を nelio'r oeddwn i'r ei fod yn iudes draggede. I end-stop Go Questions. The next item of business geradeb does a statement by Fegus Ewingродd on Scotland's energy strategy. The minister will take questions at the end of his statement and there should therefore be no interventions or interruptions. Members who asked a question to the minister might like to praise their requests a weak button now. I will give just a few brief settings for everybody to settle. 10 mlynedd i'r iawn. Rydw i'n credu rhai ddechrau sy'n cymryd yn cael ei dyluniau oesatwm iawnio ymwysig o brifuddai unigol erbyn eu cael eu cael ei ddweud hefyd i Llywodraeth, Sודio, Ffaswr, Siwet, Gwymailwyr, Llyfrin? Rydw i'n credu ei ddweud i gweiniau Llyfrin, Llyfrin i'w gweiniau Llyfrin i'r fwylo i'r gweiniau Llyfrin i'r gwendahorau digwydd ac i'n gweinu'r gwerthwyll as part of a varied energy mix driven by some of the most stretching legislative targets for emissions reductions in the world. Today's statement is to update Parliament on the Scottish Government's plans for a new overarching energy strategy, which I set out when I addressed the chamber last September. On 1 March, the First Minister and Professor Sir Jim MacDonald chaired a meeting of the Scottish Energy Advisory Board and proposed to its members a new approach to energy and a better deal for Scotland. I'm pleased to say that there was a very clear consensus in that meeting over the priorities of a new energy strategy for Scotland. Three things must be achieved. First, a stable managed energy transition. Ensuring Scotland has a secure and affordable energy supplies in future decades as we address the need to decarbonise our energy system in line with the Parliament's Climate Change Act, where the Scottish Government continues to support the innovation and expertise from our oil and gas industry, the deployment of renewable energy technologies and the development of more innovative and low-cost ways of producing, storing and transmitting energy. Second, taking a whole system view of the challenge, by which I mean consideration of Scotland's energy supply and energy consumption as equal priorities and building a genuinely integrated approach to power, transport and heat. Our success rests on continuing good work to make our homes, workplaces and vehicles more energy efficient and more affordable to run. Third, embracing a truly local vision of energy provision for Scotland, promoting local energy solutions, planned with community involvement and offering community ownership of energy generation, delivering a lasting economic asset to communities in every part of Scotland. Developing our new energy strategy is an ambitious programme, but we have many of the building blocks in place. If re-elected by the people of Scotland in May, we will then set out more detail about the new approach, and a draft energy strategy will be published for consultation by the end of this year to accompany the draft third report on policies and proposals, required by the Climate Change Act, which will set out how Scotland can achieve future emissions reduction targets. In formulating the draft energy strategy for Scotland, we will draw on the expertise of Scotland's industrial and academic communities. We shall also embark on a public dialogue with Scottish communities and energy consumers over their energy future. As I set out the plans to develop a new energy strategy, I would like to briefly reflect on the Scottish Government's commitment to developing a thriving renewable energy sector in Scotland in partnership with industry development agencies and academia, which has led to major changes in energy provision in recent years. Almost 50 per cent of domestic demand for electricity is now met by renewables. That is up from around 10 per cent only 10 years ago. Scotland has already met 220 targets to install 500 megawatts of community and locally-owned renewable generation capacity. The development of onshore wind in the right places has underpinned investment in grid upgrades, upgrades that will enable us to develop our offshore and marine potential. Projects such as SSE's Beatrice offshore wind farm, which, subject to final investment decision approval, will become the largest infrastructure project in Scotland—$2.5 billion. With substantial Scottish Government support, we are on the cusp of two record-breaking projects. Maidgen, the world's largest tidal stream array, is being developed in the Pentland Firth with the first four turbines being installed this year, and the next stage of high wind, the world's largest floating offshore wind project, is being in place by 2018. We should celebrate those successes, but I am sorry to say that we now face stiff headwinds to continued progress across the full range of Scottish energy priorities. In decision and inconsistency, in energy policy from Westminster, is now placing Scottish investment and jobs at risk. UK Government in action continues to threaten the prosperity of the oil and gas industry. We are using our devolved powers to provide support where possible, but I have repeatedly called on the UK Government to do more with its powers over the fiscal regime and non-tax measures, such as loan guarantees to support the industry and its highly skilled workforce. I await tomorrow's budget with eager anticipation. We face an onslaught from the UK Government against renewables in its abrupt and irrational termination of financial support for the best value technologies, placing Scottish jobs and investment at risk and jeopardising further progress towards our 220 renewable energy targets. The UK Government has in effect chosen nuclear power over carbon capture and storage with the abrupt cancellation of the CCS demonstrator competition, which could have done so much for Peter Het. Scottish energy consumers, all of our constituents, now face unprecedented risks to the basic tenets of energy provision, secure energy supplies at the best price. Power station closures across Britain continue, including Llanet, which will close in the next fortnight without the prospect of replacement. The competition and market