 Yn y cyfgafod, wrth gwrs, wrth gwrs, ddim rhywbeth ystafell yn y gweithio'r gweithio ar gyflym y cyfgafod honno yng Nghymru yn 2018. Rydw i'n symud ychydig i'r cyfgafod nôr oherwydd gwybod, ac mae'n bwysig yn gweithio'r enghraifft ar gyfer o gwelliadau sy'n gweithio'r gweithio. Yn y gweithio'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio ar gyfer y gweithio'r gweithio ar gyfer y gweithio'r gweithio. ar gyfer clywbeth ar y plan i'r bwysig, gan gyda'r newid yn mynd i gymryd i'r newid. Yr ystod yn ymgyrch, rwy'n dda i'n gweithio Patrick Flynn, ymgyrch yn ymgyrch yn Ysgrifennu Glashgo City Council, Chris Bapeman, ymgyrch yn Ysgrifennu Ymgyrch yn Ysgrifennu North Lanyshire Council, David Stewart, ymgyrch yn Ysgrifennu Ysgrifennu Ysgrifennu Ysgrifennu, a Alexander McLeod, ymgyrch yn Ysgrifennu Ysgrifennu Aberdeenshire Council. Ysgrifennu'n gweithio. We will go straight to questions from myself before the other members come in. Can I ask your views on the main drivers of fuel poverty and the degree to which each driver contributes to overall fuel poverty rates and levels? Mr Stewart. Yes, it's important to remember that there is more than one driver ofsgolwyd yn gweld i'r ffordd o'r ffordd oedd ymddangos a'r ffordd o'r effeithiwn i'r ffordd o'r ddau mawr i'r hyn yn ymddangos, ond ond yn cael eu gweithio, ond ymddangos ymddangos ar gyfer y ffordd, ac mae'n cael ei gwneud am ysgrifftr, ond yn cwymor i'r hyfforddiadau, ac yn cael eu gwneud am ymddangos, wrth sefydlu cael hyn o gweld y cyfathiannol iaith, oedd y prosiectau yr energiadol iaith efallai yn iaith. Mae'r pethau yn gweithio gwahag sy'n pethau'n cael ei bod yn gwneud yn gwneud eu cyflogiadau i gweld y dyfodol iprwagell energiadau yn chargesurau sig yn ein bod ydyn ni flop wnaeth èw ddweud gwaddu thankiwyr. Mae hi'n fawr i'r ddweud. Mae'n fawr i'r ddweud ar gael y graftdfaith yng nghyethion diwrnod. Rydyn nhw'nseroliadau dyfodol i'w mynd i'w cysylltu'i arpyfydder. Yr hoffi chyrdiadau sgol yn gyflaen i ddiwethaf, ond yn y blynedd yn ei roi, mae'n f contracts o'r cyflaen o'r cyflwyngu am mynd yn y brif yn ai bryd. Rydyn nhw'n seriwch i'w cyflaendor, a oedd ganmell Cymraen yn y cyflaendor. Rydyn nhw'n seriwch i'w gael gan oedlaethau bobachau argyn nhw. Rydyn nhw'n seriwch i'w cysylltu'u cyffreduoedd mewn bwysig, The chair's question is a recognition that those first two factors that I mentioned aren't perhaps crucial to how indicators are delivered in the future. Ruth Davidson We share those views on the drivers. We view household income as perhaps the primary driver of fuel poverty, because if your income is sufficient you can withstand rising fuel and you can live comfortably in a draughty old home. So I think that our focus perhaps should be more on inclusive growth, creating jobs, and reducing inequality more generally. Thank you. Mrs McLeod do you have any comment? And just to add, I think it is important to recognise that behaviours is something that has emerged recently and that something that is reflected locally in Aberdeenshire. So it is important that the fuel poverty strategy itself that is proposed recognises y four different drivers and how they interlink. One of the concerns certainly for us in Aberdeenshire going forward is where certain properties may not be feasible for those to meet the energy efficiency standards and then how do we get that household out of fuel poverty as the question, so that's where the other drivers come into play. Thank you very much for that. The prices and income aspect of it, I suppose, takes me on to my next question, which is about, given the limited powers and areas of fuel prices and household income, what do you think is the wisdom of the government setting a fuel poverty target when they have such limited powers? I accept the point that it's a challenge when the Scottish Government or Scottish Parliament only have control over energy efficiency, but I think that said, it's still important to work to address fuel poverty and I think while there will be significant costs on increasing the energy efficiency of homes, it's important to remember the benefits that can accrue to. There was a study for Citizens Advice Scotland in 2014 that found that investing in energy efficiency to address fuel poverty was the most effective way for a government to invest public funds because there was big benefits in terms of jobs created. There was economic benefits, but also, importantly, there were social benefits for the people, so I take your point, but I suppose I would argue that even though we're not in control of all the drivers, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and address fuel poverty? No, but the target must be more difficult to set surely if you don't have control of prices and income and would it not mean that in Scotland, for example, they would have to spend more to make sure that they had the same level playing field as if they had control over prices and income because they would have to go down the energy efficiency route without being able to balance that with methods of being able to improve the income or to have some control over the prices? I think that that's a fair point, but then we said in our evidence that there are things that can be done, for example, a group of housing associations have set up their own energy supply company with aim of providing more affordable tariffs to people on prepayment meters, and in the long term they hope to actually not just be energy suppliers, but also to either generate energy or heat, so I accept your point, but there's still things we can do. We'd also accept the challenges given that the Scottish Parliament doesn't have all the full range of powers that some of its members may want, but I think that we would acknowledge that it's a legitimate aim of public policy to eradicate fuel poverty and that over the next generation a Parliament should be able to stimulate economy and improve household incomes, and that's also a key factor in driving down rates of fuel poverty. The last one, and then you can come in, and the others can come in at both points. The length of the target period and the Government's reason for choosing this 2040 target period, what's your views on that? I'll miss them a cloud first. I think that it's pragmatic to set out a 2040. I know there has been a push to bring it forward to 2032, but we have to recognise the pace of technological change and the pace of the cost for that technological innovation coming down, which may make it impractical to deliver it sooner, as much as we would like it to feel poverty to be eradicated at an earlier stage. I echo the sentiments that there is a practical timescale. There are a number of other timescales that are just now issued, and the committee will be aware of them. Our job is to operationalise Scottish Government policy. If those targets could be aligned as much as possible, it would help when we are bidding for funds in particular. I think that our council would like the Government to consider statutory interim targets reported every three or four years on the way to the 2040 target to allow for any adjusted shortfalls in the policy environment, the strategy environment that changes things along the way, leaving it to the 2040s too long. I think that it makes a lot of sense to align the two-povet target with Energy Efficient Scotland and with Housing Beyond 2021. We think that there is a lot of value in integrating all the approaches in those related areas. Can I just clarify when you say that you support both views? Do you mean that you think that the 2040 target is too long, or do you think that there should be interim targets in between? I think that, like all my colleagues, 2040 is probably the pragmatic timescale, albeit that the milestone should perhaps be set. There should be additional milestones put in place, but 2040 would be a pragmatic time. I am going to be the odd one out. We would like to see the target set for 2032. Partly because we feel 2040 is a long time for people to be in field poverty, so we would like the targets to be more ambitious, but also other colleagues have mentioned the energy efficiency standards for social housing and Energy Efficient Scotland, and we think that tying on the target date with those would make sense even if it was challenging. Can I just pick up a couple of points that you made there? One is the idea of the energy supply companies. I know that North Ayrshire, for example, has been doing some work on that. Do you think that there is much further scope there for local authorities or housing associations to come together and look at that? What do you think of the situation just now where we keep telling people that, if they shop around, particularly if you look at the drivers of people who are experiencing poverty, the idea that you are going to spend loads of time trying to shop around and buy an electricity deal, for example? Where is the scope there, do you think, for the public sector? First of all, I think that there is scope for the public sector to get involved and help. I mentioned the airpire, the gripping of housing associations, but I know that local authorities have also been looking to do that. I think that anything that provides variety or a different offer or maybe particularly focuses on providing the same energy costs to people on low income and on pre-payment metres is a good thing. I think that it is a very good point that you make if people are vulnerable and have got other challenges that they are going to struggle to shop around. I think there that there is an opportunity for the public sector or the third sector to help. Citrus energy, based in Ayrshire, that are part of Cunningham Housing Association, provide that energy advice and switching service so that they can effectively take that difficulty or challenge away from vulnerable people by offering to do the switching and get the best deal for people themselves. That can make a significant difference to someone that is on a low income. You do not all need to answer every question, sorry, just to clarify, if anybody feels that they want to then feel for one more. On the committee's point about looking at the bill, if we are saying that there are four drivers here and in Scotland we do not have the powers over some of those key drivers, do you think that it is right that this committee should be highlighting that to be the case and where further powers are required? Given that if we are serious about tackling fuel poverty we need to be transparent in what needs to happen. It is perhaps more of a political question for us than it is for you, but you get my drift here that would you like to see that committee take that approach? It is perhaps more of a political question, but I think it is certainly appropriate for you to recognise those challenges and deliver them on the target. You can do that and raise those issues and say that we might need to find additional resources to deliver the challenges given that you are constrained in the powers that you have. Obviously, the two council representatives said that you think that 2040 is about right and not 2032. I wonder whether the reason for you saying that is that you will be required to do a lot of the work here and clearly you need investment. I wonder whether you feel that that is the issue and that there is no money to help you out. North Lanarkshire said in your submission that the Scottish Government's continued support will be required to ensure that local authorities and others can effectively eradicate fuel poverty. I guess that sums it up. Is that the number of the issue for the councils? That is quite a big question. The two issues on inflationary fuel prices and low household income in a sense are a political issue and will always be with us. The other two are poor efficiency of property and behavioural issues are issues that the council is a sub-strategy to the Government strategy can actively make change. In Glasgow, for instance, since 2013-14, we have had over 11,000 measures on external wall installation and other things that have saved 500,000 tonnes of carbon and something like £2 million per year for the 11,000 households and savings on their energy bills. I think that my colleagues will agree that councils need certainty on funding arrangements, so heaps abs, for instance, has been successful just now in allowing us to do area-based schemes, which is important for our city and for the timber areas in our city in particular. In the short time I have been involved in this area of work, there has been a number of changes. As officers, we would like to try and de-risk that as much as possible, because the bureaucracy of applying for these grants and knitting together the various grants will always be the case, it looks like. Knitting together those various grants different times that they come into play, different conditions of grant, different criteria for getting the grant, we have a team who knit that together and make it work with some of our own private sector housing grant. At the 2040 thing, and for us as a recognition that if we get into them milestones and certainty in funding, then we can make our sub-strategy work as well as we possibly can to contribute to the national strategy. My reluctance to commit to an earlier target in 2040 is really to do with the availability of resources. To date, we have been fairly silent on where the resources will come from in order to meet the targets that we are hoping to achieve. The fuel poverty strategy itself seems to be fairly silent on the issue and I think that it would be helpful if we can cost out the delivery of the target across the public and private sectors, both at a local government and national government level, and then we can start to have that conversation about how it will be paid for and how it will be delivered at an earlier stage if that is what is deemed appropriate. Good morning, gentlemen. On that very issue of the potentially earlier date of 2032, given that it is accepted that we here in this Parliament have limitations on certain of the key drivers as regards fuel prices and household income, I just wondered then—and it is a question really for Mr Stewart—what he sees as the pathways to get us to the earlier 2032 position. I had noted in the policy memorandum to the bill that one of the issues concerns the development of low-carbon technologies, allowing time for that, allowing time for the price to become more competitive for low-carbon technologies, and the point being made that for your average domestic household, the earlier acceleration, if you like, of the target date would be likely to place considerable burdens on individuals householders across Scotland. How do you see that, Mr Stewart? Do you see that as something that householders across Scotland would be welcoming, because it would be a burden placed to a considerable extent on them? What other pathway would you see? I think that what we would see as the way to address fuel poverty with and the remit of the Scottish Parliament is to set energy efficiency standards across tenures. I set out in our submission that, at the moment, only social housing has to meet energy efficiency standards, and that has seen considerable improvement in standards to the extent that housing associations now have clearly the most energy efficient homes by tenure. That has really been done largely through the investment of their own resources from tenant's rents. I take the point that it could be a challenge for some homes, and we are not saying that every home would meet a certain minimum energy efficiency standard, but, at the moment, I think and know are occupied in private rented sector. There is scope for homes to be improved. On the one hand, it might cost householders to invest, but on the other hand, it will make savings in terms of cheaper fuel bills. Given that energy bills are projected to rise above inflation and that they have been for the past ten years, it is something that needs to be addressed. I am not saying that it is not a challenge. I would really echo Alexander's comment that the bill and the strategy are silent on costs and where the funding would come from, and I think there will be costs. To address fuel poverty, there needs to be a mixture of grants, low-interest loans, depending on people's ability to pay. At the same time, fuel bills are expected to go up. The Scottish Parliament has set very challenging climate change targets, so we need to think about housing's role and not just social housing, which is only a part of the housing sector. We have talked about the fact that the Scottish Parliament does not have devolved powers to allow it to control incomes and energy prices, so we put that in perspective in the last 15 years of saying that incomes go up by 38 per cent in Scotland and that energy prices go up by 155 per cent. Quite clearly, that derailed the original target that was set by the previous Scottish executive. On the question that Annabel raised, I just wanted to ask a supplementary question. How do you deal with people who live in their own occupiers and tenemental blocks? Those people who live in poverty and some may be able to apply for grants, but some others in the same block may not be able to apply for grants. That does not necessarily mean that they have money sitting in the bank to pay significant sums of money towards energy efficiency. If they are older, they might not want to do that. People come in at their home, etc. They often find it true. How do you square that circle? We all want the same objective. I am just looking to see whether you have any local authority representatives have any solutions to that particular issue, because they are not going to pass on a majority of people in Scotland. We have extensive experience of dealing with mixed tenure schemes, in particular mixed tenure up a close or four-in-a-block. It is a complex thing to deal with. The area-based approach works for us. We have a team who go out and talk to the folk about their individual needs. We have specialists through our partnership with a wise group called GHEAT. The face-to-face discussion with clients is extremely important. We are finding that funding for essential fabric repairs is a major issue in the city, and we will be coming to our committee in about a year's time to discuss a pre-1919 stock in particular. That is important because that type of stock—large windows, solid wall—is very difficult to put measures in place that can bring it up to the standards that we are looking for. We also have a significant proportion of non-traditional stock. Non-traditional stock is a rule of thumb and does not hold me to our usual heapsab scheme, so those 11,000 interventions are something like £3,000 of an owner's contribution. We get £6,500 from the heapsabs, and we get money from various other bits and pieces to make up the difference. A non-traditional property—British Iron Steel Federation or whatever—would maybe be £20,000 to £30,000 to bring it up to a similar standard. The non-traditional stock, especially owner-occupiers in our city, is a specific concern. The low incomes for owners has been mentioned. It is not as much of a factor as the increase in fuel has been, the fuel prices, but the income of owners, especially in our Scottish index of multiple deprivation areas, where Glasgow has, unfortunately, an overprovision of the lowest five and 10 per cent areas. That gives us a real concern. That is where we focus