There can be few more important subjects than the standard and condition of Scotland’s homes.
Last year myself, Alex Rowley, Mark Ruskell and Liam McArthur wrote to Kevin Stewart on energy efficiency and fuel poverty. I grant you it was a rather odd alliance but we were - and I presume still are - at one in our belief that more needs to be done.
We pointed out that the target for the elimination of fuel poverty by November 2016 was missed and that 35 per cent of Scottish households are in fuel poverty. We called for the elimination of poor energy efficiency as a driver of fuel poverty.
We called for credible fuel poverty and climate change goals. We noted the recommendation of the expert Fuel Poverty Strategic Working Group that all fuel poor homes should be brought up to at least an EPC band C rating by 2025. We also called for all fuel poverty programmes to be “rural-proofed”, as recommended by the Rural Fuel Poverty Task Force.
We said the Scottish Energy Efficiency Programme should have an interim target for the residential sector of supporting the vast majority of homes, those for which it is technically feasible and appropriate, to reach an EPC band C rating by a date in the range of 2025-2030. We said priority should be given to fuel poor households, particularly remote and rural communities.
We also supported efforts to work with the UK Government to improve the assessment methodology that underpins the EPC to improve its accuracy, and called for improved quality assurance of EPC assessments – as they have been too hit-and-miss.
Let’s take each of those asks in order and see how the Scottish Government’s so-called Route Map stands up.
First, the elimination of poor energy efficiency as a driver of fuel poverty; and
Second, all fuel poor homes should be brought up to at least an EPC band C rating by 2025.
The programme commits to the first but is there enough in it to give us any confidence that it will deliver? No, there is not.
What we have is a consultation – this government is very keen on them – and a proposal to get poor-fuel households to EPC B by 2040. It’s safe to say that not a single government minister will still be in post in 22 years time and most of us will not be MSPs. Talk about kicking the can down the road. The commitment to have fuel poor homes at EPC C by 2030 is not as ambitious as the target we called for. Why not?
Added to that are dark warnings that the much-heralded Warm Homes Bill may be dropped in favour of a watered down Fuel Poverty Bill which won’t deal with energy efficiency. I hope my information is wrong on that.
Third, rural-proofing.
The route map says nothing about rural homes. This is a clear failure. Current proposals for supporting people in fuel poverty ignore the recommendations of the Scottish Rural Fuel Poverty Working Group to take into account the higher costs of living in rural areas when targeting fuel poverty support.
Fourth, that the Scottish Energy Efficiency Programme should have an interim target for the residential sector of supporting the vast majority of homes to reach an EPC band C rating by a date in the range of 2025-2030.
The majority of homes in Scotland – 61 per cent – are owner-occupied. So the question is, how is the Scottish Government going to get those home owners to upgrade their properties, a million of which are below EPC C?
Here, the programme is particularly lacking. The government uses the phrase “we want to continue to encourage and enable owners to take action”. Any suggestion of anything stronger will be left to the “later stages of the programme”. The plan does not say in any detail how home owners will be helped to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.
The Scottish Government is kicking the can down the road again, and it’s a road that takes until 2040 to travel.
I tend to agree with Citizens Advice Scotland that you need to make things easy for people – so a one-stop shop approach should be considered. You can’t force people to do things to their own homes but you can enthuse them to want to and offer them things, like meaningful council tax discounts or low-cost loans and grants.
Finally, that EPCs should be more-robust.
It cannot be right that someone can assess your home without even seeing it and give it a rating and it cannot be right that two people can give the same house different ratings. I want to mention one more thing and that is the condition of our existing homes. The route map does not deal with this. Many of Scotland’s homes are ageing and crumbling and the government has not a clue what to do about it.
It has been left to those of us who can see the problem to form a cross-party working group, along with experts in the field and WE will be come up with proposals. Energy Efficient Scotland is a missed opportunity. We need to do better.
You can watch my speech HERE