 The next item of business is a statement by Patrick Harvie on heat in buildings strategy. The minister will take questions at the end of his statement and so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on Patrick Harvie, minister, around 10 minutes please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Today we published Scotland's heat in buildings strategy and with it we mark a significant step toward bringing to an end the contribution that heating our homes and buildings makes to climate change. The ambition set out in the strategy is significant and rightly so on the eve of COP26 in Glasgow. Urgent action is needed if we had a standard chance of limiting warming to under 1.5 degrees. The strategy presents a pathway to decarbonise our homes and non-domestic buildings in line with our statutory climate change commitments. Commitments are all political parties united behind when this Parliament passed the 2019 Climate Change Act. It sets out the Government's vision that by 2045 our homes and buildings will be cleaner, greener and easier to heat. That means improving standards of energy efficiency and replacing fossil fuel heating systems with zero emissions ones. It sets a clear overarching objective. By 2030 greenhouse gas emissions from homes and buildings must be 68 per cent lower than they were in 2020. That will require more than a million homes and the equivalent of 50,000 non-domestic buildings to convert to zero emissions heating in this decade. That is a huge transition affecting communities, businesses and households all across Scotland. To pave the way that it is essential that homes and buildings achieve a good standard of energy efficiency. By 2030 we want to see a large majority of homes achieving a level of energy efficiency at least equivalent to an EPCC, with all homes meeting that standard by 2033, where feasible and cost effective. That will help to ensure that energy costs in future are affordable and that we continue to remove poor energy efficiency as a driver of fuel poverty. As we address the damaging climate change impact of heating with unabated fossil fuels, we must do so in a way that supports our efforts to tackle social inequality. We must deliver a just transition. In that strategy, we set out the guiding principles that will ensure that our actions to decarbonise heat do not have a detrimental impact on the rates of fuel poverty. We recognise that there are challenges. Many zero emission heating systems are currently more costly to install and can be more expensive to run than fossil fuel alternatives. Just as we have seen with renewable electricity, however, costs are coming down rapidly and will continue to do so. We need to work together across sectors and jurisdictions to overcome barriers and build momentum. We will provide support to help people to switch to zero emissions heating, reducing household costs, improving homes and helping to tackle the climate emergency. The strategy that we are publishing today builds on the draft that was published in February. I was pleased to see that the draft received so many supportive responses and to see the breadth of stakeholders welcoming the scale and pace of the ambition set out. The final strategy reflects much of the insight generated through the consultation, as well as additional actions that have been agreed as part of the Scottish Government's agreement with the Scottish Green Party. We know that, as we undertake the heat transition, there will be more issues to resolve, and we are committed to doing so collaboratively, drawing on the best knowledge and ideas from across society. Today's strategy sets a clear direction for the heat transition, but it acknowledges that no one at this stage has all the answers. The strategy lays a firm foundation for on-going work, including through the refreshed energy strategy and energy just transition plan next year, and the fuel poverty strategy that will be published later this year. Over this Parliament, we will be investing at least £1.8 billion in heat and energy efficiency projects across Scotland. As well as helping to meet our targets, that will provide a much-needed stimulus to the heat and energy efficiency sector, and the broader construction and home maintenance and improvements industries contributing to a green economic recovery for Scotland. I am pleased to announce that we are doubling the social housing net zero heat fund to at least £200 million. This capital funding will support decarbonisation of social housing, and it illustrates our on-going commitment to working with the sector. We are also more than doubling the funding allocated to improving public sector buildings such as schools and hospitals to at least £200 million, enabling the public sector estate to showcase zero emissions buildings. We have committed to investing at least £400 million over this parliamentary session in large-scale heat and energy efficiency projects, including zero carbon heat networks and large-scale heat pumps. Alongside that support, the strategy sets out further detail on how we will accelerate the transition more broadly. We estimate that the total investment that is required to transform our homes and buildings across the country to be in excess of £33 billion. Clearly, that cost cannot be borne by Government alone. We are establishing a new green heat finance