Chamber and committees

I am pleased that Joe FitzPatrick sees that the cultural sector is enthusiastic. It not only has a direct role to play in terms of its buildings; its buildings can also be showcases, because many of them are publicly accessible and can lead on the public awareness of the transformation that we need.

Cultural venues will be eligible for support, but that will depend on their ownership. Public sector support schemes can help to decarbonise those buildings that are in public ownership, whereas our small to medium-sized enterprise loan scheme can provide support to independent cultural venues. There is also support available to community organisations and national or regional non-profit organisations with charitable aims and objectives.

I would encourage all such organisations to contact the energy efficiency business support service, Local Energy Scotland or the Scottish Government directly to find out what may be available. If the member has in mind specific issues in his own area, he is very welcome to write to me.

I hope that Sarah Boyack knows that I would be very enthusiastic about working with her on that issue.

I see a really important role for the public energy agency in supporting the development of skills in this area. I know that there has been a little bit of political back-and-forth about whether we need an agency or whether we should crack on and create a single national energy company in the first instance, but the national public energy agency that is being created will be able to do a great deal to skill up local communities and make sure that we are sharing best practice and facilitating our ambition for communities to take control of the agenda.

There is a great deal about the agenda to be enthusiastic about and, again, I very much hope that we can work on a cross-party basis to achieve that.

As I said in my statement, we see the strategy as really critical to a green economic recovery for Scotland. We estimate that an additional 16,400 jobs will be supported across the economy by 2030 as a result of the investment that will be deployed in zero-emissions heat. In the immediate term, as outlined in the strategy, an investment of at least £1.8 billion over the course of this parliamentary session aims to strengthen demand and to support an increase in jobs and skilled workers through investment in the supply chain. The pace of the transition will require substantial growth in supply chains, particularly in the availability of skilled heating and energy efficiency installers. We will be working with Scottish Renewables to undertake a heat in buildings workforce assessment project and, towards summer next year, we will co-produce with industry a heat in buildings supply chain delivery plan. I hope that we will be able to maximise the opportunities that Rona Mackay has identified.

Yes—absolutely. I very much recognise Liam McArthur’s concern about this issue as the constituency member for island communities. He has written to me and lodged a number of questions on it. I have sought to make it clear in my answers to him that we want to give the right support in the right places. We recognise the distinct challenges that remote, rural and island communities face, and we are making sure that, even as we move away from some of the worst and most polluting fossil fuel heating systems, we are making available in all those communities the right renewable, zero-carbon heating systems and energy efficiency measures. I will continue to engage with Liam McArthur if he wants to continue writing to me. I hope that he is aware that we are making those offers available to people in his constituency and elsewhere in Scotland.

I have already set out the doubling of the funding that we will give to the public sector to engage in this agenda. I come back to the answer that I gave earlier about the national public energy agency, because, as well as supporting community organisations, it will have a critical role in building skills and capacity at local government level. Councils around Scotland want to be part of the agenda and want to show that it can work for their communities. I put out a call to members across the chamber and all political parties to work with the Scottish Government—if there are opportunities in their constituencies and regions that they think we need to be aware of and should be working with them and their local authorities on, we would be very happy to hear from them.

In relation to the first question, at least £1.8 billion is the total commitment over the course of this parliamentary session; I hope that that is clear.

As I have referenced to other members, we need to recognise that the strategy is by no means the end of the story. If we are to commit to a programme of work that is as transformational as it needs to be to reach the targets that we have all voted for, it will have to be a substantial, multidecade programme of work. It would be absurd for any Government minister to stand here in 2021 and say that we know exactly what will happen right through to 2045. The strategy for this parliamentary session lays a strong foundation for beginning that work. Of course all the funding will not need to come from the Barnett formula, because we will be independent well before 2045.

I am not sure that Willie Rennie took that last comment any more seriously than I did. He is quoting my article every bit as selectively as several members have quoted Stephen Reicher’s tweets from this morning. Can he tell the chamber what the daily case rate of Covid transmission was when I wrote that article?

I do not think that anyone is dismissing the concerns that have been expressed in approaching the issue. Even the public health experts who recommend the policy understand the concerns. However, there is a very big difference between thinking that the policy should have been approved when cases were running at a few hundred a day and thinking that it is worth considering when cases are running at around 7,000 a day and the entire adult population has had the opportunity to have both vaccines. Does Craig Hoy acknowledge that, when the facts change, people should at least ask themselves whether they have made the right judgment?

Will the member give way?

As the First Minister said, the Government wants to increase the Scottish child payment as early as possible. Does the member recognise the wide range of other actions in the programme that will reduce household costs—from rents to school uniforms to public transport and many more costs—and make a significant contribution to tackling child poverty?