 Sorgiedd ar gael a abon When it is welcome to the fifth meeting of the local government community committee in 2017 Can I remind everyone present to turn off, mobile phones and his meeting papers are provided in digital format tablets. No apologies been received this morning. We have got a full house. We moved to agenda item one which is the decision of taking business in private. The committees is invited to agree to take agenda item six consideration of report on EU scrutiny on private. Arweiggedrith? Aurelie低. Issues have been raised regarding SSIs 2017 forward slash 8 and 2017 forward slash 9 at agenda item 3 on non-domestic rates. I therefore intend to defer a consideration of those instruments to the meeting on 22 February, are we agreed with that approach? I agree with that. Okay, thank you. We now move to agenda item 2. Age Anti-Item 1... Madrigau 1. It is a danger of convener's reading of her bait on whats in her brief hear. Age Anti-Item 2, the committee will take evidence in the Scottish Government's draft climate change plan, appearance 3, and last week's session focused on local Government and planning. This week, we will have sessions in housing aspects of the plan. I therefore welcome Michael Barton, Maynard policy manager of homes for Scotland, Fabric Lavecchi, Existing Homes Alliance, David Stewart, Paul Selyd, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, and Liz Marcus, director energy agency. Can I invite each of our witnesses this morning and thank you for coming along? Just not so much an opening statement, could you say a little bit about your organisation that is coming to the committee this morning? It will be helpful for members, it will be helpful for anyone watching at home. So can we start with Liz if that's okay? Okay. Liz Marcus, I'm director of the energy agency but I'm also on the Existing Homes Alliance and various other organisations campaigning for energy efficiency and carbon reduction. Just to explain a bit, the energy agency is a charity based in South West Scotland and we deliver the area based schemes so we do a lot of work on the actual practical application of the funding from the Scottish Government to South Esher, East Esher and Dumfries and Galloway councils and we also have Home Energy Scotland contract, which comes through the energy saving trust and do quite a lot of other education and work across the community. Okay, thank you. I understand you are very helpful with some of our committee members on a visit just the other day as well. Excellent. I'm delighted to have anybody to come and see what's happening on the ground because there is really a lot and it is very interesting to see practically what's happening. Okay, so to thank you very much and we'll just move across, Mr Stewart. Hi, I'm David Stewart. I'm from the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and we're the national representative body for housing associations in Scotland. Our members have 11 per cent approximately of Scotland's housing stock and just under half of all the affordable social rented housing in Scotland. We're proud as a sector that we've got the most energy efficient housing by tenure in Scotland, but given that typically we often house tenants on lower incomes, fuel poverty is still an issue so while we're very much in support of the climate change plan, we get a great interest in wanting there also to be reductions in fuel poverty as part of that plan. Okay, thank you. Good morning, I'm Fabrice Lebec. Today I'm here on behalf of the existing homes alliance which is an alliance of anti-poverty environmental and housing charities which campaigns to improve the quality of the existing housing stock in Scotland. My day job is climate energy policy officer at WWF Scotland and we waited for the climate change plan and we waited breath because the Scottish Government have told us that the energy efficiency programme, the SEAP programme, is a cornerstone of their climate change action in Scotland. So we were very interested to see the report and looking forward to discussing it with you today. Okay, thank you very much Mr Lebec. Mr Barton maynard. Good morning, I'm Michael Barton maynard. I'm the policy manager from homes of Scotland who are the representative body for the home building industry in Scotland. We represent about 200 different organisations from home builders, RSLs, planning and architecture professions, as well as supply chains. So who together helped to deliver around 95 per cent of new homes built for sale, as well as a significant proportion of affordable housing. My data area is normally dealing with technical and skills issues for the organisation. Obviously, this is one of the areas that we are going to welcome to provide comment on recognising the importance of climate change and the impact that reducing carbon emissions can have on fuel poverty. Okay, thank you everyone. That gives us a flavour of your experience and expertise within this sector. Perhaps we can keep it general to begin with and maybe a snapshot of where we are now. So can I ask each of you what progress you think there has been today in cutting emissions within the residential sector and implementing the proposals and policies set out in the previous RPPP2? To what extent have previous RPPPs contributed to the recent drop in emissions from this sector? So we are moving to the third plan. How successful have we been with the previous two plans and how has that provided a focus to reduce emissions within the residential sector? So your views on that would be very helpful. Mr Lovak. Thank you. Looking back to RPP2 and the progress since then, I think we do have good fuel poverty in energy efficiency schemes in Scotland. The Scottish Government, in parallel to the Westminster Government schemes, runs programmes like Home Energy Efficiency programme for Scotland. Those programmes are good. They are a good foundation, but the action that we have seen over the last five years is not at the scale and speed that we need, both to tackle fuel poverty and also more relevant today, climate change. If we look at the emissions from the existing housing stock over the last five years, we have seen some reductions. We have also seen emissions go up and down, mostly at the whim of the weather. When we have very cold winters, emissions from housing goes up significantly, and that has been a reason for some of the missed annual climate change targets in the past. That is a problem that we have not designed out the variability in the housing stock. We still have a very inefficient housing stock, which means that, when the weather is cold, people turn up their heating and their emissions go up. For me, the view is that we have made good progress and we are good foundations, but we need much bigger activity and much faster scale of retrofit to the existing housing stock. Just for clarity, has the previous RPP2 provided a focus? I think that you would like it to wait further, but has it provided a focus to improving standards? It has in that it continued the funding for the home energy efficiency programmes, the HEAPS programmes in Scotland, so that was a policy in the last RPP. In terms of the new proposals, there has not been any change. A big failure of the last RPP was the fact that there was a proposal there to explore regulation of the privately owned housing stock. That is regulations for rented homes and owner occupiers to drive energy efficiency improvement. In the last RPP, that was listed as a proposal. Four years ago, in four intervening years, we have had a detailed pre-consultation process that the Scottish Government has done a lot of research into how those regulations could be introduced. However, that has not been done. Once again, in this RPP, we have the same proposal to explore the role of regulation in the privately owned housing stock. There has not been any progression since the last RPP, hence why we see the same proposal repeated again. Unfortunately, once again, it is in the proposal rather than the policy category, which means that, as a proposal, there is no fixed date, there is no firm commitment from Government that this will actually happen over the next four years. I am sure that some members want to pick up and develop on that area as we move forward. To remind other witnesses, the question is about the last RPP. To what extent has it provided a focus to deal with the residential sector and what success has there been? I would say that, echoing through Bruce's comments, there have been some significant improvements. There has been the fact that the Scottish Government has funded home energy efficiency schemes. It has taken an area-based approach. That has been very welcome. It has also helped Scotland to attract more eco, although that is more of a challenge since, effectively, the rules were changed on eco and there is less funding available. However, I feel for social housing that regulation of energy efficiency standards has really helped to drive investment, and that has benefits in terms of quality of life, quality of place, as well as making heating more affordable for people. However, that regulation only really covers about a quarter of the homes in Scotland. If you are looking not only at field poverty, but at significantly reducing carbon emissions, I would argue that we need to be regulating energy efficiency for all tenures and not just social housing. That builds on the point that we have just heard. Liz, do you want to add anything? To agree with that, if we can have more regulation, it really helps. At the moment, the area-based schemes and the Scottish Government money have made an enormous impact because we can target all types of housing tenure. We can do blocks of properties where you have privately rented, private and social housing all in the same block or geographical area, which makes a huge difference to the costs. The existing programmes, the area-based ones, run with the local authorities, or coming through the local authorities and then various managing agents or the local authorities manage them themselves. That flexibility to target all home ownership categories makes an absolutely massive difference. It is about carbon, particularly because I have some really impressive figures and real figures of what has been happening in the existing programmes. However, it is also about if you invest, say, 6,000 in a property, some of those properties that we have been working on, the steel-framed ones, are not in a fit state for living in at the moment, and they are likely to