as per Scottish Government guidance. Our fabric work at present, our 11,000 external wall insulations, is focused on simd areas, and age can be a proxy for vulnerability, but absolutely index of multiple deprivation areas can also be a proxy for vulnerability. For people with low incomes, an area-based scheme works well because we have one-to-one contact with owners. We can explain the benefits. Most importantly, we find, practically, as well as the trade, the subcontractors dealing with them on an area basis, that neighbours talk to each other. We find very often that the public meetings get a proportion of people who buy into a scheme. Through the scheme, as people see what is actually happening, other people come in and buy into it. That seems to be more important than common sense would probably suggest. The neighbourhood aspect to owners becoming involved in the scheme, the area-based aspect, is important in our city anyway. Alexander, you wanted to come in now. You have talked about some of the successes that you have all experienced across the housing sector, whether it is council or housing association, in the energy efficiency and how that has improved. We have seen a good way forward on that over recent times. However, you have identified that it is finance-orientated, it is resource-based. If you do not have the finances and you have identified that councils may be now struggling to manage that process to ensure that they can implement some of that, because if there is not the resource behind it and there is not the grant that is there, then how do individuals tap into that and see that there is going to be an opportunity for them to try and tackle that efficiency within their own property that they have, depending on the age of that property and the type of that property? We have the one-to-one consultation with owners. At present, I have mentioned the specific cost, the £6,500,000, so we have invested £95 million on those $11,000 interventions since 2013-14, and £35 million of that is from Heapsabs. That is our Heapsabs budget over that time, so we have benefited from that. We have used it as seed corn in order to add other measures and to have, I think, a successful programme. We think that we have got eight years' worth of programme left that we can identify, but at the moment it is unclear how we would take that forward because the dispensation is going to change. At the moment, we are unclear, but we are discussing it with Scottish Government officials. The challenge that you face in trying to square that circle and try to manage that process for the future, because that gives you a short-term or a medium-term approach as to what you want to achieve. If we want to achieve the full goal and we want to get to the target by getting to the timescale of 2040, then that may not be achievable across your own tenure and area. The programme will have to change, given the indications that we have at the moment. There will possibly be a reliance on equity loans. At present, our experience of equity loans is not a good one. Owners, and especially private landlords, do not tend to get involved where equity loans are the vehicle for getting the measures done. We are communicating with Scottish Government officials what our experience of that is. In terms of equity loan fund, it has its own experience just now. I would suggest that, unless there is grant, our existing programme or existing, it just will not happen. It will not materialise if there is not the funding and the resource behind it to make it progress. Do not think so, chair. Kenny, you wanted to come in on that point. Thank you for letting me in again, convener. I appreciate it. Notwithstanding the issues of income and energy prices that we have talked about, the Scottish Government is planning to go through the bill to help to reduce the number of households and fuel poverty by 20,000 households a year. David is looking to change that date to 2032, which means 38,000 a year. We have talked a lot about resources, but I am wondering if we have the workforce with the skills to deliver that, because it is not just about money. Do we have people available who could step up? We know, for example, that there are going to be issues in terms of EU workers, so there may be people who currently work on these programmes who might do jobs at, for example, others do at present. I am wondering how you feel about those resources, and are there any proposals to do a step change in terms of training more people to do that kind of work? David. It is a really, really good point, actually. We have probably discussed this more generally on the issue of new-build affordable housing and the ambitious 50,000 homes target. There is an issue both at the construction workforce that is from Scotland or the UK as ageing, but also as you point out with Brexit. There are concerns. As an issue, I do not know that there are enough plans in place to address it for new-build. I know that there is work to promote the idea of off-site construction to encourage more people or a different group into the workforce, but I think that it is something that has to be borne in mind because the energy efficiency retrofit is labour intensive, and we need to know that we have got the workforce to carry out that work. The new definition is a more complicated definition than the old one. It is designed to provide a more accurate assessment of the numbers of people living in field poverty. However, at the same time, the draft strategy outlines the kind of measures that will be put in place to reduce those numbers. I noticed in North Lanarkshire Council's evidence that clear mechanisms will need to be developed to ensure that we can effectively identify fuel households under the more complex new definition. The draft fuel poverty strategy talks about developing a fuel poverty assessment tool that is designed to take account of the proposed definition and enable targeting of funding to be more accurate. How well aligned do you think that this new definition, which will be assessed on a national scale from aggregate statistics, how well aligned do you think that it can possibly be with an assessment tool that identifies which households need assistance? Is that actually possible? Perhaps not, but we are clear that we need to better identify the households that we should be targeting for advice and assistance, and we need some way of doing that. Just now, under the new definition, if we want to identify someone who is in fuel poverty, we need to know the energy performance of their home, the energy cost that they should be incurring to maintain a satisfactory heating regime based on their current tariff, their household composition, including demographics and their health or vulnerability status, their household income and their housing and childcare costs. In most cases, we have access to EPC data, but we do not have a baseline of energy cost that households should be incurring. We might have information on household composition, but that is collected by our council tax services, and for data protection reasons, they cannot share it with us. We do not have any usable data on health or vulnerability. We do not have reliable income data at household level, and we do not know household housing or childcare costs. We may obtain that if they are going to approach us directly for assistance, but if we are going to eradicate fuel poverty in hundreds of thousands of people out of fuel poverty by 2040, then we are not going to do it by taking a reactive approach and a piecemeal approach. I appreciate that the measure is about aggregated data from the House Conditions Survey, but, on the ground, we need some way of target advice, assistance and support and interventions at the households who need it, and without it, we are not going to be able to do it. How do you do that just now? We do not necessarily have target advice on information services. Across the board, we would say that, in terms of household behaviour, it is insufficient. We do not engage with households who are fuel poor, as well as perhaps we could, or should do, to eradicate fuel poverty. In terms of heaps abs, it is the same as Glasgow, and we use the Scottish Government guidance to target the sound areas. That is how we do it. It is a very blunt measure, in two. Within a sound area, there are plenty of households who have sufficient household income to be well out of fuel poverty. We think that we would need more and better quality information to take an incisive approach, rather than the blunt one that we do just now, and that it seems that we will continue to do in the future. I will add to Chris's point that, at the moment, we use proxies such as income and whatnot, but that has shown to be quite weak in the evidence review that was published by the Scottish Government and the correlation between income and fuel poor. We really need to get a hold of this data question a lot better than we do at the moment. Certainly, there are limitations with household survey. I think that there is an opportunity here to better integrate and better link the data sources that we hold, not just within local authorities, but right across the public sector, through the private sector, through national databases and through smart meters. There is a lot of data out there that we are probably not tapping into at the moment. Maybe we are not in that position quite yet, but I think that in time, and certainly a wellhead of 2040, we would hope to be in that position where we should be able to better target the people that we need to support with our investment, because we are not really in that position at the moment. Do you think that you are using proxies at the moment? Do you think that the relationship between the current definition and those proxies is a closer definition, closer relationship, than the relationship between the proposed definition and the likely proxies to deliver that? In other words, is it going to be more difficult to target support under the new definition than it is to target support in relationship to the current definition? I think that it is a helpful step forward under the new definition, and it allows a bit closer targeting of where we need to invest. But in practical terms, you are saying that it does not, because you do not have the data to be able to... It is still some distance away from where we need to be, but it is a helpful step forward, albeit a small one. Thank you very much. Sorry to go. Thanks, convener. It is just a follow-up to Chris Bightman. I think I heard you right. North Lanarkshire does not have an energy advice service. Is that correct? We have services that support people. It is probably not an area that I am an expert in, but we certainly have an energy advice service of some description, but we would argue that it is not sufficient. We know, for example, that we have an aspiration to do better than we are currently doing, but I think that my colleagues would share that view. To do that effectively, we probably need additional resources than we have just now. It is obviously a choice for the council. Some of the committee visited Dundee, where they do have quite extensive service and seem to operate very well. What is the position in the other councils? If I could follow up on that, we do Lanarkshire with Home Energy Scotland, so in some respects we refer on to them when we have concerns and we have issues, or we would like to provide advice, but we do not take the Dundee-like approach and be more intensive in how we deliver our advice service. I think that going forward, if we are serious about meeting the target, then we will need to consider how we better do that. Right. I do not want to box you into a colony. You might get into trouble off your council leader, but what is the position in the other councils? Like other councils, we would use Home Energy Scotland, and I am sure that that is used in the Lanarkshaws. We have Chiheat, which is a partnership with the Wies Group, which is reactive, but it does have one-to-one energy advice for owners, in particular across the council area. The Wheatley Group has their own energy advice team for the 45,000 Wheatley Group residents in the city, so we have a number of services that plug in. We also have a partnership with the Citrus Group, which we mentioned earlier, in terms of fuel switching, which, in the future, will be for businesses at the moment, but we will grow into switching advice for domestic customers. Yes, we provide funding to SCARF to provide that service, and it works well. It is something that we measure on through our local housing strategy in terms of fuel poverty outcomes. Can I come back to the question of being able to have the data to target better? Is it that you are saying that the technologies are not available just now, or is it that the data is available, but there are barriers there? Is it something that the Scottish Government should be looking at, or is it something that local authorities should be looking at in terms of being able to target? It is one thing to say that the data will be available by 2040, but for those of us who believe that you need to bring that target forward to 2032, is that a major block? How do we unblock that? Some of the data is out there, but some of it will not be available. There is a lot to do with the permissions around it and whether you have information sharing practices in place. Typically, some of those will not be in place at this moment, or there may be perceptions around data protection that we need to get around. Some of it is in place and it is really about starting that conversation with the partners involved about how do we start to better share that so that we can do the best that we can. Sometimes there are gaps, particularly in rural areas, and we will not be able to account for what is spent on fuel without that one-to-one-visit approach. That is still something that we can work on. Can I just come in on that? Chris Bateman talked earlier on about the problems with data sharing as well. If you could get those problems solved, would that save you a lot of the on-the-ground work at the door-to-door stuff? It would enable us to do that. We do not want to go around 150,000 houses to identify who might be or might not be in fuel poverty. I think the comments being David's submission was about how building trust was really key. You are not going to build trust by having somebody with a clubboard at your door saying how much they earn, so I think it would be really important to get that data sharing sorted out. Kenny, you were wanting to talk about some rural stuff. Yes, I thank you very much. I am just wondering what the panel's view is on the decision not to include a minimal income standard markup for remote rural and island households, and also households where people with disabilities are long-term illnesses. We felt that, while we support the move to the new definition and as far as it takes account of people's incomes after housing costs, we feel that it is a mistake not to take up the rural minimum income standard. When we run events on fuel poverty or speak to members, we are generally given the impression that fuel poverty is at its greatest extent and at its deepest level in rural off-gas areas because people have got higher living costs, because fuel costs are higher, and particularly in the highlands and islands where there is effectively an additional transmission charged for electricity, which is the main heating fuel. While we support the new definition, we would want to see the rural minimum income standard adopted. I have two islands in my constituency, Cymru and Arn, with over 6,000 constituents. Do you feel that all islands should be included in that, or should there be caveats? How would you define remote rural? One person's remote rural might not be someone else's, and what we wouldn't want was an arbitrary definition, so I am just wondering how you would address both those issues. I think there is probably an argument for including all islands because I would imagine that living costs are higher. I suppose where there might be a difference is whether inhabitants of islands have access to the gas grid or not because that is a major difference in heating costs. As far as definitions are rural, I think that the Scottish Government uses a definition and there are various different gradations, so it might be if we are looking to change and have a definition that looks at rural to look at the different definitions and then maybe for the Parliament to decide which ones should be included. I think that there are about five or six different categories going up to remote and rural, which is the most remote. The UK definition of rural, for example, is 10,000 households, which is a pretty big town in Scotland. The Scottish Government is about 3,000, but where do you make that cut off? 100 houses, 200, 500, 1,000? Is there any other views on that? Abaddonchur, for example, is quite rural? Yes, and we would support the minimum income standard and would echo what David was saying. There is an opportunity here to define what rural is in a fuel poverty context, because it may not align specifically with the remote rural sixfold classification, so there is research being carried out and I know that you had quite a wide range of discussion on this last week in this committee, so we certainly support the research that has been carried out on that. One could argue that if you are off grid, gas is perhaps included if you live in a rural area. As we progress over the next two decades, the Scottish Government and the UK Government are committed to moving to non-fossil fuels, which may or may not be more expensive at this stage. They are more expensive, so how do you address that? At the same time, you are trying to get people to, for climate change reasons, to move off fossil fuels, but there are much more expensive formal fuels. How do we deal with that calendar? First of all, I would say that that is a huge challenge. I referred to that in our submission. Housing associations in council landlords face a significant challenge with proposals for the energy efficiency standards for social housing that are proposed to follow the current ones and run from 2020 to 2032, because to an extent, they are really looking at that move to low carbon heating and figures on the consultation document estimated that it would cost on average £6,000 per property, but the benefit to the bill pair would only be £160 per year. That is a huge challenge. It could be that technologies such as smart metres and smart grids, or possibly the introduction of low carbon heat through district heating systems, might bring those costs down. I am not giving a straightforward answer, but just to say that it is a big challenge. That is partly why we have called on our submission for housing associations to have equal access to the Scottish Government's area-based schemes. Otherwise, at the moment, there is a danger of rents having to be used to invest significantly to meet those standards, but the bill savings have not really been as reflective of the investment as they would have been previously. Mr Flynn, do you want to come in as well? It was your initial question when you mentioned health as well as the rural aspect. Yes, disability and long-term illness, absolutely. Our council supports broadening the enhanced heating regime to capture households where an occupants health condition