The Scottish Heat in Buildings Bill needs to be amended to reflect reality, according to DJ Alexander Ltd, the largest lettings and estate agency in Scotland.

DJ Alexander said the recent report by the Just Transition Commission (JTC) highlighted a reality gap between the established targets and the progress toward meeting them.

The report, entitled ‘Investment for a just transition: a starting point’ stated that “we need to get real about costs. The Scottish Government has estimated £33bn is needed to decarbonise Scotland’s homes and buildings. 

“We have approximately 2.6 million homes and 230,000 non-domestic buildings, so if you do the basic maths, that’s about £11.5k/building. That might just about cover the installation cost of a heat pump in an easy-to-treat property. To meet the tougher end of the net zero objectives, we’ll need likely four times that investment, so circa £45k/building to do it once and do it properly. Which is more like £130bn, not £33bn. So, we need to get really serious about the costs of achieving Net Zero, who’s going to pay, and how.”

David Alexander, the chief executive officer of DJ Alexander Scotland, commented: “The Heat in Buildings bill has already outlined deadlines which are for all homes and businesses to move to a clean heating system by the end of 2045. People buying new homes and buildings before 2045 will be asked to move to a clean heating system within a set period after the sale.

“For homeowners and landlords, the targets remain too ambitious and impossible to meet given the funding and infrastructure currently available. The targets are for minimum energy efficiency standards for all homes by the end of 2033, to make them warmer and less expensive to heat while private landlords would need to do this by the end of 2028. This strategy has a commitment of £1.8bn to 2026 to support delivery of this strategy.”

Alexander continued: “We can see that there is little connection between the aims and the reality. A commitment of £1.8bn over the next two years to meet a potential bill of £130bn by 2045 highlights just how unachievable any of these targets are. With 28,000 people needing to be trained to do this work and little sign of any major investment in ensuring these skills are available, the gap between ambition and reality remains enormous. 

“The JTC report states that ‘we are not training enough people to meet the current demand, never mind this scaled-up demand that’s coming.

“The current Scottish Government ambition is to decarbonise at least one million homes by 2030 which is 166,000 per year, or around 614 per day. They are currently installing around 5,000 zero carbon heating systems per year so around 30 times more installations are required to meet the target.”

Alexander concluded: “What we have here is a damning appraisal of the current decarbonising policy, which is never going to achieve its targets, is still not training enough people to implement the required work and is underfunded by tens of billions of pounds. 

“A major revision of the Heat in Scotland Bill is immediately required which will set realistic targets (at least five years further on than currently planned), ensure that the private rented sector is not damaged by unrealistic and nonsensical deadlines for which there is neither the workforce nor the funding to secure, and introduce a workable, negotiated policy with the housing sector which will decarbonise homes in a timely, achievable way with joint funding from public and private resources. 

“Anything else is simply wishful thinking dressed up as government policy.”