 Good morning and welcome to the 20th meeting in 2023 of the local government housing and planning committee. May I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting? The first item of our agenda today is to decide whether to take items 5, 6 and 7 in private. Are members agreed? The next item on our agenda today is to take evidence from two panels of witnesses on the building Scotland amendment regulations 2023. The first is an around table format. We are joined in the room with our first panel of witnesses by Fiona Gell, who is the director of policy at homes for Scotland. David Bookbinder, who is the director at the Glasgow and West Scotland forum of housing associations. Peter Drummond, who is chair of practice committee, Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and Alan Stark, who is the chair at the sustainability and building design committee at the Scottish Property Federation. Online, we are joined by Charlotte Lee, who is the chief executive at the Heaton Pump Association and Duncan Sharpe, who is the director of the Association of Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers Federation, otherwise known as I've just got to say this, SNPF. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting and I'm going to begin our conversation this morning by inviting everyone to very briefly introduce themselves and I'll begin. I'm Ariane Burgess, I'm convener of the committee and I represent the Highlands and Islands and I'll go this way. Fee MSP for Kilmarnock and Elvin Valley and debut convener of the committee. David Bookbinder, Glasgow and West Scotland forum of housing associations. Good morning everyone, I'm Miles Briggs, conservative MSP for Lothian region. Good morning, I'm Fiona Gell, the director of policy at homes for Scotland. I'm Ariane, an air MSP representing Clydebank-Moghai constituency. Good morning Alan Stark, I'm an architect but I'm the chair for the sustainability and building design committee for SPF. Good morning everybody, my name is Pam Goss, I'm a conservative MSP for the west of Scotland and a member of this committee. Could I also say, Ariane, I've got declarations, is that later on? I just wanted to declare that I have no residential letting interest to declare, however I do have 50% shares in two commercial companies lettings, one which the commercial property is in England and the other commercial property is in Scotland, both are let for long term leases and I take no income from either of them. Thanks very much Pam. Thank you Peter Drummond, I'm an architect and I'm representing the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. I've been the key SNP MSP for Glasgow Provin and I'll also take the opportunity to draw attention to my register of interests with respect to ownership of a rental property and the 50% share in a business that rents residential properties. Thanks Ivan and I will now move online. Charlotte Leitch, executive of the heat pump association, pleasure to join you today. I'll construct a board member of SNP Scotland and Northern Ireland Commerce Employers Regulations. Great, thanks very much. Good to have you all here this morning for this conversation. We're now going to turn to questions from members and please indicate to me if you'd like to come in to respond to a question from members but also what we tend to do is we direct the question initially to somebody and then if you want to come in on the back of that then indicate what we're trying to do is as much as possible in this setting have a free flowing conversation rather than a question and answer session. Charlotte and Duncan as you're appearing virtually you can indicate that you want to come in by typing R in the chat function and there's no need as you I think already know to turn your microphones on and off as we'll do that for you automatically. So I'm going to begin and um I think I'm going to direct the my first question to I'll direct my first question to Alan Stark. So I'd be interested to hear if you agree in the principle with the government's approach to regulating for a new build heat standard and that a regulatory rather than a volunteering approach is needed to help ensure the Scottish government meets its net zero targets. Yeah, the um our members are very supportive of the process of moving away from fossil fuels. The problem is the timescale. The demand that's going to be made on electrical supply particularly is so vast that the concerns are that we're not able to keep demand going with the requests. Sorry, keep supply going with the demand. A very brief example of a case study that was issued for Winchborough was that there's a it's almost like a small town and it was all consented in the teens and first phase completed in 18. The new regulations are radically changing how this is going to be approached because what was a brand new gas supply and electric supply the electric supply was for about eight mva but because of the rule change this now needs to be 35 mva because of car charging as well as housing and schools and all all it goes with it. So it's not a very small change. This is a vast change and the power supply that they the new power supply they have they've been told a maximum they can get is 15. So in effect until that's resolved nationwide these developments are not going to be able to proceed to the full development we're going to have to stop at some point unless we can have the infrastructure resolved. So I think that's probably the fundamental problem. There are other issues about conversions. I think the new build housing is not such an issue because it can be dealt with and new houses can cater with electric heating but older properties and conversions will be very very difficult because they're not airtight and the not to mention the costs and the fuel poverty issue that will subsequently come on board. So I think we're supportive of new build but we're concerned about the supply being the main issue that needs addressed. Are you aware of any work being done on discussions being had around the supply issue? There have been discussions with some of the government's heat energy team and also with the utilities suppliers but as far as I'm aware there's not been great progress. It's quite slow progress. Everyone's aware of the problem but no one seems to be able to have a certainly not a short term solution. Okay thanks very much. Fiona you wanted to come in. I just wanted to say that everything that Alan has said about that particular case study replicate that across the whole country and that's the fundamental concern that we've got that whilst we fully recognise the need to be addressing the climate crisis we just respectfully want to lay down the fact that there's still a housing crisis in Scotland as well. Current estimates suggest that we have round about a shortfall of about 114,000 homes in this country and the proposals to introduce the new build heat standard is likely to have a significant impact on the supply of new homes in the future. In terms of the timing of that one of the concerns that we've got is that accelerating ahead of the rest of the UK whilst in principle we understand why the Scottish government may want to do that. The reality of many of the supply chains that they're UK wide and that many of the suppliers will be gearing up today with where the majority of their customers are which is in the rest of the UK and not Scotland and as a result we could end up with a two-tier system with the supply chains simply not being in a position to address what's needed in Scotland at the scale and timing that it's needed. Thanks very much and Peter. The RIS thinks that this policy has to be implemented as soon as is reasonably practicable. Whilst we hear what my colleagues say about national grid infrastructure issues our view is that those are primarily an issue in the central belt at least where there are large housing developments going on where we're looking at smaller to medium scale local schemes then in very many cases as I say in the central belt on the east coast there is sufficient infrastructure we have different concerns about infrastructure in the highlands the remote parts of the highlands and islands obviously those with single connections to the mainland in limited capacity in actual fact our concern is not necessarily in large parts of this country an infrastructure gap it is a skills and training gap when government at Westminster moved towards combination boilers in the condensing combination boilers in the 1990s and early 90s there was an 18 to 24 month lead-in period for a stop-skilled industry and what was a relatively modest step forward what we're now talking about is a very big step forward for many of our contractors and indeed consultants so when we say as soon as practicable that's against the backdrop of getting in place sufficient training capacity within the sector to ensure that we have the operatives in place to deliver frankly a policy that's absolutely essential to deliver on the ground okay thanks very much David we'd like to come in yes our um as housing associations our members are unlikely to in any way question the um the principle behind this change there will be difficult decisions associated with trying to marry continuing flow of work in the construction industry with with climate change targets there is nervousness i mean we're speculating to a large degree here some of a few of our members obviously have been able to stop installing renewable heating systems before before the deadline associations over the history have always been proud of that sense of taking the lead innovating experimenting even and and to a degree that that's that's the case here but there have been some signs that that in the early in in some early projects that the the system if you like is not quite ready for this and that relates to things like um certainly an anxiety about not so much installation of renewables but but but the maintenance the annual maintenance of them already some signs that it's much more difficult to get maintenance than it is to get somebody to come and install your your equipment for you um a particular issue for our members our particular worry is the extent to which planning departments across scotland will embrace um some of these new technologies new new challenges um and i can i can say a little bit more about that later on i suppose the general worry is we have a slowing down new build programme in the social sector and that this might slow things down further it's not necessarily a reason not not to do it there's always difficult decisions as i've said but there is hesitation at the moment amongst a number of our members about do they carry on developing or not um this this will be another factor that that has them uh thinking very hard about whether to to to cross that line and and and develop if the grant even if the grant funding is is there okay thanks very much for that um i just want to come back on a few things there so um some of you have actually kind of prompted my next question which was around electrical capacity grid but but um peter you were saying that you had concerns particularly in the remote parts of the halens and islands could you talk a little bit more about that thank you computer the ris is concerned we're being quite central beltest about this we all know that in bad winters there are parts of the west coast the northern ills and the western ills that in storm conditions can lose their power for up to three or four days at a time maybe a declaration i might be from that neck of the woods uh these are very vulnerable communities until we have a further degree of resilience in infrastructure we're concerned that we're leaving people in electrically heated houses that will have no electricity to heat their houses and that therefore there is really no other practicable option absent increasing resilience in the grid for us to allow for some sort of secondary emergency backup either at district level for larger schemes or on one off schemes now what we're concerned about in the current wording of the amendment is that that would leave the door open to everyone installing four and six kilowatt diesel and petrol generators which would rather circumvent the purpose of this bill and we question whether further research has to be done in a more proportionate approach in those areas we also recommend that consideration be given to a backstop for such installations tied to the anticipated grid infrastructure time and that there be maxima put in place in terms of the emissions and pollutants from those backup sources in order that we simply don't replace dirty gas systems with something that might be equally bad thank you helpful thank you very much and um i just i'm curious Fiona you were talking about the um the concern about the shortfall on housing and the concern that this might slow it down but on the other side we would end up with a lot of housing that people then have to in the future retrofit have you given thought to that yeah and i recognise that but overall the number of new homes that that's added to the housing stock in in scotland annually is is minimal and we know that around about 73 percent of the stock that's in that's in scotland was built before 1982 already and worryingly 19 percent of that was pre 1919 and 22 sorry another 12 percent was was before the second world war so that's really significant numbers of homes so whilst the changes that we already have in place in terms of carbon emissions um the regulation of carbon in new homes is already reduced significantly between 1990 and 2015 the um the changes in building regulations then resulted in a about a 75 percent reduction carbon emissions from our homes the 2015 between 2015 and then the new standards that have come in in 2023 that sees a further 32 percent reduction so in terms of the benefits that we're getting from further regulating on the new build yes undoubtedly we need to be doing it but when you view it in the context of the emissions that we're getting from our existing aging stock it's significantly significantly more um from that side so we would say yes addressing the new build understandably it needs to be it needs to be addressed but a priority genuinely needs to be looking at the retrofit of our existing stock that's where we're going to get the biggest impact in terms of really being serious about addressing the emissions from our from our housing stock so does that mean that um the companies you represent in homes for scotland are all busy setting up retrofitting arms no they're not no um our members deal with with new but with new build housing and they're not involved on the on the retrofitting on the retrofitting side it is new build so you're concerned about the retrofitting but uh we want somebody to do that in terms of the overall so the overall supply for talking about this supply of heat pumps for example yes we can begin to accommodate that in new build homes but then what's the availability of stock to deal with the entire housing stock and and that's so it's it's easier to do in new build we understand that we understand why the legislation will focus on new build to start with because that that's easier to build it in at the at the source but if we're honest about it the real problem really lies in what as a country we're going to do to address our existing yeah but i think what we're looking at here is a new build heating strategy yeah absolutely okay great thanks charlotte you'd like to come in thank you um and i guess just to build on some of the comments that have already been made in terms of um introducing this as soon as reason for the practical you know that that's very much where where we sit as well and i think you covered it off just in the end of what you were saying there but the the value of focusing on the new build first allows the supply chain to develop and that's what needs across the whole country and in scotland as well so when we're talking about skills gap and skills shortage and what's so beneficial within the new build sector is their ability and the house builders ability to to tender out four projects that for example heat pumps and build that supply chain within the new build sector that that can then go on and do the retrofit market which i completely agree is a much more challenging prospect but we need to facilitate the awareness and the familiarity and the acceptance of the technologies which which new build helps along along that process so in terms of where we you know our position on this and obviously as the other as a heat pump association we you know that that's where my my knowledge is from scotland are ahead in terms of of homes per per capita that have heat pumps in compared to the rest of of the uk there's a very good loan grant system for the retrofit space the mic generation certification scheme up in scotland has got nearly 200 certified businesses but that needs to grow and how do you encourage that to grow and incentivise that to grow and the the building standards regulations that we're discussing today are absolutely you know we feel crucial to developing that sector and from a supply capacity issue there's no supply constraints at the moment for heat pumps throughout the united kingdom you know yourselves there's a big heat pump manufacturer based up in livingston so you know manufacturer very close very local but the level of investment that's going into manufacturing across the united kingdom but also in our our neighbouring countries across europe gives confidence to the sector that from a capacity and supply chain issue that's not what the limiting factor is it's more about the installers but to encourage that growth in that training need there needs to be a real increase in the demand and that's what this standard would do to support that thanks very much charlotte for that level of detail and backgrounds good to know that we're manufacturing air source heat pumps in scotland i'm not going to bring in ivan mckee thanks very much convener i wanted to focus on was just to broaden out a wee bit and get a sense from the panel of the types of technologies that could be deployed there's certainly a huge focus on heat pumps which are obviously going to do much of the work in this regard but really just any thoughts on other technologies and district heating solar bioenergy and others that they may have a role to play in what that role could look like i don't know who wants to anybody want to jump in there peter many thanks the way the thermal performance standards are currently worded in the Scottish building regulations is such that heat pumps are likely to be the most efficient for the time being i'm going to come back to biomass in a second now as members will be aware the Scottish Government is progressing the passive house equivalent standards which are likely to significantly lower those heat requirements and houses energy requirements to probably about 15 kilowatts a square metre a year and at that point there's more legroom for solar panels and similar microsystems now my advice to you would be to treat this change and the forthcoming passive house change very much as two sides of the same coin and that have to work together to deliver a good standard and not only a standard in terms of functional carbon use but also embodied carbon use i can't fill the buildings with solid petrol or whatever right now going back to biomass i think that's a more interesting question i think it might be one that begs a regional response although i appreciate that it's difficult to do a national legislative level there are parts of the country particularly grampian in some parts of the highlands where wood chips and similar biomass is readily available and has a low carbon footprint doesn't have a zero carbon footprint may or may not have a slightly higher carbon footprint than we thought it did previously but it still has a very low one compared to the alternative systems i think the problem is how does one legislate for a system like that having it happening in grant and spay or rothi markets or abymor as opposed to one happening in Kilmarnock or Irvine where you're busting it in from 50 60 80 miles away and that's quite a difficult call to make the ris position is what we might want to think of a backstop date for biomass systems that allows them to continue operating a lot of people have invested quite a lot of time and money in those within highlands and islands in particular to certainly stent them freezing galloway and perhaps an absolute cut-off would be problematic when it is a low carbon solution