Plenary, 01 Oct 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Official Report 383KB pdf

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Question Time

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SCOTTISH PARLIAMENTARY CORPORATE BODY

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Energy Performance of Buildings

Presiding Officer, you will forgive me if I speak very slowly to fill up the time, given that this is the only question—

Simply read the question, please.

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it will provide an update on what progress it has made towards compliance with European Union energy performance of buildings directive (2002/91/EC), which came into force on 4 January 2006. (S3O-4573)

The Energy Performance of Buildings (Scotland) Regulations 2008 were signed by the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change on 16 September, and bring into force the requirement in the EU energy performance of buildings directive for the energy performance rating of buildings that meet certain criteria to be calculated and displayed by 4 January 2009. That has enabled us to go ahead with procuring professional services to meet that requirement.

Can the member of the corporate body outline further what other services need to be purchased in order to comply with the directive? Could those possibly have something to do with the fact that the directive requires that the energy certificate

"is placed in a prominent place clearly visible to the public"?

The current corporate body, like the previous one, is aware of the fact that the rating that is given to the Scottish Parliament might not be altogether too impressive and might fall below what would be considered a reasonable standard, given the amount of money that was spent on the building.

I can tell the member that, at this moment, I am unaware of any additional services that require to be procured in order to fulfil the requirement.

As far as the likely rating is concerned, early in September, officials consulted the relevant Scottish Government office—formerly known as the Scottish Building Standards Agency—which advised of the approach to be taken for the building certificate. That approach will be followed. Until the exercise is completed, the rating will not be known, and I will not speculate about what it might be.

Given the need to keep energy within the building, the integrity of the roof structure of the chamber is a matter of great concern. Can the member tell us who was ultimately found to be liable for the strut failure that occurred above my head? In addition—

Mr Scott, that is not a supplementary to the question.

We must move on to the next item of business.