authority confirmed last week that consumers are still not getting a fair deal. In a further blow, the UK Government has halved the value of the support that is available to help the most vulnerable in society to heat their homes more affordably. Scotland cannot wait for DEC and the Treasury to get it right. It would be easier for me to stand here and talk about its intentions for the next Parliament, but those issues are too important to wait. We are now acting with some of the programmes that begin to address those challenges. The Scottish energy efficiency programme, following Cabinet's agreement that energy efficiency should be a national infrastructure priority, will provide an offer of support to buildings across Scotland, domestic and non-domestic, to improve their energy efficiency rating over a 15 to 20-year period. Building on the success of existing programmes since 2009 has delivered over £0.5 billion to improve energy efficiency and tackle fuel poverty. A new energy efficiency procurement framework developed with Scottish Futures Trust to improve the public sector's energy efficiency to the tune of £300 million. On local energy challenge fund, which last week awarded up to £10 million of funding to nine new projects, all of which explore a new kind of localised energy provision with innovative technologies and community involvement. Today, I am announcing a further £7 million for investment in district heating for the next financial year. That will bring our total investment into district heating to over £17 million. There is so much economic opportunity and societal benefit for Scotland in this new approach, and securing the benefits must be a shared endeavour. I hope that I can rely on the support of members as this important work to develop Scotland's energy strategy progresses. Thank you, minister. The minister will now take questions, Sarah Boyack. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I thank the minister for advanced notice of his statement and welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to producing energy strategy, although we are disappointed that it has taken so long. We are also disappointed that the Scottish Government's budget saw cuts in renewables and energy efficiency, given the failure to meet our first climate, four climate change targets, and the fact that we will not have eradicated fuel poverty by the November target. Can I, however, agree with the minister about the short termism of the Tory Government that he referred to, which has created massive uncertainty and job losses, the cancellation of carbon capture and storage projects, and the fact that they have put renewables into reverse, cutting green energy to the bone? In advance of tomorrow's budget, will the minister support Labour's proposal for a new public body to invest in north-east assets, which is strategically important to get us through the current difficult times in the industry? Will the minister also tell us now whether fracking will be part of the Scottish Government's energy policy later this year? I think that I am able to welcome some measure of consensus that Sarah Boyack mentioned at the beginning. I think that we have worked pretty much together in many ways with many of Ms Boyack's colleagues over the past five years, which I am grateful for. Let me answer the questions as follows. First, we have made very clear our position about unconventionals. There is a moratorium in place at the moment. There can be no development. It is right, however, that we study these matters on an evidence-based approach. I think that it is fair to say that we have set out extremely detailed plans about what evidence we will take, what we will then follow, and we will then have a national debate. That is very clear indeed. Second, I think that the specific question was about oil and gas. I wait with interest precisely what the Labour Party proposes, what sum of money is proposed, for whom, investment in what, on what advice, when and how. May I say to Ms Boyack that it does appear to me, and it has appeared to me for quite some time, and this is something that I have put in the record in this chamber, that the immediate risk-facing industry is that some operators are under considerable financial pressure and that the immediate action that is required is for the banks to keep faith with those operators. That point was well made, I think, by Sir Ian Wood in the last couple of days. I think that that is the most immediate issue that requires to be dealt with. I myself have written to the major banks and I am in dialogue with them. The purpose of this is to urge them to keep faith with the oil and gas industry over the toughest of times and to avert the risk, which is well recognised in the industry and which I have discussed with Andy Samuel, the chief regulator of the oil and gas authority, to do so and to see the banks keep faith with the industry as necessary to avoid financial contagion or, as it is otherwise known, the domino effect. I think that those are the two questions that Ms Boyack raised. I will check to see if I have missed anything in which case I will refer to her. I thank the minister for advance copy of his statement, although his text was rather long on criticising others and, remarkably short, on many concrete proposals from the Scottish Government policy in this area. The minister's criticism of UK Government policy sits rather odds with comments that I read in the Herald just two weeks ago from Keith Anderson, chief corporate officer at Scottish Power, whom I am sure the minister knows well, who announced plans by his company to invest £6.3 billion in renewable energy in the UK over the next five years, reflecting, and I quote, the company's confidence in the UK market. Mr Anderson went on to praise the UK Government for providing the stable regulatory environment that it needed to encourage firms to invest in offshore wind farms, such as the very project at Beatrice that the minister referred to. In an effort to get some specifics, I ask the minister two questions. Firstly, now that energy efficiency is a national infrastructure