Scottish social tenants cannot foot the bill for decarbonisation after heating bill scrapped, SFHA says

This week, acting net zero secretary Gillian Martin told MSPs that the draft of the bill, which had been drafted by the Scottish Greens and formed part of the Bute House Agreement, would no longer be put forward in its current form.

She claimed that it would “make people poorer”, the BBC reported. 

The government has been consulting on the bill, which would have banned fossil fuel heating in all homes by 2045 and brought in minimum efficiency standards for all homes by 2033 and private landlords by 2028.

The consultation closed last week. 

Sally Thomas, chief executive of the SFHA, said: “The decision to scrap the Heat in Buildings Bill casts huge uncertainty on how the Scottish government plans to decarbonise Scotland’s buildings, without requiring tenants to foot the bill. 

“But moreover, it is fundamentally a question about fairness: the Scottish government is currently requiring housing associations to invest billions of pounds in clean heating systems, but is not yet requiring the same financial sacrifices, or standards, for other types of housing. 

“The Scottish Housing Regulator estimates the cost of decarbonising Scotland’s social homes alone at £9bn – yet government has made less than 0.5% of this sum available to housing associations to achieve it.”

Ms Thomas said that the SHFA “wholeheartedly” supports the efforts to make homes more energy efficient and use clean sources of heat.

But she said it “cannot be funded through higher rents”.  

“The Scottish government needs to set out an approach to future clean heating standards which levels the playing field across all types of homes. It is untenable to expect social housing to decarbonise alone without the funding to do so,” Ms Thomas added. 

A Scottish government spokesperson said: “The cabinet secretary has set out that we are considering all of the issues raised in response to our consultation and the need to ensure that any proposed interventions will help reduce fuel poverty. 

“We will confirm next steps as soon as practicable.”