In Parliament

I am pleased to speak in this afternoon’s debate on growing Scotland’s green economy. I am going to take a slightly different tack from some of my colleagues. I mentioned the green industrial strategy during First Minister’s question time earlier today, and in doing so I referenced the small section in the strategy that looks at the construction sector, given its role in carbon emissions and the very real need to make the sector less carbon intensive. I was encouraged to hear from the First Minister that there has been a clear and substantial engagement with that vital sector, not only because of the importance of reducing emissions on our journey to net zero, but because our construction sector is fundamental to ensuring that we all have a warm, damp-free and energy-efficient home to stay in.

Tackling housing need and fuel poverty and tackling our climate challenges must go hand in hand. For many of my constituents, that is vital. That will resonate more than talking about the green economy, but those things go hand in hand. I was therefore pleased to see in the green industrial strategy a reiteration of the Scottish Government’s commitment to deliver on our ambition for 110,000 affordable energy-efficient homes by 2032. As a city boy, I note that 10 per cent of those are to be in remote, rural and island communities, which is important, given the unique challenges that they have.

I will mention some other things that “Green Industrial Strategy” contains in relation to the construction and built environment sector. It says that the Scottish Government will

“Explore the potential and impact of modern methods of construction in rural and island contexts.”

It adds:

“This will include work with BE-ST, our innovation centre that supports and provides practical assistance with solutions that advance delivery of a zero carbon built environment.”

I see that the Acting Minister for Climate Action, Alasdair Allan, is in the chamber. He often talks about the huge challenges that his constituents have in heating their homes, let alone getting to net zero, so that innovation by Built Environment—Smarter Transformation will be vital.

The strategy says that the Scottish Government will

“Reform and modernise compulsory purchase legislation in Scotland and consider the case for Compulsory Sales Orders.”

I say to the Deputy First Minister that I hope that we will deliver swiftly on both things. The strategy also says that the Scottish Government will

“Support collaborative and place-based approaches to identify land for affordable housing working closely with Regional Economic Partnerships and our communities.”

I suppose that what I am trying to do is ensure that the construction sector is not squeezed out of the discussion on the green economy. The Construction Industry Training Board estimates that, in 2021, 230,000 people were employed in that sector. In 2022, £13.3 billion was generated by that sector and, according to the Chartered Institute of Building, £4 billion of that came from public sector investment—so, the sector matters. I put it on record that construction does not just mean building homes: it is also about wider energy generation to deliver net zero. I note SSE’s 4.1GW Berwick Bank offshore wind farm, Cerulean Winds’ plans for three floating wind turbine projects and the 2GW West of Orkney wind farm. All those projects are mentioned in a report that says that there is a good 10-year pipeline for construction in that sector.

The CITB warns that there is a need for an additional 3,910 people to be recruited each year. More workers are needed to meet the sector’s demands and to deal with its employment churn; that is a challenge for Scotland’s green economy that has to be tackled. I would be happy to hear in the minister’s summing up what the Scottish Government is doing to address that.

The Scottish house condition survey clearly shows that the private rented sector has the highest emissions in terms of energy efficiency. However, 60 per cent of the private rented sector does not meet the housing quality standard, and 35 per cent is below the tolerable standard. That needs to be tackled on an industrial scale; the green industry should be doing that.

Mr Rennie spoke about area-based energy efficiency schemes, such as insulation measures. I note that, since 2013, the Scottish Government has spent £433 million on tackling that, with 100,000 households and hundreds of local communities benefiting. That is the green economy, and it is really important that we do not squeeze it out in debates such as this.

Finally—I will say this in a non-partisan way—capital budgets matter. We can have a debate about whether our Scottish Government is deploying its budget as the parties in this place see fit, but we know that there have been swingeing cuts to Scotland’s capital budget, which really matters when we try to reach net zero. We need cross-party, non-partisan support in order to challenge the UK Government to tackle those swingeing cuts to Scotland. Likewise, we know that Scotland’s revenue budgets have been deeply undermined by the previous and current UK Governments because of inflation and real-terms cuts. I will not rehearse all the arguments. Let us maximise the Scottish Government’s revenue and our investment in our green economy, and let us not undermine our ability to work together on that on a cross-party basis.