ECCAN Statement on the Heat in Buildings Bill being delayed yet again
On Wednesday, Gillian Martin (Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy) announced in the Scottish Parliament that the Heat in Buildings Bill has been delayed again.
We’ll not go into the extended timeline of the Bill to date, as it is covered here.
Please read ECCAN’s response below.
Working together in Energy in Edinburgh
At ECCAN, we support an Energy & RetroFit sub-network in Edinburgh that brings together community groups working in community energy, building retrofit, and sustainable heating solutions to pool resources and work towards a sustainable energy future for all. The group are currently working on a Community Energy Plan for Granton. This will act as a pilot for future community energy plans in Edinburgh.
It is fair to say that these groups have been fighting a socio-political landscape that was tilted in the favour of developers, gas boilers, poor construction methods, waste culture, shareholder profits, and the status quo. But still, these groups do an amazing job trying to change the way we will heat our buildings now and in the near future.
The Heat in Buildings Bill was viewed by our groups as an imperfect instrument to level the landscape of retrofit. However, it did give power to their collective elbows to lay the groundwork for a change that MUST be delivered.
Social enterprise EALA Impacts, a member of the ECCAN community heat sub-network said;
“A lot of collective effort went into the heat in building bill and its consultation, but there were clearly areas that required work. In particular the lack of a solution for tenemental property and lack of acknowledgement of the role of condition in energy efficiency. We welcome the process of revising the Scottish Government’s proposals which will give the opportunity to redirect attention from individual to community led energy transitions, and with it, a means for structured community building maintenance. Given the widely acknowledged climate crisis, we hope it is happens swiftly!”
The Bill and why it is important for everyone
Removing the use of polluting heating systems by 2045. To manage this phaseout, anyone buying a house or business premises would need to replace their carbon intensive heating systems within a fixed period (3 years) following completion of the sale
That replacement domestic heating systems will be zero direct emissions heating systems (ZDEH) such as:
heat pumps
heat networks
modern electric storage heaters
wet electric heating
direct electric heating technologies
To improve energy efficiency, a new law requiring homes to meet by 2033 a ‘reasonable minimum energy efficiency standard’. Additionally, private landlords will need to meet this standard earlier, by 2028, due to poor existing standards in this sector. This is where fabric retrofit sits in the Bill.
Mark Dowey, ECCAN Network Lead, said:
"It is difficult to understand how we are in this position again. The Heat in Buildings Bill could, and should, have been a positive message of hope and a way to deliver tangible solutions on the very real impacts of climate change in Scotland.
Our built environment stock is poor quality and thus exacerbates inequality, cost-of-living issues, and the climate crisis. ECCAN and our members call for a renewed push to get this bill back into Parliament at the earliest possible juncture - and to use this time to strengthen its remit.
Rather than hanging around for yet more political process, why not front load the replacement of domestic gas boilers through seriously ramping-up existing schemes such as those run by HES for stand-alone houses, while working with community organisations to take people in tenements and city centres through a just energy transition. There's a lot more than that to do, including issues around property ownership, tenement condition and community owned energy systems for example, but it would be a strong start and would retain a message of action from this Government."
A sustainable, equitable future for all
Decarbonising our housing stock is vital to reduce inequalities, create jobs and increase health outcomes in Edinburgh and across the country. All this is at the heart of climate action.
The work has been done to understand how best to retrofit our housing stock. We now need the political will to prioritise the social structures that can deliver this at speed. This latest failure to follow through on real action does not look good for a government that purports to prioritise the Climate Emergency. We must have real solutions that change how we heat our buildings in Scotland, now. The gas will be switched off before we know it.