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The Scottish Government, through Home Energy Scotland (HES), already provides free, impartial advice to households both on and off the gas grid on how to decarbonise the energy supply of their homes. This includes a specialist home renewables advice service.

Through the Home Energy Scotland (HES) loan and cashback scheme, we provide interest-free loans of up to £17,500 for renewable measures with an additional 75%, up to £7500 cashback for homeowners to replace fossil fuel heating systems with renewable heating systems.

All households can also access support through the Green Homes Network which allows them to learn from the experience of others who have already installed measures, and the Renewable Installer Finder Tool which helps identify installers and suppliers in their area.

Some owner-occupiers may also be eligible for support via our fully-funded national energy efficiency/fuel poverty scheme - Warmer Homes Scotland – which is providing increasing numbers of renewable heating systems particularly to off-gas grid homes.

These Scottish Government-funded advice and support schemes can be accessed through Home Energy Scotland, run by the Energy Saving Trust.

On the 22 December 2020, the Scottish Government published research that assessed the suitability of low carbon heating technologies in residential buildings in Scotland. It found that, of the 507,000 homes off-the gas network, 402,000 would be suitable for some form of heat pump. (See Table 1)

Table 1: Number of homes located away from the gas grid, by suitability for heat pump technologies 1

The Scottish Government, through Home Energy Scotland (HES), already provides free, impartial advice to households both on and off the gas grid on how to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.

Additionally, through the Home Energy Scotland (HES) loan and cashback scheme, we provide interest-free loans of up to £15,000 with an additional 40% cashback up to a total value of £6,000, for homeowners to install energy efficiency measures in order to improve the EPC rating of their property.

Some owner-occupiers may also be eligible for support via our fully-funded energy efficiency/fuel poverty schemes – Warmer Homes Scotland or the local authority Area-Based Schemes.

All these Scottish Government-funded advice and support schemes can be accessed through Home Energy Scotland, run by the Energy Saving Trust.

Oil and gas workers returning from work overseas are not eligible for the exemption for offshore work on the UK continental shelf, and must comply with rules for international travel depending on the risk assessment of the country they have travelled from and their own residence and vaccination status. Travellers from green list countries and eligible fully vaccinated travellers from amber list countries are not required to isolate on arrival in Scotland. Other travellers from amber list countries must isolate at home or in their own accommodation. As the answer to question S6W-00963 set out, there is no exemption for offshore workers travelling from red list countries who must isolate in a designated managed isolation hotel. Therefore, offshore workers returning from work overseas will either not be required to isolate or will isolate at home unless they have travelled from a red list country.

Exemptions from managed isolation for essential activity related to supply chains, UK critical infrastructure and international obligations were considered prior to introduction of the policy on 15 February 2021 and have been reviewed regularly throughout. Quarantine arrangements for offshore workers are the same across the UK.

Prior to the national change in policy on international travel restrictions on 17 May, discussions on the scope of the exemption for offshore workers took place with sector bodies and delivery partners including Oil and Gas UK and the UK Border Force. This resulted in an amendment to regulations effective from 25 February 2021 to permit isolation at home for workers returning from offshore activity in the Exclusive Economic Zone of other countries in the North Sea. This provision was superseded by the introduction of the red, amber and green lists for risk assessment, as all arrivals from amber list countries were required to isolate at home.

No change to policy is being considered in relation to managed quarantine for oil and gas workers returning from work overseas, which applies only to arrivals from red list countries, and therefore no further engagement is planned on that question. Maintaining the highest level of protection for red list countries where variants of concern are known or assessed to be in community transmission is essential to guard against importation of variants of the virus with antibody resistance characteristics that could undermine progress made through vaccination programmes in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK.

Our Energy Strategy, published in 2017, reiterated the Scottish Government’s continued opposition to new nuclear stations based on current technologies, and our determination instead to continue developing Scotland’s huge renewable resource while also promoting storage and energy efficiency.

The Strategy made clear our awareness of new technologies, such as Small Modular Reactors, and our duty to assess them as required. In the meantime, however, this particular technology remains unproven, and there are no plans or propositions for its development in Scotland.

The draft Heat in Buildings Strategy sets out that the Scottish Government will legislate to require the installation of zero emissions heating systems in existing buildings, subject to the Scottish Parliament having devolved competence to do so.

The draft Strategy proposes that such legislation would begin to take effect from 2025, with the intention that all building owners are regulated to meet the requirement for zero emissions heating by 2045.

The exact phasing and operation of the proposed regulations is still to be determined, but as set out in the draft Strategy, and where within competence , could include requiring certain buildings to install zero emissions heating systems earlier than 2045. This may include those buildings using high emissions fuels (which are more prevalent in off-gas grid areas), or those buildings which reach a natural trigger point (such as the replacement of an existing fossil fuel heating system).

The Scottish Government plans to consult on detailed proposals on this issue in 2022.

The following data was collected via energy performance certificates (EPCs) submitted for all new build completions in Scotland since 2016. This indicative data is based on analysis of new build EPC records lodged on the EPC register between Q1 2016 and Q4 2020. A total of 92,900 EPC records were analysed.

Numbers in the tables have been rounded to the nearest ten. This is the best currently available data:

The most recent data published by the Scottish Government show that the forestry estate in Scotland currently removes over 6MtCO ₂ annually. These removals are net of any CO ₂ emissions from forestry operations and forest soils.

Scottish Forestry has commissioned further research to provide the latest quantitative evidence on these impacts for different types of woodland. This research will be released later in 2021. Preliminary results show that emissions from forest operations are very low compared to removals as trees grow.

The Scottish Government looks forward to a successful COP26 in November that delivers increased global ambition to net zero in a way that is fair and just. Scottish Ministers have engaged widely on COP26, and will continue to do so in the run up to, during and after the conference.

Between 1 January 2020 and 20 July 2021, all Scottish Ministers (excluding the First Minister) attended a total of 36 meetings in relation to COP26. Between 1 January 2020 and 28 July 2021, the First Minister attended 4 meetings in relation to COP26. The majority of meetings included in these figures are external engagements, including meetings between the previous Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change And Land Reform Ms. Cunningham and the UK Government. Whilst meetings referenced here include those with COP26 as a specified focus of the engagement, a significant amount of climate- related Ministerial meetings since Glasgow was announced as the COP26 host city are likely to have included discussions of COP26 to some extent.

As of 20 July 2021, the First Minister had 3 meetings arranged in the run up to COP26 (31 October 2021), and the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport had 15 meetings planned. It is not currently possible to specify the exact number of meetings all ministers have arranged to take place in the lead up to and during the course of COP26. This is because the number of meetings is continuously rising, as an increasing volume of requests for ministerial involvement are received. Scottish Ministers are committed to maximising the opportunities of COP26, before, during and after the conference.