priority, how much of the Scottish Government's capital budget will be allocated to this in future years? Secondly, is it not time that the minister finally got off the fence on the issue of fracking? He talks a lot about the issue of scientific evidence. The Scottish Government's own expert scientific panel concluded as long ago as July 2014 that fracking could be conducted safely in Scotland if properly controlled and regulated. Why isn't the Scottish Government listening to its own scientists in this respect? Can I point out that Keith Anderson is not investing in Beatrice? That's an SSE project. It's not Scottish Power. Scottish Power is investing in renewable energy. Some of that is in Scotland, some of that is in England, with the benefit of contracts for difference. Keith Anderson also expressed very clearly that the reason that we are seeing the premature closure of Longannet is that Longannet is faced because it operates north of the border and not, somewhere like Surrey, additional charges for the cost of transmission in Scotland, as opposed to England, to the tune of, if I recollect correctly, around about £40 million a year. Murdo Fraser, by raising Keith Anderson, makes it very clear that his point is misconceived, because Mr Anderson said repeatedly that the transmission charging system means that there is a barrier, indeed a blockage, to new sample plant being built in Scotland. That is indubitably through the case. Mr Anderson has also pointed out that what the UK needs in the short term to maintain security supply is new combined gas turbines, but there is no means of incentivising that. He wrote an article in the Financial Times making that clear. The UK Government has, I am afraid, not responded to that in any meaningful way. Turning to the two questions, we will consider carefully how we use every means of our disposal to further the aims of a whole systems approach, a managed transition and more local energy provision with community involvement. Obviously, we have to consult on that, as I think is right, but I have already mentioned the £300 million investment in the public estate, Presiding Officer. I could mention the £50 million of the CARES project over the last two years, more than the whole of the amount invested in community schemes south of the border. I could refer to the continued investment of funds from the Renewable Energy Investment Fund, which have been used to good effect. Secondly, on the unconventional gas question, the answer is exactly the same as it is before. Unlike that side, where there are gung-ho for fracking, that side, where somewhat belatedly, and contrary to the position down south, they have come out against it, we think that we should take a moderate approach based on analysing the evidence and, thereafter, having a debate and coming up with a conclusion after involvement with and consultation of all the people of Scotland. If I may make one further point, Presiding Officer, I suspect that quite a lot of people in our electorate, the people of Scotland, would like to know a bit more about the issue. They may not know enough about the issue, and therefore providing them with evidence about the issue is an extremely valuable and necessary process, if we wish to have a rational debate, which, of course, in Scotland we do. The minister mentioned in his speech the vision of local involvement and community involvement. Does he see opportunity as a consequence of the community empowerment legislation for much greater community ownership and involvement in renewable energy provision in their area? Yes, I do, and we have reached our target of 500 megawatts by 2020. Let me give you a practical example. In the western alf's point, in Sandwick, is the largest wholly-owned community wind project at 9 megawatts. The revenue from this project is £1 million a year. What tremendous contribution to communities for future generations, Presiding Officer? A tremendous achievement. Of course, to answer Mr McDonald's question, we want to see the opportunities of the Community Empowerment Scotland Act, which encourages and supports enterprise and community development, maximised. The problem is that the abrupt and savage cuts by the UK Government to the fit tariffs make the project much more difficult. That, in conclusion, was a very clear message from the community energy cares conference at which I spoke earlier today. The minister will rightly draw on expertise and have public dialogue in formulating the energy strategy, but he fails to reference unions in his statement. Why is that? Surely the strategy needs to come as a result of the RPP3 not to accompany it to address the future emissions in a targeted and effective way? We routinely engage with trade unions. I did not mention bosses either. I cannot mention absolutely everybody, but we shall engage with trade unions. I can inform Claudia Beamish that, for example, several of the senior union representatives representing the oil and gas industry just a couple of weeks ago, we meet them at least twice a year. That is because we want to learn what they have to say about how we can best shape our policy on matters such as oil and gas and to great effect because it is the people that work in the industry that very often know how better to do things more efficiently. Indeed, some of the enlightened companies in the sector have already used that to best effect. Of course, we will fully consult to trade unions, and I am very happy to give the assurance that that effect to Claudia Beamish and other members. Liam McArthur followed by Roderick Campbell. