Chamber and committees

We also need the tools.

Your question goes to the heart of what the just transition is about. When people ask me what the just transition is, I am always keen to emphasise that, as we go through the economic transformation to decarbonise Scotland in the decades ahead, we should use that as a window of opportunity to tackle inequalities and not repeat past mistakes. After all, if we are going to rebuild and redesign our economy, we want to make it better for everyone and to tackle inequality. That is at the heart of the just transition.

Co-design is a very important principle of the just transition. I know that there is a lot more to do, but I always emphasise to any community that I visit and to any organisation that I meet, whether it is in the public sector or the private sector, that any policies that are put in place and any projects that come forward should be co-designed with local communities, because we want to have buy-in.

We have the wider challenge relating to who pays for the just transition. That is why the Government, through its use of public sector funding, is ensuring that we support people on low incomes by, for example, retrofitting their homes or tackling fuel poverty. You will be aware of various funds that have been introduced to support people on low incomes, who are the hardest hit.

Overall, we want to ensure that everyone benefits from the just transition and the prosperity that is available to us. Tackling fuel poverty through deploying Scotland’s massive energy resources will be a key outcome in the next few years, especially in the light of the current energy and cost of living crises. We live in an energy-rich country, yet people are paying through the nose in energy bills. If people in a country that is producing several times what we require for energy are still paying through the nose for energy in 10 or 20 years’ time, the just transition will have failed.

I am up front about those tests. A lot of work and challenges will be involved in getting there, but we have to aim for that. We cannot live in an energy-rich country where people are fuel poor. That is the test of the just transition.

No, I am not hearing enough of that. It would be great to have political consensus on the major steps that have to be taken to transform Scotland’s economy in the years ahead, and consensus that we need the powers to do that. We are held to account for not implementing radical transformational projects, but we need the support of all parties to get the powers to do that in the first place. Other constitutional debates are taking place right now, but borrowing powers are the obvious example.

The more I think and talk about it, the more I realise how important political consensus is, because there are examples of issues that are considered to be important, but which are not necessarily the big issues that we will have to deal with. Those issues become huge storms in the Scottish Parliament and in political battles. We must have more national political consensus about what needs to be done if we want to save the planet, reach our net zero targets and save humankind and civilization, because those are the problems that we face.

Maggie Chapman mentioned keeping the temperature increase to below 1.5°C, but some people are talking about an increase of 4°C by the end of the century, which has major ramifications for our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. If we are to tackle the issues that cause that increase, we will need more political consensus

The Government will publish its hydrogen policy in the next few weeks, and a lot of that information will be in there.

Various aspects of the hydrogen debate are being considered around Scotland. For instance, we have talked about CCS and the Acorn project, which has a hydrogen element to it. In Grangemouth in particular, people are looking at how to produce hydrogen.

From my conversations, I think that there is a general acceptance that we must raise awareness. If you are a business, particularly in today’s environment with rising energy costs and all the other challenges, including labour shortages, you are probably not thinking about your just transition plan or your net zero plan. How do we raise awareness and say to businesses that this is not only in their interests but represents a new economic opportunity? There are lots of opportunities for new companies to start up in certain areas. In my area, the small private business that goes around homes putting in air-source heat pumps is overwhelmed with work. I keep thinking to myself that there must be an opportunity there, either for that business to expand significantly or for new businesses, so we must capitalise on economic opportunities.

Yes, I have met all those organisations, and I will continue meet them.

That is an interesting question. I spoke earlier about the challenges that we will face in the years ahead, and that sort of question gets to the heart of it, because the just transition is about not leaving communities behind. There are different situations around Scotland, so as we make the economic transition, we must be careful to work out through what lens we are looking at the just transition. There is no easy answer to that, because the just transition will ensure that we reach our net zero targets, reduce our emissions and carbon footprint, and play a role in the global effort to save humankind. However, locally, as we do that, we must take into account what that means for each individual community and indeed for households, and we cannot leave people behind. We have got to balance all that, and it is not easy.

Yes.

When we put out the call for bids for projects under the fund, each application was considered on its merits, and Scottish Government officials liaised with local authority officials and local Scottish Enterprise offices to decide which projects would be worth supporting. We have to support emerging new technologies in some cases to find out what contribution they can make. I do not think that anything is being pre-empted; I think that there is just straightforward funding of innovative technology.

As I said before, we want, for the benefit of other parts of Scotland, to roll out the successes, discoveries and innovations that the fund has enabled in north-east Scotland. It is a great place to have a laboratory to support and trial different technologies for the just transition because of the presence of the oil and gas and fossil fuel sectors, which have to transition.

As you can imagine, ministers have been looking closely at that issue, and more support has been brought forward to help low-income households to deal with their energy bills and tackle fuel poverty through implementing home energy efficiency measures. We are extremely concerned about the impact of rising energy prices on fuel poverty and on widening inequalities in the country. I am happy to ensure that the committee gets some follow-up information on that, as a lot of work has been taking place on the issue.

As I said before, the just transition will have failed if, in a few years’ time, we find ourselves living in an energy-rich country in which people cannot afford to pay their fuel bills and might die because of fuel poverty. You could not make it up. It is a horrendous situation, and it shows that our energy policy has failed—of course, the energy market and energy regulation are issues that are reserved to the UK Government. As an energy-rich country, we should not be in a position in which people are facing fuel poverty. We have to get this issue right, and I imagine that the refreshed energy strategy that the Government will publish shortly will address some of those issues.

The UK Government is about to take a decision on the role that hydrogen will play. I cannot remember the exact timescale for that; it might be in the next year or so. That will have to guide us in Scotland because it will relate to the regulation. That will have a big influence on where hydrogen could be used in the economy. We are waiting for that because it is to do with the regulatory side.

As I mentioned, in the private sector, SGN is doing an exercise on what hydrogen will mean for the gas networks and what potential there could be for domestic use. That is a potential route for the use of hydrogen.

We can also see the hydrogen buses that are being deployed and creating jobs in Aberdeen. Therefore, transport has a big role to play. There is also an exercise going on in Scotland to do with how we can use hydrogen in heavy goods vehicles and other trucks.