Rules under fire

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Almost half of the £1.8 billion of low-carbon capital investment announced in the Scottish Government’s draft budget is already being spent on existing projects, the Greens have claimed.

Mark Ruskell MSP asked the new Finance Secretary Kate Forbes about the announcement at a meeting of the Climate Change Committee yesterday, which he said was equivalent to “standing still”.

The Scottish Government announced an increase of £500 million to produce low-carbon infrastructure over the next year, taking the total to £1.8 billion.

A letter sent to the committee by Ms Forbes in her former capacity as public finance minister outlining each line of spending – low, medium or high-carbon investments – showed £894m for the ScotRail franchise, rail infrastructure, ferries, canals and the Ferguson Marine shipyard.

All of the previous commitments were classed as “low carbon” .

During the hearing, Mr Ruskell said: “Looking through that list of projects, over half of those are about existing contracts.

“So ScotRail contracts, keeping the trains running, canals, ferries - these are existing commitments that the Government has already got.

“Do any of those actually reduce emissions? Are they bringing additional reduction in emissions?”

Ms Forbes replied: “Yes there is additional funding there to invest in new projects.

“While the projects that you may have mentioned there may be existing, the point I made in my statement is that £500 million more is being spent on low-carbon infrastructure than had been spent the previous year.

“That demonstrates a significant increase in lowcarbon spend.”

Ms Forbes added that the budged had stepped up investment in low-carbon infrastructure.

But Mr Ruskell added: “Some of this is about standing still. No one is suggesting that we shut the railways...I’m just trying to understand where is the evidence of carbon reduction that is driving that policy?”

Responding, Ms Forbes said there was a “significant increase” in low carbon infrastructure, but admitted there wasn’t “an unlimited supply of money”.