Chamber and committees

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I was a councillor at the start of the session.

I thank Labour for this important debate. I also thank the organisations that have sent briefings for today’s debate and all those constituents who have emailed me, asking me to support the motion. The topic affects many people, and the Conservatives will support the motion.

Scotland is, indeed, facing a housing crisis, which is wholly due to the coalition of chaos that is the devolved Government of Greens and the SNP. They have imposed ridiculous measures on what was a thriving sector, which have limited its ability to grow. At the same time, they have cut local government to the bone, preventing investment in affordable housing.

Let us be clear: we are not talking about housing; we are talking about homes—places where people can find safety, security, warmth and comfort. Homes are places where families can make a place for themselves and where communities can be built. When the Government gets that wrong, everything else flows from there. When people have no sense of place and of community, they have no sense of security.

Homelessness is a scourge on our country, and it is a sad indictment of a Government that is so focused on independence that it has lost sight of what the Scottish people want. The Scottish people want a Government that is focused on their priorities, not on constitutional wranglings. They want a Government that addresses the big issues in our society around housing, health, education and economic growth, and they want a Government that invests in our communities.

At committee, I raised concerns about the SSI. Those concerns remain, and I would like to raise them again today.

Let me make it clear from the outset that I remain a big fan of heat networks. I am convinced that heat networks will have a huge part to play in decarbonising our buildings, especially in our more densely populated cities, where, for example, having heat pumps in tenement blocks will not be viable. I also speak as a formal council leader, from which role I have experience of heat network installation, so I know how difficult and expensive they are to roll out.

The partial business and regulatory impact assessment sets out a cost of up to £6.2 billion to reach this target by 2035. It also states that that cost excludes any adaptations that may be required within existing buildings, so the final costs will be much higher than the £6.2-billion price tag quoted. When the minister was questioned about that figure at committee, he stated that the Government will be committing only £300 million towards it, so we are left unclear as to where the remaining sums will come from and how achievable that target will be.

The impact assessment also sets out the role that our local authorities will play. I remain concerned that, with our local authorities being underfunded and council tax being frozen, they will not be able to fulfil the function that we require them to take on, especially given that the costs for adaptation of existing buildings are not captured by the assessment, and many of those buildings will be owned by our local authorities.

I also note, from the policy note accompanying the SSI, that the local authorities’ local heat and energy strategies will play into the national target, but not all local authorities have completed those strategies. It seems strange to set the target without that information.

We also have no details on where the 7TWh in the policy comes from. I worry that the target that would be set out today, like so many of this devolved Government’s targets, is aspirational but, without more detail, simply unachievable. The SNP-Green Government needs to understand that setting targets is one thing, but it is delivery that counts. More details are urgently required.

To confirm, your target is still 2030 although legally it will not be required until 2035; is that correct?

Cabinet secretary, I am looking at Transport Scotland’s website and it says:

“By 2030 we will phase out the need to buy new petrol and diesel cars and vans.”

To confirm, has that changed now to 2035 to be in line with the rest of the UK?

Does the white van man who is doing this and fly-tipping even have that licence, or does he not even bother with that?

How do you recommend tightening up that process?

This might be a good time to go to COSLA. Do local authorities have the required resource to police fly-tipping?

Some of them have been answered already, but I will go back to the point that David McCulloch—or perhaps both of you—made about local recycling targets not being the best measure on which to judge councils. Do you agree with that? If not recycling targets, what should we be measuring?

I was also a councillor at Aberdeen City Council at the start of this session. That is declared in my entry in the register of members’ interests.

Convener, I was just trying to work out how we would get to the scheme that is laid out in front of us, but I will stop there.