Chamber and committees

Clearly, members disagree on a wide range of issues, but I hope that we can agree that Labour colleagues are right to bring the topic to the chamber in some of their debating time. As many members of all parties have recognised, it is the crisis of our age. The cost of living crisis will be profound. It is already growing and is likely to continue to grow, and it will impact on people in critically important ways and on a huge scale.

Jackie Baillie opened the debate by saying that she seeks action from both Governments. We agree. She said that she does not want a Government that uses the constitution as an excuse not to act. I support independence, but I agree: I would not want to be part of a Government that uses that as an excuse not to act. She said that blaming the UK Government is not enough, while acknowledging that it has responsibility for a wide range of issues. We agree. However, she then seemed to object to the fact that the Government amendment sets out the wide range of actions that we are taking using devolved powers.

The cost of living crisis relates to energy, of course, and that is particularly sharp at the moment. However, it is about far more than energy. The Scottish Government is not only investing but giving the clear confidence that we will be regulating to ensure greater investment in energy efficiency and reducing demand for energy. Given that the spike in wholesale gas prices is the dominant factor now, it is clear that reducing our energy consumption has to be a critical part.

Liz Smith rose—

I saw Liz Smith first; I will try to take Jackie Baillie if there is time later.

We support a wide range of organisations, including those that provide cycle repair and refurbishment. I would be happy to explore that issue in more detail with the member if he has specific local examples that I should bear in mind.

I find it a little bit odd that, during the winter, the Conservatives were claiming both that we had splurged £400,000 and also that we had not issued a single penny. I congratulate them on the intellectual agility that is necessary to believe both of those false claims simultaneously.

The pilot scheme is designed to test whether providing interest-free loans can improve bike ownership and alleviate transport poverty. The fact that we have received 348 expressions of interest so far shows that there is demand for such provision. We will assess whether the scheme represents good value for money by the number of bikes that have been purchased by September 2022. Cycling UK will provide a report on the scheme’s operation after year 1. The scheme is in its infancy, and we will judge its effectiveness after the pilot period rather than after a few weeks, as well as continuing to develop the scheme in the light of on-going feedback.

We are considering how those buildings will be incorporated into our approach to regulations. There might need to be differences in relation to compliance periods or the trigger points that will be used.

We are establishing a short-life working group to look at the options for the regulatory approach to tenement buildings—that is, tenements in the broadest sense—and we will follow-up the recommendations of the Scottish Parliamentary working group on tenement maintenance. Also, the Scottish Law Commission will be undertaking a law reform project with a view to producing a draft tenement maintenance bill.

Presiding Officer, I recognise that I am over time. I have not managed to touch on every issue that I would have wished to. I am sure that this will not be the last opportunity to debate what is, as I have said, an extremely long-term agenda in the years and decades ahead. Once again, I thank the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee for bringing the debate to the chamber.

I would like to expand the point that I was making if I can.

Will the member take an intervention?

That might be what Liam McArthur wants to raise.

I suspect that if it was possible for the public sector to fund every penny of the transition and relieve all homeowners of the need to make any contribution, we would all love to do that. Can the member suggest a way of funding that? Is he actually suggesting that we do more than is in the heat in buildings strategy and pay for every penny of it from public funds?

Indeed. Many of the arguments that I made in my opening speech about giving certainty to the industry and to the supply chain to invest in acquiring and sharing skills will be critical. That is why a clear, bold approach to regulation will be important.

On regulation, several members, from both an urban perspective and a rural perspective, have raised the issue of buildings with mixed ownership, mixed tenure and mixed use, including Kaukab Stewart, my constituency MSP. I live in one of those mixed-tenure, mixed-owner, mixed-use pre-1919 tenement blocks in Kaukab Stewart’s constituency, and we are very aware of their particular challenges.