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I, too, thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. I welcome plans to develop a revised energy strategy, particularly an approach that integrates power on which good progress has been made by successive Administrations since 1999, with transport and heat, where a great deal more needs to be done. In that respect, I would be grateful for more detail on how the £7 million will be used to support district heating projects such as one in Shetland, where I understand that infrastructure remains a stumbling block. Sticking with infrastructure, I agree that confidence in the renewable sector has no doubt that, since my colleague Ed Davie left office and the Conservatives were left to their own devices. Can the minister outline what the next steps are for securing grid connections to Orkney and the other island groups that are essential if we are to harness our full potential in terms of wind, wave and tidal resources? I am happy to write to Mr McArthur with details with regard to the expenditure of the £7 million in due course. The announcement has just been made and I will furnish him with the details. Regarding his second question, I recently had the opportunity to discuss at the convention of islands and islands last Monday, in fact, with representatives from the Orkney island council Stephen Hedlund colleagues who were represented. As Mr McArthur knows, it is my top priority to connect the islands of Scotland to the grid. The reason for that is the tremendous benefits to the people in the islands in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles that connecting to the UK grid would have. Those benefits were estimated by the Beringa report, if I remember correctly, to amount to £725 million. Mr McArthur and I have worked on that for some time. Those benefits would be game changing. We are concerned and the concerns were expressed at the cohe that the UK Government, although Andrea Ladsam told us last September that the process of obtaining EU approval for the state aid procedure would take two months, they still have not put the application in, even though our understanding is that the application is put in after the substance has been agreed. Therefore, we are extremely concerned that the UK Government has not taken the necessary steps to make progress with the island connections and we are, of course, pressing them on that very point. Can the minister advise how biomass energy centres such as the new biomass plant in Garbridge in my constituency help the Scottish Government to meet the target set out in the new energy strategy? Can he also clarify the Government's position on independent emissions monitoring of such centres? I have the benefit of visiting the Garbridge development and discussing it with the colleagues, including St Andrews University. The SPRUCE funding, which is an innovative funding model, was provided of £11 million for what is a very important development that will transform the energy provision in St Andrews University. It is a terrific project and will deliver enormous benefits. I have been pleased to work closely with the university and others to deliver that. Obviously, we believe that projects can make a substantial contribution towards emission reduction. Of course, that is one that we will wish to analyse very carefully once the development itself is installed. I welcome the whole-range planned energy initiatives that the minister provided today, particularly those on energy efficiency. Given the possibility that EDF is facing major difficulty in obtaining the funding to progress the Hinkley Point nuclear facility, can the minister advise what discussions he has had with the Westminster Government, with DEC and the National Grid regarding imminent security of supply? Is it not the case that recent funding actions and strategic decisions made by the UK Government regarding renewables in Scotland, Peterhead and Longannate smacked more of petty post-referendum reactions and have little meaning for a thriving, stable and secure electricity supply? To answer the question, I have raised extensively with the UK Government our concerns that their energy policy is putting security of supply of electricity in the UK at serious risk. We have raised this, and I have raised this, with Ed Davie and Amber Rudd. The First Minister raised this with the Prime Minister in a letter urging him to intervene in respect of averting the premature closure of Longannate. The Prime Minister, I am afraid, would not lift a finger. He alluded in justifying his inertia to the stance taken by National Grid. At that point, National Grid had, I think, a very optimistic view about what was going to happen on the grid. I argued to the National Grid that coal-fired power station was going to come off more quickly than they had anticipated. The power stations that are going to be closing recently soon include not only Longannate but Fiddler's Ferry, Rougley, Egborough and Ferry bridge, and about 15 per cent of peak GB energy demand. We believe that that is a very serious issue and that the UK's approach of a new nuclear power station sometime towards the end of the next decade, frankly, just does not cut the mustard. In his speech, the minister mentioned grid upgrade. He may be aware that Scottish power energy networks proposed a newly denny-style pylon network across Dumfries and Galloway, which local people to a person, as far as I have been made aware, would benefit large multinational power generation companies and not the local economy. Will the minister assure my constituents that, when considering any planning application for a new transmission line in the region, the Scottish Government will give top priority to consideration of factors such as landscape, environment and tourism and encourage underground and undersea cabling where possible? I can only say in response to Elaine Murray's question that, in determining any application under section 36, as minister, I have to act in accordance with the procedure set out and consider every application on its merits and consider it safely. I think that it would be wrong for me now to ascribe weight or importance to some criteria over others, but I can assure the member who has raised the issue with me, as constituency MSP, that I will, of course, look at this very carefully. However, I just make the point to conclude, Presiding Officer. We cannot have more energy schemes renewable or otherwise unless we have the good connections. It is precisely because of the robust approach that we have taken and the support for onshore wind that we are now seeing the possibility of waving tidal energy. It wouldn't be happening unless we had bullied any, nor would Beatrice. This is all one of a piece. You cannot pick and mix, and therefore grid upgrades are part of the necessary process in seeing Scotland realise her renewable potential. