Rennie questions Martin over climate change plan

Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie today questioned the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy about failings in the SNP’s Home Energy Scotland scheme during a statement on the Scottish Government’s Draft Climate Change Plan.

The scheme has previously been described by the head of a heat pump company as the “the number one barrier” to heat pump adoption.

In response, Ms Martin described Mr Rennie’s question as ‘a fair challenge’.

Speaking in the chamber, Willie Rennie said:

“There are some good things in this plan, but I think the Cabinet Secretary knows there isn’t really much that’s new in the plan today. And I have read it, and there’s not an awful lot that I didn’t know already.

“There’s one group of people I would expect to be enthused by the whole climate change agenda and that would be energy efficiency installers. I go to their conference every year and this year I’ve never seen them so downbeat, because of the broken Home Energy Scotland system of grants and loans.

“Can I urge her at last to change that system so that people are incentivised to put new heating systems in and the industry can get moving?”

Speaking after the exchange, he added:

“Ministers seem to admit that the Home Energy Scotland scheme isn’t working as it should but then nothing ever seems to change. I have heard from companies with cancelled orders and customers put off by the unnecessary bureaucracy of the Home Energy Scotland Scheme.

“The SNP has managed to set up a system which is six times more expensive to run that the equivalent scheme in England but which is overseeing falling numbers of installations. That is bad for households struggling with energy bills, bad for taxpayers footing the bill and bad for the climate.

“From rolling out a nationwide insulation programme to harnessing the full potential of Scottish renewables, my party has realistic plans to turn things around.”