Chamber and committees

We have a very developed and successful strategy for attracting investment to develop renewable energy capacity in Scotland. We have achieved significant decarbonisation of our electricity networks through the development of renewable technology. A few weeks ago, the Deputy First Minister and I, along with the Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, led an investment conference in Edinburgh, which brought hundreds of investors into Scotland to invest in renewable energy. That is the future for this country—clean, green energy that will lower fuel bills. People will get that from an SNP Government.

First, I express my support for and solidarity with all those in the Grangemouth workforce who face the prospect of losing their employment as a consequence of Petroineos’s decision to stop refining there. The company itself has come to that decision. As Mr Findlay will know from what I have said previously, I judge the decision to be premature, because there is an on-going need for refining activity. Indeed, such activity will take place in other parts of the United Kingdom, despite the issues that Grangemouth faces.

As we have been doing with Unite the union, the Scottish Government will continue to work closely with the workforce at Grangemouth to support the individuals who are affected. In collaboration with the UK Government and Petroineos, we will progress our work to explore alternative business ideas for developing the Grangemouth site so that it could contribute to our net zero agenda. An early decision on the Acorn carbon capture and storage project would help us to advance those efforts significantly.

Let me reassure Mr Griffin that the Government is not spending all its time reviewing the affordable housing supply programme target; it is spending its time making sure that more houses are available for occupation by individuals in temporary accommodation or facing homelessness. The actions of the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and the Minister for Housing in making more resources available to local authorities to tackle void accommodation are having an impact on the availability of accommodation in the city of Edinburgh as we speak. We have pivoted in our policy to ensure that more accommodation can be available.

Also, over the lifetime of this Government, we will have built more houses per head of population than in any other part of the United Kingdom, by a country mile. We have invested £768 million in the affordable housing supply programme for the current financial year, which will be spent and will support the increased supply of housing. Mr Griffin and his colleagues never voted for that, and he has a bit of a brass neck to come here and complain to me about housing when he is not prepared to vote for the money that is being given to make something happen about it.

I have every sympathy with the homeowners in Torry and the issues that they face. I understand that ministers are meeting residents and homeowners tomorrow to discuss those issues, and I am sure that the suggestions that Mr Kerr has made will be part of that conversation.

I join Rona Mackay in indicating support for the important role that the output of PA Media and PA Scotland plays in reporting events and political discourse in Scotland. PA staff are an integral part of the authoritative and reliable reporting of events and political engagement, which is essential for our democracy and supports the availability of information to news organisations the length and breadth of the country. I have written to PA Media, urging it to reconsider the proposals, and I hope that the organisation is able to take a different approach and ensure the independence, long-term sustainability and resilience of news reporting in Scotland through it.

I drew together a gathering as a consequence of the initiative that was started by the Daily Record and some of the families affected by the unacceptable violence that Mr O’Kane refers to. I was pleased to host that summit on 13 January with cross-party representation. If memory serves me right, Pauline McNeill from the Labour Party attended and made a constructive contribution to the discussion, in which members of all parties and ministers participated and listened to the voices of young people.

Let me say at the outset that what Mr O’Kane recounts to the Parliament is completely unacceptable. We are taking a number of measures through our various awareness campaigns, such as the mentors in violence prevention programme, which is delivered in more than 200 schools in local authorities across the country; the work of the cashback for communities programme; the work of fearless, the youth arm of Crimestoppers; and the work of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit. All those measures are aimed at creating a culture in which the things that were set out by Mr O’Kane do not happen to young people. We invest in facilities around the country through a variety of interventions that are set out in the Government’s budget, which has delivered a real-terms increase to local authority funding and supports third sector interventions to meet the needs of communities around the country. We will continue to do that.

Work is under way to develop that mechanism. If we were to take that step, there is the likelihood that secondary legislation would be required to enable the mechanism to be put in place. The Government is actively considering those issues. For completeness, I should also say that the under-22 bus travel initiative has been enormously successful. It has attracted a huge amount of participation and it has increased the mobility of young people. The overwhelming majority of young people exercise their participation in the under-22s scheme wisely, thoughtfully and effectively. We have to be prepared to tackle unacceptable behaviour, but we also have to applaud young people for the positive contribution that they make to our society.

I come back to one of the points that I made to Mr Sarwar in my earlier response, which is that not all of those young people require a diagnosis to make progress in addressing the circumstances that they face. Therefore, we must have available a range of community-based interventions, supported by some of the financial assistance that I have set out, to ensure that the needs of those young people are met at the earliest possible opportunity.

As a consequence of that, the Government is working to ensure that we have those mechanisms available in all localities so that young people can access those services. That is what the funding that I set out in my response to Mr Mountain is designed to achieve.

Mr Findlay talks about honesty. In November of last year, Mr Findlay voted for carbon reduction targets in this Parliament, but when his United Kingdom Government leader questioned their merits—not just questioned but actually suggested that those targets be dumped—Mr Findlay called that refreshingly honest. I call it barefaced dishonesty in front of the people of this country to vote for climate change targets one minute—[Interruption.]

Obviously, the details of the programme for government will be set out next Tuesday, but we have already given a commitment to the introduction of the heat in buildings legislation, which will be introduced in this parliamentary session to support us in our efforts.

We have also committed to investing, in this current budget year, £300 million in the heat in buildings programmes, which will increase energy efficiency and provide financial support to do exactly what Lorna Slater has put to me. That comes alongside more than £1.63 billion of funding through our heat in buildings schemes in this parliamentary session so far.

I simply say to Lorna Slater that I understand—and share—her passion and determination to make progress on the climate agenda, and that it is at the heart of the Government’s priorities. However, we must also recognise the formidable financial commitments that have been made to decarbonise heating systems in the homes of our constituents and ensure that, through that mechanism, we contribute to reducing their effect on the climate. That will be at the heart of the Government’s agenda as we move forward.