fall to pieces quite quickly. If you invest that amount of public money in that property, you are providing a long-term investment for that home 36 years for the products and 25-year guarantee. It has a lot of other benefits in terms of health and social benefits, but we can come on to them. However, there are very strong economic benefits for the local areas. I am sure that we will come on to that. That is very, very helpful. Mr Barton may not know what to add. From the new-build sector, it is probably saying that the worst thing is quite a lot of positives, probably driven from the RPP2 in terms of the eight-step changes in standards that are going to come through. Today's standards, 25 billion regulations represent a 75% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels, which is quite significant over a change over essentially the past 10 years. What we have seen from the data sets that we have collected is average EPC racing of a bee, estimated energy bills for space heating, lighting, which drops to around 50 to 30 pounds per month in comparison to the Scottish average, which is around 108 pounds. A lot of home builders readily adopt loan zero carbon energy generating technologies, such as photovoltaics and air source heat pumps. In terms of what the new-build sector is doing, I think that there has been quite a lot of positives that have come out from the last RPP2. In terms of RPP3, that seems to be the same proposals on the table. Further evaluation of regulation, increasing of energy standards and looking at elements such as district heating. It is probably a good place to be and that we are talking about some of the challenges that those proposals might have on the industry. Our members have always noted that we have come up to a point in time with building standards where we are reaching cost-optimal levels for improvement, where there will be very little return on the additional investment to a new-build property in terms of energy efficiency. The national infrastructure is not really designed for delivering loan zero carbon energy generating technologies within, so we know that we have had experiences of having difficulties connecting PV back up to the grid. There are also inconsistent approaches across the implementation of the Climate Change Act through the planning system. In terms of the new-build, a lot of challenges and a lot of positives are there, but probably in agreement with a certain of the colleagues in the left that the new-build sector is only not 0.63 per cent, it is very small. The focus should probably primarily be on existing stocks. That is where we can feel that the main goal could be in terms of carbon reduction. That is very helpful. There is a common theme from all the responses that seems to be a strong evidence base that good progress has been made, but the real challenge is existing stock. I think that Mr Lovak was making the point that, in terms of within RPP3, it seems more of the same in relation to aspirations over the standards of existing stocks rather than any statutory improving of standards, if I have captured the flavour of what people are saying. Before we move to other MSPs, can I just check? That is an example of perhaps what witnesses feel were not so much building up on RPP2 but duplicating something within RPP2. Is there evidence within the new proposals that UC is actually developing on existing practice, building up on it and giving added value rather than the same again? I think that we should recognise that there are some good things in terms of the energy efficiency policy that is being redeveloped. That year and a half ago, the Scottish Government designated retrofit energy efficiency as a national infrastructure priority that was following a missed climate change target in recognition of the greater effort that is needed in the sector. That policy has been in development and it signals from 2018 that we will have an expanded, more comprehensive energy efficiency programme across Scotland, so building on the schemes that lives involved at the moment. We should recognise that there is a policy development process on-going. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to see that within the climate change plan itself. Actually, if we were to go back to the Scottish Government and ask for more detail, there is some there. In parallel, within the energy strategy, there is a consultation on Scotland's energy efficiency programme, SEP, and that contains a little more detail in terms of talking about the role of regulation, incentives and how the programme could be developed. Unfortunately, none of that information is in the climate change plan. In this document, we have the same loosely worded commitment to exploring the role of policies. There has been some change, but it needs to be reflected within the plan itself. That is quite helpful. Does everyone else want to add anything to that? I do not see anyone taking up the cudgels on that, so we will move to Ruth Maguire for the next question. I would like to hear your views on policy outcome 1, which is about the improvement in the fabric of domestic buildings. That is 6 per cent reduction in heat demand by 2032. I would like to hear whether that target is realistic and whether the range of policies and policy proposals that are detailed in the plan will help to achieve that. Mr Stewart, you have made eye contact, so we will take you first. I would say that it is realistic and that the proposals should allow it to be achieved. If I am not going beyond the question, I would suggest that, given levels of fuel poverty and given the potential of home energy efficiency to deliver reduced carbon emissions, I would prefer that that target was higher. There was perhaps more emphasis on that approach than, for example, on the use of new technologies or other approaches to deliver new target reductions. I am just wondering whether to bring the EPC issue in at the moment, or it is maybe a little early, but the existing homes alliance is very much pushing for most houses to be at EPC level C by 2025. There is very clear evidence that the higher up you go, an A or B or C rating is better than the EF and G ratings, just to explain. It is very clear that, when you look at the fuel poverty angle, the percentages of people who are on low incomes, which obviously has a major impact on your poverty level and your fuel poverty. However, if you live in a more energy efficient home with an EPC rating of B to C, 66 per cent are in fuel poverty. However, the incidence of fuel poverty among the income poor rises to 99 per cent among those in the least energy efficient properties with an EPC rating from E to G. I think that it is possible to increase the homes to much higher levels of energy efficiency through the external wall programmes or internal wall programmes and actually making the existing homes more efficient by the measures that we currently are able to do. I would definitely encourage that route. It is expensive, but when you take all the other benefits into account, which is difficult when it comes out of an energy efficiency budget, but it lowers the rates of people going to their GPs and there are a lot of other economic benefits to the local areas. It is difficult when it just comes out of an energy efficiency budget and, at least politically, everybody seems to be bought into the fact that energy efficiency is a really good thing and we want to be improving people's lives through that route. The existing homes alliance has been calling for a long time for the Scottish Government to set a target for its energy efficiency programmes to bring all homes up to EPCC by 2025. The ambition that is in the policy outcome, the first policy outcome, is around about that level but by 2032, so significantly later. In our view, fuel poverty is a reason to go faster on an energy efficiency not slower. As well as delivering the climate benefit, we should be being ambitious on efficiency to get that double win. In terms of policy outcome 1, I would like to draw your attention also to the credibility of that outcome. It sets out a useful vision for where emissions will be by 2032, reductions from efficiency. You can question how credible it is that we actually have the policies and the resources to get there. For example, there is a table in here that illustrates that policy outcome over time. It gives us an indication of what is stepping up. It envisages a doubling of activity in 2018, so we go from about 45,000 insulation measures installed a year to 90,000. In the plan, there is no policy to achieve that, so it is very unclear to us, given that we know that Scottish Government funding for energy efficiency is fixed to 2021 and that there will be no new regulation coming in. How exactly the rate of insulation doubles from one year to the next in the next few years. There is a credibility gap in terms of the near term. Looking to the 2032 outcome, once again, if you add up the sum of all the measures that will probably be funded with the policies that we have, it is maybe about 200,000 homes, whereas that 2032 target implies upwards of a million homes improved. We have a huge policy gap in getting from 200,000 homes to the excess of a million that we need to improve. Mr Barton Maynard, do you want to talk about anything? In terms of Maywell, there are probably not many further comments on that. As we agree, the focus is on existing stock. I think that that is where the second main benefits can certainly be reaped in terms of carbon efficiency. Thanks for those answers. Two of the policies listed are helping towards that outcome, the smart meters and the energy company obligation. The responsibility for those lies with the UK Government. I would be interested to hear your reflections on how effectively the two Governments are working together on that agenda. It does happen sometimes. Anyone want to comment on that? Very briefly, to say that it is incredibly complicated. Our colleagues down south, who we have worked with a lot over the years, cannot believe how lucky we are in Scotland and how much is happening in Scotland. We have just had Jenny Saunders, who is chief executive of national energy action, based in Newcastle. She has just been looking around the same site that we took members to on Monday just to see what is happening in Scotland because they are so envious of the work that is going on. That is through the additional funding. It does not quite answer your question, but it is a very positive picture up here compared with what is