task force to identify innovative solutions to maximise private sector investment and find new ways to help to spread the upfront cost of making properties warmer, greener and more energy efficient. Investment in the heat transition will generate significant opportunities for Scotland. We estimate that 16,400 jobs will be supported across the economy in 2030 from the deployment of zero emissions heat. We will continue to flex our delivery programmes to support local jobs and create opportunities for young people, and over the next few months we will co-produce with the sector a supply chain delivery plan to create new investment opportunities and support high-value local jobs. We will also bring forward a framework of regulations, setting clear standards for property owners across all tenures and building types. That framework will provide the certainty and assurance to secure investment and gives confidence to the supply chain. Our regulatory framework will build on existing standards already in place, requiring action on both energy efficiency and zero emissions heating. We will introduce regulations in 2025 that will require all homes to reach a good level of energy efficiency, EPCC or equivalent, for example at point of sale or change of tenancy. All homes will have to reach the standard by the backstop date of 2033, with the private rented sector having an earlier backstop of 2028. That will support our commitment to phasing out the need to install fossil fuel boilers in off-gas properties from 2025 and in on-gas areas from 2030, to the extent that devolved powers allow. Public engagement is going to be critical. While technologies such as heat pumps and heat networks have long pedigrees in other European countries, they are unfamiliar to many of us. We will increase public engagement, building on our existing advice services and taking steps to raise awareness. To support that, we will be establishing a national public energy agency to provide leadership and harness the potential of scaled-up programmes to decarbonise heat. We are working with local government to put in place local heat and energy efficiency strategies for decarbonising homes and buildings for all parts of Scotland. The heat transition is an unprecedented challenge that will directly touch the lives of virtually everyone in Scotland. Building owners and supply chains need to have confidence in the long-term pathway and the policies underpinning it. The scale of the challenge requires a cross-party approach. I have therefore invited party spokespeople to come together to discuss how we can work collectively to take forward our heat in buildings strategy, just as we acted collectively to set the climate change targets. The strategy sets out an ambitious package of work, maximising the Scottish Government's impact within the confines of the devolution settlement. However, we do not have all the powers necessary to deliver the transformational change required. We are therefore calling on the UK Government to take urgent action to support the just transition to decarbonise heating. The delayed UK heat and building strategy must set out how the UK Government will use its regulatory and policy levers to incentivise rapid deployment of zero emissions heat technologies. We urgently need a stronger commitment and a clearer action plan from the UK Government, including reforms to energy markets and decisions about the future of the gas grid. Recent volatility in global natural gas markets further underscores the urgency of action in reserve policy areas to maintain security of energy supplies and to support vulnerable customers. This morning, I had the opportunity to visit a communal air source heat pump project in Springburn in Glasgow. The project, co-funded by North Glasgow Homes, the district heating loan fund and the Scottish Government's low-carbon infrastructure transition programme, delivers zero emissions heat to six high-rise social housing tower blocks. Not only will that significantly reduce emissions, it will reduce heating costs for 600 homes by up to 60 per cent, improving tenants' wellbeing by making homes warmer and cheaper to heat. We need to get the transition right for every community. The heat and building strategy is the foundation for doing so, securing the emissions reduction that is needed from our buildings to respond to the global climate emergency, demonstrating tangible commitments to our international partners at COP26 and creating economic opportunities for Scotland and improving the buildings in which we live, work and play. I commend Scotland's heat and building strategy to Parliament. The minister will now take questions on the issues raised in his statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions, after which we will move on to the next item of business. It would be helpful if those members who wish to ask a question were to press the request-to-speak button now, or put R in the chat room, and I call Liam Kerr. I thank the minister for the advance sight of his statement, but I am concerned at the time that it is taken to get to this point. If the Government is to meet its target, set out in his statement to decarbonise 1 million homes by 2030, that means that over 335 homes need to be decarbonised every single day from now until 31 December 2029. That is a strategy that is heavy on what