MSP beams down bright idea for Holyrood to save energy

A SENIOR MSP wants to turn off the lights at committee meetings to help cut carbon emissions from the Scottish Parliament.

Tory Alex Johnstone claimed the large windows in Holyrood's committee rooms let in enough natural light to justify switching off the electric ones.

He said it was just such simple and apparently small gestures that could make a major contribution to energy efficiency.

Earlier this year the parliament published figures showing that it is on course to meet its target of cutting energy use by eight per cent by 2009.

It has slashed carbon emissions from the Holyrood building by an impressive 76 tonnes by switching to electricity from 100 per cent renewable resources.

Mr Johnstone, who sits on the cross-party Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB), which supervises the running of the building, praised the work being done to save energy.

But he recalled a thermal imaging survey of the parliament which revealed significant heat loss from the building.

He said: "The parliament's record on energy efficiency was not good in the early years, and that gives great scope for improvement. It is encouraging to see improvements are being made – but there is still a lot to be done.

"What often makes the difference is what individuals choose to do on a small scale.

"In the committee rooms, for example, we could work without lights a lot of the time. That's the kind of simple approach that delivers results."

Holyrood has six committee rooms. One alone has nearly 80 spot lamps in the ceiling to light up the main part of the room.

Mr Johnstone said: "In the top floor committee rooms, sometimes you are dazzled with the light coming in. Even Committee Room One, although it's buried in the bowels of the building, does have a high window that lets in good light.

"The opportunity is there to allow natural light to do the job of electric light when it can."

The parliament is about to embark on a programme of replacing existing tungsten lightbulbs with energy-saving lamps, which it says will reduce electricity consumption by 25 per cent.

Mr Johnstone said attitudes had changed even in the few years since the building was designed.

"We know there are huge energy-efficiency problems in the construction of the building, including the fact that energy seems to leak through the roof," he said.

"If we were putting up a building today, energy-efficient lighting would be built into the plans, but that was not the first thing that came to people's minds."

Edinburgh South Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Pringle, who is also on the SPCB, backed Mr Johnstone's call to switch off the lights in committee rooms.

He said: "We all need to be far more concerned about energy-saving. It might be different at this time of year, when it can be a bit gloomy, but a lot of the time there's light streaming into the committee rooms through these big windows, and there's no need at all for the lights to be on."