happening. We would like to hear good things as well. Mr Stewart, do you want to add? On smart meters, I think that we have got a great potential to help with both energy efficiency and fuel poverty. A group of our members of housing associations have set up a not-for-profit energy company called OurPire, which aims to provide energy at a fair price but also crucially to get away from what is sometimes called the poverty premium, where people pay more if they are on low incomes and they are paying by prepayment methods. The way that they manage to do that is by rolling out smart meters as quickly as possible, and that basically allows them to charge the same tariff for people on prepayment. As far as the energy company obligation goes, I think that, in principle, there is great potential there for it to allow schemes designed in Scotland to meet Scotland's needs. For example, concentrate more on measures that are a challenge here such as off-gas areas or solid wall insulation. What is less clear today is that when Scotland receives the extra devolution of this energy funding, just how much control comes to Scotland and to what extent it has to follow the UK scheme. I would say that that is almost something that we still need to see how it develops, but there is potential for it to help. Any additional comments on that? I would say that, echoing Liz's comments, Scotland has taken a lead in terms of it as probably the leading energy efficiency schemes across the UK, which is talking to be applauded. You are also seeing a lot of energy efficiency companies, supply chain contractors, manufacturers of insulation and building materials looking at what is happening in Scotland because we have a longer term framework and there is a commitment there to actually do this work. Scotland is starting to see the benefits and could get more. In terms of the relationship with the Westminster Government, absolutely the policy there has been going in reverse over the past few years. That said, there are some areas where Scotland could learn. For example, there are regulations coming into force in England and Wales from 2018, which would enforce minimum energy efficiency standards in the rented sector. They are already getting on and doing this, and this is an area where Scotland is behind the curve because at the moment we just have a proposal to at some point explore this, and it has been a proposal that has been discussed for more than five years. Ruth, do you want to follow up on that? Thank you. That's good. A couple of supplementaries in relation to the theme. I'll take Graham Simpson first. Yeah, thanks. I've got a general question, and then I want to ask you about EPCs, which you mentioned, Liz. First of all, I'd just like to thank you, Liz, for hosting myself and Andy Wightman on the visit this week. It was very informative and it was great to see the good work that's going on down in Ayrshire, so thanks very much. My general question touches on something that Fabrice Levec said, and it's around policy. The Scottish Government expects that emissions for the residential sector will fall by 76 per cent by 2032, not that far away, really. Do you see any evidence that they know how to achieve this? Fabrice. So, as you look at the trajectory for emissions from buildings, yes, it's very ambitious, particularly beyond 2025, and that's in particular because the Scottish Government's climate change plan anticipates a very rapid switchover of heating systems, particularly gas boilers, to alternatives. I think it's unfortunate that it didn't unpack the trajectory that's going on within that heat policy, because if we look at the stages of what we'd like to see in the near term, we should be doing heat pumps and off-gas grid properties, switching people off oil boilers to something cleaner, and pushing heat networks in town centres. On the heat networks, the Scottish Government does have a consultation on looking at regulation to support the growth of heat networks, so it's a shame to not see any ambition in terms of what that stream of quality work will deliver in the climate change plan. Looking to 2025 and beyond, absolutely, we have concerns over that, the credibility of that pathway, mainly because it rests on UK Government decisions. The plan acknowledges that it's probably work on the homes and buildings that are on the gas grid that delivers that carbon saving, yet it essentially says we will do nothing until the next RPP, at which point we'll then begin to think about a solution for this, and it also says we're waiting for the UK Government to give us clarity. And as we've seen with, say, the regulations that I've referred to, if it's a proposal in an RPP, it might be four, eight years to actually become tangible policy. So the fact that this renewable heat, this intangible renewable heat policy delivers a huge abatement from 2025, yet no work starts on that is a big problem. And the last point on the heat side of things is the trajectory in the climate change plan sees a rapid increase to 2020. Once again, there's no change in policy there to deliver it, so existing policies suddenly start to live in twice as much in the housing sector as they do currently. So that's puzzling, and then we have a flatlining from 2020 to 2025. So if you're an industry that's installing heat pumps, wanting to do heat networks, the fact that the Government anticipates no progress and no policy for five years, and then an incredible rapid rollout in seven just isn't really credible, we would much rather see a gradual decrease over time, which would give supply chains an opportunity to expand, and also mean that we actually tackled the heat sector into stages that we should be. So the off-gas grid, urban heat, and then thinking about the gas network. From a practical point of view, I'd really like to point out that heat pumps are amazing things, but you need to only install them in properly insulated properties, that they give off low-level heat. So if you install a heat pump in a drafty cold farmhouse, it will still be a drafty cold farmhouse, and cost you fortune because it produces a low level of heat. So it's brilliant in new-build or properties where they've been really good external or internal wall insulation. But that's the other side of working on off-gas areas, that it's really important that you put the correct technologies in, and what we don't want is something like the previous photovoltaic boom where people moved from quick sales to selling photovoltaic panels and putting them on north-facing roofs and offering people a loan. That whole scenario is a complete nightmare for everybody, and it discredits energy and everything that goes with it. So I'm very keen that there should be a long-term plan, and it is very clear for the industry and for people working in it, as well as the commercial sector, what's happening next. But I just have a real concern about heat pumps, and we're just like you all to understand the heat pump issue. They are great when they're installed in the right place. Okay, thank you. Mr Stewart, did you want to add? Just to add briefly to what Fabrice and Liz have said, the switch, the transition to low-carbon heating technologies is rapid and ambitious. Maybe to build on what I said earlier, feel strongly that you don't want to be doing that without having first really invested in home energy efficiency. I would also agree that initial introduction of low-carbon technology should be an off-the-gas area. There's been a couple of housing associations that benefited hugely from installing heat pumps in rural areas, and in that way, you're providing more affordable warmth. However, if you're looking at renewable heating in areas that are currently on the gas network, if you don't sufficiently insulate homes, you could actually have the unintended consequence of increasing fuel poverty. Thank you. I'm not taking Mr Barton Maynard. I'm just checking that you're not seeking to come in on this point. I don't mean to. No, that's fine. Okay, just make sure that you catch my eye. I don't want to exclude you from the conversation if you want to come in and respond to it. Graham Simpson, did you want to follow up now before taking Mr Wightman in for a supplementary as well? If it's okay, I'd just like to explore EPC, which was mentioned earlier. I've heard from various people now that there are issues with EPC ratings and their accuracy. Would anyone like to comment on that? In other words, if I can give you an example, two people could do an EPC check on a property and come up with different ratings. Oh, right. From witnesses all looking at each other, rather than looking at me to answer the question, I've got two bids. Fabrice Lavec, apparently you are starting, and you are welcome. So, on the EPC issue, we're well aware that there are quality issues in terms of the assessments and some underlying issues around exactly how the assessment reflects certain measures. That said, I think it shouldn't be used to hold up development of the SEPA programme. The Scottish Government is working with the UK Government at the moment to iron out some of those issues. I think that the EPC, those certificates, play a useful role in that just like energy labels on white appliances, they're easy to understand. Widely understood concept of this house has x rating for energy efficiency. I think that's a really useful tool. It's well understood by the public and part of the challenge of expanding our installation schemes is to engage the public and get people to understand the benefits. So, I think in terms of the link between the EPCs and the regulations and the targets, I think in the near term we're saying essentially let's try and improve the worst houses. So, the F&G rated homes, they're really absolutely terribly insulated single pane windows, roof is leaking heat out to the wider world. For those homes, an EPC assessment is simply identifying yes, you don't have loft insulation, you have a leaky door and you don't even have a filled cavity. So, I think an EPC assessment for those kind of interventions is absolutely right. We don't need to over engineer the problem and design a very complex assessment scheme just to identify those. In the longer term as we move up the bands towards DECB, they're granted the interventions become high cost and the quality becomes a bigger issue. But I think that the Scottish Government in their work plan for the seek programme do have a stream looking exactly at this. I think we need to make sure that in the near term we're happy