needs to happen, but light on the how. Let me try to help by asking three straight questions. The strategy estimates that the total investment required to transform our homes and buildings is light to be in excess of £33 billion. The Scottish Government will make available £1.8 billion. So, from where or from whom does the minister expect the other £31 billion to come? Secondly, decarbonisation requires a huge number of people to retrain or upskill in new technologies and methods. That requires people to teach them in properly funded schools, colleges and universities. The strategy suggests that the private sector will drive that, yet it also says that there will be another plan on this in summer 2022. Has the private sector confirmed that it is comfortable with the cost and responsibility that is coming? What is the Government doing now to upskill the colleges and schools? Finally, the statement says that the Government wants to upgrade all homes to EPC band C by 2033. It is reported that that could cost £17,000 per household. Interest-free loans will be available up to £15,000, but not many households are going to have an extra £2,000 to make up the difference. What funding will be put in place to support owners and private landlords to achieve those targets? I thank Liam Kerr for his statement, in relation to the time that is taken. He knows that I and members from a number of political parties across the chamber have pushed for action on this not just for years but in fact for decades. I hope that he is suggesting that we shouldn't have consulted on the draft strategy that was produced earlier this year. I hope that he recognises the value of consultation. I think that the final version of the strategy is stronger and richer for having had the input from many stakeholders, much of which was very constructive. I hope that he will welcome that. The total cost of the investment between now and 2045, if that is what we want to reach by that date, is of course immense. I made that clear in my statement. The commitment that the Scottish Government has during this parliamentary session will not be the end of the story. This is a multi-decade programme that we all need to be committed to. Of course, as my statement said, it is not only going to be coming from public funding, it is going to have to come from a wide range of sources, so I hope that Mr Kerr will engage constructively with our proposals for a finance task force looking at those challenges. Colleagues in other portfolios will address some of the issues in relation to schools, colleges and universities. Those are important points. I think that many of the private sector companies and contractors who already do work in installing existing conventional heating systems see big opportunities if we can give them the right support to make sure that they can get access to the work and take on more people to do this incredible programme of work to address our climate change emergency and to make sure that all communities across Scotland are able to do that affordably. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Fair members to my register of interest, as they are known over a rental property in North Lanarkshire. I thank the minister for early sight of the statement and a copy of the strategy earlier today. In that strategy, no longer does the minister responsible say that we will transform Scotland's homes, but instead homes must be transformed. We agree that we need to decarbonise, improve the fabric of our homes and cut fuel poverty, but that strategy pushes a £33 billion bill and all the risk and disruption on to homeowners, tenants and landlords without enough funding or a partnership approach that is evident so far. That extra £200 million announce does not come close to reducing the burden on those who are least able to pay. Tony Cain of Alachow told the Local Government Housing and Planning Committee last week that the Government has not allocated enough resources and that its plans put an unbearable burden on social housing tenants' rents. Low-income households have been in the guinea pigs so far, subjected to useless, costly, infrared heating panels in the Western Isles and have been disconnected from district heating systems in Glasgow. The Glasgow City of Reaching has said— Mr Griffin, could you please bring your question to the forefront? Can the minister say that when householders will know what their share of that £33 billion will be, what support they will get, or if the Government just intends to regulate them into submission and debt? Mr Griffin, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed by the tone. As I said, that is a huge challenge for all of us. It is one that requires cross-party collaboration. I would have hoped that the Labour Party would be welcoming the idea that we are going to set out an ambitious way to achieve that agenda for all of Scotland. Can I tell every homeowner what the precise share of investment is going to be between now and 2045 for every private home? Of course, I cannot do that. What we are doing is committing to ensuring that we are looking at a wide range of sources for that investment. It cannot all come from public funds, unless, Mr Griffin, even I might blanch at the idea if he comes forward with a proposal for a £33 billion tax raise so that we can fund it all from public sources. Even