Ministers’ energy plans are a spectacular disappointment

Greens described as “underwhelming and unsatisfactory” plans by Scottish Ministers for a home loans scheme to cover more expensive energy efficiency measures. (1) Scottish Government figures published in a wider consultation on energy efficiency show that the average need per household is £7,000, making a £2m fund entirely inadequate. (2)

The Scottish Green MSPs proposed a loans scheme for hard to treat properties during last year’s Budget negotiations, an approach based on the successful Re:Charge scheme delivered by Green Councillors in Kirklees. (3) This project brought in a £1m loan fund across Kirklees, an area with less than a tenth as many houses as Scotland. (4)

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“SNP Ministers want us to believe they understand the benefits and opportunities real energy efficiency can bring. Their rhetoric may be excellent, but their actual commitments remain a spectacular disappointment.

“The loan scheme they’re proposing is not even close to the scheme we proposed in last year’s Budget. It’s a drop in the ocean, a bare minimum so Ministers can say with a half-straight face that they’ve done what they promised Parliament in February. Even if every penny went on delivery it wouldn’t even get the job done in three hundred Scottish homes out of more than two million.

“To make it work, to make a real difference to those with hard-to-treat homes, we’d need to see a fund worth tens of millions. That could be enough to make a real start on those cold and draughty properties that can’t take loft or cavity wall insulation.

“If the current draft Scottish budget goes through unchanged, this entire SNP administration will have failed on energy efficiency, which remains the cheapest and most effective way to cut both household bills and carbon emissions. Existing money is being mis-spent, and Ministers’ plans for the future are no better.”

Notes