but to go back to your original question for the time being pretty much heat pumps are the main show in town most of the other solutions three or four years away and even with heat pumps the big game changer will be high temperature heat pumps which i think colleagues at the heat pump association will correct me but i think we're estimating about five years away at the moment for a commercial system and then does anyone else want to make any comments on that? It's a discussion about hydrogen but obviously there are complications with that it seems to work as a percentage in the gas supply but not as a hundred percent because of the impacts but it's not the most efficient thing either so i think all of those technologies need to be developed to see what's going to work for us and what can be made to work for us but in the short term as peter says i think heat pumps is the only one that's oven ready. On that point that if in the short term the focus is on on heat pumps there's just a ununderstandable nervousness about installing technology in a home for the longer term that may still be being trialled being being sort of the prototypes and so we don't want to end up in a situation where we've installed heat pumps in in homes and our citizens are in these homes and then we discover in 10 or 15 years time well actually heat pumps isn't the way forward really it is hydrogen or you know whatever it might be and we then have to start retrofitting that so there's just a little bit of concern that are we are we confident that that we have an understanding of the right technologies that the public has an understanding of how these technologies will work how it will change the way in which they live in their properties and is the timing of that consistent with the changes that are being introduced so it's not saying no but it's just introducing a word of caution the analogy that many people have used is the VHS and Betamax and if you invest in your Betamax technology at the same time as VHS and then in a few years time you discover that actually Betamax is redundant so what happens if you've installed a new heating system and then in a few years time as a country we decide that that particular system is is redundant and you have residents with that in their homes so it's a note of caution on that. Dundance a fairly strong word than that quote takes out of thought but I mean surely that technology is well-trialled globally and I don't know if the heat pump association may want to comment on that. Sir Charlotte. Yeah sorry thank you it's taking a while sorry it's taking a while for to unmute me yeah absolutely so I think in terms of I mean you've sort of hit the nail on the head in terms of heat pumps may be a relatively unfamiliar technology in the United Kingdom at the moment that absolutely not untested or untrialled on a global level and looking across the border to our European counterparts hundreds of thousands of these are being installed every year and have been for the past 10 to 15 years it not before then so in terms of heat pumps and their their relative newness that absolutely not a new technology um to the on a global level I think the the the the issue that we faced and we are facing with heat pumps is that is the is the negative publicity around perhaps the cost um but when I've spoken to house builders recently on on the cost implications for heat pumps and consumers on that basis um the feedback is that it's not it that's not what put that that's not an issue in the new build sector because um invariably the cost of the heat pump is incorporated into into the house cost which then goes on to a mortgage so there's no need for an upfront capital cost to be found um in addition to the for example if you're replacing a heat existing heating system and the costs are much much more that's not that's not the same situation you find yourself when you're buying a new build home and I think the the other thing is is the running cost because new build homes are so much more energy efficient and the heat pump can be sized effectively and are much smaller the running costs and the and the costs of the system themselves are much much more acceptable I suppose or much less than than a retrofit as we discussed earlier with the challenges around retrofitting in in older properties so you know I think to draw into question the um that the usability or the viability or the efficiency of heat pumps at this stage is perhaps a bit questionable given the the amount of research that's been done in them both in this country but also abroad I fully understand that I think the issue is does the public understand and does the public understand the technologies and the new technologies and the new way in which they need to change the way in which they live in in their homes so accepting everything that's there and yes undoubtedly that new build homes will be much more energy efficient we're just raising a flag as I'm not convinced at the moment that the public as a whole is fully aware of the changes that's going to be required of them and the way that they live in their homes and the way that their homes are heated. Charlotte you'd like to come back in sorry thank you yeah just on that I think and and I don't disagree with what you're saying but I think we can't put that emphasis on anybody else other than the house builders themselves and us as a nation in terms of of getting that message across to the consumers and accept us an association we will be clearing our bit over the coming months and years to raise that awareness around the changes but but also in the handover packs from the from the from house builders themselves to explain functionality in the different way of working over heat pumps and I appreciate that may take a bit more time but we need you know in order to meet the net zero target and especially with the advice from committee on climate change that's what we're going to have to do so I think we we need to accept that that might be just some additional support that's needed for the consumers and be aware of that and manage that as a as an industry thanks Peter I think we have to be cautious members when we talk about whether systems might require retrofit in the near future as Charlotte has said air pump and ground heat pump technology has been used extensively in the UK and in Scotland for a number of years now what we're looking at now is ways in which we can improve those systems do we start using air source heat pumps in tandem with water based thermal stores we're probably going back to the water cylinders that we all grew up with but that isn't to say that those previous systems will be in any way defunct if you'll excuse the bad analogy it's a bit like buying a computer I may be able to get a better computer in a week's time but the one about encourage today will still work perfectly adequately I would suggest you ladies and gentlemen it would be better to have something that was 98% right and really made a big improvement on our cabin footprint than hang on another four or five years for something that might be 100% right it will be better than it is but I'm going to take a wee diversion here on the subject of costs I'm afraid I don't agree with Charlotte that it's cost neutral but what I would say is that whilst the cost of an air source heat pump currently in the central belt and east coast might be about 75 to 100% more for the house that house you are building the services installation as a whole will only be 10 to 15% of the cost so yes we have a potentially quite large increase but for a very small bit of the project now a new build social house at the moment will be about 2000 pounds of square metre to build on the open market rising to about 3000 pounds of square meter for a high quality private house the difference being I should say primarily issues around economy scale and good use of space so if your cost of servicing that building is only 200 to 300 pound of square meter and you are talking about adding another 100 pounds of square meter on to that that's really not what's going to not the delivery of that house out of the water I take separately from that the matter of national grid infrastructure because as others have alluded that can be quite serious sums of money for large schemes now there are again geographical exceptions you could easily be paying double those figures for the services installation already in parts of the highlands and islands and borders but on the whole I would suggest it's better for us to come up with a workable solution now and that once again I take us back to capacity in the industry and training rather than whether we can get heat pumps or we might get a shinier heat pump in two years time and look at how we can put this in place as quickly as we sensibly can thanks very much for that I'm going to move on just because of um yeah time um oh actually did you have anyone a couple on briefly it was um a separate issue David mentioned planning and I don't know if you want to elaborate on that it's quite intrigued by where you're going with that yeah I mean as I said we've we've only so much experience so far of in a sense associations voluntarily putting in renewables into new build before they have to and that's obviously for the social sector that's that's first of December this year uh four months before before uh it becomes common within uh done through the building race and one example we got from a from a member um in in the in the forums uh west of scotland area was around um the association uh coming up with proposals where heat pumps would the air source heat pumps would generally be placed on on balconies in this particular uh flatted development uh and the planning department saying there had to be on the roof the association felt that that wasn't technically a rational solution and was also much much more costly and it it sort of brings that sense of if you if you remember back to when when the the world was starting to put um uh um sky sky uh uh i've forgotten the technology dishes dishes thank you it's too long ago for to remember um and you know planning departments had something to say about that and it but eventually of course it was the modern world and planning departments come around to it it does seem to me that it takes planning departments a half a generation to come around to anything new and this is a real this is going to be a real worry because um you know the development process isn't isn't fast as it is even for even for a single development let alone a winch bra but um we don't really need further delays in in in the process and there is just some initial ad hoc feedback from members that they may they may get some serious delays in in terms of arguing through things aesthetic things largely with with local planning departments if that can be addressed then all the better thank you yeah thanks for for flagging up to us i did catch my attention too and i i think i mean my sense is that we do have the national planning framework and and that's kind of bringing in this refresh so hopefully i mean it's another reason why maybe we need to be doing this so that we actually start to move through and get those wrinkles out of the system but it may be it's something that we could also look look into and help with going to bring in miles we kind of touched on some of what you wanted to bring in but come on in thank you convener yeah i wanted to ask a few questions with regards to skills and impact on developers we've heard consistently about pressures on workforce and which developers are feeling so i wanted to ask whether or not there is sufficient skilled workforce in scotland to facilitate the introduction of the new build heat standard so maybe bringing yourself duncan i wanted to maybe start on the low carbon skills grant which is available to heating and plumbing apprenticeships and whether or not that's made a difference yeah we have seen some of the the colleges offering training courses with the grant money in it but upskilling for our members that we don't have a definite route map for apprentices on renewables we have them on plumbing and have them on electrical we have them on heating we don't have them on a route map for apprentices that would be good to have that or fast track some of the skills we have on them to get these guys up and running ready for heat pumps we still don't have that clear from the educational side if you know how maybe bring you in in terms of developers and yeah there's a report published last last year by the citb and which i'm happy to find and circulate to members but it estimated that in scotland an additional two and a half thousand full time equivalent jobs and will be required by by 2028 and you know and they break that down in terms of hydrogen fabric first heat pumps heat networks on-site energy and so there's quite significant constraints i think across across all of them again it's not to say that that it won't happen but it's just um the the pace at which it happens may not be quite keeping up with the the pace at which the regulations are changing does anyone else want to i think dunkin might want to come back in actually with the pauses wait sorry it does there is a number on the table there but we don't see that as a sufficient number to take up what is required to meet targets for heat pump installations okay thanks Peter like Fiona i have the 2023 citb report in front of me at the moment there are very significant shortfalls in plumbing and heat and ventilation operatives in Aberdeen Aberdeenshire Glasgow the west and the southeast the southwest i would suggest is hanging on by its fingertips it's currently in the black as it were but not by a margin and highlands and islands even allowing for population is low if we are already the better part of 1750 operatives short for our existing plumbing and heat and vac commitments then we face a very significant shortfall as we start to gear up under the new regulatory regime now i am no expert in education and i assume you will take evidence from them in due course but my understanding is though that it's not just apprentices what we need to focus on is upskilling of the existing workforce we need to look at how we can take that workforce who not to put too fine a point on it are about to be made redundant when we stop fitting gas boilers and upskill them to start dealing with the new systems now that may be the difference between a four-year or a three-year course for someone that's starting out and a six-month to one-year course for someone who's already skilled i was recently a very good presentation given to building standards division by best formally construction innovation at which they talked of 1000 extra trainees coming through the system in the next four years my concern assuming i've not misheard them is that 1000 may not touch the sides of this and i think that what we would do we would have to do would be to start investing seriously in those routeways and paths and grant support for people who are having to upskill and train this is going to cost contractors an awful lot of time and money and if we don't put in place a suitable support network for them the people that will end up carrying that cost will be the consumer and the housing associations charlotte you wanted to come in yes thank you i think the skills the skills issue is the one that all the skills gap i think whether the number of qualified and competent installers is is is is a tricky is a tricky one to to manage and largely because it's very difficult to track so up in scotland the the micro generation certification scheme operates as a certification body that verifies approved certifies businesses as competent to install heat pumps and that's largely what's used as the standard for access to grant funding although isn't a legally required standard but it's it's it's one that's held in in high regard for ensuring compliant installations in scotland currently there's 183 certified mcs heat pump businesses but the problem with certified businesses is you don't know how many qualified installers individuals there are working within that business but i was just doing a little had a little little look on the mcs data dashboard that you can play around with that shows how many heat pumps have been installed and there are just over eight and a half thousand heat pumps that have been installed up to the capacity that it takes which is 45 kilowatts so we're looking at largely domestic situations here but since 2022 and the energy saving trust report assumes that we need in scotland just over 15 and a half thousand individuals to be able to install heat pumps by 2030 to meet the demand so this is going into the retrofit aspect as well not just the new build but you know there is no doubt there is going to need to be massive growth in the sector and as well as looking at the new entrance as an association we're very keen to to look at the existing heating engineer workforce too and as you've identified see what training is required to to bring them along to to ensure that they've got the appropriate skills and competencies to install heat pumps and gas safe registers engineers for example we estimate that within six days they can have the training they can be trained in order to meet the the minimum technical competency requirements of an individual to install heat pumps so we're talking days not months and I appreciate that doesn't mean that they can you know run off and install them straight away but a lot of the manufacturers themselves have undertaken commitments and I suppose installers schemes that support the installation of the first three, five, 10 heat pump installations that an individual or a new company does because it's in their interests as well to ensure that the heat pump is installed correctly because invariably their name is on the box and they will be the one being called if there's a problem so there's definitely an appreciation of the need to upskill and reskill and bring new entrants into this space but there are you know thousands of heat pumps being installed in Scotland currently and with the right signals and support that it will encourage more people to to be trained and to take the leap into this into this new space or new earth space thanks for that charlotte and and do you believe that these regulations are part of the right signals absolutely and I think if we look at the committee on climate change is overall report it talks about new build being a low regret solution and it kick starts the market and helps pump prime that and give the confidence is and grow the installer network because of the demand that that's put on on on on the sector so you know absolutely and we're very hopeful that england are going to follow suit soon and we're awaiting their technical consult consultation on on the future home standard and hoping they're looking up your way thanks very much for that thanks for that charlotte and I wanted to move on to what impact though this will have on SMEs because the Scottish Government can't actually tell us how many SMEs are operating currently in this this area some of the schemes for example the mobile heat pump training centre which the government's brought forward is a welcome step forward I think for for providing that training opportunity but for most small developers losing one individual can completely upset their programme of of works so just wondered in terms of how the Scottish Government can ensure that SMEs provide are provided with the support they will need to be able to transition to this I don't know if you've done any work on that and what that looks like as well and but I'll maybe bring you back in and anyone else who wants to contribute I'm sorry Mars I'm not completely familiar with the support that's in place for for installers up in Scotland but I do believe under the energy saving trust there is funding available to support installation businesses to become MCS certified and which is a bit of a cost which is above and beyond what they would typically you know be used to joining so I believe there are there are funding streams out there and in England there's training grants and I imagine you know Scotland normally are ahead of the curve in that space but that's what we would be encouraging the you know as you've said the mobile training centre that was funded and supported by a government is fantastic and will allow access to those remote rural areas which should you know reduce the time to travel to to training as well because we completely appreciate the lost earnings aspect of training it is is actually the