RHODA GRANT: Help for off-grid homes won't be enough

Holyrood Notebook by Rhoda Grant

It is clear that we need investment to generate growth and we desperately need investment in infrastructure. From housing and broadband deployment to health and roads.

These are all issues that I have raised in parliament over the past couple of weeks. Either writing to Scottish Government ministers about the delays in the R100 broadband roll-out or being utterly dismayed at the response from the Cabinet Secretary on why they are delaying reviews into the patient travel reimbursement scheme, a scheme that is essential to people being forced to travel great distances to access healthcare.

At First Minister’s questions I was able to ask Nicola Sturgeon directly about putting in place home insulation to be fitted alongside the Scottish Government replacement boiler scheme. Sadly I got the standard response of ‘looking on an on-going basis at schemes’ and assured me the relevant minister would write to me.

Despite pointing out the urgency of this issue, I have still yet to hear from them. With fuel poverty on the rise we cannot delay until after the winter.

We have a new Prime Minister, new promises, new budget announcements and yet, the same false hopes and now even more dismal outlooks. There are still a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of details on policy announcements to come, yet the initial reaction seems that things have got a lot worse.

The fall of the pound against the dollar makes gas even more expensive. In contrast Labour will set up a state owned energy company to help people access affordable heat.

Following the announcement by the UK government of a discretionary fund for those who are not on standard gas or electricity contracts, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Jacob Rees-Mogg, seeking further details.

Sixty-three per cent of Highland homes are off gas grid. Many of those are in Caithness. The £100 additional funds being proposed does nothing to deal with the uncapped cost of oil and bottled gas – more households will be plunged into fuel poverty.

We know that those who live in the Highlands and Islands already face higher living costs. It was reported that remote parts of Scotland need to budget 10 to 33 per cent more for household costs than the national average. And as we listened to the UK government’s fiscal statement, the announcements made it clear, this is a government who like to help the rich get richer and shift the bill onto current and future taxpayers.

Whilst the SNP have joined with Labour calling for the UK government to do more, they are ignoring the significant powers they have in Scotland to act now. Scottish Labour has called for emergency legislation to be put before the Scottish Parliament to tackle the cost of living crisis, to include a temporary rent freeze and winter eviction ban, emergency reforms to debt legislation, a water rebate, and a business hardship fund.

The Scottish Government has said that it has already allocated the money in its reserves, but they have yet to be transparent in where and how this funding has been spent. One government is lacking detail on policy and another is murky on its budget breakdowns.

• Rhoda Grant is a Labour MSP for the Highlands and Islands.

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