would benefit from a higher temperature regime, regardless of age. I think that it might be useful in terms of vulnerable consumers in the second panel that we are contributing to the UK energy consultation at the moment on vulnerable consumers. I think that the advice from that might be useful certainly for our city in terms of how we get to the vulnerable consumers that were mentioned earlier. It is slightly different from the rural cost issue, but it is important for urban areas. Thank you, Mr Biden. Beatme wants to say something. I think that it leads on to a line of questioning that I was going to follow when we were talking about vulnerable consumers. I was struck by the submission from Glasgow, but it applies to everyone on the panel where you talk about the change in the vulnerability age threshold. I am moving from 60 to 75, and you say that in Glasgow that wouldn't really work because the life expectancy for Glasgow residents is much lower. Clearly, a lot of people could lose out. Is that something that you think the committee should be looking at across the piece, not just Glasgow? We're going to start with Glasgow, but I'm interested to hear all your views. Mr Fon. Yes, I think that we are quite open in our response that we are concerned. There's an estimated 39 per cent of older households in Glasgow in fuel poverty, according to the Scottish House Condition Survey 2015. The change from 60 to 75 is an issue for Glasgow because the council has split Glasgow into 56 neighbourhoods for various operational reasons and 15 of those neighbourhoods. The men in the areas have an age of under 70, so that's a specific issue. I think that it comes back to some areas again because when you look at concentrations of deprivation, the age issue absolutely comes out in that as well. The current dispensation where heaps abs and other grants are related to index of multiple deprivation areas is a very useful proxy in Glasgow to get to vulnerable people and to get concentrations of building work that allows us to do the energy efficiency works efficiently rather than having them dispersed and having the danger of perhaps cold calling for individuals. We have area-based schemes and we are capturing older people, particularly vulnerable older people, who are our own or occupiers in the city in index of multiple deprivation areas. On the one hand, I can see the logic of moving the age for Scotland as a whole, given that people are living longer, but Patrick makes some very important points that you can't apply across Scotland or even across tenures of housing. I suppose that it goes back to the conversation earlier about whether the new definition doesn't make it more difficult to identify who should be targeted and do we need to look at data sharing protocols? If there is a move to only being people over 75, we really need to find other ways of identifying people who, for reasons of health inequalities, aren't enjoying good health or have much lower life expectancies. Some parts of Glasgow's life expectancies are at an average of 66 years for men. It's quite staggering. I guess what you're saying is that we need a bit of flexibility here. I can't stress enough that that's exactly what the city needs. If older people over 60 don't qualify for the enhanced eating regime, then it will have a detrimental effect on older households in the city and their health. I think that council feels that very strongly. Can I ask you, Mr Flynn, if you've been making this case to the government for special dispensation for Glasgow or for certain households or what? Chair, it's the part of the consultation that we talk to officials of government regularly and what we're asking for is a retention of the current conditions, the current 60, especially in some areas. Which leaves us with the fact that people live longer in other parts of Scotland, so really it would have to be localised to some extent through some areas? Localised and, as David said, a further look at vulnerability and how that impacts. Age is one of the proxies, but health conditions are a number of others. It's how we capture that. Okay, thank you very much. You know, my granny lived in 1992, but my grandfather lived in 1941. This is the issue about expectancies. Even in the same house, even in an SIMD area, there are huge variations. I think that the difficulty is, I mean, I'm not convinced by the age of the 75 limit. It seems to me quite a huge jump from 60. However, you'll end up with some households who will benefit regardless. However, you set it much longer than others, it's almost an arbitrary... It's not like such a room. Yeah, it's how you can capture, I suppose, the most number of people, I think, in terms of doing this. What the committee will be doing, Kenny? Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Annabelle? Whatever you want. Okay, looking at a slightly different issue in terms of the proposed reporting requirements set forth in the bill, firstly, as regards to the timing, the frequency of such reports, I think that the current proposal is for a five-year approach. What would your collective or respective views be, Alexander? Yeah, I think that we'd welcome a more frequent reporting periods. And certainly to tie those into where we have milestones in terms of, for example, the social housing sector meeting energy efficiency social housing standard by 2020. We may want to take a look across Scotland just to the extent to which that's been met and then reviewing what potential action we may need to take. So I think every five years and beyond is a wee bit on that high side and probably prefer something a bit more frequent and also to keep abreast of technological change as well. What period would you then suggest? I think it's in the two to three year can arrange might be more appropriate. We actually suggested annual in our response, but I think certainly we would want it to be more frequent social landlord report and progress to each annually to the Scottish housing regulator. And I suppose that allows consideration of how much the cost has been, what funding is available and also is the target going to be met. And if not, does there need to be changes in policy or funding? So if not annual, I think five years is too long in my view. So if not annual, would you support the suggestion from Alexander of two to three? Yes. We would share that twice a parliamentary term would probably be sufficient. Twice a parliamentary term? We would think three years and especially if married to at the ending of annuality for grants and loan schemes so that we can marry the grant funding to the reporting period. Presumably an annual requirement might just prove a wee bit counterproductive because you have to allow sufficient time to pass in order to report what's happening and a lot of things would be happening. So maybe it would be a wee bit unrealistic to expect an annual report. Possibly also as I say social landlords do that on each. This is a kind of global Scotland-wide report on a number of issues. In terms of the substance of the report, I think it was Kaz who suggested that the report should be looking at the progress on each of the four drivers that we talked about at the outset of this evidence session. What would your views be on that? Taking into account that has been said that there are very significant limitations on the power of this Parliament with regard to at least two of those drivers being energy costs and household income. Therefore, any substantive report focusing on those two issues would be presumably in recognition of the fact that the power does not really lie here. Perhaps useful for assessing what the impact of not having that power is, what would your thoughts be on taking that approach to the substantive nature of the actual reports being prepared? I think that it would make sense to report on all four drivers, even allowing for the fact that they are not all within the Parliament's control. It seems sensible to measure all four, rather than, otherwise, there is a danger of focusing on one or two and not getting the wider picture. What would your view be? It would make sense to do that. Given that there is an interrelationship between each of the factors. Absolutely. The four drivers are the four drivers. It should be measured that there are difficulties, behaviour for instance, cultural things, but given the work that a number of councils and others are doing in terms of trying to change that behaviour, I think we would welcome an input to show how the work that we are doing is. We need to look at it around. Just an observation first on the driver of household income. Of course, we are talking about net household income for the purposes of the field property. The things that drive net household income, housing costs, childcare, council tax, those are all within our control. In a sense, we have some control over what people's net incomes are. On the targets, what is the view of the panel? At the moment, the bill just makes provision that the minister shall layer report a review every five years. There are no proposals for any kind of scrutiny. We have, for example, the child poverty act. We have a poverty and inequality commission and climate change legislation. We have the Committee on climate change. We have some independent scrutiny. Do you think that we need to have some kind of scrutiny mechanisms or independent reporting mechanisms that build on the duty on ministers to report? I would support the idea of scrutiny being in line with what happens for the child poverty bill. I think that field poverty is a big issue, so it makes sense to give it that level of scrutiny. Do you have any ideas about how that might work? If you have any further ideas, you can write to me. However, when you say scrutiny, the Parliament will obviously scrutinise the report every five years. There will probably be a debate, maybe a statement, etc., and a committee may well choose to have a look at why it is meeting targets or why it is not. What I am really asking is whether the bill should be strengthened with regard to make some of that scrutiny or independent monitoring statutory or not. That is the key question. I think that, certainly on the climate change bill, it is quite useful that there are periods of review where targets are set. It has allowed consideration of what is a reasonable target for decarbonising, heating and housing, so I would support that in a similar level of scrutiny. We have also suggested that an independent oversight body be appointed. Do you think that that has got some merit or is that going too far? Again, like the Committee on Climate Change or the Poverty and Inquality Commission? It is not something that you have considered to come to inform view on. That is fine, thank you. Thank you, Andy. Kenny, did you say you wanted to come in? One of the four parameters of behavioural change has to be significant change over the next two decades. I am just wondering if the panel has got any idea of what change we have seen over the last two decades and how much it needs to change over the next two. I would say that there are a couple of things on that. I think that there is something that we all need to do, whether it is the Scottish Parliament or local authorities or housing associations and others, just to get across the importance of energy efficiency. It is quite energy efficiency and fuel prices and behaviour. It is really quite surprising how few people actually switch energy suppliers given the savings that are possible. I think that something needs to be done, whether it is a big public information campaign, just to emphasise the importance of behaviour and where possible in investing in the energy efficiency, both to make savings but also to address climate change. I would also say that we are reflecting on what some of the others have said, where people are vulnerable. I cannot overemphasise the need for quality face-to-face energy advice. I know that there are good services provided nationally by internet or by phone, but I think that when you come to people who are vulnerable or have other issues going on in their lives, there can be a real benefit in having face-to-face advice, but then there is a question of how you ensure that there is equal access to that across Scotland and how you fund it. I think that, at the moment, it exists in pockets and in some places it works very well in some of these initiatives that have been mentioned already. Really, what I am trying to find out is how much we need—if this is one of the four key drivers—how much does it need to impact to reduce poverty? Say, for example, there were no changes at all. Other than behaviour, would that behavioural change alone reduce fuel poverty by 5, 10, 20 per cent? How much of a component is that? How much are we relying on individuals to change their own behaviour to take themselves to an extent out of fuel poverty? Obviously, we will have other measures, but how much are we relying on people for that, that is what I am trying to find out. The question particularly takes account of household behaviour because it does not matter what—you know, it is a blunt measure of a satisfactory housing regime. Whether you are actually using your hands here or not is a different matter, and how you are using your heating controls is a completely separate matter. So, albeit that it is a driver of fuel poverty in the real world, it is not recognised, perhaps, by the definition that we have. Gideon, do you want to come in? Yes. We have a draft strategy, which, hopefully, you have all had a look at. There has been some criticism that lacks detail on policies and programmes. It focuses too much on just energy efficiency. I wonder what your views are on that. I think that there maybe has been a tendency, both before the current strategy and bill, and there is a danger of that continuing, where probably because energy efficiency is something that has devolved power in Scotland and also because it is more tangible to actually see how many measures and how many homes have been improved. I think that there can be a danger of focusing too much on that and maybe linking that to the question about behaviour. What you do not want to happen is have a situation where homes have technology retrofitted and there is a change in heating system, and actually the householder loses the benefit of that investment because there is not sufficient advice given to them. I think that energy advice and helping people with behaviour changes or switching has to be a part of the strategy, and it cannot just focus on energy efficiency, although energy efficiency is important. We welcome the vision direction set out in the strategy. One thing to say is that it is fairly accessible and easy to read, so it should have an appeal to wider audiences. I have touched on it being fairly silent on resources and I think that there is more that we can do in terms of data. It is a bit light on how it links into local authority activity. There is no reference to local housing strategies and all 32 local authorities have strategies and they all have strategic approaches in place to tackle fuel poverty. I think that there is a tie in there that we need to build on and include so that we see fuel poverty as both a local and a national priority. That is my main comment on it. Mr Flynn, you need to understand the delivery plan for the strategy, cost profile and funding sources. As my colleague explained, our strategy under that and how it can contribute to the national strategy, we would want to be able to put our own strategy in place either through the housing strategy and in the future through the LHeath. Our view was really that it was probably on the strategy until the bill was potentially enacted, so it was a wee bit light in detail for potentially for that reason, but we would share the views that we will be responding to whatever is on the national strategy and perhaps just now it is a little bit light in detail and light when the linkage is with local authority actions. Can I just move on to the financial memorandum and the fact that I think it was Chris that said earlier that he supported the 2040 target on the basis of the lack of resources in terms of even for a 2032. Organisations such as ENR to Scotland have argued that you would have to double the current and existing budget, but the financial memorandum is fairly light on that. What is your view on that? In our view, we thought that it would be more helpful for the bill not only to set fuel poverty targets but also to set minimum energy efficiency standards and ideally for either in the bill out or in subsequent documents where there are actually to be costings and then estimates of how that was going to be paid for. I think that the bill is as light on that. The memorandum states that an indicative overall cost for meeting the targets would be similar to the cost of delivering current programmes. It is difficult to give an informed view on that when the energy strategy says that we are going to be relying on as yet undeveloped technologies to do that, so it is difficult to give an informed view on that. I would probably say that eradicating fuel poverty has been a target for the Parliament without its existence more or less, but we are still at a situation where a quarter of our population is in fuel poor, so it is fairly clear that existing resources and doing more of the same is probably not going to be sufficient. I would be concerned to reiterate what was said before, but it is also a real challenge in private housing in particular in terms of essential repairs, non-traditional stock, low incomes of owners and the complexity of mixed tenure projects. The challenges of them together, coupled with the need for a bit more detail on cost, is a challenge. Just to add that the social housing sector is investing significantly in meeting issues by 2020. I think that those costs need to be considered in the longer term as we look towards 2032 for each two and the potential impact that will have on tenants' rents. The investment is having an impact on tenants' rents, so it is just that unintended consequence of rents going up in order to pay for the works and fuel poverty not being addressed. How difficult is that? I know that, for personal experience, I have highlighted a case in Parliament a number of times when I visited a house when I was out campaigning in Paisley. The lady told me that the difference in her heating bills was something like the 25 per cent of her income to under 5 per cent of her income. In terms of her child's health, the living in the damp house had been regularly having chest problems in the hospital. We know the absolute benefits, but how difficult is it to assess the costs and the benefits to the individuals, but also the economic benefits that could come to the country in terms of the jobs, the skills between them? How difficult is it to estimate all that? I think that it may be a complex task, but I referred earlier to a report on Citizens Advice Scotland published in 2014. It was written by Cambridge Econometrics, in broad terms, but it is said that if you were looking at ways of investing in Government spending, energy efficiency target to that fuel poverty was one of the most effective ways for the reasons that you have set out there. A reference that we have made to energy efficiency measures in this bill. In fact, I note that the Minister for Energy, Paul Wheelhouse, made