biggest barrier especially because a lot of the heating engineers are you know woman bands SME limited companies but also that that population is is aging and so as well as bringing in the new people how do we encourage those that really could see out their career doing what they're doing with the fossil fuel boilers to make that change and and it is a change so you know in terms of funding and support and also demand getting customers to to request heat pumps will will help move the process along thank you Charlotte Duncan you wanted to come in yeah just picking up on what my old said there it's the small business who has to invest in the training and from it he's got to learn how to specify design and stall and and train on heat pumps to train the customers to train his own staff so the new technologies is a challenge for us we want to accept the challenge but the backing of it or support for it needs to come from the government to help us as well along the training side okay thanks Fiona yeah I mean I think it's fair to say that a significant number of the of the larger home builders in fact all of the larger home builders are investing already very heavily in developing their prototypes for their for their net zero net zero homes and there's one that and prototype in England and it's known as the Zed house I'm not sure whether you're aware of it but it's with a number of home builders led by by one of the majors but with a number often coming together and testing and this particular property across a whole range of scenarios in a sort of controlled environment and so they are right there they are trialling a lot of this new stuff and one of our other members gave us an example that to date they've completed 60 developments in Scotland and around about 1500 homes using air short heat pumps over the course of the last couple of years so this these technologies are happening and they are they are being delivered I think the SMEs is a very particular point though that and they are already facing a lot of challenges particularly if they're dealing in developing in rural areas where we know there's already issues over over viability as we were touching on you know some of the the capacity issues or the constraints that they may face and the planning issue as well I think it's particularly interest for SMEs and that you know if there are further burdens or delays in terms of planning again it's the SMEs that are quite often are hit hardest they have a smaller pipeline of projects they have staff that need to move fairly quickly from the completion of one project on to the next site so any delays in any part of that will have a worse impact on on the SMEs so as with all of this we do think the SMEs are particularly vulnerable thank you thanks and just finally you know it was September 2019 when the government brought forward their intention to regulate new new build in this way and the pandemic impacting during that and a delay in terms of this being laid do you think the sector the construction sector in general has had enough time to plan for this not just workforce challenges but but how this will completely change how you then sell a home and how you actually hand over yes I think I think they're well on their way towards it I'm not quite sure because of all the issues that we've touched on to date as a system we are fully there but we're certainly along a long way there the issues around supply grid capacity skills public awareness all of those will have some impact on it so the cumulative impact is I don't quite think we're there just just yet but well on the way to change interestingly a piece of work carried out a piece of research carried out in 2021 for national housing day indicated at that point that 82% of those people who were surveyed and it was across Scotland across all tenures and 82% thought that Scottish government should pay the homeowner and landlord costs as required to meet these new standards and 34% often thought that the government should meet all of the costs so again I think in terms of public awareness and what's going to be required of them I think that's still a particular area whereas a country we need to be putting a large amount of effort into that thanks anyone else on that point Peter I'm going to be a little bit awkward I'm afraid the private sector looks for easy tried and tested solutions that is understandably risk averse gas and similar technologies are well tried and tested very easy and stood in well with a high turnover low profit margin scenarios such as we find in the sector now the simple truth is that notwithstanding Covid the gentle hints that Scottish Government has been providing since 2019 have failed to provide the necessary movement in the private sector and I'm afraid I think the view of the RIS would be that now is perhaps the time for something rather more than gentle hints however we can't have a situation where it's all brick bats and no bouquets small and medium sized firms will suffer we'll suffer because of that either by having to pay additional for delivery of buildings or just not getting contractors as they'll focus on easier repair sectors and that's why I think a sensible level of government assistance for grant through grants and tax breaks for re-skilling is essential for both this and the increased construction skills that will be required under the proposed passive house regime thanks very much for that and just on the tax break part that break would sit with the Scottish Government or the UK government alas alas I suspect it's largely the UK government it would be a combination of both tax but well there are tax breaks for training obviously but VAT remains the big killer thanks very much Alan you want to come in yeah sorry it's not moving on to a slightly different topic the the regulations we're discussing are all about we're talking about housing but the regulations are implying that non-domestic will be involved and I think we need to be very careful that that's a completely different animal we're still waiting for feedback from the members on the impact it'll have and how we can make it work because it's a much more complicated legal arrangements with owners and tenants and a huge majority of non-domestic is a very small SMEs and they just won't be able to afford to do retrofits but also it doesn't always work in our range a tenanted you can imagine a retail centre or retail parks brand new shiny shopping centres they can make that work when they come to build it but going back into one and trying to retro is just going to be a complete nightmare so I think we need to be a wee bit careful when we're talking of rules and regulations that the lumping in non-domestic into domestic is really a completely different animal and should probably be treated as such okay thanks very much for that I think we are focusing on homes today and use the word imply so maybe we can get some clarity from the government on that palm you'd like to come in thank you chair I think miles had asked that it was about the SMEs but just to touch on the amount so that you know on upskilling I know Peter you mentioned that economic cost for upskilling one trader may be around the region of between 1200 to 2500 pound so you know with given the time frame and the cost of social upskilling obviously we spoke about this that if there is no grants or help available this will significantly impact smaller businesses and right now after the pandemic if anything smaller businesses are really suffering so just a little bit on that now I've put some context around what the figure may be unless somebody can tell me there is a grant out there then a charlotte says that that's fine but what would that mean to smaller businesses I can't answer that just at the moment however we have just this week started a piece of work to first of all scope out how many exactly how many SMA home builders there are in Scotland and what's the economic contribution that they make to the to the Scottish economy and understanding what their key issues and concerns are so we are just about to start we've just started that that piece of research we'll be starting the survey work in a few weeks time so we can begin to pick up some of these questions directly with with SMEs and I'm happy to report that back to the committee and probably towards the probably towards the end of this year just on that view now you're working with the Federation of small businesses and all the organisations that touching because you sometimes it's very hard to reach out to every single small business yeah so we've we've appointed a research team to undertake a review of all the different data sources that exist out there to try and identify the SMA home builder and yeah it's it's easier said than done so we're we're on that piece of work at the moment we're doing that piece of work i'm not going to bring in willy coffee thanks very much convener um allen you were talking a moment ago about the the impact in non-domestic in that the act to build a proposal does reach into that territory and your submission was was quite clearly saying there are potentially great difficulties for us in dealing with building conversions when does it building become a new building you know what's the process could you just elaborate a wee bit more if you would for the committee and other colleagues about your concerns about that and how it specifically relates to conversion of existing buildings do you mean on the non-domestic or the domestic well the non-domestic is complicated because the way these properties are generally structured that they have an owner landlord and then they have a series of tenants and some of those you know it's hard to generalise on them because there are so many varied types from big shopping centres to small one-off shops and also there's offices and so on amongst them all so as i say we've asked our members to give maybe some key examples of how this is impacting on them and how they're going to deal with it to see if there is a way through it that we can we can maybe suggest is used so that we don't have any consequences that were unintended by trying to insist that these regulations are applied widespread across every sector so it's difficult for me to say to you exactly what the problem is because it's quite a complicated problem and a varied problem but it is a problem and i think i would ask that whilst we can all understand housing and how that works i think we need a lot more research into the non-domestic side to make sure that we're not causing a problem asking for a maybe a cut-off for some kind of idea so that well i just i think non-domestic shouldn't be incorporated into this regulation at this stage until we do a bit more research on it okay any other views beta right two points first of all the current technical handbooks allow the local authority significant discretion into determining what may or may not be a conversion and then after the extent to which the regulations would apply now that means we get some authorities that are very reasonable and practical and we take some we have some that take a very hard-nosed view now what we need to do at national level is look at more consistent clearer guidance on what applies and when now we're not talking about retrofit today but for example i know that building standards division are revising guide for practitioners six i think it is which is existing buildings maybe number seven but the other thing i'm going to say in respect of non-domestic properties is that since i started studying longer ago than i would care to admit non-domestic buildings have consistently benefited from lower insulation standards in regulations than domestic anything up to 25 percent there is only one class of buildings in this country that you can still put single glazing in and that is the retail market now i'm terribly sorry but i think we have to level the playing field in the building regulations we can't have a situation in the face of a carbon footprint where one very substantial sector seems to get a ticket to insulate and heat their buildings to a lower standard than the rest of us that's really interesting to hear that does that apply to office premises as well because mine's always freezing yes yes it it does and having recently done up my own offices and had to pay for the insulation i'm not unsympathetic to the position thanks very much for that peter i mean maybe allen would like to respond to that but i just wanted to could you possibly just pick out a couple of examples at all allen for any non-domestic building types where it would pose these greater challenges that you suggest as peter said a lot of these older buildings are not well insulated partly because of the way they've broken up and who's responsible for which part so i think a lot of these older retail type buildings and offices are not to a standard that's good enough to allow a retrofit back into you know if we start trying to fit heat pumps and so on into that it's just never going to work so i think i'm all for buildings being upgraded and i totally agree i don't think there's any reason why non-domestic should be allowed to be less efficient but that's fine when we're going forward with new build i'm just concerned and our members are very concerned about retrofit work being required to to make them compliant with the heating systems that are non-fossil heating systems without the ability to upgrade insulation and so on as well which is just going to be not viable so i think it's it's an issue that it's something it needs to be done but it's going to take a lot longer to do because of the consequences of it and partly because of the historical situation that a lot of these buildings are not very well insulated at all okay thanks all right i wonder is shall we maybe get a view in this shall we do you have a view in that particularly on the conversion issue and whether that is a bigger problem as we fear or have you any experience of us being able to solve that so in terms of retrofitting for energy efficiency and for low carbon heating systems it's absolutely more of a more of a it's not as straightforward should we say and i think that is pretty much because all houses are different and they've all got a different type and to undertake that assessment to determine what's needed is costly and time consuming i think the other the other you know query and challenge we have with retrofitting is that nobody wants to be without heat for any substantial length of time and often heating systems are replaced as distrust purchases or if the ball is broken and and it's not perhaps as easy to to replace an existing heating system with a heat pump without undertaking a wider consideration of what else is needed in the property to support that for example as we were saying earlier about water storage may not already be in there but also pipe work and insulation where it's cost effective to do so i think you know the issues that have been raised around the non-domestic space are also very valid and i think that that needs to be a lead time in there to consider what's appropriate and what can be done realistically you know we have to be realistic with this but i think the retrofit challenge is one that we face across the whole of the UK and bringing in gradual changes for example when the house is being converted or when works are being done in a property already then that is a sensible time to consider updating a heating system okay okay thanks very much for that shall i anybody else no back to you thank you for that thanks okay we're going to move on to questions from Marie McNair thank you convener most of my questions have been covered in the previous discussions but i'd like to get asked one start with you on a question do you have any concerns about any possible impacts on fuel poverty from the proposals and if you do can you share them with us we haven't done any particular research in terms of the issue of fuel poverty and potentially David and his members will because it's more likely to be evident where there are tenants in the properties and what we do have a concern about though is overall the as we said there is there is an increased capital cost to to purchase a more energy efficient property and the expectation is that yes it you will benefit from that over the longer term in terms of lower lower running costs the price differential still between gas and electricity still very much favours gas and until until that is that is reversed and i think we are still likely to see higher operational cost of homes heated by electricity the other issue that we've got is that it's often a difficulty for people to to understand yes i've got an upfront capital cost but i'm going to make that savings over 20 odd years if you're purchasing if you're purchasing a home you may not often be thinking about the longer term operational benefits of it that you may be thinking about the upfront capital cost so again it's back to this public education and public awareness of the way that we live in our in our homes the way that we operate our homes and about i think the issue of fuel poverty will be something maybe that that david may have something more on yeah i was going to bring david in as well david and in in a way the the fuel poverty issue is much more one that focuses on the future retrofit agenda because the worry will be in order to make existing property including you know pre 1919 tenements energy efficient um you you you may have to put 10 pound a week or more on the rent that's not where we want to go of course and it's not it's not what we even want to think about in the current context of a cost of living crisis but um to be fair in the in these proposals that the committee is looking at today on new building we're putting people you know poorer people in in in social housing into what ought to be you know a very a very low cost a home and as long as they're they're rent then that you know and we have a system with new build that protect that means the rent can't go above a certain a certain limit in order to you know the condition of grants so this the easy part is the new build agenda in terms of fuel poverty that the the nightmare is retrofit but that's for another day thanks very much for that david charlotte i believe you wanted to come in yeah it was it was really to just concur with what what david was saying but also to acknowledge the owners point around the cost of electricity versus gas and the impact that has on the running cost of for example heat pumps i know we keep going back to heat pumps they're obviously not the only technology that can be used to support this um that this building standard but as we've said they'll be a big one but with with up to 300 efficiency one unit of electricity will produce three units of heat but when the unit of electricity costs four times the the price of one unit of gas that's all that's where we um you know where we're currently facing uh concerns around running costs of heat pumps compared to existing heating systems however we have very clear signals from from from from cross parties around the the price of electricity and what that will look like in the near future in terms of the the decline um as we move towards a a zero carbon grid and an electricity generation and up in scotland you're you're very lucky and very fortunate with the with the electricity production that you have available so there are changes happening that doesn't mean to say that the answer is here and now um but there's absolutely investment and consideration being put into ensuring that the lowest carbon heat is the lowest cost heat um and to bring it back to what david was saying in terms of fuel poverty and the new build standards and the homes that will be being built under these standards will be highly efficient and the running cost should be very very low um the retrofit agenda is is is very different as we as we know but in terms of of the impact from from new build um on running costs um that it should be supporting those who are struggling to pay their bills thank you charlotte and peter mary at the moment a new build domestic building in scotland will be burning energy of about 30 to 40 kilowatts per square metre per year right a normal standard for a new house good builders will tend towards the bottom on that scale i mentioned earlier that we had to consider this in tandem with the proposed passive house equivalent standard now the the boffins committees for that are about to meet and determine what kind of levels we're talking about soon but if i was a betting man i think