minimise the contribution that we make to any future climate change.
Okay. Thanks. Let us move on to transport. Most members will want to ask about transport, as the issue has come up at almost every evidence session that we have had.
I am interested in the role that pricing and demand management play in your approach to transport development. The conditions in Scotland are clearly different from those in the highly populated areas in the south, yet we have inherited the kind of appraisal that looks at business plans for areas of concentrated population. How far do you see the rail programme being rolled out for freight and passengers in the more sparsely populated areas of the country? From evidence that we have heard, it will clearly be important to take transport off the roads in those areas. Do you intend to alter the criteria for the business viability of moving to rail transport, to take account of Scotland's geography?
Currently benefiting from the freight facilities grant are forestry schemes, schemes to take food to the far north of Scotland, and schemes to take fuel to the north-east of Scotland. Some significant schemes are already benefiting. The challenge over the next few years will be to continue that investment and make a real impact. We are investing in the freight facilities grant and are encouraging industry to move freight from lorries on to the rail network or on to the water. At the same time, there is growth in the economy and increased levels of freight movement. We can still have severe congestion problems on the roads, even though we are having success in terms of modal shift. Those are the kinds of challenge that we have to consider. In your question, you rightly referred to some of the big issues that we will have to address over the next decade or so.
I have a short follow-up question.
Please keep it very short, because everybody else wants to ask questions.
Minister, you have not said much about infrastructural development in the railways. You have talked about ways of adjusting the current system, but measures of business viability mean that we will probably have to spend more on investing in the rail infrastructure.
I agree with that, and that will now be our responsibility. It has not been our responsibility up to now, but through the Railways Bill at Westminster there will be a major shift in responsibilities to Scotland. Through the transport budget, we will receive an additional £325 million or so a year to invest in rail. That will be very important for the Scottish Executive over the next few years.
Climate change will have a severe impact on our infrastructure—especially if it leads to more severe storms and flooding. This winter, coastal roads have been washed away and harbours have been damaged along the west coast and on the islands. Roads have been blocked by landslips and railway tracks have been undermined by floods. Such incidents will get worse, so how will you address that?
We have had to take short-term measures, investing significant sums to get our road network up and running again as quickly as possible, and learning the reasons behind individual landslips. However, we are also doing longer-term work on climate change. We are considering the pressures on our harbours, piers and road network and I will receive a report on those issues later in the year.
How do you assess how a transport project will impact on climate change? Can a cost-benefit analysis reveal whether it is worth paying the price for increased road usage?
We use the Scottish transport appraisal guidance to assess projects. We always address the impact on the environment and we also address safety, social and economic issues. As part of the new focus, strategic environmental assessment will have a new importance for transport projects. We have to look at projects with a fresh eye, examine the strategic environmental consequences, and ensure that we have addressed all issues in terms of EU legislation and legislation that is going through the Parliament. We consider the environmental consequences and the negative impact of any project, whether road or rail. Negative impacts can arise from rail projects, because people are not necessarily happy to have a new operational rail line going past their property. We always have to examine those issues and balance them but, at the end of the day, I suspect that it will continue to be a political judgment. The answers to the issues will never come purely from analysis and science.
I was interested in what you said about the need to be serious about achieving the 2021 targets for traffic reduction. Do you support short-term milestones or targets for better transport and for reducing road traffic?
I have been pushed hard on that issue on various occasions in the past few months. I return to the answer that I gave on climate change targets. As long as the targets are appropriate and there are ways to get the relevant data on them, I am prepared seriously to consider them. People must be aware, for example, that interim targets on congestion and traffic levels may simply be about slowing the rate of increase until we reach a point where the increase stops, and then making up ground by reducing the levels. If I were to introduce interim targets, I would signal that point clearly, so that I was not immediately criticised for introducing targets that, through the 15-year period or so that we are talking about, took account of the fact that, over the next few years, the rise might continue.
But you would consider it appropriate to introduce targets.
Yes, I have said that I would consider the introduction of interim targets.
You said that we have achieved a degree of modal shift, but we have to do an awful lot more to get people out of their cars. The Commission for Integrated Transport has proposed national road user charging as a possible long-term solution. Is the Executive giving that serious consideration?
Yes, we are. I mentioned that in my opening remarks, in relation to the DFT proposals, which are at an early stage, but are being actively considered by us and the DFT. We have agreed to work with the DFT on those proposals, but it will be some considerable time before we—collectively throughout the UK—are in a position to implement them. The proposals offer the potential significantly to tackle congestion. If we were to have the interim targets that Chris Ballance has encouraged me to consider again this afternoon, we would need to factor in the introduction of national road user charging and the impact that it might have from perhaps around 2015 onwards—it is at that sort of stage in the future.
It is a not-in-my-term-of-office target.