a statement in the department last week where he advised Parliament that he and the housing minister would begin work next year on a suite of legislative provisions with regard to the delivery of energy efficiency in Scotland. That seems to be a mix of primary and potentially secondary legislation, just a technical clarification. With regard to the issue raised about the financial memorandum and the figures you would include in that, as I mentioned in an earlier question, picking up on a point in the policy memorandum, much activity will include the future development of low-carbon technologies, but we do not yet have them. We do not know what the price will be and, over time, as with any technology, price tends to come down. Given that that is the reality of the situation, what is it that could be in the financial memorandum about such non-existent technologies? How would you cost that? I am just not really following how the financial memorandum could include items such as that, which will play an important role when we do not know what they are and what they cost. It is an unknown. How can the financial memorandum take that into account with the best will in the world? I accept that it is a challenge to do that and new technologies will develop. I am not sure that that is a reason not to try to estimate at all the impact of energy efficiency or what the cost might be. I suppose that going back to the question on how other bills are monitored, the climate change bill through the independent scrutiny process does look at potential forthcoming technologies and costs. What I would say is that I do not think that you would be able to arrive at an exact figure and figures would change over time as technology emerged, but I do not really accept that that is a reason just not to try and cost what the overall cost will be and to start thinking about what different funding sources might be, whether it is grant, low interest, loans, equity release or other forms of finance. I think that there is an opportunity to cost out what, in terms of the information that we know now and what it would cost to do now, but with the kind of caveat that hopefully costs would come down in time. At least then, we can start to identify the different tools and mechanisms that David has identified that we would need to deliver it. Andy Wightman I think that Glasgow City Council published a report to the committee recently last week looking at the indicative costs of bringing a lot of pre-1919 tenement property up to scratch. You were talking about figures up to £3 billion. No, you are shaking your head. You can clarify exactly what that report did or did not say. Maybe you could clarify that first, and then I will ask my question. Andy Wightman Chair, we sent a report to one of our policy committees and it was to inform them of a year's work from now to look at a strategy for a pre-1919 tenement property. There was no costing around it. We hope to deal with that in a year's time. The committee will know that these are 140-odd-year-old properties, and we have 70,000 tenemental flats in the city. Some of the tenements were built at a very high quality at the time, others weren't, you know, rubble walls and whatever, so it would be really unusual if we didn't have to look at the fabric of that particular build type in itself, and we will do that over the next year. We've got drones flying about the city at the moment, looking at roofs for 500 other properties, for instance, and we hope to come back in a year's time with some more exact information and allow our policy committee to take a decision on how we go forward. Andy Wightman So, just whilst I've got you on the record, then, where did the numbers come from? Were they not from the council too? Not from the council, so they came from the media, from politicians? Possibly. It was a figure of £2.9 billion. I have no idea where that figure came from. Okay, it's useful to get that on the record. So, my fundamental question is, it's going to cost a lot of money, obviously, to bring old, particularly tenement stock in Scotland's cities, mainly in Glasgow—Coliseum, perhaps, in Edinburgh—up to modern standards. Some of those buildings are dangerous and uninhabitable. So, what is the scale of the challenge in relationship to fuel, poverty and energy efficiency in those buildings compared to the wider challenge of making sure that they are structurally sound in wind and water tout? Andy Wightman I think that there are three aspects. One is that those buildings can be very fuel inefficient because of the nature of the construction and very large windows in particular. So, there is a specific issue. There are very often vulnerable folk up in those closets and those tenements, so we have to deal with that. If you're doing energy efficiency works to that type of building, you also have to look at the general fabric of the building. And even in specific terms, if you're doing external wall installation, you very often have to change the eaves so that they marry up. And what we do is we try to have a holistic approach. So, we have a private sector housing grant with one of the few councils that still have such a thing. So, we often have to add to the heaps abs money, for instance, to allow an overall improvement to a building. There's no point in putting an external wall installation on a building that's got structural issues. So, we deal with the whole building. And that will be an issue going forward for that type of building and also for non-traditional stock in the city, which has the same kind of issues in terms of dealing with the fabric, often at a higher cost than traditional stock. So, in about a year's time, we hope to come to a report that will allow our policy committee to look at that in a bit more detail. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you very much, convener. Just on the back of that, I read the report and it certainly didn't contain that figure, £2.9 billion, which I suspect was an over-enthusiastic journalist adding things up. But it did contain some figures, some alarming figures, so some of the blocks could cost up to £0.5 million to repair. That was certainly a figure that was in your report. You also helpfully mentioned the fact that we have here a tenement maintenance working group which consists of people across parties and outside stakeholders. Mr Stewart sits on it. It's just really a plug for the group to be frank, Mr Dornan. We'll be publishing a draft report in January. I'm certainly keen to hear from any council who wants to feed in into that, if you've not been involved already. I apologise for that. I've got one last question then. What's your views on the Scottish Government's rationale for a 5 per cent target rather than a 0 per cent target? Does anybody have any? I can see that, ideally, you would want to say that fuel poverty would be eradicated, but I think that, given that people's circumstances change and they move homes, etc, I don't know if 5 per cent is the right target. I think that the previous proposal of 10 per cent was too high, but I think that zeros may be unrealistic and practical terms. Does anybody else have any comments on it, Mr McLeod? I think that it's a sensible measure. One thing that I would add is that we should still retain some focus on the extreme fuel poor within all this, because that's part of the population who we should be targeting our resources to. There's a danger of an unintended consequence of focusing on people around the margins of fuel poverty as getting the majority of investment in order to meet figures, as opposed to some people who may be in greater need. I think that should still be a target that we should look to set through the bill. We would agree with not 0 per cent, if it was a bit more flexibility, although we're a bit unclear as to where the 5 per cent comes from other than being a nice round number. Perhaps we could be consigning too many people to fuel poverty because 5 per cent sounds better than 2 or 3. It's an officer who needs targets, so we just need to work to it. 5 per cent does seem as practical as anything. Our key consideration is the vulnerable consumer. I must echo the colleague from Aberdeenshire that we have to make sure that we're addressing that issue. I'm not sure, Mr Bateman, that 5 per cent was a limit that they would decide not to do any more work if they'd got to 5 per cent and just leave the other 5 per cent. As my colleague says, we do need targets though, so sometimes it's going to be target-driven. In that case, can I thank you all for coming here today and to contribute towards our scrutiny of the bill? I'm now going to suspend briefly to allow a witness change over. Thank you very much. For our second panel today, I'd like to welcome Paul Blacklock, Head of Strategy and Corporate Affairs at CallerGas. Ross Armstrong, Managing Director, Warm Work, Scotland. Simon Markle, Head of Public Affairs and Engagement, and Sarah Chisnell, Public Affairs Advisor, Scotland Energy UK. I can thank you all for your submissions and I'll kick off with the first questions. Witnesses' views on the main drivers of fuel poverty and the degree to which each driver contributes to overall fuel poverty rates and levels would be very helpful. Do any of you have any comment on that? I've got no view in terms of accurate percentages between which of the drivers and what they actually contribute. But what we are concerned about is that within all the fuel poverty strategies we've seen in Scotland but also down in Westminster, there's been a lot of focus on the fuel bit, on the energy efficiency bit and arguably not enough focus on the poverty side of things. There's only so far you can actually deal with fuel poverty by dealing with energy efficiency. I would echo some of that but I would say that energy efficiency is a key part in helping to bring down fuel poverty. It's one aspect of it, there are many different aspects. If I could be cheesy, the cheapest energy is the energy you don't use and fuel and energy efficiency can help to make sure you don't use as much. I would echo that. Energy efficiency is the longer term of all the policy solutions and instruments that are available to tackle fuel poverty. Policy instruments around income and around fuel prices can sometimes be short term in nature and they can be quite effective as a short term measure whereas treating a home and making it as energy efficient as possible is a longer term measure that will make that house effectively fuel poverty proofed and can make that house fuel poverty proofed over the longer term which I think is why it's a these things are never an either or. All three drivers are important and they all have to be addressed but I think it's important to kind of emphasise that energy efficiency is always the more sustainable and long term element of the policy strategy to tackle. Given that the Scottish Government has limited powers in the areas of fuel prices and household incomes, why do you think it was wise for them to set a fuel poverty target given that they've got sort of one arm tied behind their back? From my point of view, I definitely think that having a target is an important element of the strategy and having a statutory target is important because it binds a longer term commitment to the policy area. Politics is often a transient business and you'll find that administration's policy priorities can change as things like the macroeconomic climate will change but if there's a statutory target in place that binds the Government's commitment to fuel poverty over the longer term, for us that has to be a welcome and essential part of the strategy. I'd say that NGK supports the broad goals of the bill. I think it would help focus minds and momentum to make sure we do meet the 5% and make sure the Scottish Government does meet the 5% target set out in the bill but there's so many aspects to it that the bill and actually the strategy and the plan that comes as part of the bill will need to focus on as part of that including where does the money come from, how are we going to finance this to meet that 5% target and so I think the 5% target is good, I think we broadly support it but to meet that there needs to be a clear plan, there needs to be a clear strategy on how the Government delivers it. Can I ask you, Mr Black, what before you respond, given that you said that income, I think it was income you said was the biggest driver? I didn't say it was the biggest driver and I think that in the past, with the work that has been done, there has been insufficient attention paid to that element. You can improve some of these house in terms of that it becomes energy efficient but they still can't afford to heat it so it's achieving that balance. I think there is things that the Scottish Government can do in the benefits area and certainly there was some discussion two, three years ago about simple things like moving the winter fuel payment for people living off-grid at the moment, the winter fuel payment is paying in December because the assumption is that's when people get their first gas bill that's not when people in the countryside get their first energy bill, they fill up the royal tank, the LPG tank, the coal bunker back in the summer and certainly there were some discussions and I think there were some commitments made around looking to bring the winter fuel payment forward for people living off-grid. I'll also echo some of the comments that were made in last week's session with things like the warm home discount which is a flat rate discount that's paid to all households. Everyone recognises that energy costs more in the countryside so there should surely be some flexibility or rationale for flexing the warm home discount to recognise the fact that energy costs are more expensive in the countryside. Do you agree with the wisdom of setting the fuel poverty target? Oh absolutely. What about the length of the target from now to 2040, 2019 to 2040 and the government's reason for choosing this longer target period, what's your views on that? Target, you either pick a date that you know you've got the resources to achieve the old target by that date or if you pick and I know there's been a lot of discussion about an earlier date then that will surely have an impact on resources and require more resources that comes down to how much money is available, how much of a priority is for government and then how much resources it's able or you know should put towards that. And so therefore do you support that? It's a, well you know emotionally 2040 seems like a long way out but given that there was a statutory target to eliminate it by 2016 and we got nowhere near it I can understand nervousness about being sort of brave again. Brave, that sounds like a yes minister response but I'll try not to be. I echo a lot of what Paul said there. I think it is important to be realistic in these things but it's also important to be ambitious and to set a target that you know makes clear that there's a commitment to do this in the right way but I think the date is almost a secondary consideration to if I were writing a business plan out to 2040 the date would be one element but the resources and the means of achieving the target within the time frame would be the important element that people would focus on. They would say well you've chosen 2032 you've chosen 2040 you've chosen that date that's fine but have you resourced it have you got a plan that is properly resourced to get there within the time that you're setting yourself so the date is important but showing that you have the means to achieve your target by a sort of fully resourced business plan is equally important and the other thing that sits alongside this of course is energy efficient Scotland is being developed with dates and targets and milestones and things like that so I think it's important that the two go hand in hand and there's coordination as those two various road maps unfold. Okay thank you Mr Markle. We certainly support bringing forward the target we haven't specified a specific date but I do acknowledge that the Scottish Governance Fuel Poverty Advisory Board has suggested 2032 completely echoing Mr Armstrong's points around making sure there's a clear plan I think I said earlier on there's a clear plan in meeting that and setting that forward but also that there are meaningful and regular milestones going up to 2032. I think the importance of bringing it earlier also means that we you can concentrate minds we can look at the meeting earlier means people start thinking about it quicker and finding quicker ways to deliver it. Okay so you would say that they should bring it forward and you would say that they should put in milestones what happens any of those milestones are showing that 2040 which is actually the more realistic target than not 2032? Well I think there's have to be a matter for though you know there were so many bodies involved in delivering fuel poverty and and and trying to fight against it and and reduce it so I think they'd have to come together I know the bill does say working with you know there'd be energy companies to work with local authorities the Scottish Government organisations you know charities that come together you know there were new and innovations that are coming in that will deliver that as well I think there'll be a big challenge this is an ambitious plan and making it 2032 makes it a bit more ambitious but it concentrates minds it will deliver it earlier. Okay great thank you very much the the government's rationale for a 5% target rather than a 0% target where do you stand on that the sensible position? I think for me what's interesting is that the previous target was couched in these words as far as reasonably practicable and for me that was a more logical way of doing it rather because you know 5% is an arbitrary number as far as I'm aware 4% is an arbitrary number 7% is an arbitrary number 10% as far as reasonably practicable recognise that fuel poverty is a difficult thing to pin down people move in and out of fuel poverty often you know on a daily basis as circumstances change so if we say 5% and on the you know the target date in 2040 we've reached 5% well the following day it might be 5.5% it might be 6% because there might be some increase in fuel prices that's announced the next day that pushes another 5,000 people into fuel poverty so I think for me I I felt it was more helpful to say well we the previous talk was about eradicating fuel poverty as far as reasonably practicable which is kind of saying 0% but it isn't really because it's recognising the innate complexities of landing the helicopter on the two pens piece it's kind of saying look we'll we'll do our best to eradicate it as far as reasonably practicable without and I think this 5% thing is almost a substitute for that whereas for me I felt that the kind of aiming for an eradication is a bolder statement of ambitious policy but couching it in that you know language around that that's what Scottish executives did and they could probably say that we achieved it as far as reasonably practical which means that they made absolutely no you know they made no grounds on it whatsoever them so do you not think and you heard the officer saying that the targets are very important for for people to work towards so I would I mean I don't know the government's thinking in this but do you think that it's possible that that was part of