Chamber and committees

From what I have read, hospitality is now out of scope for returns. What if I, for example, go to the pub with my pals on a Friday night, and they all have a pint of lager and I have a can of Diet Coke? Am I expected to keep my can? If it is poured for me, what happens to that can at that point?

That is perfect. Would the same apply to, say, Murrayfield, which was campaigning to be a closed-loop premise?

Okay. Thank you.

I am not talking about the time that is taken for an objection to go in and for it to be resolved; I am talking about the time that people have in which to lodge a legal challenge being reduced from three months to six weeks. You say that that benefits everyone, but the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland does not agree. It has raised concerns about the proposal and has even stated that clause 16 of the bill

“will have a substantial detrimental impact on access to justice”,

and that

“Civil society organisations and members of the public will struggle to meet a six-week time limit for initiating legal challenges against onshore electricity consents.”

Why is the time period being reduced from three months to six weeks?

I am sorry, cabinet secretary, but we are not talking about the two-year application time; we are talking about the time for communities to lodge an objection to onshore developments. You propose to cut that from three months to six weeks. Do you really think that communities deserve to be given that limited time to make that objection?

You were given a limited exclusion that meant that you could have proceeded with a DRS for plastic and cans. I am trying to understand what is different now, when you are willing to accept that scheme, compared to June 2023, when you were not willing to accept that scheme.

Will the system administrator be subject to freedom of information?

So there is still an option to have, as you have said, a closed-loop system.

I think that there will be a lot that we agree on this afternoon. Community-owned energy is becoming an increasingly important element in our energy production in Scotland. Local power production schemes are fast becoming a means by which our more rural communities become energy efficient and less reliant on more carbon-intensive means of energy production. They serve to bring autonomy to our rural communities, giving them a stake in their energy production, environmental sustainability and resilience for when the main grid fails due to weather or other calamities.

I join the cabinet secretary in recognising the work that has been done by Community Energy Scotland. I have spoken to many community groups that have spoken highly of the support, advice and guidance that the agency has given them, and I have spoken to MSPs about the support and advice that CES has given us through meetings in which it has patiently explained its ambitions for and frustrations about community energy production throughout Scotland. Rarely have I heard such warm words spoken of a Government body.

We know that 1.1GW of community and locally owned renewable energy capacity was in operation in Scotland in December 2024 and that the Government has a target of 2GW by 2030. That is a laudable target, although the Scottish National Party’s record of achieving targets on environmental issues has not been great so far. However, I will suspend my pessimism on this occasion.

Community Energy Scotland wants the Government to distinguish between community and locally owned and solely community-owned schemes. It wants to see a separate target of 1GW of energy per year produced by community schemes, as well as the 2GW target for community and locally owned schemes that has been set by the Government. Although that might seem like a small change, it is fundamental to ensure that those schemes are run for and by communities, instead of having the possibility of larger companies taking the benefit without ensuring community support. The change would also enable us to access additional funding from the UK Government, which is focused on delivering 8GW of community energy by 2030. By bringing ourselves into line with that target, we can achieve a lot more, instead of by following the usual SNP mantra of being different for difference’s sake.

While I am speaking about the relationship with the Labour Government, I want to pick up on an announcement that has been made by both Governments, each claiming it as its own. We are talking about an £8 million scheme, and I believe that it is actually £4 million from the UK Government through GB Energy and £4 million from the SNP Government. I would like to ensure that that is clarified. If it is £4 million from the Scottish Government, is that new money or has it just been repurposed from another budget line?

I thank the cabinet secretary for that important clarification. We often hear that funds have gone from one place to another, so it is good to hear that that is actually new money. However, rural communities will wait to see what benefit it actually brings in the form of inward investment and economic benefit.

My pessimism well and truly returns when it comes to the jobs promised by GB Energy. It promised 1,000 jobs, but that will take years and years.

At the heart of all the announcements are small local communities that see the potential in small local energy schemes. They want to do their bit; they see an opportunity and have the drive and passion to take it forward, but they find the process incredibly daunting. There is little in the Government’s motion to suggest that that will be easier in the future, only that more money might be available.

The community groups that I have spoken to highlight some key challenges when it comes to getting schemes from idea to delivery. A report from ClimateXChange in 2024 found three main barriers: a lack of resources, a lack of skills and a lack of community input. Nothing that the cabinet secretary has said today will change any of those things.

First, there is a lack of resources. Taking a project from idea to execution can take five years or more, which, for a community group, is a huge amount of time and resources to which few can commit. Money will not necessarily make a difference to that, although it might allow groups to buy in expertise when they need to, given that they are often volunteer groups of committed individuals who have busy and changing lives. The personnel can change frequently and it is difficult for them to see a project through, given the amount of time that is required even to fill in the necessary paperwork.

Secondly, there is a lack of skills. The ClimateXChange report refers specifically to the lack of skills within local authorities to spearhead projects, stating that

“local authority stakeholders note that there is still often a lack of skill for local energy projects in general.”

That is, of course, in addition to a lack of expertise in local communities.