using EPCs and in the longer term we improve them so that they deliver on those more expensive measures. Mr Simpson would want to remind you it was about the consistency and accuracy of some of the certification in the properties. I don't know, Liz, if you could help us a little bit more with that. I completely agree with what Fabrice has said. EPCs are a tool. Historically, we have found there's been problems, just as has been mentioned, that they haven't always been carried out as effectively as they should have been. Currently, with the area-based schemes, we're picking that up because in some cases it looked like the EPC had gone down because somebody different had done the pre and the post EPC. Probably when we've been doing area-based schemes, we've picked that up more than you would normally know. In that case, we've asked people to go back and you can usually tell where the problem is. There's a huge amount of information that is fed into the EPC and it makes, in a lot of cases, you can tick a box that says unknown and it defaults. That's part of the problem. It's partly the policing of the EPCs, which wasn't maybe happening as much as it should have been because EPCs have been used for other things. Generally, and interestingly, we've got an example where the modelled EPC on a gas central heating house, which is a two-story and terrace small one. Council tax probably be and there's actually 2.3 people in the property. The EPC will assume there's 2.3 people in the property and there's 2 adults and 3 children. The modelled savings as a result of external wall insulation is 141, but they've achieved £732 real savings because they don't quite fit the modelled 2.3 people in the household. There are problems with it, but it's better than anything else we've got. I would strongly suggest that we stick with it and go with the UK Government trying to improve it at the moment and work on it. Mr Simpson, just because of the time constraints, I was intending to move on and I will take you back in later. Mr Whiteman, you did have a supplementary on this area, but I know you want to ask about policy outcomes too and I'm keen to get on to that as well. Can I ask you to not come in at this point and I'll take Alexander Stewart to come in and cover some more of the ground in the underpolis area, which might be helpful. Alexander Stewart. You've touched on the scope for improvement of energy standards within building regulations and how that will contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. I'd like some expansion on that. Given that the review of energy standards within building regulations has yet to start and the timescale for 58,000 measures by 2018, how realistic are we about that in the process? That's the two areas. Thank you, convener. Okay, thank you, Mr Stewart. Your namesake, Mr Stewart, has made eye contact with me, which is always a good thing. Do you want to come in first? Can I just clarify? When you're talking about building regulations, you're really talking about new-build housing, is that right? I mean, because, yes, that has a bigger impact in the new building that we're dealing with, but it also has impacts on others that may require to have things added in addition extensions and other things that happen too. I would say that there is scope and potential for building standards to essentially for new-build homes, look for zero-carbon homes, and I think it would be good to get clarity on that and when that would happen so that developers, housing associations, councils and, in fact, builders in the supply chain can plan for that and work towards that. It's an important area, however, I would tend to say that the focus should probably be on existing homes as they've got the greatest potential to deliver carbon savings and also new homes, even if they're not quite at the standards. We would like them to be at yet, but they're still relatively energy efficient and Michael quoted figures on energy bills for the average new-build homes, which are obviously a lot lower than you might have, for example, if you were in an off-gas area and you were rated as an APCF. My view would be that it's got a place, but the focus should be on improving existing homes. Will we discuss existing homes more? Given that Mr Barton Maynard is here and new homes have been suggested and we know there's a differential in standards between the social rented sector and private for sale homes, what are the opportunities in the sector that you represent, Mr Barton Maynard? In terms of building standards, we would always suggest that it's good to have a long-term plan and vision about where we're wanting standards to go. Currently, through the Sullivan report, we have had that in place at the timescales and, given the fact that over the past 10 years the market has been quite volatile, there's been uncertainties. It would be good to reaffirm what the direction is so that industry understands where it can go in the future, allowing supply chains and technology to catch up with the second standards. As we agree, the standards have presented quite a bit of a challenge in 2015 for home-builders to meet, but the solutions are coming forward now. It's probably worth pointing out that there has been a three-year cycle of step changes in the energy standards, which does not provide enough time for industry supply chains to come up with the solutions that will help to meet them. The opportunity there is to provide a longer leeway and engage with industry suppliers in developing building standards to make sure that the solutions that are coming forward are mainstream solutions and give that vision in confidence to the market. Pick up on any of that. I know that those are not very specific questions that you're hoping to ask. I'm content with the response that you've had there, but I think that if I can move on to the second one about where the Scottish Government fits in in this process, I think that there's a need and what's your view about the Scottish Government's need to influence consumer behaviour in terms of the additional energy conservation that can be and how it's measured, and is that sufficiently addressed by the CCP? Do you believe that we have that right and what the Government should be doing to try and manage that as we go forward? So how do we influence consumer behaviour? Yes, Mr Lovak? So I think that there's a three-point approach to doing this. You provide information, which we do with the EPCs already. If you rent a house, if you sell a house, it has to have an energy performance certificate with it, and the energy saving trust in Scotland to do a lot of good work to educate people and advertise the benefits. The second part is to provide incentives, so encourage people to do the things that we'd like them to do, and then the third part is the regulation, is the stick. I think at the moment we're doing the first two, but we're lagging behind on the regulation part. I welcome your previous question as well, because very simply as it's currently worded within the climate change plan, we don't know if we're talking about regulation of new buildings or existing homes, and the fact that there is more detail in a separate consultation should surely be in the climate change plan. Okay, any witnesses want to add to that, Liz? Just thinking from the Home Energy Scotland delivery side, it is really interesting when you talk to people, they phone up about their energy bill and you say, is it high, and they say, well, it's about the same as my next-door neighbours, I think it's fine. We only, our views of what's okay for an energy bill, it may be two or three thousand they're paying a year, but if all the houses in the street are badly insulated, that seems to be the figure that's fine. It's really interesting, we have to be so careful how we ask people a question about do you feel you're paying too much for your energy bill, because none of us really know unless we're in the industry, and even then it's interesting, people aren't quite sure. I think it's helping people to understand that, and we do a lot of work in schools around exactly that and how to use energy and waste and water correctly, but it's more people hear it from their neighbours and their friends and from Scottish Government and politicians as to what's appropriate to be spending on your fuel bills, but a lot of people actually have no choice if they're in a leaky house, you know, you look at the NHS work we've been doing with the NHS recently, and if you monitor our property for three weeks, pre and post external wall insulation, the temperatures and the humidity just go like this, and you can see, they switch on the heating, it gets to a reasonable temperature and they switch it off, and the heat just evaporates out of the house, so a lot of people have no choice because of the house fabric, so I think there is a lot about behavioural work that we need to do, but I also think that we need to be quite careful where the structure is completely inappropriate. As you identify its cross sector, trying to make sure that health and housing and social and all of that integrate and together work to try and support the individuals create their own behaviour or change their behaviour, and if you don't get them all there, it doesn't always happen, and as I said, in people's expectations are different depending on where they are and what street they live in, and that's a very difficult nut to crack because the houses that we have and the occupancy that we have and the locations that we have varies so dramatically as well depending on if you're urban or rural or whatever you are, so it's difficult, but I think what you're saying and what I'm hearing is that by trying to identify most of this, it can be achieved and there can be a way forward. I'm going to, okay, only because it's true, we'll let you in and then there's a couple of supplementaries I'm going to take, but just one answer. It is exactly about, so you're not targeting somebody by energy, you're targeting them about health and energy comes in or economy. At one household that's a few years ago, they were on £11,000 a year income, their energy bill was off gas, was £1,250, they had a benefits check and their income increased to £22,000 a year, so, but they were picked up because we were doing a rural energy programme, so yeah, sorry. No, please do not apologise, that's why it's here. It is about the links. Thank you. We've heard more from the witnesses and less from the MSPs myself included, so I've got two supplementaries in relation