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Given the urgent need to better serve Scottish consumers with clean power and the minister's welcome of the deployment of the high wind floating turbines of Aberdeenshire by 2018, would the minister give us an update on the large deployment of the floating structures? Would they take less time to build? Would they be less expensive than sea floor-based offshore wind turbines, for example in areas such as Pentland Firth and the Murray Firth? Scotland is about to have two world firsts. The first largest tidal stream in the Pentland Firth by Atlantis Mae Gen, and the first largest floating offshore array by Statoil off the northeast coast of Scotland. To respond to a specific question in relation to the floating offshore, research from the Carbon Trust suggests that the concepts could potentially reduce generating costs to below £100 per megawatt hour, with larger concepts producing even lower costs by the mid-twenties. Floating offshore also can be deployed where the best wind conditions exist and different wind directions from fixed offshore wind developments, thereby being able to access the market at a more commercially suitable time. The potential in conclusion, which Mr Gibson rightly signals, is that floating offshore and others offer the potential through substantial cost reduction to provide excellent solutions, renewable low-carbon solutions for our electricity provision over the next several decades. I saw that we were going to have a statement on a new energy strategy for Scotland. Silly me, I assumed that we were going to hear some detail about what was going to be in it. Nevertheless, I thank the minister for the advance copy of the statement, which tells us once again that he thinks that there ought to be one in the future. He tells us that it would be easy for me to stand here and talk about our intentions for the next Parliament. I have to say that I rather wish he had. Can he tell us this? If reducing energy consumption is going to have the equal prominence alongside supply that he says it should have, when is the right time to stop cutting the budgets that perform that work? How much more do we need to spend than is in the current Scottish budget? When can we begin to see the idea of a national infrastructure priority being taken seriously, or does he think that that can all be done by wishing? I naively thought that Mr Harvey would welcome the new approach that we focus on how we can use energy more efficiently. I thought that he would welcome the approach of cutting energy demand. I thought that that was one of the basic tenets of the Green Party since it was founded to use less energy and to use it better. Therefore, the cynical negative and point-scoring contribution that he has made this afternoon seems to me not to advance as one job. I thought that he would welcome the emphasis on heat as well as light. I thought that he would be pleased that we were going to focus on transport, but all of that, all in the statement, all mentioned, he apparently missed. Nonetheless, in the spirit of goodwill to all men, I do hope that, in the open, transparent process of dialogue that we will adopt in developing the strategy, we will have the benefit of Mr Harvey's detailed thoughts. Can the minister confirm that it is the Government's view that the proximity of the north-east of Scotland and Peterhead in particular to emptied oil basins creates not only a domestic opportunity for storage of CO2, but an international opportunity to take other people's CO2. In particular, the engineering expertise in the north-east is something that I would like to hear from him if he has had any positive indications of any kind that tomorrow's budget might help to provide employment as well as addressing climate change. I have not heard from Mr Osborne of any indications positive or otherwise, but Mr Stevenson is absolutely right that the opportunity to use depleted oil and gas fields off Scotland's shores and off England's shores is an enormous opportunity both for the environment and for the oil and gas industry. For the environment, because, as the international energy authority has often said, in order to cut our emissions and meet climate change targets, carbon capture storage is a necessity. It cannot be done without it, which makes the Greens refusal to support this policy somewhat astonishing. Secondly, regarding the engineering point, the engineering expertise that was encompassed and possessed by an SSC-shell partnership and the CCS project that the UK Government unilaterally and abruptly scrapped was of an international variety. The people involved whom I met in a visit to Peterhead, a half-day visit, were hugely looking forward to it. There was a spring in their step. They were looking forward to Scotland and Britain being in the leads in the world in this project. All of that was scrapped in a moment by a short-sighted, venal decision by the UK Government. That ends the statement from the minister. Patrick Harvie, is this a point to further? I am grateful, Presiding Officer, and I know that there are certain words that we are not expected to use about other members in the chamber. I certainly do not want to break that rule, but just for clarity, in responding to that last point, was Fergus Ewing stretching the truth beyond the breaking point in misrepresenting the Greens position, and would that be a legitimate way to describe his position rather than words that we are not expected to use? The member is well aware that there was no one parliamentary language used, and that any language that is used in the chamber in response to questions is entirely a matter for the member himself. I always expect all members to treat each other with courtesy and respect, and I sincerely hope that in the next two weeks that everybody in this chamber will do so.