Posted By: ArtiglioAll this from a government who’ve had more than a few issues building a couple of ferries. Which bit of cloud cuckoo land are they on.

I'll second that. Absolutely barking mad.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenthe electoral system sometimes allows minority parties to have a lot of influence

I am sure I read somewhere that Donald Dewer actually designed the system to prevent any party having an overall majority. Of course the political landscape has changed.

Any form of PR is highly likely to give the actual power to the fringe parties. It is happening all over Europe.

PR is not the silver bullet many people think it is.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenAll valid questions, which should be addressed to "Patrick Harvie MSP, Scotland’s minister for zero carbon buildings and co-leader of the Scottish Green Party."

Thanks, I've asked him.

Posted By: borpinDon't hold your breath.

Don't worry, I've had a reply already It tells me I used an email address intended only for matters concerning Glasgow residents, so not to expect an answer. I've sent it elsewhere, we'll see how efficient they are.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenYou could also try asking the same questions of the opposition MSP

Done, thanks.

The telegraph article relates to the mess the whole issue of increasing to a C is going to make of the private rented sector and though not mentioned the cost to the taxpayer of upgrading the social housing stock.
For the PRS the numbers are never going to add up and tenants are not going to stomach the rent rises such improvements will incur, the taxpayer is hardly going to be happy about stumping up umpteen billions to improve the homes of social tenants who’ll benefit from lower bills whilst at the same time be either unable / impoversihed or see the values of their homes greatly reduced if they don’t meet the targets.
It gets even more complicated if the assessment procedure is altered to reduce the advantage gas currently has, ( for me that would mean 9 flats that currently have EPC C likely dropping to a D or lower, the costs to attain a C using electricity in some form would mean i’d sell up as the losses from devalued property and the capital gains tax would be less painful than the work and investment needed to go electric , with no real prospect of recouping the outlay in any sensible time period).
I’d hazard a guess that around 25% at least of the current prs would go the same way. It remains to be seen if the corporate build to rent sector can or is willing to take up that slack, if they can then it renders whole swathes of housing worth way less than it otherwise would have been and that would affect the residential property market as awhole , plus affect the wider economy as people found themselves worse off.
There’s also an energy bill in parliament which alledgedly gives powers to criminalise those who don’t bring their homes to a legislated minimum, at least that’s what the alarmists say.
All this in a nation without a workforce or industries with sufficient skills , knowledge, quality and efficency to come anywhere close to meeting new housebuilding and retrofit targets by 203? even if there was the money to pay them.
I’d not be surprised to see both parties frantically back peddling in the run up to the next general election whilst trying to maintain a faint green hue.
Our leaders really do need to think before punching a hole in the hull before throwing paddle away.

The quest for met zero isn’t going to deal with the issues that generally revolve around the increases in the worlds population. My personal view is that the whole C02 global warming theory is far from proven and ventures into the realms of “we’re right because we believe we are and you can’t prove we’re not anymore than we can prove we are” too many vested interests have meant there is no real counter argument allowed.
As i ‘ve said before , fossil fuels are a finite resource with other uses than burning for energy and should be seen as such, moving to other energy sources is sensible ( again my view is that it should have been nuclear and happened 30 plus years ago), the net zero debate has become based on fear and dogma.
The nations householders don’t and won’t have 150 billion (ish) to follow the green dream, be that as cash in hand or ability to borrow , neither has the nation similar sums for social housing , let alone the sums required to rebuild the grid to cope with the amount of electricity it would need to collect and distribute.
That as a nation we’ve set ourselves daft targets in order to be some sort of global warming poster boy is laughable, the wider population is never going to accept the policies being dreamt up to get there, they’re going to be far more interested in the nhs , education , housing and earning enough to look after their families. .
A nation so fixated on a green dream, whilst it watches its electorate get ever fatter and unfitter to the extent that we have 5 million supported by the state ( woth the attendant costs and we’re told the need to bring in ever more people to provide labour ) has its priorities very mixed up.
That there are solutions and technologies to meet the goals i don’t dispute, but the pace of change planned is not sensible. The changes required are such that people need certainty over time periods of 20 years plus to make the investments required , in the absence of a binding cross party agreement and plan such certainty is never going to appear, the climate change act should have been the final part of the nations transition planning not the start.

The majority of my tenants don’t earn much more than minimum wage and are largley dependant on in work benefits, they live in properties that are C rated and well above the average social housing offering, alter the epc procedure and insist on electric heating and there’s no way they’ll be able to cover the rent increases incurred, let alone the issue of where do 4 households go whilst the work on each block is done.

Pretending local government or some other public body can oversee it all is a joke, my council can’t employ people that can read , write, use a calculator or question even the simplest of things to an acceptable standard ( at one point the had well over 100 properties in the councils housing stock without a gas safety cert).

There’s basically a huge gulf between what would be nice to have and our ability to achieve them.

Borpin, i’m no expert on the benefit system , only seeing how it affects the tenants i have and the many applicants that are rejected.
In short we have a system where if you’re a single parent and not adverse to a bit of petty crime, work cash in hand, have a disability benefit award,or ( common near me,)you have moved down from london where you have a council/ housing association property that you sublet, then going to work is just not worth it. Being on benefits triggers lots of other little extras, dental, eye tests, prescriptions, free school meals etc etc, plus effectively mean you’ll not prosecuted or if you are not to any real detriment if caught doing something you shouldn’t. You’ve only to look at the amount of shoplifting to see how some top up their incomes.
Then you have the next tier who are often 2 parent households, where 1 works between 16 and 25 hours , which again triggers all sorts of benefits, i had a couple who did this , the male worked in manual unskilled jobs had a bit of a temper/ attitiude and so moved from one job tovanother regularly, they left all their paperwork behind when they were given a council house, put their household income into a reverse tax calculator and they were on the equivalent of £42k a year ,the rent was £475 a month for a bit of perspective. So to come off benefits and work full time they’d have wanted £60k plus for basic manual work.
The problem we’ve created is that to get people off benefits you need to pay them enough to actually want to give up their time , over and above what they already earn, most want around £300 a week extra. But the going rate for a cash in hand labourer with local builders is £100 a day and you can turn up or not as you choose, local trades just can’t get casual workers.
We’ve created 2 groups , those that work and are self sufficient, those that play the system.
It all went wrong when our politicians decided that doing any work made you emplyed and not unemployed, the country should publish figures on the basis of “full time employed equivalent”, the answer would be horiffic.
I know someone that’s a manager in the DWP , they have terrible staff retention problems, a big turning point is when new staff are dealing with a claimant that takes home more in benefits than they do for a full time job. If they don’t leave then instead there are lots of sick days instead.
The other issue was encouraging employment on the back of cheap labour, the carwash analogy is the best , which benefits the country most,
an automated hi tech carwash that requires significant investment, a few trained technicians and operative who are well paid, all above board.
A hand carwash basedon an old forecourt , no planning permission, no waste control, lots of migrant employees who need the nations public services, cash in hand, dubious employment and accounting.

It’s another area of policy that has been a disaster and where there seems to be no will to change things. Another observation , give someone a council house/ social housing that’s within the Local Housing Allowance and surrounds someone with those adept at playing the system and there’s a good chance they’ll soon leave the workplace ( if they were ever in it)

I’ve had a couple of tenants over theyears who were determined to fend for themselves but had no skills and were limited to minimum wage work, they had and would still have no chance of having a decent life , joining the system is the ony way to get by at that end of the labour market.

How you square that circle is beyond me. Plus of course it all undermines the tax base which is plain to see in the nations month to month borrowing , which is why i have a very dim view of the costs politicians seem to think the electorate can be expected to meet.