Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 22 November 2018.
Paul Wheelhouse
Scottish National Party
I would direct Mr Rowley to engage with my colleague Kevin Stewart on issues regarding the Fuel Poverty bill.
On the issue that he raised around cost, perhaps with regard to the local heat and energy efficiency strategies, we recognise that this is potentially a new responsibility that will fall on our partners in local government, and we are keen to have a dialogue. We want to have a genuine discussion with local authorities about resource implications and the balance between central and local resources that is required. Smaller local authorities face greater challenges in delivering new functions and we will obviously take that into account in deciding what structures are in place for energy efficient Scotland and how we jointly govern that.
A household is said to be in fuel poverty when its members cannot afford to keep adequately warm at reasonable cost, given their income.