Hard-pressed folk need a long-term energy solution

FAR too many of the discussions I hear about the increases in electricity and gas prices fail to get past populist posturing.

Ed Miliband wants to cap fuel bills for 20 months if his party is ever elected at Westminster and PM David Cameron retorts that the “green subsidies” will be cut by 2017.

Neither offers hard-pressed consumers a long-term solution or certainty they can keep warm this winter. Neither spells out the mess Labour and the Tory/Lib Dem coalition in turn have made of failing to explain rocketing prices due to scarce gas supplies or how to tackle climate change.

Graphs in the media show the rocketing costs of fossil fuels but have often quite deliberately included the tiny green energy proportion of our utility bills.

Take the SSE 8.2 per cent price increase due on November 15 which was roundly condemned as the first of the “Big Six” making price demands as we switch on our heating for winter.

Yet its flyer showed eight per cent of the total bills are for energy efficiency schemes, low carbon energy development and help for vulnerable customers, while 52 per cent of your bill is for buying energy for SSE customers in “volatile global markets”.

So what can be done? Energy policy is reserved to Westminster. Green energy, climate change and social policies make up nine per cent of the average household fuel bill of £1267 this year. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in London says this will rise to 21.5 per cent of energy costs attributable to green measures by 2020 when bills are expected to be £1331.

But here’s the rub, without the green investment in wind, wave and tidal power plus insulation and energy saving, the bill would be £1496 in 2020.

Meanwhile, the Scottish consensus is to get close to 100 per cent of electricity supply by renewables in 2020. SNP, Labour and the Lib Dems all agreed tothis in their 2011 election manifestos. You can see why the SNP Government is frustrated by the misleading messages from Westminster leaders. Renewables need certainty for early and sustained investment to get stable lower prices for five to seven years’ time.

To address this winter’s problems for colder, wetter Scotland, the Scottish Government has announced a new national campaign which will make sure households know what energy initiatives they are entitled to. Our budget of £74 million this year will help Scots reduce their fuel bills and transform Scotland’s housing stock into warmer, more efficient, greener homes – all part of actions to increase energy efficiency and tackle fuel poverty in 2013/14.

Housing and welfare minister Margaret Burgess said recently: “Unlike the UK Government, which has scrapped fuel poverty funding in England, the Scottish Government believes it is important to provide this type of funding, which is why we are committing almost a quarter of a billion pounds to it in a three-year period.”

I welcome Scotland’s expert commission on energy regulation which is looking at how to improve Scotland’s stewardship of electricity and gas regulation in an independent Scotland. The Scottish Government has already delivered the council tax freeze which will have saved the average household around £1200 by the end of this parliament. However, we need the full powers of independence to tackle all the causes of fuel poverty.

“SCOTTISH schoolchildren are being taught to sing pro-independence songs as well as trade union and anti-nuclear anthems,” screamed the Sunday Express last weekend.

It went on: “The quango Education Scotland is promoting a number of modern politically-biased songs for primary and secondary pupils under ‘Freedom and Scots people’.”

I took a look at the Scotland’s Songs website which “enables learners and practitioners to listen to and discover the different types of Scottish song in English, Scots and Gaelic. Examples of topics include heroes and villains, family life, love and freedom. Information about the different types of traditional Scottish instruments is included as well as lyrics and song notation for many of the songs.”

Astonished Scottish Tory education spokesperson Mary Scanlon MSP told the Express: “The SNP is abusing the education system to promote its own separation propaganda. It should be up to teachers to use the material they choose.”

I’ve got news for Mary – this website is three years old. Pity the Tory who knows so little of Scots music. The point is the aim of this resource is to help pupils learn about the long and rich tradition of Scottish music, which is still alive across the nation.

The Express pointed to “The Freedom Come All Ye”, by the late Scots poet Hamish Henderson. The tabloid claimed it is regarded as the unofficial anthem of the independence movement and was recently sung en masse at the Yes Scotland rally on Calton Hill. It is an international anthem as its creator intended.

I was in that Calton Hill choir. We also sang “A Man’s A Man For A That” – as a joyous affirmation of Scottish culture free from prejudice and full of hope for the future. Caithness’s own Nancy Nicolson has her song “Who Pays the Piper” included in the list. It commemorates the Piper Alpha disaster.

On another tack, I wonder if Mary knows the meaning of the nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary”? Do English kids in English schools get banned from singing their songs?

Our children must not be denied Scottish songs in their education and their teachers can decide what songs and tunes and languages to use in the classroom. The website helps them choose. And to quote Hamish Henderson on the doubters – “never heed whit the hoodies croak for doom”.

rob.gibson.msp@scottish.parliament.uk

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