Chamber and committees

Did you say 1930?

Let me finish my point, Mr Kerr.

We must look at the facts of the matter. Fuel poverty is greater in Scotland, because the household cost of using fuel in Scotland is greater than it is in other parts of the UK, as a result of our weather and our rural environment. A household in Scotland will spend more of its budget on fuel costs—in Scotland, the percentage is about 4.8 per cent, compared with about 3.9 per cent for England.

Not only do we spend more of our budgets on heating our homes in Scotland, but a greater percentage of our households are off grid and use off-mains systems that are more costly to operate. I think that the figure is about 17 per cent, compared with about 12 per cent in England—those are rough figures, not specific ones. Such factors influence the cost of energy and impact on energy bills.

What is the Scottish Government doing? We have our warmer homes Scotland programme, which is about energy efficiency and insulating properties. As I have mentioned, over the course of the parliamentary session, record investment of £1.8 billion will go into our heat in buildings programme. We have been expanding our area-based scheme, the households involved and the amount that they can get to support them with energy efficiency measures, and we have also expanded and, indeed, intend to increase the investment in the benefits that we control.

A practical example is the winter fuel payment, which we will become responsible for and which families or households will receive automatically, instead of having to wait to see whether the weather gets cold enough. I think that that will amount to the provision to households of about £20 million a year, from which in the region of 400,000 additional homes will benefit. Last winter, the UK Government’s cold weather payment system was triggered on only six occasions, with four of the weather stations in Scotland being triggered. The overall amount paid out by the Department for Work and Pensions in support of low-income households was under £400,000. We should compare that figure with the £20 million that will automatically be invested by the Scottish Government in its winter fuel payment scheme.

With our energy efficiency programmes and the benefits that we control, we are seeking to make a difference. However, the UK Government controls aspects of the market that have a direct impact on energy costs, including the regulation of off-grid provision and the operation of the warm home discount scheme. All those things have an impact on fuel poverty here in Scotland, and we believe that they need to be addressed to ensure that we are moving in the right direction.

My final point is that, although we are taking action through the benefits and the welfare provisions that we have to reduce poverty, whether fuel poverty or child poverty, those efforts are not being aided by the UK Government cutting people’s benefits at the same time. If we increase our benefits by £20 per household but the UK Government cuts its benefits by £20, there will be no net gain for that investment in reducing poverty.

The reality is that many of the levers that have a direct impact on driving fuel poverty in Scotland are held by the UK Government, and that has a negative impact on too many households across the country. That is why action needs to be taken by the UK Government, alongside the bold action that the Scottish Government is taking, to address some of the issues that have affected too many households for too long.

Our approach will involve a combination of factors. First of all, we are trying to find mechanisms to reduce energy bills for those who are most vulnerable, so my first priority would be a targeted programme to support the most vulnerable households with their energy costs, whether it be through the welfare mechanisms or some other mechanism.

My second priority relates to energy efficiency. The cheapest form of energy that you can use is the energy that you do not use, if you like—I know that that sounds a bit contradictory, but what it means is that we need to help ramp up energy efficiency programmes, which is what we are seeking to do with the £1.8 billion investment over this parliamentary session that I have already mentioned. That is a record level of investment, but we would, of course, always look to do more within that.

The third priority is advice to and information for householders about what they can do and what their options are. We want to support individuals who are looking for information and advice.

Those are the three areas that I would prioritise with any investment that will be made available over the next couple of months to help households through this particularly challenging period.

Potentially, yes. We can look at other ways of doing that, including the use of what I think are referred to as touch points, where people can engage with a range of public agencies. Is there a way, through those agencies, that we can make information available to the public about what they can do to meet some of the cost of living challenges? I think that such an approach could play a part.

The Home Energy Scotland programme was never designed to deal with a crisis of this scale, but it is a valuable part of the advice landscape in Scotland, because it gives independent, impartial advice on energy efficiency measures and provides some financial support for those who want to implement some of them. It has an important part to play, but it is not the only answer and we should not view it as being the only approach. We can look at bringing in a broader programme, part of which might involve providing people with advice and information on measures that can be taken.

The International Energy Agency has set out a range of actions that households and Governments can take to help reduce energy consumption, and some of that can be distilled to a local level in the form of advice to households on measures that they, too, can take to reduce consumption. There are other ways in which such advice and information can be put across, and we in Government are looking at that just now as part of a future programme of work.

The principal source of advice for energy efficiency and energy issues in Scotland that the Scottish Government supports is Home Energy Scotland. It provides advice and guidance, as well as loans for certain programmes around energy efficiency and renewable energy schemes for people’s properties. It is the principal source of advice and information for assistance in Scotland. Alongside that, we have the warmer homes Scotland programme, which is taken forward in partnership with our colleagues in local government.

At present, there is an increasing demand for information on energy efficiency programmes and advice around heating bills. That is why we have increased the scope of the Home Energy Scotland programme by 20 per cent. There is also a bespoke programme for the most vulnerable people, which has been doubled in size to help support the provision of advice and information.

There is a clear existing arrangement for people to get impartial advice and information. However, I am always willing to look at whether there are ways to improve that arrangement or whether we should further expand it. If there are specific examples of people being left confused or unclear about where they should go to, we can look at how we ensure that we are communicating much more effectively. As I said, there is a bespoke service to which people can turn for advice and information.

Why would a developer build a wind farm pre-2030 if National Grid said that it could not be connected until 2035?

If National Grid provides the capacity, including the planning capacity, for all the projects to be delivered by 2030, that is when the generation will happen by. If National Grid does not provide the capacity by then, the projects will not be able to be connected by that point. You do not build a wind farm without a connection.

You are right to say that tackling fuel poverty is a devolved matter, but many of the factors that influence it are reserved—

Yes, I do, and it was a positive move to start doing it every two years rather than every year. CFD is not specific to the UK. The Netherlands, Germany and some other countries all use CFD processes. It is not, therefore, unique to the UK. It is a mechanism that helps to get things to the market.

The point that I was making about hydro, however, was that there is no mechanism for hydro. If you wanted to build Cruachan 2 today, you would not have a route to market because BEIS has to create such a mechanism. There are projects that could be developed and go forward with billions of pounds of investment to produce several gigawatts of capacity and create thousands of jobs, but they are waiting for a mechanism to be created that will allow them to start moving.

That is frustrating, if we are clear—and I believe that the UK Government is clear—that we will have to deal with the energy crisis in the long term by decarbonising our energy system and putting a greater focus on renewables. The UK energy secretary said that and I completely agree with him. However, when your renewables projects are quite literally fossilising because they cannot get a route to market, there is something wrong. That is why we have been raising the issue with the UK Government. Those projects could create energy capacity, renewable capacity, jobs and economic benefit, and we should be getting on with them now. That is the kind of action that needs to be accelerated.

In January, my colleague Shona Robison and I wrote a letter to the UK Government in which we proposed a four-nations approach to tackling the increasing cost of living crisis. I, along with Kate Forbes, wrote again in March, again looking for a four-nations approach to these matters. To date, the UK Government has not taken up that offer.