looking at the papers it's going to half down to about 15 kilowatts so you're right we do have an additional electricity cost but at the same time we've probably more than half the amount of energy that we're doing so we are in many ways going to be robbing peter to pay paul now obviously building standards will do an impact assessment as they always do and i don't want to prejudge that but i would think that what we might find out is that capital costs aside it's largely neutral thank you chair i just want to touch back on what Fiona spoke about the significant impact on a supply of homes with the scottish government right now failing to meet its targets with the 50 000 of older homes haven't been met to the target time and obviously there's a housing and emergency at the moment with only 500 heat pump installers estimated currently to operate in scolland uh with the comparison of 8700 registered engineers qualified to work on the boilers uh are you concerned i know that you did touch on it that the impact the regulations will have on new house building especially i'm speaking about affordable homes i can't quantify it and say it will result in a reduction of x percent but everything that we've heard today any small barrier or delay what might be small in its own right the cumulative effect of all of that i think will be to reduce the number of homes that that's being that are being built certainly in the in the short term and i'll let david touch on the the the social housing supply in particularly the affordable housing supply but it it's pretty clear that if you are having to make a decision if about the amount of capital expenditure that you as a business can make and if you have to make sure that your tenants properties are retrofitted to make those standards then the natural decision you're probably going to make is therefore i've got less capital to spend on building new because i'm legally obliged to meet that for my existing tenants so that's more my my capital goes so undoubtedly i think it will have an impact on the delivery of all of housing of all tenures but particularly affordable if there's a significant change in government grant allocations that maybe provides further funding for retrofit and therefore allows other expenditure on new build then it might address some of that but as things stand at the minute we can see there's already a slow down in the number of new new starts that we've seen in the last year and and we can see that that trend continuing David do you want to come in i mean it's speculation at the at the moment there's certainly member housing associations in in in the forum a nervous around i mean those that are still developing and and as Fiona has alluded to there's there's certainly fewer now uh associations actively involved in in in development uh as as we speak but it is simply speculating on whether the the the developers that they contract with uh uh you know have have have the capacity um plus the extra worry in which i think is worth is worth uh repeating uh around heating engineers for the for the for the um you know i mean i say annual checks it technically speaking um gas gas is a more you know costly business in terms of annual maintenance and and obviously the legislation around that we ought to be able to get off with uh uh uh you know ought to be easier with with with electrical safety it's not it's not necessarily based on annual but you imagine that in terms of new heat pumps you know certainly the experience of many developers in the highlands and islands for for instance that have been doing heat pumps for a long long time is that maintenance is a is is is a big issue but um we are speculating as to whether whether how quite how much the slow down the further slow down in in in the programme might come from from from this but i guess we've got to start we've got to start somewhere i did just want to say in case i don't get the chance uh the other question mark and i'm sorry it's not directly related to your your question which i think i hope everyone's got their head around in terms across the whole industry is have we got ventilation right are we going to get ventilation right and ultimately the only judges of that will be the people living in in in these wonderfully energy efficient homes but i think there is some nervousness in out in the housing association sector around making sure enough attention is paid to ventilation okay great thanks very much anybody else want to come in on that no um peter and allen just to say for members and for david i know that ventilation in new dwellings is part of a special working group for the passive house standard thanks and allen just going on the slow down of numbers as i mentioned earlier that this infrastructure is a fundamental element to that because you know you can make as many like that but if you can't plug them in then it's not going to work so that's our concern there's a we need to get the infrastructure up and running and developing to supply because we've got evs as well as the houses all to cater for yeah okay and what we heard is there's a bit nuanced across the country so we need to work with that as well miles you wanted to come in thank you yeah just um completely separate point with regards to um the cost implications for for consumers around new build um you know this estimation of an additional 30 000 pounds in a cost of a new build home for with a heat source pump now the scottish government's taken away um a lot of the help to buy schemes do you think there's a need to develop um something completely new around this to help support and and potentially look towards that part of an additional um cost to housing um for people getting on the property ladder yeah i think one of the things that would certainly be um became to support is um working with the lenders and looking at mortgage and the idea of green mortgages um so high if um a new build house as we've been discussing um does have significant operational savings in terms of your operational costs how can we be reflecting that in the mortgages that we're offering in terms of of affordability calculations and stress test calculations so i think there's definitely there's definitely something um something around that and yeah i think you know the referred back to the previous survey that and i'm not saying it's correct but the fact that the public are expecting the government to fund all of this i think that that worries me um that that as a public as a as a citizen that that we're not fully aware that that this is going to have a major cost on individual citizens nor whether it's an upfront capital cost or whether it's in terms of the maybe operational savings but there will be fundamental costs um that citizens will have to absorb and i don't think we can get we can get away from that yeah thanks thanks miles and i mean i i think you're right it's that changing of the mindset in terms of just thinking about the cost of the house but actually understanding over the time that you're living there certainly i'm aware of people that live in houses with air source heat pumps who are absolutely delighted and they have a very nice temperature in their homes i like to go and visit them charlotte you wanted to come in many thanks yeah i was just about to say on the green mortgages point that i think that will become more prolific and we're already seeing banks like but please net west virgin money and nationwide offering either cash back or higher value loans for more energy efficient properties so we are already seeing that that into the market and we are waiting a government consultation on on whether the the government would regulate on a proportion of mortgage of the mortgage is offered by banks should be the homes of a certain energy efficiency rating which will again encourage that innovation in that sector and the better rates or higher higher loans per value because of the of the reduced running costs as as identified i think the other thing i just wanted to note and it was some ricks survey that i was looking at yesterday showing amongst others but that the value of higher energy efficiency homes is more so whilst they may be more expensive to buy up front they hold their value and they are deemed more valuable in the future as well so i think we need to to be aware of that balance within the equation too okay great thanks for that can i just clarify when you're talking about the the loans and cash back from the government do you which government do you mean i'm sorry um arianne that that's um i will go away and check i don't know whether it applies to uk or just england only um so that is that is my um my fault um but um but but it's interesting that there is consideration going on around government interacting in this space and setting targets and limits on on on mortgage providers focusing on driving greater investment into into more and efficient properties but i will find the link and then send it through to to you and okay thank you very much yes it's a challenge we have in kind of figuring out which government sometimes people are talking about peter so can i take a step back miles and apologies for this 30 000 pounds would buy you a rose Royce ground source heat pump the cost of an air source heat pump in a new house over existing bill cost is very significantly less than that now anyone installing these measures as part of a new property already gets a 20 bonus from the chancellor of dexchequer because they don't pay a penny of vat on that on that the real people who will be caught out are those doing retrofit who will get hammered for 20 plus the extra cost of installing it in an existing building now ultimately it'll be a matter for the RICS to talk to not the architects but our experience is that the additional capital cost on new build social housing is relatively modest and not of the order that was suggested earlier now i can't help but think that we heard the same arguments when suds was introduced we're hearing the same arguments about passive house it's a cumulative question about what all these initiatives might be do they take us to a much bigger increase when we we aggregate them all and i don't think any study has been done on that yet but the final thing i'm going to say and i should be pleased to hear is that the market will the market will dictate the cost and if we do not have the operatives trained up to do this if we don't have frankly plenty of contractors to do it that is when we will all suffer now if we're going to invest in training that that's a double dip we train them for new build and it will also train them for retrofit there's a benefit across the entire sector to everybody and nobody's if you'll excuse the phrase winning compared to anybody else and i would respectfully suggest to the committee that that is where we should focus such investment as we can and not on further tax breaks for new build housing which already does far better than those of us that work in retrofit okay thanks for that i'm going to have to end there we've actually gone over time i thought for a moment we were going to finish sooner but actually it's been such a great conversation i really appreciate you coming in and coming online to help us understand your perspectives on this issue so i'm now going to suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses and reorganise the room thanks very much by Patrick Harvie who's the minister for zero carbon buildings active travel and tenants rights and mr harvie is joined by the Scottish Government officials gareth finney who's the head of heat networks and investment antonia georgiva okay who's the heat and buildings team leader at the new build the heat standard enforcement and traditional buildings team claire jones who's the head of onshore electricity policy and norman mcleod who is the senior principal legal officer and i welcome you all and i now invite the minister to make a short opening statement before opening two questions for members thanks very much convener and good morning colleagues i'm very pleased to be here to present the building scotland amendment regulations 2023 also known as the new build heat standard and it's an important step in doing so because it's the first time since all parties in parliament passed the net zero legislation that we've considered regulation to explicitly reduce emissions at scale from heating systems in our buildings and i'll remind colleagues this is a sector that represents about 20 percent of our total emissions to meet our legally binding climate targets we need to decarbonise all existing homes that's over 2 million by 2045 so as not to compound that challenge further it's vital that new buildings and homes that we build don't add additional greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere it's clear that the continued use of high carbon emitting heating systems in homes and buildings is simply not consistent with the target set out in the climate change act targets that all parties in parliament voted for now i've often said that this challenge would still be really significant but a lot easier if we'd begun to take the steps that we should have 20 or 30 years ago but we can't wind time back what we can do is make sure that what we build today is future proofed for the decades to come so we've got an opportunity to take significant impactful steps to move away from delivering what some developers themselves are already calling yesterday's homes instead we're going to ensure that homes and buildings are future proofed with climate friendly heating systems that would be compliant with the upcoming heat in buildings standard and that'll give peace of mind to those for whom these new properties will become their homes and their businesses now i understand that a change away from a practice that's been the norm for a long period of time may make some home buyers and building owners nervous particularly what it means for their fuel bills when the UK government continues to stall on rebalancing energy costs however the cost of living crisis and the recent surge in energy prices make tackling these challenges not just harder but also more urgent we're not by any means the only government or country taking bold action to reduce the emissions from our new buildings a number of other other neighbours in europe already have or have plans to implement very similar measures many are moving ahead at scale and at pace and if past these regulations will come into force one year earlier than the UK government's equivalent future homes standard the committee may already be aware that our statutory advisers the climate change committee have already called for the UK government to align with the scottish government's timescales for implementing their future home standard by bringing it forward to 2024 we propose that the new build heat standard will be implemented using existing powers through fully devolved building regulations and by doing so that means that compliance with the standard will be achieved using a mechanism that developers across scotland are already familiar with i also want to reassure the committee that we're not introducing a blanket ban on direct emissions systems in new buildings from the first of april 2024 this proposed amendments to building regulations will only apply to new buildings constructed under a building warrant which is applied for on or after the first of april 2024 so because of the nature of building warrants in scotland we expect some new developments will continue to install direct emissions heating systems such as gas boilers up till at the very latest april 2027 now that supports the transition for the construction and house building sectors the introduction of these regulations will accelerate the shift toward greener homes across the country as well as helping to grow the capacity of scotland zero emissions heating supply chain and i want to take this opportunity to highlight how many organisations have already embraced the shift away from direct emissions heating many industry four runners are already delivering homes served by zero direct emissions heating systems across scotland the scottish government's affordable housing supply programme continues to support affordable housing providers who wish to install zero emissions heating systems and many providers are already installing these systems both in rural and in urban settings across scotland that includes the west of scotland housing associations new development in dundas hel in glasgo which i had the pleasure of visiting earlier this summer that's a project that'll see 90 new highly energy efficient homes built with zero direct emissions sources to meet the space and hot water heating needs of tenants it's part of a wider master plan to regenerate the local area and it's just one of many examples of some of the excellent work that's already being undertaken around scotland there are also examples of private developers already building to the highest standards of energy efficiency and zero emissions heating forward thinking organisations such as cala homes have set their own targets for designing new developments to be gas-free from january 24 months in advance of these regulations coming into force but we do recognise the challenges that the shift away from direct emissions heating may bring and it's critical to ensure that scotland consumers and businesses are not left behind that's why we've carried out extensive engagement through the development of these regulations together with our external working group and through two full public consultations as well as both formal and informal industry engagement our working group has brought together key trade industry bodies including those representing the construction and house building industries as well as both of scotland's dno's and a wide variety of other interests all of this is ensured that from the outset industry has had a voice in shaping the regulations to ensure that they're practical and fit for purpose acting as a critical friend throughout the process the group is co-chaired by Professor Len Sullivan committee members may be familiar with the Sullivan report which as far back as 2007 set out a number of recommendations for new buildings in scotland and that included achieving net zero carbon new buildings in space in terms of space and water heating and lighting and ventilation by 2017 that report proposed so these regulations are an important step in our net zero journey they should not cause anyone any surprise or alarm what they are looking to achieve was recommended by industry representatives on the Sullivan expert group over 15 years ago responses to both of our public consultations were overwhelmingly in favour of our intention to regulate for zero emissions heating systems in new building that's a very positive endorsement and it demonstrates how these proposals do have broad support but we have also listened to feedback that's been raised throughout the consultation periods including as part of the public workshops that were held while both consultations were live that's why we've introduced a provision for the continued use of direct emissions heating in the event of an emergency that will help to increase resilience particularly across remote and rural properties helping to ensure that they are better protected against grid or other heating system failures should that ever happen by legislating now we're sending a strong signal to show industry that the Scottish government is serious in moving to a more sustainable net zero future providing confidence for business to invest in zero emissions alternatives the committee will already be aware that the building scotland amendment regulations 2022 set higher targets for the energy performance of new buildings and the regulations i'm here presenting today seek to build on these and they are the next key step in achieving that transition to net zero while it is crucial that we reduce the demand for heating in new homes we can't insulate our way to net zero we also need to break away from what's been business as usual by shifting away from fossil fuel heating systems that create emissions towards zero direct emissions alternatives during the development of these regulations we have acknowledged industry concerns around the capacity of both scotland's electricity grid and supply chain capabilities and while the regulations themselves are technology neutral it's likely that we'll experience a significant increase in the use of electrified heating systems such as heat pumps we continue to work with industry and scotland's