the reason why they set a target because it's something for for people to work towards yeah and I agree that the target should be in place but I think if you have the target as our ambition is to eradicate fuel poverty that is a bolder statement to make then you know we'll try and get to a 5% number yeah okay thank you I think the point echoed by the councils was was an important one having targets is really important to meet I think having an overall ambition a really ambitious target for eradicating all fuel poverty if the Scottish government wants to do that it have to be very very very clear on how it's going to deliver that and how that is going to be financed but we also heard that the you can't really get zero because of individual circumstances when people move yeah you know you might lose your job before a good benefit set in or whatever okay sorry mr blacklock no all right thank you um andy you wanted to come in at this point just on that question of eradication I mean the definition of eradication is to put an end to it you know a disease has been eradicated you can't eradicate something as far as practically possible you either eradicate it or you don't eradicate it it is a black and white word so given that there's an acceptance that there will always be a bit of fuel poverty should we eradicate the word eradication from the bill there's a serious point because you I mean it says an act of the Scottish parliament set a target relating to their eradication and then it goes on to set a target for reducing it we'll maybe leave that for further debate but the the the point you made Ross was a very important one I think about the reason be practicable and I wonder just following up on that do you think there should be an association with a target of say five percent there should be some language in the bill that makes it clear that that is a moving target I mean would the milestones help with that for example yeah I think milestones would help with that yeah and I think between now and 2040 the macroeconomic picture is going to change substantially you know we're all aware of certain factors that will influence in some way the macroeconomic position for the next 22 years between now and the target date so I think there's got to be some sort of recognition built in that you know to an extent as you say there'll be a moving feast so the milestones and the kind of there was a point made last week about parliamentary scrutiny and parliament's involvement in scrutinising progress and I think that would help untie him with the milestones to to ensure that targets were and being properly tracked we'll look at that at a moment yeah thanks good winner okay thank you Annabelle you wanted to come in so we're just looking at the two issues together I mean as I point I made in the earlier evidence session obviously this parliament does not control all the levers here and therefore in setting the the target in terms of the date in the threshold presumably that reflects that in very key fact that you know unlike Westminster in terms of powers held we don't have all the powers that we would need to take control of this issue 100 so presumably therefore the the the language in the bill as currently drafted reflects that reality does it not yeah from my standpoint there's I agree that the there isn't control of all of the drivers in totality so perhaps the 5% of has been drafted with that in mind I just kind of I have the sense that it's possible to be a bit more ambitious and say well as far as reasonably practical the words that I used earlier would still cover the the point that you raised there along the lines of well within best endeavours and with all the levers available to the parliament and to the government every effort was made to get down to the zero level and it covers the same eventuality but I guess you do need that get out close around this government doesn't have access to all of the levers that will drive your poverty it's just what form that takes okay thank you Kenny yeah to have ambition to reduce to 5% I mean just at the tail end of the last evidence session you'll have heard him say that there's a real issue about you know to get the numbers down you tackle fuel poverty on the margins when the when an actual fact is people have got real deep seated to poverty we should fuel poverty we should be tackling first but of course is don't necessarily make the figures look particularly good how do we address that and the 5% target there's 32 local authorities in scotland should they all have a 5% target because places like east renfisher are much more prosperous in neighbouring glasgo and glasgo will be a much more momentous task to reduce it for some of the reasons we heard in the previous session than in east renfisher which is relatively prosperous so how do we ensure that we have an equitable how we address this equitable across Scotland and I'll go on to rural in a minute so in there too answer that one mr markle you were very animated in the audience earlier on you were nodding and you know I felt as if you know you've really got a lot to say so would you like to kick off on this one there's the dangers of audience participation right there on there there's there's so many if we look at extreme poverty um an extreme fuel poverty there's so many different different aspects that drive extreme fuel poverty and you couldn't eliminate fuel poverty but you'll I imagine that person will still be in extreme poverty because you eliminate one part of it but there's so many different parts of aspects in that person's life now there are you know energy companies themselves take very sort of different views on how they approach and many of them undertake individual programs you actually heard from one the other day utilita who are undertaking with citizens of ice scotland of going around to different councils and working with different councils and getting their local um their customers in and talking about energy efficiency and how they can actually help them to reduce their energy efficiency and actually utilita our company that about 92 95 of their customers are on smart meters smart prepayment meters actually um you know one thing I would say is if we're looking to the future if the target is brought down to 2032 if the target stays as 2040 we will be living in a very different energy world by that time we'll have new innovations we'll have new technologies the smart metering program will have finished we'll have smart meters in every property in Great Britain and what we are seeing through smart metering is a completely new way of delivering energy services to customers and I'll I'll give you an example actually again utilita um during the beast from the east utilita found that around I think it's about 200 000 of their customers um don't actually know it's about 25 000 of their customers actually self-disconected um and so utilita um credited their accounts to make sure person to make sure that they could afford energy and they could put their lights on during the beast from the east and that is a completely different new way of providing services to customers often the most vulnerable customers to make sure that they can continue to keep their lights on continue to keep their property so I think there are different approaches different councils can make but also energy companies are taking that approach as well I mean I think I was a really good answer to a question I didn't ask you should actually be sitting probably on here rather than over there that what I'm trying to find out is how we actually ensure that this we deal with this equitably across the country for the reasons I suggest that some local authorities are much more prosperous than others and have a some of bigger problem than others so how do we address this directly any minute but maybe Mr Armstrong you want to come in here yeah so I mean if I can pick up so the programme that Warmhouse runs is Warmhouse Scotland which is the Scottish Government's national fuel poverty programme goes across all of Scotland and it's demand led so today our programme might get half a dozen referrals in Shetland and 20 referrals in Stranrair and 20 referrals in iMath I don't know where the referrals are coming in so it's effect geography blind it follows need so I think one of the important things that the government has to do is ensure that national instruments as part of the fuel poverty strategy are properly set up and incentivised to target where need exists so our contract with government has been set up in a very specific way to ensure that we go where need presents itself so just under a fifth of all of the work we do is in the Highlands and Islands for example areas that will have some of the worst levels of fuel poverty whereas in terms of population that's probably disproportionately skewed towards those areas where need for warmth and affordable warmth is clearly greater now I'm not saying that necessarily we've cracked it but I think more of our activity on a national level comes where need is greater so I think the government should kind of learn from the lessons that we kind of have seen over the last three years of our programme where you can clearly direct help to where it is needed most if your contract your key performance indicators all of the targets that we have to hit and report on a monthly basis are properly set up to tackle the areas where need is greatest because there's no value in the national scheme simply sitting changing gas boilers in the central bank of scotland the national scheme has to be a national scheme and has to go where need presents itself so I think government can get the policy levers right it is possible to target help to areas where need is greatest so we want partnership with local authorities but focus where needs greatest and focus resources where needs greatest but the other point I'm asked was what about these how do we deal with these very difficult you know hard to heat properties which are the ones that have kind of plagued us for years I mean I was in the 99 2003 parliament we were discussing it then and nearly 20 years later we're still discussing it how do we ensure that those areas are prioritised within this when we've got a target driven system based on you know the number of households being reduced as opposed to within for example specific categories I think what one of the things is important from from our point of view is that the range of measures and improvements that you have in your toolbag has to be broad enough to serve the harder to treat properties because again there's no point just switching out gas boilers in on gas areas we have to go with technologies such as external wall insulation internal wall insulation air source heat pumps ground source heat pumps some of the new measures that the government introduce on our programme are going to help us tackle these pockets of harder to treat properties but they do need greater investment on a per property basis so there's always that trade-off between we can probably apply the technologies that we need to apply but if you have a limited budget that means that you do fewer homes overall and that's for ministers to decide. It was when you were talking there about how do we best target I mean there's a massive amount of data out there owned or used by different organisations and obviously local authorities have got a massive amount at their disposal as social housing organisations but we've also got powers under the digital economy act whereby we are trying and the Scottish government obviously has a big digital directorate looking at how do we make better use of that information obviously under the terms of new data protection but better sharing of that data is going to be absolutely critical if we're really going to see proper targeting and as you say it's not just about how many people fall into that category it's also the type of property but smart metering as Simon's just alluded to can actually provide a huge amount of information about people's actual needs on a day-to-day basis. I don't want to steal his example about Gladys maybe not getting up and boiling her kettle so I'll let Simon do it but there are ways that if we could make better use of that data make better use of the powers we already have under the digital powers act could certainly better target where we actually apply things first rather than just looking at the geography. Yes I see some of that in your evidence actually you've said that I mean I'm quite happy to to to ask the real questions later and let other members in the evening if that's okay. Thank you. Thank you. I mean we talk about ambition and I think you've all explained what the ambition and the ability to achieve that ambition and from what we heard earlier on was that some of the councils are struggling to maybe achieve that ambition in the long term in the short term and the medium term they have an opportunity to achieve that so what do you think they should be doing differently and is it just down to funding because they indicated that the grants and the resources available are a major player in that process or are there other ways that we should be working collectively in partnership to try and manage the situation across the areas that are more difficult to achieve. Does anybody wish to answer that? I mean I can come in. Our programme is a national programme and obviously the locally area based delivered programmes work slightly differently on a local authority by local authority basis and the thing I would add is kind of we have to recognise the limitations of local authority delivery and I say that with all the kind of understanding of the value of local authority delivery and what it can bring but local authority has to have many priorities and the butter is spread quite thin across the bread so I think we have to recognise it with local authority delivery some councils will be better resourced and more focused and have individuals within that authority that are quite committed to the policy area other councils will have number of priorities and maybe not necessarily have the ability to give the same resource and focus to the policy area so it's not quite an answer to the question of what can councils do differently but it is kind of a contextual point around local authority delivery generally having its limitations the point about local delivery or national delivery these things are never an either or discussion they're always an and we need local delivery and national delivery and the question should maybe be how can we join those up and make sure that you get some economies of scale by joining the two up because if you don't achieve that then as I say there's going to be a huge disparity across locations and parts of Scotland that will manage to meet target and will be focused on that and others that will fall well short of it and and as I say that and that will have an impact on the whole goal of achieving the the timescale and that we're trying to achieve in the in the long term I agree okay thank you okay thank you can ask in terms of funding for the last evidence session there seems to be a lot of different grants and different funding there is there is there something that can be done to make that funding easier to access more transparent is you know is it the way it's set up do you think that's that's okay sorry I feel like I'm dying in I mean this is an area that's quite close to our heart obviously the national scheme we we're funded by central government on an annual basis on a contract that runs for up to seven years and access to the national scheme is relatively straightforward it's through Home Energy Scotland the local authority grants area and the applications for area based schemes again authorities set out but then delivery is left to local authorities to decide how they want to administer that from from there on out so I guess that's one for the for the local authorities to answer about what more could be done to maybe make the area based scheme delivery more accessible but certainly on the on terms of the national scheme our budget is confirmed annually by the Scottish Government and then we have 12 months to service the demand that's out there and spend the budget but it's it's a bit more straightforward on the national scheme level okay thank you and the women thanks very much indeed I was interested in your earlier point Sarah about data and that was a point that was also raised by a panel of previous witnesses because the new definition is quite a complicated definition I don't think there's any any way in which that could be used directly to target support the idea of being able to identify which households fall into that definition individually I think is a bit bit challenging so what kinds of data are you talking about how easy do you think it will be to integrate that data better and within what timescales I'm asking for realistic assessment here because in many areas of public policy people say well let's just use and share data but it for a variety of reasons never happens not a data expert but I mean I know simply from talking to people who are in the digital directorate how bigger processes is at the moment of trying to make through the myriads of different data sets that different particularly public organizations access so the government itself has got numerous different sets of data it's then got different agencies who obviously report to the government and to Scottish Parliament who are using a completely different set so it is years off I'd probably like to allow Simon to answer though particularly in smart metering because that takes us to a completely different level of the type of information which can give you a picture of how somebody uses energy on a day-to-day basis and it then will be a challenge to see how could we start to match that with what public agencies already hold on different households so just before Simon comes in so you said years off so which bits of data are not years off where could we where could we reasonably make some progress in within two or three years well actually on this side I talked about the digital economy act 2015 that's passed in the UK parliament that had a really important and really quite quite useful piece of regulation in it that would allow energy companies and the government to be able to share data on vulnerable customers and that was based on often benefits, claimants, people like that that actually meant and one of the biggest problems with fuel poverty is how do we identify who are the most vulnerable in the system that we currently have how do I identify in the meters so talking about the future and smart metering smart meeting will will allow us that data so we talked to companies that are being set up and innovations are being created on the back of smart metering there are a number of companies now that can say actually we're using smart meters to be able to target social care better we're using smart meters to be able to know how we can get somebody home to a warmer house out of hospital so the good example I have is a one of those one company and there are actually energy companies as well looking at this and they're smart the data they get from their smart meters saying look you know we've got Gladys she's a your home help you pick you wake up in the morning you get your iPad or your tablet and you look across the 10 people you've got to go and see that