We have established that the transport sector must reduce emissions, and that we cannot easily trade off those emissions against other sectors. Do you acknowledge that certain Executive policies, such as building the M74 motorway and the air route development fund, are increasing emissions in Scotland? Do you not agree with the representative of the Sustainable Development Commission who said in evidence last week that we should focus on the win-wins—measures that produce wins for the economy and for the environment—and abandon the win-loses that produce wins for the economy but have negative effects on the environment? Do you not view the M74 extension and the air route development fund as win-loses? Both those projects may well have economic benefits, but they will result in losses for the environment such as an increase in CO2 emissions, which will affect the Executive's ability to meet any sectoral targets. Should we not abandon, or at least delay, those projects? If the committee concluded that we should delay the M74 motorway upgrade so that matters such as the increase in CO2 emissions that it will produce could be considered in the round, would you agree to do that?
We need to take a balanced view. We must consider the impact of what we do on the environment and on climate change. I want to make it clear that we do that. We must also take account of the potential benefits of our proposals for communities in Scotland and for the Scottish economy. That is why I said in response to Karen Gillon's question that such issues will continue to be matters of political judgment. We will not always be able to reach decisions on the basis of analysis and science.
So you would not delay the M74 project to work out what impact it will have on climate change emissions in the transport sector?
It would be wrong for me to comment on the M74 proposal because I hold responsibility for reaching the decision on it. That decision will be made soon. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further, given my role in announcing the decision.
Do you have a supplementary comment, Tom?
Nicol Stephen is obviously restricted in the comments that he can make on the M74, but what he said about the need for balance is important. Studies have shown that the M74 project has the potential to create some 40,000 jobs and to provide economic opportunities for communities that have been disadvantaged for many years. We must balance those considerations against environmental considerations. Every day, the people of Rutherglen experience serious congestion on their main street and there is idling traffic along miles and miles of the M8 motorway. Those problems have a detrimental impact on our environment and I do not think that we would want to avoid eliminating them.
I told people to turn off their phones.
I will give an idea of the big picture elsewhere in the world. The Austrians source 14 per cent of all their energy needs—not just electricity—from biomass. I understand that the Danes are on the brink of exhausting their wind potential. It seems that Scotland is quite far behind many other countries in its use of renewable energy. What is the reason for that?
We have a way to go to catch up with other European competitors, but we are well placed to do so. We have had an historical dependence on fossil fuel energy production, not least because of the discovery—beneficial for the Scottish economy—of North sea oil, and our substantial coal reserves that we depended on for energy supply and generation. Those advantages were not common in continental Europe and in large part they shaped energy policy over the piece as a result.
Earlier in the inquiry, Scottish Enterprise told us that there had been no systematic analysis of what the impacts of climate change might be on Scottish business, or of what the opportunities might be for Scottish business. That worries me a bit. Does it worry you? What steps will you take to ensure that we get a clear idea of what the positive and negative effects of climate change will be?
You will pardon me if I do not comment on precisely what the Scottish Enterprise representatives said because I do not know. However, it would concern me if that organisation were not focused on the opportunities that the development of the green jobs strategy gives it. It is not simply a question of developing economic opportunities in those enterprises that one might envisage would be at the forefront of the green business resolution; it is also about improving business resource efficiency. Scottish Enterprise has a range of products that it makes available to businesses through the local enterprise network; it also advises on better environmental management.
What about the impact on business? We have heard a lot of evidence about the economic damage that could arise through climate change.
I am happy to pursue that question with Scottish Enterprise.
How many more members want to ask questions? Karen Gillon has just pulled out. I am going to be really brutal and allow very few questions.
ScottishPower told the committee that there is no technological problem with achieving a 60 per cent reduction in emissions. It said that the real problem is the lack of policy clarity. Will you reflect on that?
There are genuine technological challenges out there, not least in the development of marine technology to which I referred. Those challenges are placed in stark relief today of all days. I am confident that, with the vision, political drive and leadership that we are showing in the field, we can overcome those remaining technological challenges and ensure that the marketplace, in which ScottishPower plays a key part, delivers our agenda. As you know, Governments do not, cannot and should not build power stations—that is a matter for the market. It is our job to ensure that the interests of wider society, particularly in combating climate change, are taken account of by companies when they take decisions on how they enter that marketplace.
My question follows on quite nicely from that. Renewables obligation certificates have done a good job in moving the market towards renewable energy generation, but is there any prospect of an equivalent for heat?
We are reviewing the entire operation of ROCs, as I said. Within that, there are strong arguments for extending ROCs into other areas in which they have historically not been applied. I mentioned one such area in relation to biomass, but there are others. As ever, there are—dare I say it—differences of opinion in the industry about the best means of doing that, but I look forward to receiving the committee's views on how we review the ROC mechanism because it has been the single most successful market driver in promoting renewable electricity generation. As you say, it has been particularly successful to date in relation to onshore wind, the contribution of which should not be lost. When people talk green they should back that up with green actions.
That could lead us into a range of questions and supplementaries, but I will stop there. I can hear lots of voices off, but I am not going to let them in.
Meeting closed at 13:26.
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