SMITH CALLS FOR £100 MILLION ENERGY EFFICIENCY BOOST

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 1st Oct 2009

North East Fife MSP and convener of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee Iain Smith challenged the Scottish Government to increase its spending on energy efficiency by £100 million a year.

Mr Smith spoke out in the Scottish Parliament during a debate yesterday (Wednesday) on a report put forward by the committee he convenes.

The report suggests that the Scottish Government should be making a concerted effort to tackle energy efficiency, and the best means of doing so would be by increasing spending by £100 million a year.

Speaking on behalf of the committee Mr Smith said:

"The committee recommends that the Scottish Government should consider increasing spending by something in the order of £100 million per year on an area-based and targeted energy efficiency programme that is designed to tackle fuel poverty and reduce energy demand."

He added:

"It is not acceptable or sustainable for 65 per cent of the energy that we use in electricity generation simply to go up the chimney in waste heat. If we are to create an environmentally sustainable energy system, we must look critically at our centralised generation system that creates such waste."

Mr Smith also attacked the 'complacency' of the SNP government in dealing with energy efficiency matters, stating that;

"In short we need a little less complacency from the Scottish Government, and fewer we-are-doing-it-all-already responses. If we believed that the Government was doing it all ready, we would not have needed to make recommendations for change."