morning Gladys she's bored a kettle she's up and about she's absolutely fine I don't know I don't need to go and see her we got Bob he hasn't bored his kettle he's not moving around his net energy is not on he's normally up by nine I need to go and see him straight away and actually we've got Joan she's she's bored a kettle 20 times in the last hour she's either really thirsty or she's actually got the early onset of Alzheimer's and actually that's how you can start using and this the future of energy the future that we'll have from smart metering will allow us to not just look at energy but how we also provide health services and social care and all these other issues that we we don't have that data at the moment so a smart meter can can tell a remote person when someone has boiled a kettle specific appliance yeah a smart meter can also tell you how many people in the room that's if you want them you know again there's there's um there's um you know you've had the right to our data protection issue you have to do that across but you know we should always do that last but there was there was another there was another there was another one that I heard where there was a where often social housing they will put you've got maybe a customer who or a tenant who living in social housing often elderly dementia um you obviously want to keep them in their house or a sort of assisted living home um there was one story we were told where there was a man who um who sort of would put turn on his turn on his toaster quite a few times promise he would often choke from chewing on toast so every time we put his toaster on they would go in turn his toaster it will absolutely revolutionise the way we use energy wait a minute how do you tell when someone switched a kettle on because a kettle is plugged into a three pin plug you could plug that in any plug in the house how do you know it's a kettle because you the spike will go up and you can know how much energy it uses so just by the energy so that could be for something else though are you saying that spike has got a particular signature the spike's got well associated the spike you'll be able to tell you'll be able to tell right there's the spike of energy because you know one thing I don't think he's got a smart meter but when you when you bore your kettle your smart meter will go ting it will shoot up yeah no i'm aware of that okay so these are lots of interesting stories but let's get back to the point of fuel poverty I mean how realistic is it I mean I don't know where smart meters are in terms of rollout and implementation in the last of it you could perhaps tell us um how realistic is it that the data let's say that's captured by smart meters can make a contribute a significant contribution to targeting support and fuel poverty just that specific question I think it's quite significant within what kind of timescale um well we're already seeing it now but you know the rollout of the top smart meeting programme we're finishing 2020 companies are committed to delivering that so hopefully some time between now and 2020 and have you got any case studies or research that's been done that show the extent to which smart meters can give us good quality information on who's in fuel poverty or not I can certainly go away and see if we can find that data for you that'd be useful some examples for the committee I think would be very very helpful because we will be looking at implementation it's not specifically in the bill but the reason we've asked people about their views on the strategy is because we believe that targets have to be associated with the pathway to to getting there thank you can you give us a very quick supplementary on that I mean I think it's very interesting conversation obviously alarming I suppose in certain senses of the reach of the smart meter but obviously a lot of potential uses for the benefit of vulnerable people but I think we say that alluded to the other side of that coin which is the issue of data protection and I just wonder where those two issues are currently meeting at the moment because obviously there's potential there but there will be restraints on on sharing so where is that debate currently yeah obviously any sharing of data from smart meters would be based on you know current data protection legislation and with that then render it all the potential good you've talked about with that then sort of negate to a significant extent the potential use of the in the data no not necessarily at all because then you could you could decide whether or not you want what information you want to share with either your energy company or others it will be about how consent works and obviously people are being made fully aware about what they're signing up to and how people will be able to use their smart meter people can make that decision when they have it fitted obviously when you're looking at social care situations some of this is already being used by housing association providers and in a care setting already but Simon says with the rollout and the obligation that companies have to roll it out by 2020 we now are quite near to that point where it should every household should have the access to a smart meter and so that will it will completely change what we can use and how we can use it but yes i mean consent will be a very important part of that thanks thanks convener we asked you all what your views are on the revised definition of fuel poverty so there's a lot to talk about there clearly but in warmworks submission you say that fuel poverty proofing homes at risk is more valuable than allowing assistance to be delivered purely on the basis of a snapshot in time so i wonder if you could explain a bit about what what you mean by that you also mentioned it's been mentioned earlier the use of proxies that was never really explained for anyone who's watching what that means yeah so this short and time point is interesting so the fuel poverty definition i think it's all been referenced as a complex definition and rightly so because it's a complex issue but the fact of its complexity means that it is a statistical construct right so a bunch of very capable academics have come up with the definition and we understand what that journey is and why the definition is important but on the doorstep and to people in fuel poverty the definition is meaningless because they're cold and they can't afford to be worn and that's the primary policy driver here so for us i think it's time and money are precious resources and time and money are limited because we have to get to 2040 or 2032 or whatever point in time we decide and we're going to have a limited amount of time and money to get there so for us i think what we're trying to do is say look we recognize that the definition is important but the more time we spend and the more resources we spend on trying to perfectly target precisely only on those homes that meet the requirements of that statistical construct on the day that we knocked on the door is not good policy from our standpoint the better policy approach is to say that fuel poverty proofing households or as far as reasonably practical taking households to a point where they can withstand losing their job or having benefits reduced or losing family members through bereavement or changes in fuel prices these all of these impacts that will change somebody's status under the guise of that statistical construct can be if not completely insulated against forgive the pun with with with stud to degree by taking the house to the greatest possible level of energy efficiency that we can do at a reasonable in a reasonable way by checking that the household receives all of the benefits to which they're entitled by checking that the household is on the best available tariff and giving them the support they need to navigate the energy market to get to the most competitive tariff these are steps that can be taken to protect a household against some of those factors that can change their lives because one thing we know about households in fuel poverty is that they often live chaotic lifestyles that's a reality and they are very sensitive to changes in economic fuel prices or their own personal economic circumstances so i think what we're referring to in the definition is in in our evidence sorry is the definition is a statistical construct but it represents a snapshot in time so if we were to say we would take all those steps to fuel poverty proof a household under the old definition if that household have been spending nine percent of its income on fuel rather than 10 percent it wouldn't have been fuel poor at that moment in time but would that have been bad policy to fuel poverty proof that household absolutely not so i think what the the point we were trying to make was that the definition is important but the definition in this context is a complex statistical construct and what matters to the householder who is cold and can't afford to be warm is what are we going to do in terms of delivery how are we going to change their lives in a meaningful way to fuel poverty proof that household quite because i've been waiting for the rural bit and you've got you've got real experts here in terms of we didn't have a lot to say in terms of the definition other than i think it's right we believe it's right that it's more closely defined but i do share mr whiteman's concerns around data because you need to be confident that you define it in such a way that it is measurable and that you've got access to that data within a reasonable time frame from what we've seen certainly in terms of data on fuel poverty from a rural context is we've been trying to establish how much work how many measures have been delivered in rural off gas grid areas and we've had to go through freedom of information requests not in terms of the Scottish government that was with off-gym but in terms of we've been trying to get inside the delivery within the heaps abs schemes and again the data is just not there to show what has been delivered into rural off-grid areas versus urban areas so data is an issue not just in terms of targeting but also in terms of measuring performance in terms of measuring the impact that you're having one thing we would encourage the Scottish government certainly to do when looking at the definition this is certainly this is one is to make it as simple as possible to identify these people that then has a knock on effect to make it as simple as possible to then find target them with the right amount of help maybe send the deficiency Scottish industry programs things like eco warming just got things like that but also whether or not it's worth looking at um the minimum income standards that they're using in the bill at the moment whether or not that should actually be made a Scottish a developer Scottish minimum income standards the UK minimum income standard looks specifically across the whole of the UK and actually having a Scottish minimum income standard would take account of some of the unique geography landscapes properties that you actually have up here in Scotland different than across the sort of averaging it across the whole of the UK and I think you've got the expert who developed the minimum income standard in next week so I'm sure he'll have some and his evidence certainly has some ideas about how you can do that okay I guess that takes us neatly into the the rural question which Mr Gibson will have a lot to say but now is your opportunity to kick things off um what what do you think on that in terms of well um mr mr Markle the rural questions and deal with them all at once I think that would make well he mentioned the Scottish minimum income standard yeah but we could bring that in at that time I'm not trying to cut you off okay but Kenny can bring it in when we're talking about the role just so we can get it all together okay thank you and I'm going to do that later on yes this is a new look for you okay so on a different issue the provisions in the bill regarding reporting so the current position is a proposed five-year reporting period and just wanted to hear if you have any views on on that on the frequency of that reporting requirement it seems not to be enough give if you could take a 2040 target what is that eight that in the space of 20 is it talking about four reports or five reports and I think something which given that from what we heard in the earlier session that you've got data some of the data available on an annual basis that you have got the opportunity to to sort of measure performance a bit more regularly and I think it's in terms of if you get to five years then find out you know where near it's far better off that you're you're capturing that earlier on in the process so at least you can sort of steer the ship or whatever it is you're driving in it in the towards your targeted where you want to go so what period would you propose if not five a shorter one shorter you should be a politician mr mark I don't think I'm going to be able to give you a specific other sort of year other than five what I would say is I think it's really important to make sure that we have meaningful and regular health checks on how this is being delivered um whether that's five years whether that's three years uh you know we wouldn't have an opinion on but we need to make sure it's being delivered we need to make sure that we can continue to focus on those people who most need this help getting it and if the first year is actually we're targeting the most vulnerable people then great and each report needs to be looking at what's been done in either the five or three years previous but also what's going to be done in the future and then that's how you also can focus on what new technologies and new innovations have come in in that period in between each report and so you can keep tweaking you can quit looking and you can keep focusing on the next period thank you in terms of the substance of such reporting um as I had mentioned in the previous evidence session cast had suggested that the report included progress uh with regard to each of the the drivers of fuel poverty of the four drivers um being energy prices household income energy efficiency and behaviour of the consumer um so is that something that you would agree with cast on I mean notwithstanding the the key issue in regard to two of those drivers the power doesn't lie here and therefore you know a report can take you so far but if you don't actually control the levers of power you're a wee bit hamstrung as to what you can do any thoughts on the substance of the report I think that seems sensible if they're the drivers of fuel poverty in the each of the health checks will be about how you're meeting the fuel poverty strategy so that seems sensible even if you you make exactly fair point that in some respects you haven't got the powers on things like energy prices yeah I mean I think there's an important point here around around balance I think it would be easy to to sit and say look the annual reporting is is key and regular reports on each of the milestones and getting down into details really important I think for me balance is important though because the more time we spend on review and reporting and monitoring and recommendations and following up on recommendations and closing out recommendations it can take away from our ability to get on with delivery so I absolutely agree that you know it's important to get the right monitoring and reporting framework and actually the fuel poverty advisory panel is full of you know a high quality industry experts who will have a really important role to play in terms of holding government accountable and I think they should kind of have an important role in that but I would I guess just sound a little note of caution to say we shouldn't necessarily go too far down the road of devising lots and lots of onerous reporting regimes that detrack from the time and money we have available to get on with delivery I don't think the fact that you can't control something doesn't mean you should measure it so the fact that you can't control it you still have the visibility in terms of the impacts the relative impacts the different drivers are having so I think you need to measure it you can't obviously target it but you can measure it okay thank you thank you thank you very much Andy yeah following up from that reporting question the bill makes provision that ministers shall lay these reports every five years until 2040 which is a useful thing to do but we have other legislation like the child poverty and climate change acts which include independent scrutiny independent advice etc you've mentioned the fuel poverty advisory panel what scope do you think there is to strengthen the reporting and scrutiny provisions in this bill to ensure that the lessons we learn about progress made are provided in an effective and impartial way I mean I think you've referenced a couple of really good examples there around other legislation and how independent experts and panels are holding government to account and have mechanisms in place to monitor progress and I think the fuel poverty advisory panel should be looked at as an ideal instrument to to make that happen and to be to make that accountability happen I think that that's they could play a similar role to some of the other examples that you've mentioned in the context of this reporting framework so just to be clear it's none of them hold government directly to account that's our job in the Parliament but they provide independent scrutiny independent reporting so that the job of everybody yourselves, Parliament, local authorities, delivery partners is made that little bit easier views from the rest of the panel on that question if you have them I would on the echo what Mr Arnold someone said that that seems sensible NGK's chief executive Lawrence Slade actually sits on the fuel poverty commission for the Scottish Government he doesn't pack his punches when he wants to tell governments where he thinks that they could do better or certainly focus on different things so yeah that seems perfect fine okay if that Parliamentarians you feel that that gives you that independence insight gives you sort of much more power but also that sort of objective view then it's it's then about finding an appropriate body which by the sounds of it there is one but it's then about resource whether they're able to do it sure that's a brief question on something that often neglected but every bill has got commencement provisions which say when the bill shall come into force and the commencement provisions here laid out in section 13 section 14 says what the short title of the act is and the commencement provisions in section 13 say that this section and section 14 that's the title come into force on the day after royal ascent everything else comes into force when government decides it comes into force do you think we should be looking to placing statutory provisions in relationship to when the different provisions in this bill come into force or do you think we should leave that to ministers that's what I would say that's one for you guys but if you've got an end date whether it's 2032 2040 I would have thought you'd want you'd want confidence that things were going to be put in place with sufficient speed that you've got some chance of hitting those targets we'll take that on thank you okay thank you Andy Graham you wanted to come