Fergus Ewing: environmental laws must make sense for Highland households
Last week in Holyrood, the Scottish Government bowed to the inevitable. The climate change targets for 2030, which were always unachievable have now been scrapped.
Policies must surely be affordable and practical. Many of the ones that the Green Party want to introduce are neither. Many are sprung on an unsuspecting public, like the ban on wood stoves in new houses. Kate Forbes MSP has rightly spoken out against this ban on installing wood stoves in new homes. We have not infrequent power cuts here, and if there is no back-up to the electric powered heating systems we are being told to install, then surely people will be at serious risk? Especially the elderly, young children and those with illnesses.
It’s interesting that in Sweden you are not allowed to install a heat pump in a rural home without having a wood stove for this reason.
In environmentally friendly Sweden it’s illegal not to have a wood stove and in Scotland it will be illegal to install one!
Meanwhile in Norway it’s a requirement of civil emergency law to have secondary heating for when the electricity fails, usually wood burning.
This latest loopy law from the Greens in government must be opposed and binned, joining their madcap Deposit Return scheme, and hated Highly Protected Marine Area wheeze, and of course the Gender Reform law.
Meanwhile back in the real world, I am lost in admiration for the great work the real custodians of the countryside do - namely our farmers and crofters and land managers who have endured some of the worst weather ever for this time of year, with extensive flooding.
They just soldier on, and their work shows that they were the real environmentalists, long before the word was even coined!
TV programmes such as This Farming Life show just how hard they work and how devoted they are to looking after their livestock.
From heat crime to hate crime. People found not to have committed any crime may nonetheless have recorded against them something called a “non-crime hate incident”.
There is a secret process where a complainant who perceives himself to have been the subject of stirring up hatred can require the police to record an “incident” in an internal database.
The test is entirely subjective - which is ludicrous.
The “accused” is not informed; has therefore no right or even opportunity to defend himself; and will not be allowed to find out about it after the incident is marked in the secret database.
Most folks will see such an “incident” as a “black mark” and ask why is this information kept and what will it be used for?
This process has already been outlawed by a court in England, as it falls foul of ECHR which of course applies in Scotland too.
It’s a matter of time before it is outlawed here. Rightly so. Bring it on.