electricity networks to identify and address the issues that can frustrate or prevent the connection of low carbon technologies both off-gems charging and access review decision and Rio ED2 outcome have provided welcome support for developments seeking to electrify scotland is well placed to grasp the opportunities that these regulations will bring for example livingston less than 20 miles from here today is home to one of europe's largest heat pump manufacturing facilities and there's an opportunity to deliver maximum benefits for scotland's people workers communities and our economy particularly through the creation of new high quality jobs for the future many of the core skill sets that are needed to support this transition already exist within the traditional heat and building improvement sectors and that gives us a strong foundation on which to build and grow our supply chains the introduction of these regulations will provide needed certainty to industry to invest and to help build confidence and stimulate scotland's direct emissions zero direct emissions heating market it's of vital importance that we take these meaningful and immediate steps to address the climate emergency and i hope it's clear to the committee that these steps are indeed necessary to meet our net zero goals i'm very clear in my conviction that we can and must act now to secure this legislation and change definitively the way in which we heat our buildings from the combustion of fuels to clean sources from electricity and heat networks and there may potentially be some limited role for hydrogen as well this is a moment to make the commitment to the generations that are to come that we are the ones who finally did the right thing and put an end to fossil fuel heating i'd like to thank the committee for the scrutiny that they're bringing to this instrument and i'll look forward to any questions that you have thank you very much for that opening statement and very clearly setting the context within which these regulations are going to sit i'll open with a couple of questions and then i'll bring in other members so my first question is is around skills and supply chain we had a very fruitful conversation in the previous round table and i think that one of those one of the things that was brought up was around that so currently only 10 percent of new builds are built with zero direct emissions heatings and i'd be interested to hear if you have a sense if the infrastructure skills supply chain is in place to ensure that builders can meet these regulations in time without any adverse effect on the supply of new buildings we're confident that not only is the the skill base in scotland and the supply chain already growing but that also the commitment of the scottish government to take forward regulations in this instance on new build and in the longer term on the wider heating standard for scotland's existing housing stock the regulation here is what is necessary to give confidence to the industry that it's worth their while investing in those skills and in that wider supply chain capacity i think that the one thing that we could do to guarantee that we don't see the growth in the capacity that we need would be to decide not to take these steps or to delay or defer until that capacity has grown to where it needs to be this is a long-term trend and the the commitment to decarbonise buildings right through to 2045 means we're going to need to see continued growth in the sector over the long term this particular measure of course isn't new to anyone i think the the first of the two consultations finished about two two and a bit years ago and the indications as i mentioned the salivon report for example the indications have been for a long time before that that this was going to be the direction of travel this doesn't come as a surprise to the industry and indeed the phasing in of this although it's it's going to apply to all buildings that get their building warrant from april next year it does mean that there'll be time for the industry to adjust and developments that they're taking forward with existing building warrants that have already gone through that process before april next year will continue to have that time to adjust but i think as as we see the the number of developers that are already adopting this demonstrates an appetite to embrace this change and i very much welcome that okay thanks for that we heard from in the previous session from Duncan Sharp he's the director of the association of Scottish and Northern Ireland plumbing employers federation SNPF that there wasn't a route map for renewables for apprenticeships is that something that the government needs to take a lead on well we're working very actively with industry to explore every option that we can to increase capacity for example a recent development of the mobile heat pump training unit that's going to enable those skills to be shared in places where there isn't necessarily a college location or another place to site those the mobile training unit will be a benefit i visited both commercial and college sector training facilities where they're gearing up and skilling up the actual time that it takes to convert an existing gas engineer to have the skills to install heat pumps is relatively small that the conversion course is a matter of weeks rather than having to train people up from scratch so the capacity that that needs to exist isn't non-existent at the moment it simply needs to transition its skill set from previous technologies from what i would call 20th century heating solutions into those that will be dominant in the 21st century i don't know gareth if you want to say anything more about the the skills side i'm happy to comment on that minister in terms of what we are working very closely with Skills Development Scotland around the apprenticeship programme heat pumps is a module within that we also provide funding through which is delivered by the energy saving trust to support apprentices through that that funding programme so that helps cover the costs of taking on that module okay thanks because i've got another couple questions that came out of this previous conversation so something that was also raised by david bookbinder was that planning concerns around planning departments and things planning permission being held up because of the lack of understanding or requirement he described something where the housing association wanted to put air source heat pumps on a balcony and the planning department said you need to put it on the roof at much greater cost so are there things that we need to be ironing out in that i mean i think it's possible that that's an example of developers simply getting used to these technologies for the first time and i think as this becomes more familiar basic design issues will become more familiar to developers and whether that's the social housing sector or anyone else i have to say i'm not aware of having seen developments where heat pumps have been placed on balconies and i don't know whether any colleagues are able to comment on that i think the number of developments that i've seen though where whether it's retrofit onto the roof of a tower block or in the case of new build much more likely to be accommodating the space for heat pumps and water storage and so on within the design of the building from the from the outset is becoming a you know pretty familiar and routine exercise for the developers thanks pamp got all with the supplementary yes thank you this is my other question chair it's on you've just spoke about planning permission there and my question is around that obviously at this moment you know that local authorities are under a lot of pressure and what impact do you anticipate that this workload will bring on councils and has there been an impact assessment on this workload and if councils are unable to keep up with the applications what impact will this have on the implementation of the policy and more broadly on the house building well i don't expect this new build heat standard to impact on the number of planning applications so you know i think that that concern might be slightly misplaced clearly developers need to be at the point of bringing forward applications that they know will have confidence and will will comply with the building standards many of them are already doing that and i as i said earlier many can forward thinking housing developers are making this a a default expectation than the new developments already i think antonia was going to come in on in relation to some of the planning issues and an pf4 absolutely thanks minister yes just to the question around planning as some of the previous witnesses mentioned around the national planning framework for that is very much betting in so it will be a case of developers working together with local authorities mostly on the design as well and just to mention since the standard is technology neutral there'll be other other solutions such as heat networks in the national planning framework very much takes account of that and working together with things like the local heat and energy efficiency strategies to see where these needs are and to help around the design minister if i may just around the building standards kind of volume question that Pam Gossel asked when we develop these regulations we work with building standards in the local authority officers which actually fulfil these duties just to kind of discuss any of the impacts and because there is charging associated with building warrants we anticipate that that will cover any kind of additional additional workload that is required thank you can i just come back in there yeah thank you i was going to ask that question at building warrants but do you anticipate any other involvement with the council that to do with this these regulations that they have to do obviously we spoke about planning we spoke about building warrants is there anything else you feel that councils will be expected to do more or different yeah thank you for that question if i may minister yeah well because if it's within the existing framework of how building standards operate we do not think there'll be any further processes in addition to what is currently in place at the moment and also in terms of kind of big volume developments often these are kind of pre-certified so there's no additional process again on the local authority building side thank you i think just moving slightly beyond this particular measure the new build heat standard local authorities are being expected to play a larger role in the energy system more generally the heat networks act that was passed at the tail end of the last parliamentary session which is now being implemented places a requirement on local authorities to develop their local heat and energy efficiency strategies going to be a really important tool to identify for example where will heat networks be the most likely solution for zero emissions heating you know what's the the nature of their building stock in terms of the requirement for investment in energy efficiency and i think local authorities and social housing providers potentially have a really lynch pin role in becoming the the the lead organisations in new heat networks so yeah i think there's a huge opportunity for local authorities to undertake that work some were already well advanced in that before the legal requirement was placed on them but all are now in the final stages of completing their LHEs and i think that that gives them a real opportunity to learn the lessons from countries like Denmark that are advising us closely on a lot of this where local authorities have had a leading role in you know and still do have a leading role not just in energy reduction but also in decarbonisation and that gives them huge opportunities sorry minister just on that talking about local authorities being an x trading standards officer that obviously we know that ourselves we had to go through certain skill sets and certain obviously diplomas and things like that will that not be changing the upskilling of actually our planners and other people in the council have you taken that into account as well yeah i mean obviously we've engaged with local authorities throughout this process and they've they've also had the opportunity to participate in both consultations i think i would come back to this point that the new bill heat standard is one element of a much longer term programme to decarbonise our buildings all of that is going to imply changes in skill sets in capacity in whether that's in local authorities and developers in the wider supply chain and doing that right through to 2045 means that there will continue to be a need to invest in those skills and in new skills i think that's very consistent with the fact that you know over time local authorities and the wider industry and stakeholders already need to continue to invest in bringing new people on board scaling people up seeing them through their career and developing their their skills and their abilities so the fact that the way we're taking this long-term approach to heat decarbonisation in general i think is entirely consistent with their ability to adapt thanks very much for that i'm going to move on to questions from Ivan McKee yeah thanks very much convener morning um i want to focus on um the good connectivity um and um how that looks like and clearly we know from a generation capacity perspective it's a huge issue in terms of rolling out scotland and so on but clearly from a heat and buildings perspective as well it's quite a significant potential barrier to deployment so just to explore a wee bit about um the work that's been done to understand what those numbers look like what the timescales look like what needs to happen in order to ensure the sufficient grid capacity for this rollout and also just to understand a bit about other different technologies there that have different impacts on the grid and is that thinking been factored into the kind and mix of technologies that might be deployed um in terms of addressing decarbonisation of properties thanks very much um i mean the first thing to say again is that um this particular measure has to be seen in the context of the wider changes i think some of your witnesses this morning talked for example about um decarbonising and and moving to electric sources for heating is happening at the same time as installing electric vehicle charging points for example and other changes that are going to be a necessary part of reaching our carbon emission targets that inevitably has an impact on the grid the way that we produce energy the way that we store energy the way that we consume energy all of this is changing and inevitably has an impact on the grid the decisions that are made around that investment that's required are made by off-gem off-gem look at the number of heat pumps the number of ev charging points and so on that are going to be required and that's what directs their investment decisions but as well as the the direct you know numbers that they that they provide for they also provide for what's called an uncertainty mechanism which allows developers to say we need more capacity here and and to to and for dnaos to to be part of that process as well we believe that there is going to be enough capacity for the changes that we're bringing in we also know that you know areas like retrofit are going to be potentially more problematic and again i think some of your witnesses acknowledged that in the the session this morning retrofit may be more problematic in certain areas than the new build but very clearly we need to and we are already bringing together a wide range of organisations including the dnaos in scotland on a working group that shares the perspectives and not only works out how we can resolve some of the issues that do exist within Scottish government powers but also how we can make the case for for changes at UK level where that's required clear may be able to come in on on some of the more technical aspects of this you know the there's no getting away from the fact that reaching our net zero targets is not just a question of how we build it's also the redesign of our energy system more generally i think the the one thing that i would also connect to other work that we're doing here is also on demand reduction because the most effective way that we can reduce the extra load on the grid is to build really really energy efficient homes and buildings in the first place because everything that we do that reduces their heat demand if we're electrifying that heat it reduces the electrical draw as well yeah absolutely right minister and i think the thing that i would add to that is we've been working really closely with the electricity distribution network companies so in this case sse and spin in terms of their plans for what's called real ed too which is the current price control framework that started in april so when the companies were developing their business plans last year to put off gym to say this is how much money we think we need and this is what we're going to spend it on we worked really closely with them on those business plans sort of looking at what the projection numbers were in terms of number of heat pumps and number of EV chargers as well to sort of really make the case that this is what we in order to stay aligned with scottish government ambitions this is what the network companies will need to achieve there is there are other things that play here at the moment so that the global supply chain for the kit substations wires etc is very tight because of course everybody is doing a very similar thing in terms of electricity demand is increasing because people are putting EV chargers in and they're putting heat pumps in so globally this is a very tight race at the moment but we've worked really closely with the network companies on on those business plans to make sure that they took account of scottish government ambitions and also we have a principles agreement with off gym where off gym sort of take into account of scottish government ambitions when it's looking at setting the regulation for the network companies okay so there is a recognition from off gym that scott is moving at a faster pace and they need to recognise that okay okay thank you thanks Ivan willy thanks very much convener patrick i was going to ask some questions about the skilled workforce issues and stuff but you've kind of covered that earlier in your remarks there i wonder if i could return to a question i asked the previous panel about whether the the new standard applies to building conversions and i see mr stark is still sitting with us in the in the back of the room there it was clear to me whether the standard applies to those and when it might apply so the difficulty about a building an office even residential accommodation that is being converted does the new standard apply to these you mentioned the warrant in 2024 so is it ever and after a warrant being applied for in 2024 is a new building and ever and before that is basically in the retrofrag agenda sure could ask antonia to come in on this point yeah absolutely and thank you for that question so in terms of conversions they will apply what a building warrant on or after first of april but they will it will only apply to a very narrow definition of conversions so in building standards that is if you're creating a new building but we also wanted to make sure that we're making that intervention at the point at which it makes sense so we have included this reasonably practicable caveat within the regulations themselves and what we plan to do is we're currently writing the technical guidance to accompany the the regulations and in it we plan to define very narrowly what we mean by these conversions that fall within the scope so the plan is if you're doing a major conversion and you're already doing work to the plant plant room within which your heating system is we see that as an opportunity to take that step and implement as your direct emissions heating source but we also don't want to do that in circumstances where obviously perhaps the disruption or the cost will be too great so we want to take a really measured approach to that and that's why we've chosen to define it in the technical handbooks as well because that provides a bit of flexibility for a further evidence emerges or if we want to change the scope at any point as well so it's not all conversions it will be a narrow kind of scope of conversion works okay i'll hope that helps mr stark in the federation if