The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday July 31 2024 #Politics
Scotsman head of news catches up with our politics editor Alistair Grant and finds out the latest on the proposed bins strikes across Scotland
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00:00Sorry, Andy. That didn't work properly, did it? Do you want to do the intro again? It
00:18didn't look like it at my end.
00:20Yeah, it worked okay, but we can run again, no problem.
00:24Okay. Sorry, it might have just been a delay in the insert feed. It had looked like it
00:29didn't work at my end.
00:30No problem.
00:31Hello, and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily News Bulletin for this Wednesday. My name
00:59is Dale Miller. I'm Head of News at the Scotsman. I'm joined by our political editor, Alistair
01:04Grant. And Alistair, if we're talking about the front page of today's Scotsman, you're
01:10leading on our coverage there. Ministers told to get real over the up to $130 billion cost
01:19of green buildings. This is a significant story up against the backdrop of the Scottish
01:25government being unable to hit 2030 climate targets. Can you talk us through?
01:31Yeah, so this was a report by the Just Transition Commission, who are kind of panel, an expert
01:36advisory group, essentially, that advises the Scottish government on the journey to
01:40net zero and the just transition, how to make that journey, you know, just for workers and
01:45just for the Scottish public. And it released this report talking about the investment that's
01:50needed in that kind of journey to net zero, focusing on four key areas, so energy, transport,
01:57land use and agriculture, and the built environment and construction. And I was particularly struck
02:01by some of the figures in that last area. So they had a guy called Stephen Good, who
02:06is a construction expert who kind of wrote that part of the report, based on I think
02:10comments he made at a roundtable event. And he was basically saying that, you know, the
02:16Scottish government has previously said that the cost of decarbonising homes and buildings
02:21across Scotland, so kind of fitting them with heat pumps, and making them energy efficient,
02:26and obviously buildings and the kind of construction industry in general is a source of emissions.
02:34But the cost of decarbonising buildings and homes would be £33 billion, around £33 billion.
02:40So that was the official Scottish government estimate. And Stephen Good was essentially
02:44saying that, you know, that might just about cover, in his words, the installation of a
02:49heat pump in an easy to treat property. But to meet the tougher end of the net zero objectives,
02:55he thinks you'll likely need four times that investment. So around £45,000 per building,
03:00which would add up to more like £130 billion. So he's effectively saying that we really
03:06need to get serious about the costs involved in this and who's going to pay for it, how
03:10they're going to pay. The report has lots of stuff about different kind of investment schemes
03:15that could be put into place, stuff that's already happening, for example, through the
03:18Scottish National Investment Bank, but also pointing out that more needs to be done,
03:21more innovative ways to invest need to happen if we're going to see this, this kind of journey
03:29to net zero happen properly. And the other thing that Stephen Good was saying that I thought was
03:34particularly striking is that he touched on the Scottish government's ambition to decarbonise
03:38at least one million homes by 2030, which is only six years away. It's very close.
03:45It's not like that far away in the future. And he was saying that we're currently installing
03:49around 5,000 zero carbon heating systems per year. That's just heating systems, doesn't
03:55include building fabric, energy efficiency works. He was saying that's 19 per day, about
04:01two and a half per hour. He says we need to be doing about 30 times what we're doing at
04:07the moment if we want to reach that Scottish government ambition. So I think it's just
04:10quite eye opening figures about the scale of the challenge ahead, the amount of money
04:13involved. Obviously, that money is not going to come from the public sector only. Scottish
04:19government, for example, councils just do not have that kind of money. So there needs
04:23to be a private sector investment in some shape or form. And it's, yeah, I think it's
04:27something that people will be concerned about. And it's something that is a real challenge
04:32in the years ahead.
04:34I thought that that figure was pretty mind boggling, really. 166,000, I think, a year
04:40homes or buildings would need to be decarbonised. And we're currently doing 5,000. You can see
04:46the amount that they've got to scale up to hit that target clearly within six years.
04:50I think it's reasonable to say that is not possible. So it'll be interesting to see where
04:55they can get it to in that time period. Alistair, I know between yourself and David Bowle, you've
05:01been covering off on the waste strikes as well. We've got dates now, so things are starting
05:07to get serious.
05:08Yeah, so I think these are dates that have come out from Unison, published towards the
05:14end of yesterday, I think. Effectively, nine days next month have been pegged for industrial
05:19action in a number of council areas across Scotland. I think I'm right in saying that
05:23Edinburgh is doing its own separate ballot, but expected to also have industrial action.
05:27People might remember in 2022, particularly if you lived in Edinburgh during the festival
05:31season, those bin strikes, some of the scenes of just rubbish piling up in the streets,
05:36overflowing bins, the city was an absolute mess. It was very hard to live in for that
05:42period. It had a huge impact on the city, huge impact on the festival. And I think,
05:48yes, city leaders and people involved in the festival are going to be extremely worried
05:51about this happening again. There was talks in the last couple of days between COSLA,
05:56Scottish Government, trade union officials, trying to reach some kind of breakthrough.
06:00That didn't happen. The COSLA is saying it's doing everything it can to try and avoid
06:04more strikes. But at the moment, it does seem like they are coming. The COSLA's position
06:09is that councils do not have the money to up the pay deal, and the Scottish Government
06:14would say the same. So it's hard to see where there's going to be some kind of breakthrough
06:18before those strike dates, but we live in hope.
06:21Obviously, we're going to have, for the fringe alone, I think more than 2 million people
06:27coming to the city over the next couple of weeks. So that's a lot of people that will
06:32see a lot of rubbish on the streets if the waste strikes do transpire. You can read all
06:36the latest around these issues, including our Scotsman Splash at scotsman.com. Specifically,
06:44go to the politics tab in the navigation bar if you're looking for all the latest coverage
06:48from Alistair and his team. Please follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram, and go out
06:54and support local journalism. Buy a copy of The Scotsman from your newsstand tomorrow.
06:59Thanks very much for joining us.