Scottish Building Federation (SBF) Chief Executive, Michael Levack, has urged MSPs to set aside more cash from next year’s Scottish budget to make Scotland’s homes and office buildings more energy efficient.

Mr Levack gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Energy and Tourism committee yesterday as MSPs begian to debate the details of the Scottish government’s draft Scottish budget for 2010-11, published on the 17th September.

The Chief Executive underlined the strain currently being suffered by the Scottish building industry, citing the 8,500 jobs lost from the sector since the beginning of the year, identified by the SBF in a recent survey of its membership.

-- Advertisement --

But he also argued that, to deliver on ambitious long term goals for significant reductions in carbon emissions in Scotland, more funding should be made available to help businesses and homeowners make the country’s existing building stock more energy efficient.

Commenting after the evidence session, Mr. Levack said: "With half of all our carbon emissions coming from building use, I fail to see how Scottish Ministers and MSPs can possibly hope to deliver the ambitious targets they’ve set if they don’t invest more money in making Scotland’s building stock more energy efficient.

"And as our industry continues to suffer from a lack of private sector investment, a comprehensive 'cash for lagging' scheme would help to support experienced tradesmen and the thousands of apprentices the building industry employs through these difficult times."

(GK/KMcA)