to this and then we'll move on to another area, so we've got Elaine Smith and then Kenneth Gibson and then Andy, might my way take you in for a new area if that's okay, Elaine. Thank you, convener. I have a specific question for Mr Barton. May I add, please, from your submission. You say in your submission that it's generally accepted that the 2015 building standards have for now reached cost optimal levels for compliance. You also talk about some of the distribution network operators being unwilling to engage with the industry, so I would like an explanation of what you mean by the cost optimal levels for compliance and also what your solution would be to distribution network operators who won't engage with the industry. Finally, three parts to this because it goes into your next paragraph on your submission. You talk about some local authorities choosing to add further requirements to the industry, often prescribing standards above and beyond what is required through the building standards, so you feel as if that puts barriers in place to your development, so perhaps you could expand on some of that. In terms of the 2015 standards and cost optimal levels and the discussions that we've had with our second members and other second architecture professionals, it can suggest that in terms of cost benefit you can't add on so much more insulation without it making much a difference in terms of performance. The cost difference from making interventions on a new build home now has such a little impact on the performance of that home in terms of the fabric efficiency. Primarily as the home becomes more airtight, so then you're adding in things like air-source heat pumps which definitely have a benefit, but in terms of the cost in comparison to a central heating system there's very little difference in terms of the output, so the solutions that are going to be brought forward, it's difficult to find the benefit for both the consumer in terms of carbon reduction whilst the cost remains high, so that's the challenge that the industry are facing just now. As technology catches up with the standards, that might be less of an issue, but it's worth having technology and supply chains catch up with that element of the second standards. For the second point on distribution network operators, we've had reports from a few of our members regarding the 2015 standards that led many home builders to incorporate photovoltaics on to the second buildings. One of the experiences that they're having is that they can't get these connected back up to the network, so those MPV systems remain on a building producing energy during the day where an occupier might not be at home, but that energy can't go anywhere. One of the reasons for this from some of the engagement that we've had with the DNOs was that the existing electricity network around the development wasn't capable of absorbing that electricity back into the network. Has that not been something that was cleared before? From our members, I think that that's the point of not being able to engage with the electricity providers on that prior to the planning. As I said, we've tried to engage with electricity to the DNOs to discussions and we've had quite a lot of difficulty in doing so, but as I said, the feedback that we've had from members has been that it's been difficult. Is there some specific places that you could tell us? Is it specific to a certain area of Scotland, or is it across the areas? I understand that it's been regional, but I can go back to our members and pick up my regional breakdown of that. That would be helpful. Briefly, on the information that we have on that, a year ago it was really easy to connect or not easy, but there was space in the grid across Scotland. As the number of wind farms has increased and the photovoltaic systems have increased, you need to feed it into the grid so you need to be able to feed in to that route. However, as the network operators are saying that they're all now getting full, these grid systems, they are very reluctant to let you feed in electricity into the grid, so that's where the problem comes from. I'm not quite sure on the new build, but that's certainly on existing homes. People are finding it more difficult as well. OK, for police, did you want to add to that? Just to expand on the building regulations and the new build, to build on Michael's point, in terms of there's been progress on efficiency and new homes are very efficient, yet we're still installing them with gas boilers and technology that we know from the climate change plan. We need to be phasing out very rapidly. I think if house builders are going down the solar PV route, it's probably because they're looking for a sort of lowest cost way to meet their obligations. Perhaps something that we need to look at is the fact that we'd rather they were spending their money on renewable heat in these new buildings because that would provide a market for these new technologies. So France and Germany install thousands of heat pumps a year and a big reason for that big market is the fact that they have new build standards that require that of new buildings. So I think it kind of flagged a weakness of the current proposals or the current regulations. I think what would be useful in terms of seeing the trajectory is for the climate change plan to tell us exactly what it is, what the assumed emissions reduction path for building standards is over the five, 10, 15 next years. That information will be within the Scottish Government's modelling that underpin the plan, but yet it isn't shared with us. So when Sullivan 3 begins its review, it would be useful for them to sit down and say, well, the climate change plan says that on efficiency and renewable heat we expect buildings to be doing X, Y and Z, which at the moment we are completely in the dark as to what that assumption is. That's been very helpful. As you're saying these things, I'm thinking about the 32 local authorities who have got their strategic housing plans out there in relation to what their spatial plan is going to be for sustainable communities and one of the things we might want to check as a committee to see that it actually joins up with each other. Some of that stuff. Mr Barton-Meanard, do you want to add anything to that before I move to Mr Gibson? Certainly. On that point on energy standards, it is worth noting that when the latest energy standards were calculated you're right in terms of promoting certain solutions like PV and electricity generating technologies, it was very much part of the policy and development of the standards and the way that the SALP calculations worked. That has been one of the leading drivers away from that fabric first approach that had been implemented before. Deputy convener, I'd like to highlight a very important line of questioning that might otherwise have went missed. Thank you for that, Mr Gibson. Billet point four of the existing homes alliance submission says in a quote, rural off gas grid and electrically heated properties should get priority with upgrades to efficient, affordable and low carbon heat by 2025. In paragraph four of homes for Scotland's submission it says that by 2050 only 31 per cent of housing stock will have been constructed to 2010. Building standards are higher, meaning that around 70 per cent will have to have some form of retrofitted energy efficiency measure over the next 33 years. But the issue here, which I want to raise, is under the Scotland's energy efficiency programme section of the SPICE report, which says in a quote, some of the drawbacks touched the delivery of this are, I quote, lack of interest in building owners in making energy efficiency improvements and mistrust in the promotion and installation of energy efficiency measures and examples of poor workmanship, and I need to provide advice and information to change occupant behaviours. In your response to Mr Stewart's questions, you talked about how we should influence behaviour, you talked about encouragement incentives, regulation, but how do you overcome that suspicion and barrier among the public? Because what we're talking about is delivery of policy, regulation, et cetera, et cetera, but there clearly seems, according to SPICE, a real bottleneck here that we have to overcome. So how can we actually address that and I would like, obviously, others to comment on that issue as well. Okay, thank you Mr Gibson, Mr Lovak. So on the confidence and instilling that confidence in consumers, I think the Scottish approach works really well in that we have area-based schemes. So they are delivered by local authorities or partnerships with local authorities and that's been proven to work really well because the UK government scheme, so for example the eco-energy company obligation, that's delivered by the big six energy suppliers and like banks, those companies aren't very popular and people are quite suspicious of a company coming along and offering you insulation. And the way that scheme's been delivered in terms of going for bulk volume has led to quite mercenary companies targeting the lowest cost houses. The Scottish approach, which SEAP should build on, is this area-based method. It has a couple of advantages, as I've said, local authorities are kind of the figurehead, which people have far more trust in. I think also in terms of creating confidence in the actual product and what we're offering, the fact that people see these improvements taking place, so a whole street will be done, improved for its external wall insulation, that has been shown to instill interest and confidence amongst consumers and what we have at the moment is very few people making these kinds of improvements. If we have the transformational policies that we've been promised by the Scottish Government and upscaling of the energy efficiency programme, greater activity, that should pull through more demand from consumers as the market grows and as that market grows, the companies, the already very good companies that we have in Scotland who are delivering good quality installations can expand and there are good links with the skills academies in Scotland trying to train up people and what we have at the moment is a kind of chicken or egg situation where we don't have much clarity beyond the next few years in terms of the scale of the market and that will be delivered. We know what the ambition is, which is very big, but until there's more certainty how do we, we can't really expect those small supply chain companies to stop feeding hand to mouth