anybody asked that question just previously i'll hope that helps clarify the situation Patrick you also said you know that climate friendly heating systems are still currently more expensive than fossil fuel based heating systems and that's mainly due to the energy fuel fuel price imbalance that we're aware of how do we solve that particular problem because i know that out there just now there are gas engineers running around putting gas central heating systems in but they're not by and large putting fuel air fuel air source pump systems in her what is the step change that we need to embrace the new technology to make that the dynamic change that we actually look for i mean there's several things to say on that i think most fundamentally whatever energy system you install in a home whatever heating system you install on a home it has to be done to a high standard or you won't get a good operating efficiency out of it secondly the energy performance of the home needs to be really high in order to reduce demand you know i've met you know constituents of mine and folk around the country in visits that i've been doing living in homes that i've had whether new or retrofitted homes that have had investment in really high levels of energy efficiency and they're barely using their heating system at all and they're the ones who are happiest about energy bills at the moment because they're not because of the energy they're not using so that you know good quality installation and design and and that's going to be important for for developers to get right you know as they're shifting away from installing gas to installing heat pumps they need to make sure that they got the right kit with the right spec for the right size of home that they're installing it properly and that they're doing that to a high standard reduce the energy consumption the energy needs of the home through high levels of energy efficiency those are some of the things that we can do that are within our control right now one of the most fundamental things that's not within our control right now is the rebalancing of electricity and gas prices and this has come up time and time again i know that the committee discussed it this morning the scottish government has been raising this year after year and we've had a long-standing acknowledgement from the UK government that it needs to do this several other countries already have at the moment we pay for electricity a price that is artificially linked to fossil fuel prices and i think that's that's particularly problem i mean it's problematic for for consumers in scotland in terms of the energy that they pay it's problematic for the the transition that we need to see here and in the rest of the UK as well we need to see that transition away from fossil fuel consumption for heating it's problematic for some of the energy companies and the financial services companies i think you were discussing green mortgages toward the end of your session yesterday they need to know that this is going to be a viable investment from their point of view and the running costs are critical to that every bit as much as the installation costs i think it's also important in scotland's context from a political point of view we need people to recognise that this transition is going to be fair and just and scotland is generating large amounts of cheap clean renewable electricity at least cheap to generate and we should be passing on at least a good proportion of that that economic benefit to billpayers and it requires the UK government to finally get around to what they have committed to doing but not yet delivered with rebalancing gas and electricity prices that's going to be critical in terms of the running costs already even before that's happening if you build home so a very high level of energy efficiency and you install a zero emissions heating system like a heat pump the price is comparable or can be lower in some circumstances and for new build it's much easier than for retrofit to achieve that really really high level of performance but fundamentally we do need the UK government to make good on their commitment to rebalance gas and electricity prices and we hope that they'll be willing to listen to scotland's point of view on how that should be done in a way that makes sure that it supports the transition to zero direct emission heating well with that really important message in your view is the transition that you hope for possible without that rebalancing of energy costs between the fossil fuel well the transition that's required here is necessary in order to achieve scotland's climate emission targets scotland's climate emission targets are necessary if we're going to make a contribution let's face it to human survival you know this is this is an existential planetary emergency that we're living in and our commitment to achieve those those carbon emission reductions is not a whim of policy it is a it is an existential issue in relation to you know our ability to have a future in this world okay that needs to happen regardless of good or bad decisions being made by the UK government but we should not let up on building the pressure and we're by no means alone others within the UK including industry are building the pressure as well on the UK government to deliver on that and they remain at least in theory committed to doing so but we still haven't seen the detail or the timing of how and when it's going to be done okay thank you very much for that message of that thank you thank you really i've got a few questions i'm going to pick up here again in the previous session we heard quite a lot about the impact that the proposals might have on small and medium-sized enterprises do you think that that's the case and do you think that any particular supports needed yeah i mean we we are working to support SMEs i think one of the the issues that some smaller developers may face for example is that the the smaller building programme that they may be working on gives them a little bit less flexibility around that that gap between the the april 24 time period and the end of building warrants you know a larger developer may be able to to manage their building programme in a slightly more flexible way during that period a smaller developer might have have fewer options there i know antonia has been working on on some of this in particular as well so do you want to come in absolutely so in terms of smaller businesses some of the it will be very dependent on the on the type of SME as well and as part of our business and regulatory impact assessment we did a Scottish firms impact test as well where we interviewed different businesses and a number of them were SMEs and what encouraging messages came through that is actually some of the agility and flexibility of SMEs to be able to respond a bit more flexibly because they are not tied into maybe some longer planning timelines as the minister mentioned in terms of bigger bigger developers as well thanks for thanks very much for that that's heartening to hear that agility piece there another a different topic so apparently bioenergy technologies are not going to be permitted under the new build heat standard and i'd be interested to hear your response to consultees who argued that this would disproportionately impact rural communities and that there should be some kind of exemption for them well as i mentioned in my opening remarks we have made a decision to allow direct emission heating for use in emergencies so that kind of emergency backup may involve the option to use bioenergy whether that's solid or liquid forms of bioenergy but fundamentally bioenergy systems do produce direct emissions and that's what we need to move away from in relation to new build there are alternative options available you know we we need to look for example when we come to the the regulations about the existing housing stock we need to take account of what's technically feasible and what the the exemptions and allowances might be in that is is a matter for future consideration but the climate change committee has acknowledged that bioenergy may have some limited role to play but it needs to be used where it has the potential to maximize emissions reduction and it needs to be used really where there isn't an alternative zero emissions technology in relation to new build we think that's far less likely in new build has other options to to install rather than putting in bioenergy systems as a primary heating source from the outset so in line with that recommendation from the UK climate change committee we don't believe that installing bioenergy systems as a primary heating system for new build is appropriate in line with that recommendation to use it where there isn't an alternative available okay i think atonia wants to come in again yeah just in addition to what the minister said in terms of emergency backup we have also zero rated heat networks as well as technology so there may be some role for bioenergy within those as well so just wanted to clarify that and since the standard only focuses on heating cooling as well it means that industrial processes are not a part of it so there'll be a role for bioenergy within those thanks and so you mentioned the minister you mentioned that there were other options could you give us an indication of what they would be well i mean principally we'd be talking about heat pumps we'd be talking about connection to heat networks there are other electrical systems you know some people for example may choose to use smart electric storage for example i you know the regulations are technology neutral we do expect that heat pumps will play a very substantial role in the the compliance with the the new build heat standard and wider retrofit for the rest of the housing stock as well but yeah i think i would take some convincing that for a new build that the the only way to move away from from fossil fuels would be to to install from the outset a bioenergy system which itself produces direct carbon emissions they will have other options in relation to complying with the new build heat standard so i think that wouldn't be consistent with the climate change committee's recommendation thanks for that i mean we heard again the previous session from um peter peter got his last name drummond peter drummond um that really these regulations are two sides of the same coin with the passive house standard and could you say a little bit more about that because you know you also talked earlier about how this fits into a kind of a much bigger picture of what you're trying to do yes i mean last year's updates to the to the regs as i said earlier made improvements in terms of energy this one is on the heating systems that are going to be installed and we're also working in line with the commitment in the the bute house agreement i know that's supported by labour colleagues such as alex royally who's done some work on this developing a passive house equivalent standard for scotland now you know i've again some of the people that i've spoken to that i referred to earlier who are the happiest with their energy bills are living in passive house or near passive house standard homes because it's the energy they're not using that's the most beneficial to them if we can achieve something that's equivalent to that and i believe we can for scotland where we're going to be yes a lot of homes will still need some kind of heating system certainly they'll need a system for for hot water but they can have that in a way that reduces the draw on that and therefore reduces their bills very very substantially so yeah this is again this is about a direction of travel it's about a transition on on heat that has many different aspects to it the new build heat standard is one and it will complement i think and be complemented by the work that we're intending to take forward on a passive house equivalent standard for scotland okay thanks for clarifying that i'm not going to bring in marie mgnair thank you give you know good morning minister and your officials um i'm just going to go on to obviously the kind of fuel poverty issues and are you concerned about the impact of the proposals on fuel poverty levels and if so what can we done to mitigate any potential adverse effects asked can a similar question to the previous panel and i just wanted to get your views on that yeah i mean it's obviously very closely connected to the points that were raised by willy coffee around running costs we we want everyone to live in a home that's not only high standard that's that's warm but is affordable to keep warm as well that's been posed the most extraordinary challenges with energy prices in in the last period and nobody would underestimate the impact that that's had on on people's quality of life on their health and on their economic well-being if we took taking forward an approach on new build that achieves what we're seeking to achieve both with the existing energy standards with what i said earlier in relation to the convener's questions about a future development of passive house but also on zero emissions heating if we take all of these elements together i believe we can produce homes that are more affordable to live in than than we've done in the past also less vulnerable to the economic shocks that will come with future energy crisis let's not kid ourselves that the energy crisis that the world has been living through in the last few years is the last energy crisis fossil fuels are price volatile they always have been and keeping people connected to dependence on fossil fuel means keeping them vulnerable to the volatility of fossil fuel prices you know the the fuel poverty issues are not just as the the comments with willy coffee are not going to be addressed by this government alone they are also going to have to be addressed by decoupling the prices between gas and electricity this is a necessary part of the journey and it will happen i just wish the UK government would pick the pace up on delivering that and work with us to design how it's going to be delivered but yeah absolutely in terms of fuel poverty to me the the only solutions are around moving away from price volatile fossil fuels and giving people highly energy efficient homes to live in that is going to be easier in new build and the new build heat standard will will help to achieve that for the new homes that we're building many many social housing providers as well as commercial housing providers are already doing that to a very high standard and they're innovating with great ambition and creativity i think one of your witnesses said that it's the it's the retrofit agenda that i think use the description of it will be a nightmare i hope it's not going to be a nightmare because you know i'm working on that as well i think it's a huge challenge but it is a bigger challenge on the retrofit side than it will be on the on the new build side thank you on a separate issue one of my local house associations and i recently had with her raised concerns about additional cost of installing air source heat pumps that could really hold back new developments and indeed the scottish federation of housing associations made a similar point do you share this concern and is there any consideration within given to kind of building additional budget support i'm aware that you had some some discussion in the the committee this morning about various different estimates our view is that the the impact on new build will be in the region of 8400 pounds that's comparing current heat pump prices with the installation of a gas boiler that's about 3% of the average purchase price of a new build residential property i would emphasise that that's based on current prices and having visited and engaged with and worked with energy companies and heat pump developers in in scotland and the uk over the last year or two i'm convinced that they are themselves innovating and investing in research and development and they're determined and confident that they will be bringing not just more affordable but more efficient heat pumps onto the market i think we're going to see continued innovation in that area to reduce the cost of installation and as we get better at installing the the energy performance and the the higher fabric efficiency as well there are probably going to be ways to reduce that cost as well so that current cost estimate is around 3% of the average purchase price my view is that it will come down as we see continued innovation in that area but i would also just contrast this with the alternative if we allow continued construction of homes with conventional fossil fuel heating systems we may shave a few thousand pounds off the the sale price or the the price to the developer such as a social housing provider but we'll also leave them with a higher bill to pay in the long run because those fossil fuel systems are going to have to come out if we build more retrofit jobs waiting to happen that will increase the costs we absolutely need to see that investors also are willing to and i think a great many are seeing investment in net zero as a really good place to put their money whether that's institutional investors that work with housing associations whether that's those that are sitting behind the commercial housing developers we need them to be confident i think a great many of them are that net zero is the way forward that that's a good bet in investment terms rather than building more retrofit jobs waiting to happen Tony i think wants to come back i mean that we give consideration to to kind of build an additional budget support obviously in terms of affordability of developments obviously but you know the spot this morning but i would be grateful if you could thanks well obviously we work very closely with a great many housing providers including the social housing sector and i mean we continually keep on a review the the amount of support that we're able to provide them Tony is there anything you want to absolutely just wanted to add something to the point around funding so through our affordable housing supply programme we provided 20 million last year and 15 million in this financial year to support the rollout of zero direct emissions heating and some of the projects we're supporting in some of the council air such as highland council they have already been rolling out these projects but that is funding that we've dedicated to kind of building that capacity as well in helping the transition thank you in parallel there's you know other funding streams available as well for example for those housing providers social housing providers that want to be involved in the development of heat networks there's a heat network fund as well that allows them and a heat network support unit that allows them to bring their projects to the point of being ready for investment and then access investment from the Scottish government and that will be another way that they will be able to help their existing as well as new properties to meet the standards that are coming in thank you i'll take that information back thank you thank you thanks Marie and we're now moving to questions from miles bricks thank you good morning minister good morning to your officials as well i wanted to return to the impact the proposals will have in both on both rural and island communities and wondered what work had been undertaken to look at that specifically and maybe start with with a question with regards to do the Scottish government accept that the cost of implementing energy efficiency measures will be higher to developers and homeowners in rural scolan well rural developers and and housing providers do face additional costs and that's why a number of the funding streams that we offer have uplift for remote rural and island communities the social housing net zero heat fund for example we just uh what was it 10 days two weeks ago they're about announced an additional uplift for rural areas of i think it was 11 percent and remote areas of 22 percent for for that fund and that will need to to address some of the issues i would i would say as well though that um even though particularly island communities are very very sharply aware of some of the additional challenges that they face whether that's around skills and capacity whether it's around trust as well because some island communities you know folk have been stung by sharp practice you know developers with a bad intention coming in from the mainland doing work to a poor standard and never being seen again we we we know that there are there are particular issues that we need