The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday July 31 2024 #Politics

The Scotsman

Scotsman head of news catches up with our politics editor Alistair Grant and finds out the latest on the proposed bins strikes across Scotland

Transcript

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.

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