and to invest in better skills. Okay, do you want to add to that? I would say that, as the contracts with local authorities have, we're now on the fourth year of the area-based schemes and they've been a mixture of internal and external wall insulation, but more recently they've been predominantly external wall insulation or, and internal, sorry, and both of those are actually much more visible. Previous schemes used to be cavity wall and loft insulation. Now, those are nothing like as visible and since they've become more visible with external wall insulation, we are crushed in the rush to have the work done. It's a completely different customer behaviour. We don't advertise it much because so many people are really, really desperate to have the work done to their properties. As they've become more difficult construction projects, so all the people managing the schemes have had to get much smarter about how we police and monitor that work. The complexity has probably had a lot of benefits that actually the quality is now very heavily controlled at a local level and it was before, but again it wasn't as visible. So I think the quality has really gone up a great deal as the schemes have become bigger and more complex because it is complex external wall insulation. So I think that that's been a huge benefit and historically there have been problems, but Mr Stewart, just before you answer Mr Stewart, I know this was an area that Andy Wightman was keen to develop further as well, so I'm just giving you a heads up, Mr Wightman, that will take you in shortly, Mr Stewart. Briefly to add to what's been said, I think to gain the benefits and to achieve the targets we want to something we've not really discussed today that's incredibly important is there needs to be appropriate energy advice and guidance. House and associations who've installed renewable heating have found that it's incredibly important to provide face-to-face support, possibly to do that more than once, to provide plain information that's not technical, otherwise you run the risk of making improvements, making investments, but not actually getting the desired outcomes that you would expect because you've not thought enough about the people side. Okay, thank you for that, Mr Gibson. I know I just have some concerns though that you know that the owner-occupied sector is lagging behind and one of the things that have been confusing when the constituents contacted me about this particular issue is that the grant landscape seems to change frequently, almost month to month, who's eligible, what the eligible for, etc. You always have to refer them on because it changes so frequently, it's very difficult to keep up and in fact Spice have also said grant application deadlines are challenging, do not often align with each other, so how do we try and have a wee bit more stability in that so that we actually don't have to check almost on a daily basis how much is available, who qualifies what it's for because that seems to put a lot of people off and it's certainly undermising my confidence in being able to provide advice to constituents. Mr Short. I think that's very true and we've heard that experience both from owners and also from social landlords who have looked to apply to schemes. I think the devolution of some control over the energy company obligation and its successors, together with the fact that the Scottish Government are developing an energy policy, hopefully provides an opportunity for a longer term planning and consistency and I think that that would be absolutely key in actually gaining the most benefit and while I know you're asking specifically about owners, we carried out a piece of research questioning associations on their experience of energy efficiency funding about a year ago and one of the key messages was not so much by the level of funding that's available that's important but it's knowing long term it'll be available and what it'll be for because that would allow them to plan, it'd allow their maintenance programs to tie in with grant funding and so I think clarity on the length of period funding would be available who it's for and what it's for would be hugely helpful. We'll seamlessly into Mr Whiteman's next question. Thank you Mr Gibson for that. Thank you convener. I just want to get a brief perspective from you on what you think the priorities should be in the new Scottish Energy Efficiency programme, there's a consultation out on it at the moment obviously but a lot of reliance has been placed on that to deliver the energy efficiency targets and so I mean Fabrice has already said that we're lagging behind a little bit on regulation for example so what would you be your key priorities to ensure are in this plan to deliver the climate change targets and also the energy efficiency targets? Fabrice, you were mentioned in the question perhaps we'll take you first if that's all right. So the three priorities as we see them for the energy efficiency programme but also getting information into the climate change plan is as I said before setting a target for the scheme so the policy outcome one kind of talks about a vague emissions reduction by 2032 it's not exactly a headline target you'd want to shout from the rooftops about so setting a clear target based on EPCs or an equivalent is a big priority I think that would move us forward in that it would then help secure the commitments to regulation and funding from the Scottish Government because as we've seen in the past those we have those commitments there but there's a key political decisions that need to be made so I think a target would help pull those through and as you said Andy the second part is regulation so putting some firm dates in terms of when exactly is the private rented sector regulation expected to start delivering is that what doubles installation rates from 2018 and in terms of the only occupied sector we also have to have clarity in terms of when will that be consulted on and when will those regulations come into force we're rapidly losing time on this because these regulations work if you set them several years in advance ideally you don't want to have to force people into compliance if you set them far away enough they drive a market change by themselves and we're seeing that with the the rented regulations in England and Wales so yet more lost time means we're pushing these regulations another four five years down the line which makes delivery of what's in the plan even less credible than that is at present and the last third point is just on funding let's not forget that the Scottish Government budget has essentially just locked us in to a reduced funding commitment for the next until the end of the parliament so to deliver in terms of fuel poverty we'll need to increase Scottish Government funding and also look at providing incentives for the area occupied sectors can I just I wrote your question it's fine can I just just push slightly for brief because like there's a funding framework put that to one side for the moment but the question is kind of if I've got captured right Mr right when we've got all these policies we've got these targets what should the delivery programme on the ground actually look like if there's consultation on that just nice we'll maybe come back to you on that I don't know if anyone else wants to come in in relation to this question Mr Stewart do you want to really again from members experience for us if you are going to prioritise delivery it should be on the hard to treat you know solid wall insulation mix tenure tenements are a big problem but very particularly on off gas areas where people have higher heating costs than also often have longer heating seasons anyone else what I'm going to come back to you Fabrice to see what you would like to be in the programme I will come back to you Liz do you want to add anything I'm very reluctant to say it but sometimes if you have other key performance indicators then it drives other behaviours in the delivery end and one of the things that from a delivery point of view for customers we try and make quite sure that we're clear about all the benefits including the economic benefits the health benefits so there might be and I need to be very careful what I say here that actually on the energy efficiency programmes you could be looking at more of the other additional benefits now that is coming with economic the local economic benefits but there are an awful lot of other things that has an impact on people's lives when their community improves so there's the social capital that is involved the areas look better they feel better they invest more in their own communities and that's very clear on the ground and we've got a lot of qualitative evidence from people that they say that in in relation to energy efficiency programmes and the additional money that's spent in the local community but it's actually very hard to capture that as an energy efficiency programme but yet the benefits are just huge so I'm not I don't have a I don't have the knowledge of how you would capture it but I think that's what on the ground we try to link all these and have an integrated approach and the more integrated it's happening in terms of reporting in and across government the better it is and the easier it becomes at the ground level though that is very helpful in relation to the new build sectors anything you want to add in relation Mr Bartley Menard? That was the only thing from the new build sectors in terms of certain regulation in terms of new build standards the only thing we would sort of ask is just to make sure that when we're looking at new energy standards that we're looking at mainstream technologies that are there but also certainly looking to create a regularity of the environment that gives confidence to investors and to the industry and to supply chains to be able to sort of deliver a nice sort of time frame in which people can react. I suppose the other point just to sort of quickly make is given the sort of work that Homeless of Scotland are doing on the sort of private rented sector in particular it's going to build to rent that you know we would also sort of welcome and sort of going to bring forward the review of energy standards for the private rented sector as well we think that there's an opportunity to I suppose for more and more organisations that's going to get involved in the bringing forward new build private rented housing to the sector as well which can only go to improving the housing stock. Detail, the recent