back in a couple of issues just a question asked earlier in the previous session about the draft strategy criticism that it lacks detail I wonder what your comments are on that as I said before you know we think energy efficiency is absolutely key to how we can tackle and how we can really get on top of fuel poverty I'm really pleased that in the strategy it really does major on energy efficiency but one thing I think I would like to see is Scotland has a real opportunity right now we've got the fuel poverty bill and the fuel poverty strategy coming out of that we've got the route map energy efficiency and the possible energy efficiency bill coming next year you've got the planning bill and the climate change bill there's a real opportunity across all these strategies got all these pieces of legislation for Scotland to get this right and actually each one of those bits look at energy holistically because each one of those things can support the other in delivering its aims and that's why I would say this strategy and within this strategy that's where that could be strengthened the fact that within fuel poverty if you tackle fuel poverty you can increase energy efficiency you can one keep people in warmer homes keep them healthier and happier but you can also contribute to reductions in climate and climate change and reductions in CO2 emissions and that that's where I think this strategy and some of the other strategies kind of lack that coherent holistic approach and this this is a draft strategy so I really think there's an opportunity that this could be the first that could link with the route map to energy efficiency which could then link with the energy efficiency bill link with the climate change bill which is obviously in its early stages and really look at how Scotland could really crack this energy holistic view of energy which would be amazing and really really the energy sector would support do you think it lacks that linkage at the moment I think it does like that linkage at the moment I think it's got the energy I think it's got the energy efficiency bits in there um but it I don't think it it does touch a bit on decarminisation of heat which is really good and an absolutely massive challenge for climate change as well um but I would certainly I do think there does need to be a linkage between all the different strategies we've got because they can support each other and you know we talked about fuel poverty on its own it will not be delivered on its own by this bill it will need all the other aspects of energy efficiency planning climate change which will help deliver and deliver this five percent yeah I think one of the things it touched on a point that I made earlier which is 2040 2032 the dates are fine the strategy in in and of itself is fine in terms of being a framework for action but the next step is the difficult one because if you write a business plan you have to set out how that's going to be resourced so the strategy and the target are part of the the framework for action that's fine but the next question is well if that's the strategy and those are the goals and those are the target dates and those are the milestones how are you going to resource it so I know colleagues last week on the other sessions from energy action Scotland gave a figure around 200 million pounds a year in terms of investment in energy efficiency activity in Scotland there's there's a number of figures out there that various third sector organisations are put together but at some stage you know the strategy and the the target has got to be supported by well this is what we want to do and this is how we propose to get there and how we propose to resource it and I think that's the the difficult question there's no issue I don't think anybody would disagree with the goals and the the kind of means outlined to get there but I think the the meat of it if you like will come when we get into the question of how is it to be resourced so really you're looking for a a more detailed business plan if you like I think that's the logical next I think that's the logical next step when do you think that should come I think that's a a one for government and probably for ministers to I'm asking you what do you think as as managing agent of a government programme I have to be quite careful in terms of answering that one I think ministers have got all sorts of competing priorities and things like that but there's some bold targets and a very laudable strategy and a strategic intention here that's going to be set in legislation so I'm sure parliamentarians will be asking ministers well we really support the strategy but we want to see how you're going to get there I think it's safe to your job just just we will have the minister in front of us so we will have the opportunity to ask him those questions sorry Paul I'm afraid we would fundamentally disagree with the energy UK position in terms of we've seen too many examples where fuel poverty targets have been conflated with renewables targets carbon targets energy efficiency targets the worst example we had was we can probably all remember the green deal and the fact it wasn't greatly successful but the government at the UK government decided to try and give it a leg up and they came out with a green deal home improvement fund which was a effect of your grant scheme to try and encourage people to take out green deals and as part of that you were able to if you're going to use a green deal to buy a new boiler you could get 300 quid off cost of the boiler except if you're on heating or LPG and when we went to see the base I think it was a deck official at time officials as to why this was the case he said he didn't want anything to get in the way of achieving his renewables target and we said well hang on a minute these are you know everyone's recognised that fuel poverty is is much deeper in the countryside but you're now excluding certain elements of a government scheme to people living in the countryside because you want to hit you want them to to sort of help achieve your renewables target using technology which is the cost of three to four times the cost of putting in a boiler and he said well it's such a good deal why wouldn't anyone take it up and well history tells us that it wasn't that good a deal and so I think there should be an absolute focus on fuel poverty I was part of a round table discussion at a think tank three four months ago and it was about fuel poverty and then there was the everyone was asked on the scale of one to ten with fuel poverty being one and carbon reduction being ten where do you think the emphasis should should sit within a fuel poverty strategy and the answer was one point one apart from one person who said that well obviously we need to address carbon as well and people said yes but you know and she then went on to say there'd been some really exciting work that had been done in terms of deep retrofit and this was in Nottingham city council but the person from Nottingham city council was there and she said yes it's we've done a lot but it's quite expensive it's £70,000 a house and so and again you have to question that comes a stage where you spend money to get somebody's house up to a level when they can keep it warm and from a carbon point of view they might not actually start they might not save energy they might actually start using energy because now they can actually keep the house warm so I think certainly we would prefer to see some purity in terms of some real focus on achieving fuel poverty objectives rather than trying to to cover three four or five other different areas the one area again I don't want to jump in before the rural bit but because of the woeful lack of any delivery on energy efficiency in rural areas we would like to have seen something in the strategy that would start to mandate a fair proportion of work to be done in rural areas which hasn't been done to date we've just been doing some work looking at what's been delivered through eco in Scotland since 2013 and in terms of LPG and oil oil houses which account for probably 70% of the properties in off grid areas you've had 11,000 measures delivered since 2013 which is about half a percent of the measures that have been delivered in Scotland under eco so given that you've got 10 12% of houses off grid rural areas there's been a chronic lack of delivery on energy efficiency for all and for understandable reasons because in terms of people looking at the cost of delivery and again there's this tension between as soon as you go into the countryside it costs more money to do things and certainly when you start looking at resourcing local authorities and we I think there's going to be a discussion later on about the minimum income standard whether or not there should be a a different one for rural areas delivering things in rural areas costs more money and that needs to be reflected in things like the area based schemes we also need to see better better data so we can actually monitor measure delivery in those areas because again we're struggling to see exactly how much has been done into rural areas so I think within the I think it's critical that this is a time where Scotland's got the opportunity to try and put some of that right in terms of making trying to flex or trying not that it should all be about the countryside but it's just about the countryside's turn to have the same level of support that we've seen in urban areas as a Glasgow politician that grieves me to agree with it I'm now worried what I might I might say might really enjoy I think what Simon said in terms of looking at things helistically is critical and I don't think we can take them separately I think it's good that we have a fuel poverty bill which is looking at that principle and putting that first and foremost in some areas but the fact remains that the climate change plan and the bill and the energy Scotland's energy efficiency programme both talk about fuel poverty targets I don't think we can talk about fuel poverty targets and looking at those without looking at energy efficiency targets and we can't pretend that there isn't a climate change bill going to be considered in this parliament and we've set Scotland has set itself incredibly tough targets on that as well and I think Simon said it in the first thing he said that the less energy used that's the best way to get people out of fuel poverty is making sure that those homes are actually equipped to do that at the same time as looking at how we seriously reduce emissions and things like you've just been considering the planning bill obviously and for my sins I've had to follow that quite closely as well and you know unless we have a planning system which also enables that renewable energy it is going to be more and more difficult to decarbonise heat so I think it is absolutely essential that politicians and the government can look at all those things and how they link together yeah I'm a bit disappointed you didn't like a performance in the planning bill but Graham or do you want to come back in here no I'm loath to ask about rural issues good that's what I like to hear I think at this point then I will bring in Kenny Gibson and then I'll just go on and put my feet up on a spliff because I was going to ask I mean I was actually going to mention quote the word woeful which you've actually put in your evidence because it's a great word but you've already mentioned that and I mean you talk about you've talked to it quite passionately Mr Black a lot about the bias towards urban areas but what mechanisms do you think we can introduce here for example to ensure that this bias if it does exist does not continue with specific consideration of a minimum income standard how do you think we can really define that because your recommendation basically says amend the fuel poverty built include a remote rural settlement definition with rural urban classification to better target energy efficiency scheme so I'm just wondering if you can put a wee bit of meat on those bones and then I'd be quite keen to hear what other colleagues say okay well we've been banging on about this since the beginning of this decade I'm going right back to I can't remember the acronyms I'm assuming flipping acronyms in this area but there's one called CESPA community energy savings programme which was supposed to deliver energy savings at a community level but within that you had to hit minimum levels of indices and multiple deprivation at a postcode level which was virtually impossible to happen at a rural level because typically fuel poverty in rural areas is embedded within the wider population and it doesn't show up in sort of the IMD numbers and then so we didn't see any I don't think we saw any off-grid CESP programmes and then we started looking at what was the predecessor to eco cert again there was virtually no delivery into rural areas because it was cheaper for people to hit unfortunately with its estates in Glasgow or Aberdeen or Dundee where all the houses you've got 500 a thousand houses all built at the same time all need a cavity doing all needed loft doing whatever it is it's far it easier and an easier to target easier to hit those as opposed to rooting around in the countryside trying to find the embedded fuel poverty fully accept that it's more difficult but there comes a stage where it needs to happen and that certainly we campaigned for at least some sort of obligation of rural areas and the the Westminster came up with the definite that they would have a rural sub obligation but I think it was mentioned in the earlier session where rural was defined for eco as settlements up to 10 000 10 000 people which is a market town on-grid so largely the obligator suppliers were able to hit their rural sub obligations by not going anywhere near rural off-grid areas now looking so now within the HEAP scheme Scotland did adopt the lower level 3000 now with there's been a transfer of powers in terms Scotland has now got more powers over eco and the rules within eco and what we would certainly call for is that the government to look at applying that same level of measure if not or you can go even more remote depending on on how you want to target within your rules of the scheme okay can i jump in there because i mean you know remote obviously we can argue about what what the definition of remote is in terms of population but would you suggest for example that remote should perhaps be defined as off-grid rather than the number of households for example is that how you would define it because otherwise you could end up with a situation whereby you have some remote communities that are in actual fact don't could hit their class and some that are that are not you know so i'm just wondering how you would it's i mean this is you get to really really remote it's difficult i mean the Scottish government has got an eight-fold urban rural classification of which six are six seven eight the bottom three are rural and at different levels of population you've got to define it somehow and that's it and certainly from our point of view that would be a good starting point right so hold on so let me get this through what you're seeing is good starting point would be say a minimum income standard should be differentiated for those off-grid would you be happy with that right what i'm saying it there's two i wasn't talking about minimum income standard i'll start with saying so the what i'm talking here is about when you start looking at delivery of energy efficiency schemes right and there's a big focus on energy efficiency within fuel poverty strategy that there is something the Scottish government can do in terms of targeting that effort to make sure that a fair proportion of that happens in rural off-grid areas then in terms of the minimum sorry rural and island w six down island could stay in so just to make sure that it's included oh no no no it's obviously includes the island i mean there's been lots of comments around i've seen about island proofing yeah but again i think you know whether the you know the same sort of rural proofing of the bill whether that's being considered or that should be put in as well because just to make sure you're covering all aspects mr markel you said earlier on that should maybe be a scotish definition of minimum income standard but obviously scotland as we've heard has come you know huge variances within scotland would you would you maybe think it would be better to have an urban and rural remote rural island split would that be a more efficient way of doing it do you think do you think scotland should just be treated in the round no i think the reason we were calling for scotland to have its own sort of minimum income standard because it does have very unique sort of landscape and geography the islands the islands and the the sort of just and as um but that's totally different from glass but yeah yeah very much is but i think the point was that it would once it would take account of scotland's different landscapes than the rest of the uk and the different sort of makeup of it if then that that was chosen that there could be a scot Scottish urban and a Scottish rural minimum income standard then we'd have no problem with that either i think the point was trying to make sure that this bill was able to target those in the most fuel pool areas those people who are the most fuel poor and the best way to do that for scotland would be to have a specific minimum income standard whether or not then that for scotland is chosen by yourselves and by the Scottish Government to be a rural and urban issue standards then i think that would be fine as well but the principle is that we need to make sure we make it easy to identify people in fuel poverty yes because you've called for it to be bespoke actually on the heavens too and and miss chisnell um i'm just wondering what your view is basically on on the the issue of because you've talked about many households are off gas properties relying on fuel deliveries costs reflect national average gas prices rather than local grid prices for scotland so obviously i take it you get the very similar position to mr marcle um i would just say incidentally that in terms of uh i disagree mr black bloke and i do agree with you in terms of them uh beat holistic um combination of the legislation i'm pretty sure the Scottish Government actually does want to blend the legislation so that it dots every eye crosses every team works together rather than against itself so i'm just wondering if you can respond in terms of m is if you get any further anything further to add to what mr marcle said well excuse me we obviously speak on behalf of a wide membership so the question that came up in discussion with the members of energy UK was around the definition was quite wide ranging discussion and the basic feeling was overall certainly need to bespoke it for scotland i think there were probably a number of members who who might have been more in favour of urban versus rural and making that differentiation it's something we might have to go back to members and say would this be an issue for you but certainly the view was it's not enough to simply assume that the UK measurement will suffice and whether it will properly reflect things in scotland as well and i mean i've been off grid i know the costs are different you know i remember the calligas bill coming in and absolutely dreading it but i'm now on