I might blanch at that. I recently spoke at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations conference about the Zest Report zero emissions social housing task force. There is a real positivity and an appetite across the sector to work with the Scottish Government to try to rise to that challenge, because many of those social housing providers know that reducing heating costs is one of the most effective ways that they can reduce not just fuel poverty but poverty more widely, because that is a saving that does not get clawed back by the UK benefits system. I really hope that Labour and all other political parties will respond positively to the invitation that I have put out to sit together and talk about how we take that forward, because it is only going to work if we are willing to work together between political parties, between levels of government and across the whole of society. I have allowed a bit of latitude for the front bench exchanges. We have 10 back benchers seeking to ask questions, so we need to finish by 15.25. I just put that out there. Next call, Stuart McMillan, who is joining us remotely to be followed by Brian Whittle. Mr McMillan. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the statement under £1.8 billion of investment, but will the minister provide an assurance that communities with high SIMD and growing older populations will actually be at the forefront of any roll-out of that investment? Thank you, Stuart McMillan, for the question. It is a very important issue. Local funding allocations for local authority-led area-based schemes reflect need, and councils use the Scottish index of multiple deprivation to target areas with higher numbers of fuel-poor households. Our area-based schemes, the funding enables fuel-poor households living in their own home to benefit from energy efficiency improvements. Over a third of those people are older people, and we also continue to support people converting their heating systems to zero emissions one, targeting that help again at those who are least able to pay. Our delivery schemes, which target households in fuel poverty, already take a zero emissions heat first approach. I am conscious of time, Presiding Officer. There is a great deal more in the strategy that I think will help to answer Stuart McMillan's questions, and I will leave it at that. Thank you. I call Brian Whittle to be followed by Joe FitzPatrick. It is clear that hydrogen-based boilers could play a substantial role in the replacement of natural gas boilers. Although I note that there is a strong emphasis on heat pumps in this document, when does the Scottish Government expect to be able to provide homeowners with greater guidance about the likely availability of mains hydrogen network within Scotland and help them to make an informed choice about the best route to take when replacing their heating? It is an excellent question to put to the UK Government, because, as he will know, it is the UK Government that regulates the energy economy, including decisions on the gas network. I am sorry, Mr Whittle, for shaking his head. I am speaking about the reality. This Government cannot currently control the gas network, cannot make those decisions. The UK Government's heating building strategy has been delayed so long. I was really hoping that they would make a big splash announcement at their party conference about how they would take some of those issues forward. What did we hear on this agenda? They want to make it easier to arrest the people who are campaigning and protesting for insulation and for other energy efficiency measures in Scotland. That is not the response that we need, blaming the messenger. This Government hears the message and is cracking on with doing the work that it can with the powers that it has. Cultural venues such as Dundee Museum of Transport, DCA and Dundee Heritage Trust are all keen to play their part in Scotland achieving net zero. Can the minister advise on potential support for cultural venues to undertake retrofitting? I am pleased that Joe Fitzpatrick sees that the cultural sector is enthusiastic, because it not only has a role in terms of its buildings directly, but it can also be showcased because many of them are publicly accessible buildings and can help to lead the public awareness of the transformation that we need. Cultural venues will be eligible for support, but it will depend on their ownership. Public sector support schemes can help to decarbonise those buildings that are in public ownership, while SME and loan schemes can provide an offer of support to independent cultural venues. Support is also available to community organisations and national or regional non-profit organisations with charitable aims and objectives. I encourage all those organisations to contact the energy efficient business support service, Local Energy Scotland or the Scottish Government directly to find out what might be available. If the member has specific issues in mind in his own local area, he is very welcome to write to me on that issue as well. The statement did not include reference to the opportunity to develop community and co-operatively-owned heat and power networks, but in last year's non-domestic rates act, we agreed to rates relief for such low-carbon heat networks. Will the minister agree to build on the experience of