shelter report said that every 41 pence that is spent on energy efficiency saves the NHS a pound so that's on the this recent one that's been produced so there is clear evidence that spending on energy efficiency has other impacts I don't have the rest of the detail but it's quite an impressive figure and we need to keep those sort of other things in mind. I think that's the point we all made. Fabrice I just wanted to give you the opportunity to put as much on the public record as possible today because we'll use the information we get when we produce our report so in relation to programmes as they go forward is there anything you want to add? Just to elaborate on the question in terms of the structure of the energy efficiency programme so we've called for an area expansion of area based schemes so the work that Liz is doing combined with a national fuel poverty programme which we already have but it's too small in scale in terms of the structure and how we deliver it and picking up on your points in terms of making this a holistic plan so it needs to be ideally through local partnerships of local authorities and social and healthcare providers as well as housing and regeneration so all those different strands of work need to be brought together. We also think it needs to have across a departmental ministerial group within the Scottish Government because this is such a key policy across different portfolios so that kind of oversight and prominence is needed to drive this forward and make sure it takes all the boxes in terms of the things it could deliver. That's helpful. Can I just say for the benefit of members and witnesses we have over run we're trying but I don't want to curtail discussion in relation to this important area so we'll maybe run for another 20 minutes or so and members we can just discipline ourselves when we look at things in private okay so I just wanted to to to make you aware of that. Do you want to follow up on some of that Mr Whiteman or move us on? Well I have a further question on decarbonisation but there's a couple of supplementaries on that. Homes for Scotland in paragraph 6 you say some data around the energy savings would you be in a position to provide us with the full data that you referenced there? To confirm just with our members that we're allowed to share that they're we could analyse it but if I can break it down I can potentially share that. That would be helpful. The other little supplementary panel members may not be able to assist on this I don't know we'll do our own inquiries but going back to the question that Ruth Maguire asked about the 6% reduction in heat demand by 2032 we understand that that is a 6% reduction on the projected heat demand in 2032. We're not clear what the projected heat demand is in 2032 and how it's been calculated but you might care to reflect on that perhaps not now but in evidence you give to the committee because it seems to me anyway that that's not a very ambitious target for heat demand if we're investing all this money and effort into energy efficiency. Okay I'm not sure if there was a question in that or if it was maybe asking you to reflect on it and contact the committee again. Do you want to explore some further Mr Whiteman? Yes. Okay so the other question relates to policy outcome too and that's where Fabrice has already said we've got quite substantial quite significant challenging goals of decarbonisation by 2032. Do you think these low carbon heat technologies that are being discussed I understand that they revolve around putting hydrogen into the gas grid etc are realistic in that timescale? In fact yes well you're self-policing yourselves here what it says Mr Struth will take you first. I'm not an expert on technology so that that's a little difficult to say but what I would say is investing in home energy efficiency, reducing demand, it's got a strong track record, we know that it works, we know that it's cost effective, it would seem to me that the plan particularly from 2025 to 2032 concentrates a great deal on technology and renewables and a suspect there may be a risk in that whereas we know really increasing home energy efficiency can work we can look to other European countries such as Denmark who also have quite an old housing stock but have much higher energy efficiency so we know that that's a solution that can work. Okay thank you Fabrice do you want to add some of that? Yeah only on the credibility of the heat proposals I think in the near term the focus on off gas grid homes and heat networks and urban centres there is actually quite a large potential there maybe could get you up to say 30% renewable heat so that's definitely credible it should be made clear in the climate change plan that that is what they're intending to do in terms of the longer term gas grid hydrogen you know what's happening there I think you're right to pick up on the credibility of that the pathway in the Scottish Government plan is far quicker than the one that's recommended by the committee on climate change so we're very interested to know why the over reliance almost on renewable heat in buildings is how that's come about and the the second part of that is to say that we're kind of easing off it looks like we're easing off on fabric energy efficiency and then going quicker in later years so it's kind of a back loading of effort and so you're absolutely right to pick up on it it's questionable in terms of in the technology that will do it and but also in terms of the other things that moved to to give it space and in my view it's energy efficiency which has slowed down and at the expense of this indeterminate policy for the gas grid and just to clarify on on hydrogen and in the gas grid I think the the best plan to tackle heat is to kind of come at it from the heat pump side and the heat networks so we can make inroads either side of the gas network and then at some future point yes we will have to make a big decision on that and the options aren't quite clear it used to be that we'd have hybrid electric heat pumps so since you have heat pumps in homes and a small gas boiler to top up the really cold period so that all our combined electricity demands don't create too much of a burden on the electricity system that's slightly changed in recent years and there's this new focus on hydrogen there's a possible way of decarbonising buildings people like it because it sounds like business as usual let's just put hydrogen into the gas grid but we need to be clear about what we're talking about the hydrogen has to be produced so it needs to come from either by methane gas or coal so we'll need to have a feedstock to produce the hydrogen in the quantities that we're talking about for buildings it would probably have to be gas or coal we then need to be able to ccs so carbon capture and storage to take the co2 from making the hydrogen and store it underneath the north sea so that's a big infrastructure requirement right there so ccs equipment on the outside of cities and then networks of pipes taking the gas to the coast and obviously locking ourselves into more fossil fuel production raises all sorts of questions at the moment we kind of give a blank check to the fossil fuel companies and there's no requirement on them to develop ccs or invest in it so the credibility of ccs as a technology that will actually come along is dubious given that we had two UK government funded schemes to develop the technology and both have been scrapped and we're nowhere near in this country of actually building our first plant and so just to give you a bigger picture on hydrogen okay any other witnesses want to come in and add anything to the new technologies Andy Wightman do you want to okay Grimms Simpson My question is well I've got two questions from Mr Barton Maynard but just as a point of information for for Bruce Levesque there is a sort of hydrogen hydrogen scheme going on in leads at the moment so that may well be worth looking at so Mr Barton Maynard in your evidence to us which is a public document now in paragraph 16 you talk about making great strides and then you go on to say it's disappointing to read and hear statements made by some MSPs failing to recognise the positive aspect of new build housing who do you mean by that I wouldn't want to be specific on names I think it's mainly been from our second engagement in the past and from sort of reading some of the statements that have been made in Parliament it tends to lead to a perception that new build homes aren't as energy efficient as they are and I think this is a theme that's going to be picked up by a number of my colleagues in support of writing this evidence I think the thing about new build homes is that they offer considerable benefits to the end user whether that whatever the tenure that that is and quite often in terms of discussing about the private sector it gets muddled I believe whether we're talking about PRS is being sort of pure quality stock we forget about things that's going to build around where we're talking about brand new really energy efficient housing so kind of coming forward and when we talk about new builds we rarely sort of going to note the success and successes that have been there in reducing energy bills and the energy efficiency that's going to come through the step change and standards must stop you there you've made a statement in this public document now saying that some MSPs have basically slid off new build homes surely we're entitled to know who you mean to answer the question as he decides to answer the question but I think you've been pretty clear that you're keen to know specifically what he's referring to in a public document mr Barton maynard do you want to respond to that I have no further comments to make on that question okay we look at these great strides then that have been made the current building standards regulations go day from 2015 I understand that just before they came into effect there was a huge rush of applications to building standards departments in councils across Scotland tens of thousands of applications were made to get in ahead of those regulations so many in fact that the Scottish Government had to give councils an 18 month grace period to deal with them and so that we have currently people with warrants under the old regulations sitting there not having laid a brick so houses can now be built that are not built to these 2015 building standards would you agree with that something that we are aware of we understand a few home builders have put applications