Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 14 Jan 2009

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Official Report 303KB pdf

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Energy Inquiry

Item 3 is a paper on the next phase of our inquiry into Scotland's energy future. Following discussion with me, a paper has been prepared by the clerk that details a programme of evidence sessions and visits. Do members have any comments on the paper?

It is a very good paper. I have four brief suggestions. I shall begin with the most substantive. At the outset of our inquiry, we had an offer of guidance and support from the Royal Society of Edinburgh; however, it does not appear to be among the witnesses from whom we intend to hear. We have scheduled two meetings to take evidence from the minister at the end of the process. I would be the last person to scale down the level of parliamentary scrutiny of ministerial decisions, but I wonder whether we might invite to our penultimate meeting Geoffrey Barrow and others from the Royal Society of Edinburgh who have fed into our inquiry in order to get their expert advice on how we might pull together the various issues and the different evidence that we will have heard by then. Even if that were done at the expense of one of the two ministerial sessions, it would be a good use of our time.

I have three other, more minor, suggestions relating to specific witnesses. We might want to ask Ofgem to give evidence about affordability. It is coming a fortnight later to talk about charging and so on, but it would have something relevant to say about affordability. I also wonder whether we might invite the Energy Technologies Institute—into which we conducted an inquiry—as a witness on research and development, even though it is based in Loughborough. Finally, the British Wind Energy Association might be a valuable source of evidence on the planning system in relation to wind and microgeneration. That is a key issue, and I wonder whether we should take evidence specifically on microgeneration in that context.

The witness lists are indicative at this stage. They have not been finalised and I am happy to take suggestions for additional witnesses that we might try to slip in. Likewise, members might want to remove from the lists anyone whom they think is not an appropriate witness.

On affordability, we have someone from Ofgem coming to the committee on 11 February and it might be better if we indicated to them that we may want to raise affordability issues at that session rather than ask them to attend twice. We already have large panels for 4 February, and we will need to deal with the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill as well.

The session on affordability will be on 28 January.

My apologies; you are right. However, it may be difficult to get a senior representative of Ofgem to come here twice within a couple of weeks. We can consider that point.

I have one substantive comment. Our agenda for 4 February is far too large in terms of both content and the proposed number of witnesses. We are trying to encourage a whole new approach to housing standards and renewable heat. We may see that happening in the budget and there are committee members here who are committed to it, whether it appears in the budget or not. We want to promote it. I do not think that it is possible for us to do justice to a new approach to housing standards and renewable heat if we shoe-horn the subject into a meeting that also includes our scrutiny of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill. I wonder whether we can consider splitting up those evidence sessions, albeit that that would add a further evidence session at the end of our inquiry. That would be helpful, particularly if the budget changes to reflect support for the large-scale energy efficiency programme that the Greens are suggesting.

I note that point. We will see what we can do, but it will be difficult to fit in an extra meeting.

We have five unprogrammed committee meetings at the end of May and in June.

Our problem is the timetable for stage 1 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill.

It would make sense to do the work on the bill first. As the issues of housing standards and renewable heat are about a vision that is almost beyond the bill, the evidence session could follow thereafter, on 2 March or whenever.

We will consider that and find out what is practical. The two issues tie in so, rather than have people coming twice to give evidence, they could come once and give evidence twice.

The two issues tie in, but there is more to the heat issue.

I think that a group is going to Germany some time in late January or February and will come back about that time. It will explore housing standards while it is there. Colin Imrie is among them, I think.

Are there any other points?

I welcome the bulk of the proposals and look forward to the inquiry developing.

Do members agree to delegate to me and the clerk responsibility for finalising the witness programme and for making the appropriate bids to the bodies that we must approach to get agreement for our fact-finding visits and, in particular, our proposal to hold a committee meeting in Aberdeen, which Lewis Macdonald suggested?

Members indicated agreement.