existing networks such as the Aberdeen heat and power network and the Edinburgh solar co-op, so that we get the win-win of low-carbon networks that benefit our communities? I thank Sarah Boyack for that question and I hope that she knows that it is an issue that I would be very enthusiastic to work with her on. I see a really important role for the Public Energy Agency in supporting the development of skills in that area. I know that there has been a little bit of political back and forth about whether it is an agency or whether we should crack on and create a single national energy company in the first instance, but the creation of this national public energy agency will be able to do a great deal to skill up local communities to make sure that we are sharing best practice and facilitating our ambitions for local communities taking control of this agenda. I think that there is a great deal to be enthusiastic about on this agenda, and I very much hope that, again, we can work on a cross-party basis to achieve that. Covid-19 has put a strain on every household in Scotland, and many are no doubt wondering how we can achieve net zero while rebuilding from the hardships of the pandemic. What part does the minister believe that this strategy will play in Scotland's Covid recovery? As I said in the statement, we see this strategy as really critical to a green economic recovery for Scotland. We estimate that an additional 16,400 jobs will be supported across the economy by 2030 as a result of the investment that is going to be deployed in zero emissions heat. In the immediate term, investing at least £1.8 billion over the course of this Parliament has outlined in the strategy. That aims to strengthen demand and support an increase in jobs and skilled workers through investment in the supply chain. The pace of the transition will require substantial growth in supply chains, particularly in the availability of skilled heating and energy efficiency installers. We will be working with Scottish Renewables to undertake a heat and buildings workforce assessment project. Later, towards summer next year, we will co-produce with industry a heat and buildings supply chain delivery plan. I hope that we will be able to maximise the opportunities that Rona Mackay clearly identifies. Minister said that public engagement will be critical to the strategy, but recent changes to the warm home Scotland scheme took place with no prior consultation, leaving some of my constituents in the dark and without new boilers that they were due to receive. Will the minister therefore commit to properly island proofing strategy to ensure that areas that suffer the worst fuel poverty have their needs properly reflected and that additional resources will be made available in recognition of the higher costs of low-emission technologies and their deployment in island and rural areas? Yes, absolutely. I very much recognise the concern that Liam McArthur has on that issue as the constituency member. He has written to me a large number of questions on that and I have made it clear in my answers, or at least I have sought to, that we do want to give the right support in the right places. We recognise the distinct challenges that remote, rural and island communities face. We are making sure that even as we move away from fossil fuel, some of the worst and most polluting fossil fuel heating systems, we are making available the right renewable heating systems, zero-carbon heating systems and energy efficiency measures in all those communities. I will continue to engage with Mr McArthur if he wants to continue to write to me, but I hope that he is aware that we are making those offers available to people in his constituency and elsewhere in Scotland. Mark Ruskell, to be followed by Alasdor Allan. Thank you. I welcome this transformative strategy and in particular the commitment given by the minister to work across this chamber. Hopefully, that will set a better tone for the rest of this session. Can I ask him specifically about the commitment to renewed ambition for decarbonising public sector buildings? Does he recognise that, within councils and some other public sector organisations, there is often a lack of capacity and skills to bring forward new projects such as heat networks, for example, or complex innovation that is going to be required to meet those targets? How does he envisage us building that capacity over time so that we can really innovate and deliver? Absolutely. I have already set out the doubling of the funding that we are going to give to the public sector to engage in this agenda. I would also come back to the answer that I gave earlier about the national public energy agency. As well as supporting community organisations, it will have a critical role at building skills and capacity at local government level. I think that councils across Scotland want to be part of this agenda and to be able to show that it is something that can work for their communities. I would put the call out to all members across the chamber and political parties to work with the Scottish Government if there are opportunities in your local areas that you think that we need to be aware of and to work with you on and with local authorities in your constituencies and regions. We would be very happy to hear from you. Alasdair Alland, we are followed by Dean Lockhart. I