Chamber and committees

Good morning, Mr Eustice. You have said that there will be more freedom for Scotland and that our committee has an important scrutiny role. The Scotland Act 1998 clearly states that protecting Scotland’s environment is a devolved matter and a core responsibility of the Scottish Government, yet your Government’s United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 has repeatedly prevented this Parliament and its committees from doing their job to protect our environment, from approving the introduction of GM crops to the UK market and from implementing a ban on plastic wet wipes. The 2020 act has allowed you to overrule us repeatedly. Why does your Government have such a blatant disregard for devolution?

Thank you. Perhaps somebody from the Wheatley group can comment.

Thank you very much. Mark Rodgers, do you have anything else that you want us to hear?

Thank you very much for those responses to the question about the challenges that you face, which also touched on some other areas.

It is great to hear your articulation of the new procurement, business and economic models. We have heard from this panel of witnesses and the previous one that the land issue underpins everything, so we must tackle that.

We will have to leave it there, for now. We have had another very useful conversation about affordable housing, which the committee is keen to continue pursuing. Thank you for joining us and sharing your perspectives.

I suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

Miles Briggs has some questions.

Roslyn Clarke and Donna Birrell, you do not need to come in on this question, but I want to make sure that you remember to put an R in the chat box when you want to come in—I know that, sometimes, it is difficult to respond to questions in a hybrid meeting.

I will ask two more questions. I am asking these ones because I represent the Highlands and Islands and I want to raise a lot of rural and island issues.

The Scottish Government is committed to developing a remote, rural and island plan. What do you think are the most important aspects to include in it?

The next item on our agenda is evidence on the regulations from Patrick Harvie, Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights, and from the Scottish Government officials David Blair, programme director on cladding remediation; Steven Scott, head of the technical unit for building standards; and Dr Stephen Garvin, head of building standards.

I welcome the minister and his supporting officials to the meeting. At last week’s meeting, we had an interesting discussion about the regulations with stakeholders in which we touched on a number of issues relating to fire safety in buildings more generally, along with challenges in respect of access to insurance. Members will be aware that, on Thursday 12 May, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government made a ministerial statement providing an update on the single building assessment programme.

Before I open up to questions from committee members, I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Thank you for your opening statement. I will begin by asking a few questions. Can you assure the committee that fire safety will be a key consideration in any Scottish Government programme to retrofit existing homes with insulation? What practical steps is the Scottish Government taking to ensure that new fire hazards are not being introduced to existing homes?

I have a question about direct emissions heating. What practical impact might the requirement to design and construct buildings with direct emissions heating systems that are capable of reducing the building’s energy demands have on the design and use of new homes?