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If National Grid provides the capacity, including the planning capacity, for all the projects to be delivered by 2030, that is when the generation will happen by. If National Grid does not provide the capacity by then, the projects will not be able to be connected by that point. You do not build a wind farm without a connection.

The principal source of advice for energy efficiency and energy issues in Scotland that the Scottish Government supports is Home Energy Scotland. It provides advice and guidance, as well as loans for certain programmes around energy efficiency and renewable energy schemes for people’s properties. It is the principal source of advice and information for assistance in Scotland. Alongside that, we have the warmer homes Scotland programme, which is taken forward in partnership with our colleagues in local government.

At present, there is an increasing demand for information on energy efficiency programmes and advice around heating bills. That is why we have increased the scope of the Home Energy Scotland programme by 20 per cent. There is also a bespoke programme for the most vulnerable people, which has been doubled in size to help support the provision of advice and information.

There is a clear existing arrangement for people to get impartial advice and information. However, I am always willing to look at whether there are ways to improve that arrangement or whether we should further expand it. If there are specific examples of people being left confused or unclear about where they should go to, we can look at how we ensure that we are communicating much more effectively. As I said, there is a bespoke service to which people can turn for advice and information.

You are right to say that tackling fuel poverty is a devolved matter, but many of the factors that influence it are reserved—

Yes, I do, and it was a positive move to start doing it every two years rather than every year. CFD is not specific to the UK. The Netherlands, Germany and some other countries all use CFD processes. It is not, therefore, unique to the UK. It is a mechanism that helps to get things to the market.

The point that I was making about hydro, however, was that there is no mechanism for hydro. If you wanted to build Cruachan 2 today, you would not have a route to market because BEIS has to create such a mechanism. There are projects that could be developed and go forward with billions of pounds of investment to produce several gigawatts of capacity and create thousands of jobs, but they are waiting for a mechanism to be created that will allow them to start moving.

That is frustrating, if we are clear—and I believe that the UK Government is clear—that we will have to deal with the energy crisis in the long term by decarbonising our energy system and putting a greater focus on renewables. The UK energy secretary said that and I completely agree with him. However, when your renewables projects are quite literally fossilising because they cannot get a route to market, there is something wrong. That is why we have been raising the issue with the UK Government. Those projects could create energy capacity, renewable capacity, jobs and economic benefit, and we should be getting on with them now. That is the kind of action that needs to be accelerated.

Nuclear will not be reducing energy bills any time soon. For a start, such projects take a long time to be developed. You just have to look at Hinkley Point C, which is behind schedule and about £5 billion over budget. Given the subsidy costs that nuclear requires, it is likely to force up bills—I think that the estimate is an extra £40 on folks’ bills.

Nuclear energy is one of the most expensive forms of energy that can be produced. Just last week, Kwasi Kwarteng, the energy secretary in the UK Government, acknowledged that there is a risk of nuclear pushing up bills, even in the short term. Therefore, I think that it is the wrong approach. In fact, we can see other countries in Europe moving out of nuclear. For example, Germany will be closing its last reactor this year, and it is very clear that its strategy is to focus on renewables.

Our approach to nuclear energy is not ideological. Greg Hands has said that to me before, and it has been pointed out to him that that is wrong. In our energy strategy back in 2017, we set out the principles of why we do not support nuclear energy. In Scotland, we think that the best approach is to focus on renewables and that pump storage, hydro and battery storage capacity are the ways in which we can tackle our future energy needs.

We know that onshore and offshore wind are significantly cheaper and produce significantly lower-cost energy, and we also know that, by and large, hydro produces more lower-cost energy. In Scotland, we have a number of schemes that could be taken forward; however, there are frustrations in that respect. I would highlight as an example the 600MW facility Cruachan 2, which is being planned by Drax and which I visited last year. The problem is that Drax cannot take it to the market, because the UK Government has not provided the market mechanism to get it into the grid. It is an investment of more than £1.5 billion, potentially involving about 900 jobs, and it would also have the on-going benefit of being a renewable energy source, but it does not have a route to market.