recently met with Thine and Shagall, a trusted insulation provider on my constituency. They are encountering serious difficulties because of the new UK-wide industry standards PES 2035. Among other things, the new ventilation standards require fixed mechanical ventilation and large permanent window vents. Those strict requirements in hebridean properties result in a permanent and significant draft, made worse, I should say, by a requirement to remove the bottom 2cm of every internal door, which is significantly deterring people from using those insulation schemes. Will the minister be willing to meet Thine and Shagall to discuss their concerns about that? Of course. I would be very happy to have a discussion with Alasdair Alland about that. I am aware that PES 2035 introduces a new retrofit co-ordinator role to ensure compliance with the standards and to co-ordinate the work to ensure that the intended outcomes are achieved. That includes provision for improvements in indoor air quality. That is particularly true when the energy efficiency improvements are detrimental to natural air flow, in which case the co-ordinator may insist on additional measures to address that. However, we understand that the retrofit co-ordinator ultimately decides on the course of action alongside the designer. We are in continual discussions at BSI on those standards to ensure that Scottish stakeholder views are factored into the development of those standards. However, as I say, I would be very happy to meet Alasdair Alland and that particular provider to look into the issues that he has highlighted. Dean Lockhart, to be followed by Barry McNair. Will the £1.8 billion that is announced in today's statement be in addition to the core budget that is allocated in those portfolios? In other words, is that all extra money, or is money being reallocated from other areas? Will Mr Harvie acknowledge that the massive amount of additional Scottish Government funding required in this area, and indeed required to deliver the transition to net zero, is going to effectively have to come from the Barnett formula, given that the Scottish Government is already running a fiscal deficit of £36 billion? In relation to the first question, at least £1.8 billion is the total commitment over the course of this Parliament. I hope that that is clear. As I have referenced to other members, we need to recognise that the strategy is by no means the end of the story. If we are committing to a programme of work that is as transformational as it needs to be, to reach the targets that we have all voted for, it will have to be substantial and it will have to be a multi-decade programme of work. It would be absurd for any Government to stand here in 2021 and say that we know exactly what is going to happen right through to 2045. This programme for the current Parliament and this strategy lays a strong foundation for beginning that work. As for whether it will all need to come from the Barnett formula, of course not, because we will be independent well before 2045. The minister was aware of the first large-scale dish-eating system in Scotland, which was officially opened in my constituency last week. It uses water from the river Clyde to create green energy that will heat homes and buildings on the Queen's Quay site in Clydebank. Can the minister outline what lessons can be learned from this pioneering system to ensure that it can be rolled out across Scotland? Yes, absolutely. This is an example of the importance of delivery of flagship heat networks like that. This particular project is now commissioned and open, and we will be working closely with West Dunbartonshire Council to produce a lessons learned report that will be able to be shared widely to ensure that heat network projects like that can be replicated right across Scotland. The lessons from a delivery of a project like that will help us to develop a successor programme to the low-carbon infrastructure transition programme and a refocused district heating loan fund that will seek to address the barriers to the delivery of heat networks and large-scale zero-emissions heating infrastructure projects. Thousands of householders are currently worried about how they will pay for new heat and smoke alarms by next February, but the minister says that by 2025 he will bring in regulations that could land householders with bills of potentially tens of thousands of pounds, and he's twice failed to say how he will help people to pay for that. Can he do so now? Thank you. I've laid out in detail how we're going to go about supporting that work to be done. I see the skepticism in Mr Simpson's face. I also ask him to acknowledge that there are decisions that need to be made at every level of government, including in terms of regulating the prices. That government can't do that. The UK Government can and must change the pricing structure so that it is more affordable for people to operate low-carbon heating systems. However, as I said to Labour colleagues earlier, if Mr Simpson wants to come forward with a £33 billion tax increase and persuaders to do that so that the public sector funds all of this work, he's very welcome to write to me about that. Thank you. Minister, that concludes the statement on heat in building strategy. We will have a very short pause to allow any movement on front benches to change.