grid and it's so much cheaper but um so yeah i think it's going to be important that some time is taken and the right balance is struck that we are factoring in the different complex bits of the bill that people end up with and mrs anton you talk a lot about how this relates to the digital economy act um you know in terms of mi s i'm not sure that was in our evidence but um there's i think it was energy okay was it apologies actually sorry i was trying to remember the bit of the submission i was thinking let's stop here apologies yes indeed and but just from our point of view one of the thing i did want to raise is kind of there's an important point here around market driven mechanisms to deliver energy efficiency versus government controlled mechanisms so i think what mr blacklock when he refers to a woeful track record for energy efficiency in rural areas in scotland he's probably referring primarily to eco and some of the numbers that were quoted were through eco well eco is a market driven instrument which means that the suppliers will find the cheapest the most cost effective way to deliver the target because that's what market does of course our programme and i think i mentioned this earlier is a government controlled programme which means we do what the government asks us to do within our contract and within the delivery framework that it sets and the delivery framework that the government set for warm home scotland is very clearly incentivised to tackle rural areas and deliver the same level of performance in rural areas as we do in urban areas and i think i mentioned earlier that a disproportionate amount of our activity takes place in rural areas versus urban urban areas when you compare the sort of relative population sizes i think that's something government could build on until well we if we set the parameters right where we have control of the programmes and delivery we can focus activity on rural areas where the challenges around fuel poverty are greater because we work very closely with cala and others and delivering so just what's the last thing convener thanks for your indulgence on this it's um you feel basically that this when this is enacted that the number one priority for the Scottish government should be remote and rural island communities and vulnerable perhaps in urban areas would that be a particularly vulnerable in urban areas i mean we've talked about people with disabilities and long-term illnesses would you take that should be the priority rather than for example looking at a kind of leches reducing the numbers how would you how would you think of the priorities in terms of taking this forward that kind of that combination would be about right or do you think there's anything that could be done to finch in that i think first and foremost programs have to be properly resourced so they can do all of those things they can do the scale that they need to do but within that i think it's right that government identifies priorities to say if rural areas off gas areas are areas of focus because that's where fuel poverty is greater then i think it's important that government gives itself the ability to design programs national programs in that way if that's what it chooses to be its priority it must retain the power to ensure that delivery reflects its policy priorities sorry just but what i'm trying to say is that should be priority rather than for example reducing the number of households by x thousand per year it should focus on if you like quality rather than quantity i.e the most vulnerable hard to reach most difficult households because it's easier just to say as we mentioned earlier to go for those that are on the melt margins of fuel poverty rather than head on you know deal with these difficult situations where people have been kind of bypassed over the last 15 20 years i mean the when the UK government produced its fuel poverty strategy back in 2015 it admitted there'd been a policy failure in this area but they also recognised there's tension between they want to help the most amount of people yeah but if you help these people that cost more money so you end up helping less people so we're going to help the most amount of people so you still end up not addressing the and you've come to a stage now with what probably 20 years of energy efficiency programs where apologies to Glasgow a bit it's the countryside's turn to have a fairer proportion of the support that other people have had particularly when you look at the direction of travel you're talking about holistic policy the government has just consulted on energy efficient Scotland within that they were sort of looking at thoughts around regulating the housing market using energy performance certificates now given that the countryside has not had one much help in terms of improving the energy efficiency of its of its of the properties through government programs plus the fact that energy performance certificates in the countryside don't work as well because they don't measure energy efficiency they measure pound notes because energy because which means that a a comparable property if you if you airlifted a house out of the centre of Edinburgh and put it into the middle of a field somewhere it will the epc that will go down purely because it's using a different fuel the house is the level of energy efficiency of the house kilowatts per square metres the same but the score goes down so if you then start looking at some of these proposals around regulating the housing market and again there's a lot of discussion about minimum epc scores and the problem i'm not thinking the previous session one of the the people that gave evidence was talking about 20 25 000 pounds to to get up to a level D well the the scottish government is done in the enormous brilliant work in this area around the sort of the reaps modelling because when they started looking at its regulation of energy efficiency in the private sector they got this guy or this this company especially consultant to model 350 different housing types in scotland and then look at the the cost implications of getting all these different houses up going up through the levels and the costs for off grid to get up to D it's not unusual to look at 20 20 2000 and the other thing is it's then not a linear progression up through dcba it's almost like a hockey stick as you go up those levels and it may well be you get to C or you get to D and the person in the house is no longer in fuel poverty then that's where i would say that's when your climate change carbon requirements might kick in but in terms of the fuel poverty you have lifted that person out of fuel poverty mr mr answer you've been shaking your head quite a lot through mr black looks evidence i just i think this this language about being the countryside's turn and and this kind of question of it being an either or discussion is not helpful i think that if we are if we're here to talk about setting an ambition for 20 40 then we'll have to do everything and there are almost 700 000 households to get to so i absolutely agree that within the framework you can create priorities and create areas of focus but i think at the expense of another demographic or the extent at the expense of another part of scotland which is the natural result of if you go down well it's your turn then it's your turn that not everything gets done i don't think it's for me that the best way to create policy i think we need parties with any local authority to be fair i don't think mr black lockwick meant that my constituent shouldn't get any support but i'm not at all yes i agree with that but i don't really think that's what he meant i like to think it wasn't mr marco i think this is a good time to kind of be there a lot of these discussions come from issues of our financing around how where are we going to find the money to do a lot of this work and at the moment energy customers bills are extremely regressive in the fact that you have fuel poor picking up the cost of fuel poor measures so you can be in fuel poor and you cannot be able to afford your bill but you're paying for other fuel poor measures in it and we really need to look at this finance issue and this can be a key part of the strategy as well and how do we make sure that we keep we could put some of those costs in central taxation central funding whatever because the that that's what this argument is about who who's going to get tackled first well the issue comes down to where's the money going to come from and my fear is whenever we have strategies when we have new ideas of our tackling fuel poverty we just put it onto customers bills and we've seen that woman discount we've seen that of eco it adds monies onto customers bill and we need to find a new way to do it okay that would be my big thing thank you Graham you wanted to commend before yeah um if if we accept that there should be some rural proofing and yeah maybe maybe you don't but if if you do accept that what needs to change in this bill because that's what we're looking at in order to deliver that whoever's looking at me um quite rightly um the i think it's around that definition of rural and Scottish gum has already got something that it can work with there and it's not about doing everything in the countryside Glasgow will still get more than you know it's fair share but it's about now now it's the time to start delivering some of these measures in the countryside we had i mean some of the stuff in the past has been bording on the outrageous in terms of we had an affordable warmth element to eco which meant that if you're on qualifying benefits and your boiler broke down you qualified for a free repair and if it couldn't be repaired you qualified for it for a free boy a free instant boiler installation um but not if you're on oil or LPG because a lot of the people that were were obligated it was in their gift to decide whether or not they what measures they were going to deliver so we had we had customers who um were contacting us that had contacted the advice line in terms of support sorry if i can just jump in yeah it was specifically about what's in the bill oh yeah no sorry there's only six pages to the bill so if we were making a recommendation and we're going to have to do that in our stage one report what would that be in relation to the what's in front of us which is a six page bill a rural right i would work on the basis of what they've tried to do with eco in terms of rural rural sub-obligation at a given level with a proper definition of rural and then it's up to it's up to people to decide what it what represents a fair proportion what was it 10 percent is it 20 percent i mean 12 i think it's 11 12 percent of houses in scotland are rural off grid so that might be a a starting point yeah i mean i think the discussion has already started around the rural minimum income standard that was referred to earlier i think that's going to be the the meat of this discussion and i think it's important to land in the right place there in terms of colleagues last week's session di alexander and others have got a lot more experience in this than i have but i think landing listening to the evidence that's coming from those groups and those individuals i think they'll give you the basis of a recommendation in that area i think great spotty's minimum income standard where we're all being part of it okay thank you finally i think just following on for that the the last session that we had the councils and the housing associations they did talk about the difference in energy efficiency ratings between the public sector and the private sector in terms of private rents and social rent and then you've got rural there is a criticism that the draft strategy is light on on programmes and policy to actually look at all these different areas and tackle them and i suppose my question is how difficult is it therefore to be able to have a robust and meaningful analysis of the cost of reaching that 5 per cent by 2040 because unless you can actually put a cost on it and have those programmes then you know how meaningful is the targets comments yeah i agree i think the targets have to be costed and they have to be resourced and i think there are several organisations that have made estimates around this already in ejection scotland and what was consumer focus i think is now consumer futures and these organisations have done quite details with the citizens by scotland have also looked at this around what programmes cost what energy efficiency improvement measures will cost what the likely packages might be the households might need to take them out of your poverty or you know protect them from going into your poverty i think the work is out there and i think it's important to kind of draw on it in because i agree with the statement i think the strategy and the ambition without saying this is what we think it will cost and this is how it needs to be resourced is only a fraction of the story that's my point about financing the strategy needs to be clear on one the biggest elephant in the room how much is this going to cost but where's this money going to come from and it can't come from customers bills okay and taking that step further than because others would argue that the benefits of this and when we discussed it in the last session as well are enormous both for the individuals concerned who live in the houses but in terms of the economic benefits for for the wider economy again how difficult is it to to be able to set out and estimate what those benefits are well there's a listen to that question i'm glad you actually asked that it's been the figure that i've been trying to find around looking at the benefits of energy efficiency and the wider impact on the economy now i need to go away and check but i think there has been a study done in Dunedin in New Zealand looking at this over the last 10 years um that'd be quite useful as well because Dunedin has some very similarities to Edinburgh so we'd be able to look specifically at that i can certainly find a copy of the report and send it if it does include that because and if it doesn't we need to be and somebody needs to be sitting down and finding out and doing an economic study on the benefits of energy efficiency to the wider to the wider economy because as i've talked before about smart metering and the benefits to the health service and benefits to social policy that that could be massive and it could be an absolute game changer in one reducing customers bills overall from the obligations that customers that are put on customers bills um you know in terms of customers bills about 140 pounds is added on to every customers bills from just obligations that the energy companies have to add on to their customers bills so how we can reduce that down how we can reduce overall bills down will be key to getting people out of your poverty. Can you any part of the challenges that the benefits of investing in energy efficiency are so broad so i can tell you that we've run Warm Home Scotland for the last three and a half years and we've created about 300 new jobs about 100 new apprenticeships and i can tell you some of the sort of benefits at that level of one programme but you would need engagement from the health sector around if we've helped 14 000 homes in the last three years how many of them weren't then readmitted to hospital because we made their homes warmer if we've helped 14 000 homes how many didn't need as many visits in a social care context you you would need the engagement of a lot of other sectors and parts of Government to because the benefits are so broad i mean we haven't even gotten to things like educational attainment social exclusion some of the things that are impacted by improving energy efficiency and it is challenging to quantify the benefits because they are very broad and therefore leaves you wondering why i mean it's been said earlier that the 2016 target was not met i mean has any panel looked at the experience of that previous target i mean what was what was the failures there was there a failure to to have a proper strategy was there a failure to finance it properly why why did it fail i don't know why it failed but i would have thought technological changes will will now take away some of that doubt i mean obviously there's a bit of that statement and that target came from the housing act of 2001 i think and then there was a statement made in 2002 giving that target of 2016 i have no idea where that target actually came from but i mean we've made there's been massive changes in terms of how we can monitor electricity use and energy use and there's been massive changes in terms of renewable energy but the bottom line will still be how do we actually make sure that we can fund that going forward i don't know whether enough funding was put aside for that the thing i am remembering though that in terms of the last few years in terms of the Scottish government's the with the energy strategy and also with the energy efficiency Scotland there have been sums of money discussed i think 500 million was announced a couple of years ago as part of the energy strategy and i don't i don't know at the moment where that sits in relation to have any workings being done as to how much of that pot might be directed towards the energy efficiency element for instance of the fuel poverty bill so i think that's one that the government department will need to come back on in terms of is there new money is there any new money or is it relying on money that's already been announced in the life of this parliament okay okay Kenny very briefly refer to the previous Labour liberal executive i don't think they predicted energy prices we're going to go up 155% and incomes only 38% and i would say that suggests that's why it's failed i think one way to look at how the measures that were introduced have succeeded to some extent is if the only the only way would be to say if fuel prices had went up only 38% how many people would have fallen out of poverty then and then you could compare whether or not the strategy was successful but you that would have to do a wee bit of a number crunching but really it was just you know if prices got like that and incomes got up like that that's where the gap is we are looking at prices going up again in the next year yeah yeah thanks very much for that i think that those well the the last comment highlights the difficulties that the government's got given that they have absolutely no control over oil prices but listen can i thank you very much for your your time and and for your answers it was very very useful for the committee and that'll all be getting fed into the bill well the evidence can i now suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to leave the table thank you very much business is consideration of negative instrument 344 is listed on the agenda and i refer members to paper number three the instrument is laid under the negative procedure which means that its provisions will come into force unless the parliament votes on motions to annull it no motions to annull have been laid delegated powers and law reform committee has not drawn the instruments of the parliament attention on any of its reporting grounds do members have any comments in the instrument no in that case i invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument are we agreed thank you that concludes the public part of today's meeting thank you