to address there there is also real innovation and creativity being brought to bear particularly when i was up in shetland just recently the yaltland housing association i think doing really interesting work not just in addressing some of the net zero challenges but doing it in a way that is very very consistent with the aspiration for um for you you know housing social housing that is is of high quality in the more general sense not just in a in a narrow energy sense so yes there are there are particular issues in relation to remote rural and in particular island communities those have been assessed in part through the island impact assessment uh you're a great a great many of those challenges we are working on but i would also say that we can turn some of those challenges into positives because of the level of creativity that's being brought to bear in many of those communities thank you for that and it's maybe for another day but i think some of the discussion around the rural uplift for landlords around this is something to to look at more detail on as well and how that will help the two challenges we face around climate change and housing crisis in this country um we heard earlier around 114 114 000 shortfall in houses currently estimated by homes for scotland um 10 target the scottish government have for those to be built in rural and island communities um how will that be potentially tracked if the government don't know how many SMEs are currently operating in this area to make sure that they don't withdraw from that sector the challenges they're currently facing are obvious than we've discussed previously but i'm just wondering to return to SMEs what works being undertaken to look at both supply chains for them in terms of workforce and also this potential impact on on not bringing forward developments which are often small scale individual units in many cases as well i'm going to ask antonia maybe to build on some of the comments you already mentioned in relation to SME support that yeah absolutely if i can first start with the first point that the member raised around housing delivery altogether so we do have affordable housing supply targets as government and it's probably worth mentioning stat around all sector house building completion is actually at their highest annual this march up to date since 2008 and that's an up of nine percent so we do have these targets of 110 000 homes by 2032 that we track against in relation to how we work with kind of SMEs and in others in the house building sector if yona kell was here earlier today and she mentioned some of the research that homes for Scotland are doing around members to establish some of that some of that landscape and as part of developing these regulations we have a working group on which range of range of stakeholders from the house building sector of all sizes also the federation of master builders are members as well so through that working group we have engaged with these stakeholders to have help kind of build that confidence and to communicate to members what is coming down the pipeline but yeah thank you that's helpful and just finally in terms of workforce i wanted to ask last year attended the opening of the Edinburgh colleges renewables and energy efficiency training centre here and what was interesting was to see number of young people had come to Edinburgh i'm sure other larger colleges are also in that space from rural communities to do these courses and had you know their intentions would stay and work here so you know welcome the fact that the mobile heat pump training centre has been brought forward to showcase this but i just wondered if there was a specific strategy for rural and island communities that young people who want to start out in a career on this will end up probably training in larger centres and then being offered a lot of work in urban areas and so we're not necessarily returning these people to their communities to do this work in the future and just wondered where the government was on a lot of this yeah i mean i had a meeting just the other week with graham day talking about some of the connections between the scottish government's approach on the what we're trying to achieve in in energy terms and the impact on skills the potential role that the college sector can play i think there are great many colleges around the country in fact i think one of the first that i visited in this role was in was it done free certainly was in the in that area in south of scotland where yes they were investing in additional capacity because they knew that demand was coming and they knew that those skills were going to be needed so i think i would challenge the idea that it's only happening in in the central belt or in big cities i think it is happening around the country inevitably a great many of these these decisions about the the capacity for training and skills around the country will be determined by the demand that industry is placing for for these skills that's why i would come back to this the point i made earlier the government's approach to regulating to create the demand in the first place is absolutely central to giving industry the the confidence to invest knowing that these skills are going to be required knowing that the demand is going to be generated is what's needed in order to see that that supply for those skills the investment in those skills and the wider supply chain capacity come about and the the one thing that we could do that would imperil the the investment whether in skills or wider supply chain would be to say actually we're going to take a step back and and delay or water down the the regulations that we're taking forward the regulations are necessary part of setting the conditions for the investment that we need to see thanks for that as i suppose my point was around workforce really though in rural communities and low carbon skills grant for example whether or not the government are looking at an uplift for that for rural apprenticeships and specifically for SMEs who will have individuals coming out to do potential training and need extra cover or need to look towards how that's going to work for them in their business what works going on around that because the one for scotland approach doesn't seem to be necessarily working for SMEs and for rural scotland and the additional costs of transport for example for students going to rural colleges or just where capacity seems to be building quickly in places like Edinburgh well i mean just tangentially on the on the transport side that's one of the reasons why we were keen to develop the free bus travel for young people policy you know i spoke to people young people who were not taking up college courses because the cost of the bus would have been you know 10 20 30 pounds a week and that was just not viable for them so i'm very pleased to hear that there's the support for what the government's doing on that area and tony do you want to come in on we don't currently yeah we don't currently have an uplift for for any of the training in relation to rural and island areas and i don't know if gareth has any further anything further i think it's something that we can it's under consideration it's something that we can kind of take away i think i'm not putting words in the minister's mouth but i think it's something that mr briggs raises an important point that that support is needed and we need to kind of continue to review it and and think about how we can improve our offer i'm sure i can expect a blizzard of parliamentary questions absolutely thank you thanks gamina okay thanks miles okay so we've come to the end of our questions out thank you for thank you all for your evidence today there's no requirement for the committee to make any recommendations on negative instruments but do any members have any comments on the instrument okay we don't have any comments is the committee agreed that we do not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument agreed thank you and i'll suspend the meeting to allow a change of officials so before we turn to the next item i just want to give apologies for my colleague mark griffin uh he had a problem getting in and we thought he might arrive at the committee but it seems that uh he's further delayed so i just want to extend those apologies we now turn to agenda item number three which is to take evidence on the cost of living tenant protection scotland act 2022 amendment of expiry date number two regulations 2023 and we're joined again for this item by patrick harvey the minister for zero carbon buildings active travel and tenants rights and mr harvey is joined for this item by Scottish Government officials adam crack crack chick head of housing homelessness and regeneration analysis poppy prior who's a solicitor and a vet shepherd who's the head of housing services and rented sector reform unit and i invite the minister to make a short opening statement thanks very much convener and nice to be back with you again pleased to be here to present the cost of living tenant protection scotland act 2022 amendment of expiry date regulations 2023 as colleagues know the emergency act came into force on 28 october last year and since then it's provided additional protection for tenants in what remain very challenging economic times the act originally ran to the 31 march 2023 and has been extended once until the end of this current month in june i published a statement of reasons for the second proposed extension of the emergency act as part of that report and in line with the requirements of the act i set out the intention for the measures in the act to be extended for the further and final six months to the 31st of march 2024 the report provides updated data and economic analysis which shows that the challenging economic position has not yet fundamentally changed and many households in the private rented sector in particular continue to struggle for example according to recent ugov polling for the Scottish government in august 2023 levels of concern about paying rent were twice as high in the private rented sector at 27 percent than paying rent or mortgage mortgages across all 10 years as a whole at 12 percent and this hasn't improved since the polling in march 2023 even though it was recently announced that the energy price cap will reduce it's reducing from a very high level and the positive impact on fuel poverty rates has of course been offset by the UK government's decision to withdraw the 400 pound energy bills support scheme that was paid to all households last winter meanwhile the freezing of local housing allowance rates by the UK government for the third consecutive year is yet another reason why lower household incomes in the private rented sector sorry lower income households in the private rented sector who access local housing allowance will find it more difficult to afford rental properties so while the picture has changed somewhat since a year ago the circumstances remain very difficult for many tenants and many households on low and modest incomes continue to feel the strain of cost of living pressures it's for that reason that the amendment of the expiry date regulation 2023 seek to extend part one of the act in its current form including the rent cap measures for the private rented sector the eviction moratorium provisions across all rented sectors covered by the act and other important protections until at least the 31st of march 2024 I beg you pardon until latest 31st of march 2024 in reaching this position I've reflected on the views expressed by stakeholders and partners seeking to find the right balance in terms of the statutory duty to ensure that the provisions will not remain in place for longer than is necessary in connection with the cost crisis however I also recognise the ongoing impact that the cost crisis is having on some private landlords the private sector rent cap is set at three percent but there is a safeguard for landlords who can alternatively opt to apply to rent service Scotland for a rent increase of up to six percent if they've had an increase in their defined prescribed property costs within a specified period and I know that some landlords are making use of this safeguard with 1031 landlords submitting such an application to rent service Scotland as of the 1st of September turning to our proposed continuation of the eviction moratorium provisions tenants in both the private and social rented sectors and those living in student accommodation will continue to benefit from the additional time to find alternative accommodation provided by the six month pause in the enforcement of eviction action in addition they're protected from private landlords seeking to end a tendency to raise rents above the cap and reduce unlawful evictions by increasing the level of damages payable as with the rent cap the eviction moratorium provisions include a number of safeguards for landlords these recognise that there are some circumstances where enforcement of an eviction order or decree should be able to proceed to protect communities for example in instances of serious antisocial behaviour and also to strike an appropriate balance between the protection of tenants and the rights of landlords so in summary convener i believe that the latest evidence shows that the cost crisis is still very much with us it's crucial we continue the remaining protections in the cost of living tenant protection Scotland act beyond the 30th of September this year if the committee agrees with my recommendation it still remains the case for that final period i will continue to keep the measures under review and to consider their ongoing necessity and proportionality on an ongoing basis advising parliament through regular reporting and indeed the next report is due to be laid no later than the 14th of October so i'd like to thank the committee for their continued interest in this issue and scrutiny of the instrument and i'm happy to answer any questions that you've got thanks very much for that statement and it's good to hear that you are going to continue to monitor and look into the proportionality of of this for these regulations i would be interested here i think we've had we've been hearing concerns about these regulations leading to landlords leaving the sector and i would be interested to hear if there's evidence on that you know is that a concern that you have it is something that we continue to keep a close eye on we're aware of anecdotal evidence that landlords have been talking about this you know some will cite the tenant protection act the temporary cost of living measures as one factor i've heard from a number of landlords for whom for example changes of tax policy at UK level have actually been a bigger factor in in what their motivations are for the decisions about whether they're going to consider leaving the sector in terms of actual evidence though the number of properties registered in the for private rent in Scotland under the registration scheme has not changed significantly there is likely to be a bit of a time lag in the collection of that data we're conscious of that but at the moment the figures don't show any significant reduction in the number of properties available okay thank you very coffee thanks very much good morning again Patrick interestingly the local authority chief housing officers are recommending that you withdraw rather than extend this this proposal they say that it's not having the impact that it was intended and so on what's your view of that statement and why would you disregard that and proceed with the proposal today well i think it'd be worth maybe separating out the the rent cap provisions from the eviction moratorium provisions you know the local authority housing as well as housing association housing we reached a different approach in terms of the rent cap with the social housing sector we agreed with them taking account of the the concerns that they had and the differences in the nature of the sector the way in which rental income is reinvested for for public purposes whether that's for services for tenants retrofit to improve energy performance or indeed the investment in new build we'll recognise a range of differences in the way the private and the social rented sectors operate and we found that the best solution was to work with them to agree a voluntary limit on the average rent rises across scotland so in that regard we removed social housing from the the fixed absolute rent cap and agreed that that voluntary approach you know for an average size of property it amounted to a monetary close equivalence between the the increased rent cap after it raised from zero through to the voluntary the voluntary agreement that had been reached with the social housing sector my view is that that has achieved a level of stability for tenants in a way that has been agreed in in mutual terms with the sector i think some of their concerns may be more focused on the eviction moratorium rather than on the rent side we believe it remains important in the current climate for people to have that additional time available to them if they if they are faced with the prospect of eviction the safeguards for those social landlords that do need to evict someone in cases for example of severe social serious antisocial behaviour remain and i think social landlords whether that's local authorities or housing associations for the most part have been very responsible landlords and have never wanted to move to eviction as their first recourse they do seek to achieve better outcomes for their tenants they've had the pre eviction protocols in place for substantially longer than they've been a requirement on the private rented sector so i believe that we do still have the right balance in terms of protection for tenants who might face that that prospect of eviction in some circumstances as well as protection for landlords whether in the social sector or the private sector who in rare circumstances do have legitimate need to pursue an eviction order yeah i can pick up on that point as well if you don't mind particularly i'll actually were saying simply like it just pushes the rent due to the end of the process which is a bigger rent due amount at the eviction point and it doesn't actually ultimately reduce the numbers of evictions how would your response to that be sure i mean in terms of arrears we were we were clear when we debated the the bill itself when we took the act through through parliament we we recognised that in cases of severe rent arrears what what a tenant in that circumstance needs is not simply to be left stuck in one place accruing ever more debt and that was one of the reasons why severe rent arrears were included as a ground for for pursuing eviction okay and in terms of the suggestion in some of our evidence that the supply of private rented homes has been adversely affected by the emergency legislation what would you have to say about that and also the potential deterrent for institutional investment in private rented housing are we seeing an impact in those areas again i would draw a distinction between anecdotal evidence that's being put about and and what we are actually seeing on the ground the the direct impact of the cost of living tenant protection scotland act in terms of rental incomes was only ever possible to to exist over a period of 18 months now that we're into the the proposal to extend for the final six months the the effect of a decision today cannot possibly impact on the rental income of properties that are subject to investors decisions at the moment investors decisions at the moment would be about supply of homes that would be available to generate rental income in the future after the the temporary provisions in this legislation have ceased i think some of the wider concerns that institutional investors have are around the longer term proposals that the Scottish Government has for for rebalancing the private rental sector and in particular on a new national system of rent controls we're keen to continue to work closely with the sector including engagement that myself and Paul McClellan and his housing minister have with investors as well as developers as we as we work through the process to to determine the the shape of the housing bill that will be introduced next year that would give effect to that that commitment for a national system of rent controls i think the the impact that we're seeing on rental prices at the moment reinforces for me the the need to commit to that work we need to ensure that affordability is part of our understanding of what