Chamber and committees

(a)The Scottish Government supports the installation of solar panels on public sector buildings through the Scottish Green Public Sector Estate Decarbonisation scheme which provides several funding routes for public sector organisations to decarbonise their buildings.

The deadline for receipt of the first quarter of the ASP minimum dataset (April – June 2023) was the end of July 2023. We intend to review the data quality and comprehensiveness of the initial submissions and expect to publish results when we are assured that the new collection is providing a robust national picture of Adult Support and Protection in Scotland.

In the 2022-23 financial year, the final outturn allocations to the schemes were as follows:

• Warmer Homes Scotland - £42.5 million
• Area Based Schemes - £41.7 million
• Home Energy Scotland - £22.4 million

Housing to 2040 sets out a vision for what the Scottish Government wants homes and communities to look and feel like for the people in Scotland. We set out an ambitious vision that by 2040 everyone living in Scotland would have access to a safe, warm, affordable, high quality and energy efficient home that meets their needs in the place they want to be.

The 2014 Housing (Scotland) Act introduced a provision for 'tenants of houses which are held by a social landlord and which the social landlord selecting its tenants considers to be under-occupied' as one of the reasonable preference groups social housing landlords must take into account when allocating tenancies. This supports social landlords to make best use of their housing stock and giving priority to social rented sector tenants who are under-occupying their home is one way of doing this, by encouraging downsizing and releasing larger homes for households who need them.

We recognise that downsizing is a personal choice, and that people may find it difficult to leave a property that has been their home for some time. Scottish Government guidance to social landlords encourages them to take a proactive approach to support tenants to consider whether their current home meets their needs and to consider whether a move might help them live independently for longer.

The private rented sector can provide tenants with greater flexibility in terms of size and location, and enable a tenant to rent a property which meets their needs and circumstances and downsize when appropriate. Where a tenant is eligible for Local Housing Allowance (LHA), the LHA rate and the amount of support they receive depends on their individual circumstances. This may influence the size of property they can afford to rent.

The Scottish Government have invested over £65 million in ChargePlace Scotland (CPS), Scotland’s public charging network, which now has more than 2500 publicly available charge points, over 90,000 member registrations and over 2.3 million successful charging sessions recorded in the last 12 months.

The figure of 7977 does not relate to ‘complaints’. This was the total of number of customer service tickets raised by the ChargePlace Scotland helpdesk over the 12 month period.

There are many reasons why a ticket can be raised, but these are not always a complaint and do not necessarily relate to issues which affect the operation of the charge point itself. If it relates to a ‘fault’, then that fault may be reported by more than one member of the public and this will also be reflected in the figures. Ticket and fault information are published monthly on the ChargePlace Scotland website for the general public to view.

The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 (‘the 2022 Act’) is emergency legislation and is intended to provide support to tenants through stabilising rents and providing additional evictions protections for a time limited period. The provisions it contains are temporary, with the ongoing necessity to review the measures to make sure they remain proportionate in relation to the cost crisis.

Whilst we are committed to taking forward longer-term reform to the rented sector, the 2022 Act would not have been an appropriate legislative vehicle to take forward more fundamental changes to the rented sector. Parliament agreed to an accelerated timescale for the Bill, recognising the urgency of the circumstances and the temporary nature of the provisions. More fundamental reforms would not have been consistent with that urgency and with the highly-focused scope of the Bill.

The 2022 Act ensured that the majority of tenants - including those who are part of a joint tenancy in an applicable private rented sector tenancy - are protected by the temporary emergency measures, by capping in-tenancy rent increases.

We remain committed to delivering a New Deal for tenants. As part of that consultation, we sought views on the existing approach to ending joint tenancies and any impact this is has on tenants to inform our considerations.

Tackling poverty and protecting people from harm is one of three critical missions of this government.

The Tackling Child Poverty Ministerial Oversight Group, which I will convene, will provide Ministerial-level oversight and assurance of the delivery of the actions set out in Best Start, Bright Futures.

Scottish Child Payment is already delivering targeted support directly to our priority family groups, as set out in our Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan. This payment is not available anywhere else in the UK – and it is available because this Government is prioritising lifting children out of poverty, despite our constrained resources.

Due to Scottish Government policies an estimated 90,000 fewer children are expected to live in relative and absolute poverty this year.

In March this year the Scottish Government ran a marketing campaign using TV, radio and digital media platforms to promote our newly launched Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grants & Loans scheme. There has been strong demand for the updated scheme – during the campaign we saw a 23% increase in applications compared to the previous month, with over 3000 grant and loans offered through the scheme across Scotland since launch.

We will continue to deliver an awareness raising campaign that builds on this early activity. Plans are in place for further national marketing activity to commence in January 2024 until mid-March 2024. This nationwide campaign intends to target those who currently have the highest propensity to take out a heat pump. Promotion will be bolstered by further activity under our Let’s Do Net Zero marketing campaign, which will highlight carbon emitting heating systems as being a major contributor to climate change.

The Energy Savings Trust, who manage the HES service on behalf of the Scottish Government, also regularly promote the Loans and Grants scheme through their own channels including digital promotion and work through the HES advice centre network.

Later this year we will publish our Heat in Buildings Public Engagement Strategy setting out how we will work with stakeholders to increase public awareness and understanding of zero emission heating systems, the different technological options available and how to access advice and support.

Legislation relating to the efficiency of heating systems such as gas central heating is set out via Ecodesign and energy labelling product standards legislation which is reserved to the UK Government. The UK Government has recently consulted upon proposals to further improve the efficiency of gas boilers ( Improving boiler standards and efficiency consultation (publishing.service.gov.uk )) which closed on 31 March 2023. In addition, heating systems should be installed in line with latest buildings regulations as detailed in the Domestic building services compliance guide .

The Scottish Government also wants to ensure that current and prospective building owners and tenants have fuller information on the efficiency of heating systems as part of an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). This will provide homeowners and tenants with more information on the energy performance of their home, alongside the reserved UK Government Ecodesign regulations, which ensure manufacturers detail the efficiency of their products.

The Scottish Government published a consultation on EPC reform on 25 July 2023 and this is accompanied by workshops open to any stakeholder. In advance of this, we engaged extensively with industry regarding the proposed reform of the EPC rating system. For more detail I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-19032 on 26 June 2023.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government have commissioned Energy Systems Catapult to model six different archetypes of Scottish homes, comparing the operation of zero direct emission heating systems (including air source heat pumps and electric boilers) with gas boilers. This will provide information on the energy required to heat homes using these systems, and their running costs.