Chamber and committees

No one doubts that that is a mammoth challenge for us all, which will have a wide range of impacts on people in different tenures and economic circumstances. The Scottish Government already makes support available—for example, through the home energy Scotland loan scheme, which involves interest-free unsecured loans of up to £38,500 per home to enable owner-occupiers to install energy efficiency and heating measures and a cashback scheme that provides eligible households with up to £13,500 towards zero-emissions heating systems and energy efficiency measures. A range of other schemes are also in place, including area-based schemes, which have been extended to include zero-emissions heating, and the Scottish Government has also introduced a top-up grant to support that process.

The member is well aware that we will continue to research the scale of the challenge and the steps that both this Government and the UK Government need to take. The actions of the latter will be necessary to make zero-carbon heating systems affordable by comparison with fossil-fuel ones.

Scottish Government analysis suggests that the total capital costs of converting our building stock to zero emissions by 2045 is in the region of £33 billion. That includes the installation of zero-emissions heat and energy efficiency measures in both domestic and non-domestic buildings. It does not take account of the business-as-usual investments that households and businesses would need to make in order to replace fossil-fuel boilers as they reach the end of their lives, nor the additional investment that is likely to be needed in wider energy infrastructure. The Government has commissioned a range of further research to understand the wider costs that are associated with the heat transition, and that work will be published once it is finalised.

I have already indicated a significant range of measures by which the public purse helps to meet those costs. Obviously, the public purse cannot meet all of them, nor should homeowners do so. We all have to rise to the challenge.

In relation to heat pumps, most of us recognise that not one single solution is right for every property in every location. We do not intend to take a mandatory approach to imposing a single solution for all properties. As with Mr Griffin, I am sure that the Government will want to keep Mr Kerr and all parties informed of further work in that area.

I always get on well with public sector workers.

The First Minister, Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar have recognised the importance of the vaccination programme. Everybody recognises that the people who developed and delivered it are due our immense gratitude. It has saved lives and it continues to do so.

However, it is also recognised that vaccination is not a cure-all. It does not eliminate all risk or prevent everybody from being exposed to the virus or to the risk of becoming extremely seriously ill or from having their life put at risk. Therefore, I am concerned that there is still a great deal of emphasis on the idea of Covid status certificates—so-called vaccine passports—particularly, as the First Minister referred to them, in relation to higher-risk venues. If our ability to live our lives is dependent on our health status, there are human rights implications, and if the workers in those higher-risk venues are not fully protected, that raises equality issues.

Does the First Minister agree that, ultimately, only direct mitigation measures can make those higher-risk venues less risky and give us the protection that we need? Covid status certificates will not achieve that.

The First Minister tells us, once again, that she is advising against non-essential overseas travel, but the problem is not just that there is not a differentiated approach to what overseas travel is allowed. By removing the requirement for isolation in relation to overseas travel, the First Minister is not only running a direct risk with regard to transmission but likely to be inducing additional demand for the very overseas travel that she is advising against. Given that vaccination does not block all transmission or all serious illness, is it not clear that that approach runs the additional risk of continued high case numbers, while our domestic tourism industry would love to see the benefit of more people taking their holidays at home? Why are we not taking a more coherent approach to international travel?

I do not think that I have any registered interests that I am required to declare, but I draw members’ attention to the voluntary section of my entry in the register of members’ interests, which says that I am an associate member of the National Union of Journalists. Since joining this committee, I have asked for an addition to the voluntary section to show that I am a vice-president of the European Movement in Scotland.

I congratulate the convener and Donald Cameron on their appointments.

The committee covers an interesting mix of topics. As you said, convener, on some issues within our remit we will clearly be partisan, which might result in slightly more polarised debates. However, I like to think that there are more aspects of our remit on which we will find that we are on the same page.

On the constitutional side, there is, obviously, a possibility—some would think that it is a likelihood—that a referendum bill will be referred to us. However, given that the framework legislation for referendums has already been passed, such a bill is likely to be fairly simple and technical. The debate on constitutional issues is much deeper and more complex. We might give some thought to how we might separate a debate on what might be a fairly straightforward bill, in legislative terms, from the much richer debate on constitutional questions.

I very much agree with Donald Cameron’s comment about interparliamentary working. Even aside from the constitutional debates in recent years, there has always been much more of an opportunity to do interparliamentary work—not just with the UK Parliament but with other Parliaments—than has ever been realised. There is also the issue of scrutiny and challenge of the intergovernmental machinery. Even many people at the UK level recognise that that machinery is pretty dysfunctional at the moment and that it needs to be examined.

Some constitutional issues will be cross-committee ones as well. Issues such as the fiscal framework will involve constitutional views as well as matters for the Finance and Public Administration Committee to consider. There are immigration, housing and health issues. For example, there were proposals in several party manifestos for the Holyrood election that related to the regulation of health professions, and there are devolved and reserved aspects of that. There may be a number of issues that are slightly lower down the list of priorities for the committee, but a bit of interaction—[Inaudible.]

On Europe, as members have said, there is the impact of Brexit and the issues of common frameworks and parliamentary accountability, especially in relation to common frameworks. How are Governments held to account in the Scottish Parliament or the UK Parliament for decisions that are signed off between them? That is a really big, unanswered question about our current constitutional status.

A point has been made about relationships within the UK and between the different parts of the UK, and the same point should be made about Europe. Without the role that the former Europe committees had in engaging with the European legislative process when we were a member of the European Union, we now have the responsibility to maintain strong and active relationships at the European level. That will be important for Scotland in the long term.

I am really glad that everybody who has spoken has talked about the importance of not losing sight of culture. I think that I am right in saying that culture has moved between committee portfolios in every session of the Scottish Parliament. It has been shuffled around between different committee remits in every new session, which is regrettable. I am keen that we do not see culture issues fall off our radar.

Donald Cameron mentioned the impact of Covid and the potential for looking at recovery from Covid in a way that benefits the cultural scene. We have a tradition of talking about the creative industries, which is relevant and important, but creativity and opportunities for people to access and be involved in creativity and culture go beyond the formal creative industries. That relates to arts funding, which people have talked about, and to much more than that.

The Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee did some work on the screen sector that will be really important. That sector used to be significant in Scotland. It has been in a long-term decline, but it has a real opportunity to rebuild and become much more significant. The convener is aware that I have flagged up the issue of BBC Studios in Glasgow and potential changes that are being proposed there by the BBC at the UK level. It is unclear whether BBC Scotland will be in a position to make a decision for itself on that subject. There is a suggestion that a decision might even be made next month, which would not allow the committee an opportunity to scrutinise the question. I have suggested that, in the first instance, we write to BBC Scotland and copy in the director general at the UK level, asking that the matter be considered, that some caution be exercised and that we have an opportunity to take evidence before a decision is reached. That was a bit of an overview, but I hope that committee members will be happy to support our writing a letter along those lines.

I do not believe that I have any interests that are relevant to the committee that need to be declared.

I do not think that anybody thinks that this—or anything about living in a global pandemic—is satisfactory, but it is necessary. If Stephen Kerr wants to call it a power grab, can he point to any power that the Government will have as a result of passing the bill that it does not currently have?