The missing £11m that persuaded Greens to hold out against SNP

Published on Friday 30 January 2009 21:21

THE deal-breaker on Wednesday was just £11 million in a Budget of £33 billion.

It was the difference between the 22 million guaranteed by John Swinney, the SNP finance secretary, for a "free insulation for every household" scheme and the 33 million demanded by the Greens as their bottom line.

In the dying minutes of the Budget debate, Mr Swinney offered to get the 11 million from social partners, but this was too vague for the two Green MSPs whose votes then brought the Budget down.

Initially the Greens wanted 1 billion to fund the scheme to provide free insulation for 1.8 million households.

Under their proposal, 100 million would be spent every year for the next decade providing loft and cavity insulation for the homes in Scotland that needed it.

They saw this as a fair balance for them supporting a Budget with road-building projects such as the M74 extension.

They put this forward to the SNP in early October and were hopeful of getting the full or near to the full amount when in November both the SNP and Labour backed it in a meaningless vote in Holyrood.

The scheme was developed by Green councillors in West Yorkshire and the Scottish Greens' figures were based on the reduced costs achieved there.

The Greens claimed that every household in Scotland would save 340 a year in energy costs for a one-off insulation cost to the Scottish Government of about 500 per home. There would be a carbon emission reduction of 6 per cent in Scotland from this measure alone.

Their second demand was to provide home renewable energy devices, such as windmills and solar panels, under a loan scheme where the Scottish Government or local councils would take part- ownership to meet the costs.

This would also be the means of paying for difficult-to- insulate homes – about 20 per cent of the total in Scotland.

If they had got this, it would have been the biggest achievement by any Green Party in the world and many experts thought it was a good idea.

The scheme was warmly welcomed by the Scottish Building Federation, whose members have been suffering in the recession as work has dried up and thousands of jobs have been lost.

The federation's chief executive, Michael Levack, put out a supporting statement declaring that it was "precisely the sort of scheme needed in the current economic climate".

Environmentalists backed the scheme because it would tackle the carbon footprint of households and seriously reduce emissions in Scotland. And economists were impressed by the way the scheme could help tackle the recession.

Professor Brian Ashcroft, from Strathclyde University, said: "While there is always the caveat of how much money is available in the budget, it is hard to see anything wrong with the idea."

Yesterday the Greens formally resumed negotiations with Alex Salmond, the First Minister, for the first time since Mr Harvie had been ushered out of the chamber to hold discussions in the corridors of Holyrood in a bid to strike a last-minute deal.

In a statement afterwards, Mr Harvie said: "The meeting did not finalise an agreement, but it looks like one will be possible."