in before the 2015 standards I think that part of that is an impact from the very rapid changes and step changes and standards that have happened 2010 came in after three years from the 27 2007 standards them had 2010 we had a review in 2012 the second Sullivan report delayed that to 2015 but when we're talking about major step changes and standards yes understand home builders did put in applications at that point but we need to make sure that the system in future allows greater vision greater knowledge of what's going to be happening in the future in a longer period in which building standards apply would be extremely helpful in voiding the sort of I suppose that type of behaviour of loading a system up at the beginning just to sort of note that 2010 standards still remain very highly energy efficient as well we're still talking about an EPC energy efficiency rating of a B and energy bills estimated in the region of around 50 pounds per month that's as much as I probably answer on that one okay any further supplementary that Mr Simpson confirmed the information I had okay thank you mr whiteman you were pursuing a line of questioning before I take my deputy commander in for a further line of questioning would you like to come back in no thanks okay Elaine Smith thanks very much convenient just to explore a little bit further the policy outcome to with regard to low carbon heat technologies and domestic buildings we have actually discussed some of it throughout the session this morning so perhaps if you can maybe it's up to convener whether these are final comments or not but maybe if you'd all just like to make further comment on that with regard to as some of the progress on outcome 2 is expected to take place after 2025 so how could the Scottish government actually make further progress on this outcome before that date we've also talked about consumer behavior being influenced we've specifically talked about heat pumps and where they're appropriate where they're not appropriate so maybe some further comment on consumer behavior and influencing it with regard to the installation of low carbon heat technologies and finally from me the fact that the low carbon heat technologies are often more expensive to run then how effectively does the ccp address the issue of fuel poverty so if you've captured all that i can confirm these might very well be your final comments given that the time is upon us unless of course the deputy commander wants to follow up with a supplementary which i'm in her hands in relation to so these could be your final comments so anything else you wish to throw in as well as answering the deputy commander's question would be helpful let's go take you first i'm working on a few bits that's what i do a quick i'll do a quick one a few bits let's go to mr stewart first that's not a problem really i agree with some of the points i think that you're making in your question i think there needs to be more focus on home energy efficiency first i know i've said that already but i think that's absolutely key particularly if we're looking at moving to renewable technologies where people have previously had gas central heating i would say that we should look to increase deployment of renewable technology now and not wait until 2025 but similar to what others have said i think that should be targeted on off gas areas where we know actually that you're providing a cheaper and more energy efficient form of heating so in short really i would say byg emphasis on home energy efficiency before renewable technologies are heated are unfitted and prioritised off gas grid buildings when you first deploy them so i guess to sum up in terms of the the second policy outcome of renewable heat i think the you're absolutely right in terms of asking is it credible and what more could be added i think that one of the first most important questions is what exactly drives the acceleration in renewable heat from now to 2020 given there isn't a new policy in here we'd love to know what policy is and to suggest a couple i think building standards as i said we're not building new buildings go in with gas boilers they could go into heat pumps instead or they could drive heat networks more strongly so that's one proposal that should be in here in terms of the the behaviour change especially on low carbon heat i think the seek programme contains all the elements that we've discussed so the information the aerobase schemes helping to disseminate that in terms of the regulation as well so i think the seek programme has all the components it needs to be funded and the development of the programme needs to be brought forward more swiftly it's been very slow and the consultation we currently have doesn't really give us anything new that we didn't already have and the final point in terms of low carbon heat and fuel poverty i think i need to remember that installing heat networks often reduces heating costs and in fact lots of social housing providers have installed heat networks because it does provide a fuel poverty benefit in terms of heat pumps off the gas grid in a very well insulated home and echoing what's been said before we need to make sure that those homes are efficient first installing a heat pump then lowers your heating costs because they're much more efficient so i think actually there as well there's less of a risk where there is an issue is that we don't really have a financing mechanism for everybody to have low carbon heat so there are renewable heat incentives from the UK government provides you with a kind of a feeding tariff if you have the upfront capital to invest but for fuel poor households there's nothing there so either we have to pay for those measures or provide a discount for them and i think i'll leave it there okay that's helpful mr Barton Maynard just probably so i'm going to agree with some of the this kind of sentiment in comments that's going to be made by my colleagues to my left yeah i suppose the only real point i was going to like to make was really sort of really just to sort of confirm that we're going to need a more aligned approach to the sort of regulation policy that's going to come through just making sure that all the sort of dots connect and that we're all working together in order to in collaboration and in co-operation in order to sort of achieve the aspirations of the rpp okay thank you very much and Liz Mathes really there are so many variables in this and it's it's really so important to get everybody working together we all understand it from our own individual basis but it's it's making sure that works across government and in the delivery i think one thing that we haven't touched on we've talked about the provision of energy efficiency advice but also the home visiting service is pretty key to that for vulnerable households there's a real need to deliver specific services the fact that that a lot of the funding is run out through local authorities is essential because it ensures that there is delivery across scotland and most of the local authorities are very knowledgeable about their own geographical area the heat networks are a brilliant idea and we need to really be putting those in correctly about 15 years ago we were trying to do heat networks locally in Esher and everybody said oh no you know we want to be in charge of our own heat but actually things have moved on hugely and a lot of developments but at that point the public perception was too closely related to um uh different government environments um not operating in the UK um but they associated it more with um Poland or Czech Republic and people weren't happy but now with a lot of the work in Aberdeen and the heat work heat networks are becoming much more acceptable um I think the other really important thing is to link all the developments and the regulation to the commercial buildings and to education environments so that in people's work and in their home they hear about energy it needs to be something that we all understand so much more about and people are very receptive in a um a work environment if it affects their home so rolling out education programmes training and education to explain to everybody how um energy affects them um and we really need the long-term targets but achieve as much as we can as quickly as possible they're very helpful I think a leads myth just wanted to add something briefly I just briefly I we haven't had an awful lot of discussion this morning about solid stone properties and the difficulties with them and tournaments so I think rather than ask questions I think we just need to to note that that is an issue and also perhaps consider what's been done to encourage um the creation of technologies that might help with those kinds of problems so that would be all convenient. Okay thank you very much Elaine um can I thank all our witnesses for coming along to aid us in the scrutiny of the Scottish Government's draft climate change plan rpp3 um we've taken considerably longer than we'd scheduled for this but I think that's important because we have to report on this and we want to get it right so can I thank all the witnesses for the information provided to help us to do that and can I suspend briefly at this point thank you. Back and when I move to agenda item 3 which is subordinate legislation the committee will consider two negative instruments as listed on the agenda SSIs 2016 forward slash 4 3 2 and 2016 forward slash 4 3 3 these instruments are laid under the negative procedure which means that their provisions will come into force unless the Parliament votes on a motion to annul the instruments I can confirm that no motions to annul have been laid can I invite members to question whether they'll get any comments to make on the instruments before us. Yes Mr Whiteman. As you want to say I particularly welcome the licensings of the caravan sites I think this has been something that folk have wanted for a long time and it's great to see secondary legislation coming through that improves the lives of people who live on mobile home sites. I thank Mr Whiteman for putting that on the record because sometimes anyone watching at home will just hear his utter numbers and wonder what on earth we're talking about so that's helpful that you've drawn attention to what the statutory instruments are actually in relation to but can I therefore invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to these instruments are we agreed? Okay thank you very much and we now move into private session as previously agreed thank you.