adequate housing is and that all people have a human right to adequate housing and so you know we will continue to develop that work and we'll continue to do so in a way that's well informed by the perspectives of tenants of landlords of people who work with them and indeed of investors you know across europe you know the the the the situation that scotland and the rest of the uk have been in in in recent years and decades is unusual you know this is a particularly unregulated market in terms of private housing investors and particularly the bigger institutional investors make decisions across a wide range of different countries and they are well used to making decisions about more regulated and less regulated markets in terms of rent the evidence from across europe is very clear that a well-designed rent control system is entirely compatible with a vibrant housing market and investment in private rent homes made for private rent we believe that that can be achieved in scotland as well and will be consistent with supplying the quality homes that scotland needs and achieving affordability which has been lacking in too many cases thank you very much for the detail in that response minister thank you thanks really now i'm going to move to questions from miles bricks thank you convenient i don't know if you want me to do all my questions at once or start with the third one just do three and then we'll come back great the committee's received evidence concerning the increased cost of landlords which are currently being impacted by rising interest rates in recent months and so wondered what the government's view was around the case for increasing rent cap of 3% to 6% for prescribed property costs well as i said we will continue to keep under review the proportionality and the necessity of the measures i think the next report that i mentioned which is due by mid october would i think inform the committee's consideration of our proposals at that stage um we believe a set out in the um the statement of reasons that we published in June that the evidence is sufficient to justify continuation of the rent cap any any subsequent variation in in what it would be i think would be more likely to be covered in in that report in october um you know the the cost crisis is continuing to have an impact and we need to recognise that that continued impact is being felt on tenants as well as on landlords that's always been part of the the design of this legislation is to recognise the protection that tenants need but also that there need to be safeguards in place for landlords and that there needs to be a proper balance between those the the fact that the economic circumstances have not fundamentally changed the cost crisis has not fundamentally gone away and even if we do see some of the hopeful projections around reduced inflation in the in the months ahead come to pass people are still living with those increased costs that have that have been landed with and that applies to tenants as well as to landlords and i i don't think it changes the fundamental calculation that we've made about the balance in protection on rents and safeguards for landlords that we've proposed okay thanks i'll come back to my questions later thanks and our question from pam gusall thank you chair and good morning the act the minister will probably know has unintended consequences of both tenants and landlords and we've heard from multiple organisations that landlords are increasing the rents between tenancies to cover their costs and anticipated costs due to fear of on-going rent control and in the 12 months to july 2023 private rental prices experience their highest annual percentage changed since 2012 would you accept that this legislation is leaving landlords with no choice but to increase rents for the new lets higher than they might have done so if the legislation wasn't in place i don't think i would share that character characterisation of what the legislation has done the member is absolutely right that rent increases between tenancies are not covered by this legislation as emergency legislation it wasn't ever going to be possible to fundamentally restructure the way that private residential tenancies work there was a recognition that this was only ever going to provide protection within tenancies for the annual in tenancy increases that are allowed under the prt what we see now as a result of this legislation being enforced in scotland is that the difference is that in scotland it's only those inter tenancy increases that we're seeing happen and tenants are in the absence of the the exceptional six percent people are being protected with a three percent rent cap within tenancies whereas down south they're being subjected to both we know that increases in market rents rents being advertised are significant you know Glasgow 12 percent Aberdeen 10 percent but we we also know that similar figures are being seen in parts of england as well cardiff 10.4 percent southampton 10.7 percent magister 13 percent the the inter tenancy increases are happening for a wide range of factors including necessity in some cases i'm sure but there are also some landlords who are pursuing whatever they can get away with now that that is by no means that last is no by no means characterisation of the whole of the private rented sector there are landlords out there who are committed to trying to provide as affordable housing as they can for their tenants there are also landlords who will who will go to the maximum that they think the market will bear what we have in scotland is protection for sitting tenants protection for those tenants from annual in tenancy rent increases rather than being subjected to both in tenancy and intra tenancy rent increases so the level of protection that exists for those tenants is higher in scotland as a result of this legislation excuse me i'm going to take a glass of water thank you sorry can i just add to that please chair minister would you be aware that obviously students are really affected by this when landlords have put up prices higher i know from the indian students groups association they've contacted me that some of the students had to go back basically because they couldn't find appropriate accommodation because the rents are so much higher that they can't afford and sometimes there is actually lack of even supply of housing in the market to rent yes absolutely you know the the increase in intra tenancy rents is very significant it's very significant down south it's very significant here it's very significant partly because of the economic circumstances and partly because of the unregulated nature of those rental increases and this for me reinforces the need to continue to make progress on the development of the new housing bill and a rent control system for scotland that will be fully effective rather than only relying on emergency legislation that could only protect people within tenancies this legislation as emergency legislation was only ever going to be able to do that and it was only ever going to be temporary and it has to be subject to that continual on-going test of necessity and proportionality and you know it's it's very clear that the affordability issues within the private rented sector more generally require that longer term reform and the scotland government's committed to doing that thanks we're going to move on to a question from Ivan Mickey thanks very much convener in the interest of chance banser just reiterate my declaration of interest with regard to ownership of a rental property and share of a rental property business and the I just wanted to turn minister to the future period after march next year and you've you can already answered in regards to I think Willie Coffey's question about investors looking at the longer term so I think in the terms of the clearly the interests of tenants and landlord certainty of the situation or as much as you can give after that period is obviously helpful to allow for longer term planning you previously told the committee that the way of bridging the gap between the end of the rent cap and longer term rent control measures would be to use the rent adjudication measures in the 2022 act so just an update from you on your current thinking on how those powers may be used and when would you announce your proposed approach for the period after in the march next year yeah this is hugely important and Ivan Mickey's right to point to that power within the legislation that allows a an adjustment to be made to the rent adjudication process and the idea of that is to prevent a kind of immediate cliff edge when the temporary emergency legislation ultimately is switched off we are still at the point of exploring the options to make the most effective use of this power I'm afraid I'm not at the point where I'm able to kind of publish detailed proposals on that but I think we can expect it to come forward in due course in time for the the expiry of the rent cap event is there anything more that we're able to say at this point on expected timescale I know there's been dialogue with a number of stakeholders on this as well yeah we are still taking sort of taking views of stakeholders into account and we are looking as minister reflects there are a number of different ways that we could amend the adjudication system but broadly speaking the adjudication system at the moment relies on comparisons with market rent so we're looking at with our stakeholders what the alternative options could be in that space but we would be hoping that we'd be able to bring proposals forward probably in the first few months after the current extension takes place in October okay we accept that the longer that goes on the more uncertainty that is in the more difficult it makes it in terms of investment going forward to increase supply which is clearly a significant objective of what needs to happen yeah I mean that's why we're keen to make sure that we're hearing from those those widest possible range of voices as we as we bring forward any decision I would like to hope that there's broad support now I don't recall serious opposition when the legislation was being passed in parliament I would like to hope there's broad support for the principle that a mechanism like this is necessary to prevent a cliff edge but yeah Ivan McKee's quite right that it needs to be designed in a way that's consistent with our protection for tenants but also on our wider need for you know a housing market that's that's meeting people's needs okay thank you thank you so we're now going to move to question from Murray McNair thanks convener I'm from Ivan obviously some of the evidence we've received obviously has pointed to the need for the Scottish government to review and update the private rented policy again do you have any timescales when you're going to publish the tenant strategy and obviously the housing bill to introduce the long-term rent control provisions yeah I mean the the programme for government does include a commitment to introduce the housing bill to deliver the new deal for tenants that will include the the introduction of long-term rent controls and other tenants rights as well as new prevention of homelessness duties so you know I hope that members and stakeholders as well will take confidence from the inclusion of that commitment in the programme for government and it's always the case that the precise date of introduction of a new bill is a very slightly movable feast within that commitment but yeah we have the commitment to take that forward and we're continuing to work with a range of stakeholders to to make sure that we shape that bill in the most effective way possible thanks minister thank you it's good to get that reassurance we are we stood to attention when we heard the the pfg I've got a question about joint tenancy loopholes so living rent have stated that they believe there's a loophole in the legislation where a joint tenant who remains in the property after another joint tenant leaves might not be protected by the rent cap how can such tenants be protected I mean I share the concern about this I'm not sure that I would personally use the phrase loophole I think it is a consequence of the fact that the emergency legislation could only take forward some some temporary steps it wasn't possible to use that temporary emergency legislation for a fundamental restructuring or a kind of major surgery on what a PRT or what a private residential tenancy is and you're part of that that current legislation does give a landlord the right to decide not to agree to continue an existing tenancy in circumstances where one joint tenant leaves that the intention of course in designing the PRT in that instance going back a good number of years now was to avoid the situation where others are made homeless because one person chooses to leave a joint tenancy so it's I don't think it was the wrong decision to take that approach in the design of the PRT but we do need to recognise that one of the consequences is that the emergency legislation here was not able to to address this particular circumstance and I think once again I come back to the point that it highlights the need for us to to make good on those longer term commitments including the new housing legislation and the new deal for tenants and as part of our work to develop that we are looking at joint tenancy issues including the existing approach to ending those tenancies. Thanks for that and final question from Miles Briggs. Thank you. I had a couple of points I wanted to raise with the minister firstly and I think we'd accept that for current tenants this has been useful but for people seeking tenancies I wondered whether or not the minister has any view on the fact that we now have some of the highest homelessness rates we've ever seen in the number of children in temporary accommodation and council saying that they're unable to work to put together sustainable tenancies with the private rented sector and if he understands that consequence of the policy. The question is of course an extremely serious one and some of the longer term the work that we're doing including the homelessness prevention duties in the new housing bill are going to be relevant here but I think I would point out some of the information that's already been published in relation to referrals to people becoming homelessness and the tenure that they had been previously living in there has been a significant reduction in the private resident a private rented sector showing up in those stats over this period in fact I think it's come down to pre below the pre pandemic levels I think Adam may have found the graph that I was frantically searching for there Adam is there anything you can say about the the figures you've got in front of you yeah short so um these statistics were published in august um the the biannual update on homelessness statistics what they show is that for the six months up to um september 22 before the emergency legislation there was 2,990 assessments of homelessness from people in the private rented sector for the six months after um so that's from october to march there's 2,200 so there's a 26 reduction in the number of households assessors homeless coming from the private rented sector and as mr harvey says that level is now below the pre pandemic levels for the last six months compared to what they were in 2019 yeah and some of that that variation again will be uh you know protections that were brought in in relation to covid and then those started to ease off and you know over time this this does change significantly i can remember i don't think we have to go back very many years to see a period when you know evictions from the private residential from the private rented sector were the principal the biggest route into homelessness for people that started to come down because of a number of actions that had been taken we need to continue to make sure uh that people are protected from the risk of homelessness and the new homelessness prevention duties are going to be really important in achieving that but the uh i think the evidence is pretty clear that this legislation has given additional protection that's been necessary in particular to those living in the private rented sector um you said earlier you didn't want to see a the creation of a cliff edge um but my reading of this would be the impact will be that every landlord in scotland can seek a review then in march without any further extension the government's outlining and so my concern is what that means for our tribunals and the backlog which they already face and the resources that they'll need and whether or not the government's considered what that looks like well we we obviously do uh stay in in touch with the tribunal uh around the impacts uh partly around the design and then the implementation of this legislation we'll continue to uh to keep closely in contact around the implications of any further changes um i think it's it's worth reflecting though that even once this legislation ceases to apply once it it comes to an end uh the the level of protection that tenants have had in scotland was high already uh some of aspects of that protection the UK government is now starting to put in place for example and i welcome the fact that they've made that change of position so you know the the end of this emergency legislation would not be the end of tenant protection not by a long way we would return to a position where tenants have that that high level of uh of legal rights and protection uh that existed prior to this legislation okay and just finally in terms of the extension to the regulations do they how do they fit with the Scottish government's wider objectives around housing to 2040 and and again to return some of the homelessness duties which are being presented a lot of that was around sustainable tendencies being developed with the private rental sector and i don't know if you have the data to hand of what that is today but my understanding edinburgh is there's very few being taken forward since the rent controls were brought into place so it's re-establishing that relationship seems really critical for the housing crisis we're facing yeah i mean i would come back again to the the difference between the longer term development of policy and legislation on housing and the the work that will be done on the new housing bill and the homelessness prevention duties and the um the good level of dialogue that we have with the sector in in the broadest terms as we take forward that work and in this instance the specific test that we have to go through that are required under the emergency cost of living act um to to justify the necessity and proportionality of not only continuing but then in this case extending we will remain under a duty under the legislation to keep that test of proportionality and necessity under ongoing review and to expire provisions which we can no longer justify in those terms so the extension to march next year the latest doesn't doesn't remove that requirement for us to continue to keep that review on going okay thank you thanks okay great thank you very much that includes our our questions and i thank witnesses for our evidence and we're now going to return to agenda item four which is consideration of the motion on the instrument that we've been discussing and i invite the minister to move motion s6m 0 9 2 9 0 that the local government housing and planning committee recommends that the cost of living tenant protection scotland act 2022 amendment of expiry date number two regulations 2023 be approved thank you do members have any points they wish to make myles with these other extensions and we'll be opposing them okay thank you minister is there anything else pan sorry i didn't see you i'm just going to echo myles as you were we're posing them thank you is there anything else you further you wish to add to thank the committee once again for scrutiny and for the time to explore the issues with you thank you very much the question is that motion s6m 0 9 2 9 0 in the name of patrick harvey be approved are we all agreed we are not all agreed all in favour that's four all against two and any abstentions no thank you and the committee will publish report okay right so the motion was agreed with four votes four and two against the committee will publish a report setting out its recommendation on the instrument in the coming days we agreed at the start of the meeting to take the next two items in private so as that was the last public item for our agenda today i now close the public part of the meeting