The same applies to SSE and some of its plans around hydro. Just a fortnight ago, I visited the scheme at Sloy, which SSE is looking to expand and develop. Again, there are limitations due to the lack of a market mechanism from the UK Government, and the situation is quite frustrating.

If you look at the countries with the lowest energy costs in the world—Norway and Canada—their biggest energy source is hydro and pump storage. More than 90 per cent of Norway’s energy comes from that source, while, in Canada, the figure is 60 per cent. Our view is that the best approach for delivering energy security and lower-cost energy supplies in Scotland in the future is through renewable energy projects, whether they be onshore, offshore, solar, hydro, pump storage or battery storage. We should focus on them for our future energy needs. The UK Government has got it seriously wrong in its energy security strategy, because it focuses too much on nuclear, which could actually maintain energy prices at higher levels than they should be at or could potentially increase them.

Did you say 1930?

As I have said previously at committee, our priority is to move towards a public energy agency company in Scotland, which is a piece of work that we are taking forward at present. That has not changed. Nonetheless, it remains our view—and my view—that, in order to operate an effective public energy agency company, we would require to be able to enter not only the retail market but the energy generation market, and to control aspects of the grid network. As it stands, we do not have that power.

My view is that the best way in which we can deliver a public energy agency company in Scotland that can do all those things is through Scotland being a normal independent country. That would involve our taking responsibility for these matters and being able to borrow the capital needed to invest in those types of projects, in the exact same way that many other countries in the Scandinavian region of Europe have been able to do in recent years. Some of those countries are now investing in Scottish renewable energy projects, because they have been able to secure the capital necessary to enable them to do so.

The proposal still has merit, but to do it effectively and properly, we would require all the powers that we need with regard to energy. We also need the borrowing powers that are necessary to deliver the type of investment required to create renewable energy projects. Beyond that, our priority is the agency, as I have set out previously.

One of the purposes of the energy insecurity fund is to support some of the most vulnerable households, particularly those that are on prepayment meters. We provide some of that funding to the Fuel Bank Foundation, which supports vulnerable people on prepayment meters, I think, to reduce the risk, including by making available same-day money to stop people from self-disconnecting. There is no doubt in my mind that, across the UK, thousands if not millions of households on prepayment meters will find themselves thinking about self-disconnecting because they just cannot load up their meters. For that reason, we need to do more throughout the UK to meet the needs of people who are experiencing fuel insecurity.

Our £10 million fund is designed specifically to help to meet the needs of those households, but there is no doubt that households across the whole of the UK face the same problems. Much more needs to be done to meet the challenges that those households face.

We used to have gas storage capacity, but when the sector was privatised, it was all got rid of. Interestingly, some European countries are putting in gas storage capacity. Germany is doing that, and the Netherlands might be doing the same, with a view to future proofing in relation to hydrogen.

As things stand, as I understand it, gas production in the UK basins is already at capacity. There is no residual or spare capacity to produce more, and it would probably take several years to bring additional capacity in from other fields. That would not help us in the here and now.

Even though there is additional gas in the UK sector at the moment, gas is traded on the international markets and it is those markets that determine the price. At times, we bring in gas from Norway and we also export some to mainland Europe. It is all traded—-it is a commodity that is traded internationally. The price of gas is set by the international wholesale price.

Even if we could bring on 50 per cent extra capacity in the UK sector, that would not have much of an effect on the international markets, because the UK sector is too small a part of the international sector. At the same time, the price will be determined by the international markets that trade in it.

We are not seeing the benefit of the additional gas that we have in the UK at the moment because gas is a commodity that is traded internationally, and the price is set by the international wholesale price.

I am happy to take the matter away and look at whether there is a way of capturing that information. We have the rurality aspect, so we know that those in rural communities are at greater risk, but as I have said, I am happy to take the issue away and see whether we can do something.