Official Report 579KB pdf
The next item gives us an opportunity to take evidence from the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Roseanna Cunningham, on two documents: “Public Bodies Climate Change Duties: Putting Them Into Practice” and “A Low Carbon Economic Strategy for Scotland”. I welcome the minister and her accompanying officials. James Johnston is policy adviser on energy markets in the directorate for energy and climate change; Kathleen Robertson is team leader for energy efficiency and low-carbon economy; Jenny Brough is team leader for public bodies’ climate change duties in the local government outcomes and partnerships division—I hope that that all fits on one business card; and Bob Irvine is deputy director, Scottish Water and climate change.
Thank you for the invitation, convener. Because we are covering two documents, my remarks are a minute or two longer than the five minutes that I would normally keep them to. It is hard to get everything into one, very short opening statement.
That is fine. Thank you, minister. Let us set the scene a little further. You mentioned the decarbonisation of electricity generation in your remarks on the low-carbon economic strategy. That is one of the various targets that are reaffirmed by the strategy, which also covers the decarbonisation of heat, road transport and rail in addition to other issues. What are the trends in Scotland on those other aspects? You mentioned the expansion of renewables, but where do we stand on the other targets?
Renewable heat capacity is about 1.4 per cent of generation—we are coming from a good bit further back in some areas. That figure will be updated by the end of March, when we expect it to be about 3 per cent, so it is improving. Of course, the intention is to meet a renewable heat target of 11 per cent by 2020. The progress that we look as if we are beginning to make should take us to the overall target for 2020.
Notwithstanding the recession, emissions from road transport have increased. The issue is not just about suddenly convincing everybody that electric vehicles are the next big thing to buy but about recognising that a substantial proportion of conventional high-carbon vehicles will be on the roads for some time to come. What must we do to reverse the trend on road transport emissions and reduce those emissions, before every car is electric?
I do not suppose that we can afford to wait until every car is electric. In any case, that will probably never happen, because it would be impractical in big chunks of rural Scotland, unless the technology changed considerably.
I presume that the Government still intends to try to achieve its target without harder demand-management measures.
As you know, our current intention is to try to achieve as much as we can by taking people with us voluntarily. However, if at some point in the future we decide that that approach is not achieving what we want it to achieve, there is always the capacity to look again at a more directed way of handling the issue.
What is your response to the view expressed by the Sustainable Development Commission in its most recent assessment report that the Government could be doing more to articulate to business and to society in general the vision of a sustainable economy? I am thinking about the issue in the context of an aspect of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 that has not kicked in yet: the duty to begin some kind of reporting mechanism on consumption-based emissions. The economic strategy focuses clearly on the direct source of emissions, but it does not start to address what a low-carbon economy would be once we start thinking about consumption-based emissions.
First, we have to remind ourselves that the strategy is not a once-and-for-all document that is written in concrete for ever and anon. It will be a dynamic process. Some of the things that we expect to or anticipate may happen in the future will be wrapped into that process.
I have a follow-up question on the point that you made about motor vehicles. Obviously, the more quickly that we can move towards having a large percentage of vehicles that are electric, the better. Has the Government had any direct conversations with motor vehicle manufacturers to understand what their plans are for the roll-out of mainstream models that would attract public attention? There is a double benefit in this for Scotland: because it is one of the major manufacturers of the lithium batteries that power electric vehicles, it would benefit the economy not only in a carbon sense but in a general sense if we could encourage rapid development of such vehicles.
I hesitate to tiptoe into the portfolio area of one of my colleagues. I indicated that a low-carbon vehicle action plan was about to be published, but that is being taken forward through the transport side of things. I am afraid that I cannot tell you at this stage what meetings have been held on the matter, but I can undertake to find out that information for you and we can communicate with the committee directly on the question.
I will explore issues around investment. The low-carbon economic strategy highlights the significant challenge of the funding that is required to develop low-carbon technologies. Can you share with us any new actions in the strategy that are now underpinned by funding under the budget that we recently passed?
We have recently announced the £70 million national renewables infrastructure fund, which is one of the big commitments that we are making.
Are you confident that we can move forward? Will the 2020 group help to facilitate the partnership between Government and the private sector?
Yes. It is already doing precisely that. Shortly after I had a meeting with Ian Marchant from the 2020 group, I had a meeting in the same building with the convener of the UK Committee on Climate Change, who was up here to have a meeting with Ian Marchant. We are beginning to see networks permeating throughout the private sector and moving into the public sector and back again. It would be interesting to map that, but I suspect that it would be a complex exercise because the communications are fast moving.
I look forward to reading it when it comes out.
Sorry.
No, that is fine. I am happy that you have answered them.
Some of what I have just said relates to that, particularly with regard to the conference and our desire to have it happen every single year. It is about creating a climate of confidence in Scotland.
Did you find the conference helpful in developing that partnership for future investment?
I was not at the conference myself, as it predated my current job. However, all the outcomes from it suggest to me that it was a positive exercise, which is why the commitment for it to be repeated annually is important. The participants were sufficiently impressed and benefited sufficiently from it to wish it to happen again.
In reporting on the RPP, the committee expressed a concern that there could be delays in implementing some parts of it, as the Government is reliant in some areas on the roll-out of UK policies and associated funding. Similar concerns may well apply to the low-carbon economic strategy, as the Scottish Government does not control all the policy levers. Can you reassure the committee that adequate communication has taken place between the Scottish Government and UK and EU institutions in developing the strategy?
Indeed I can. Coincidentally, I met the EU commissioner who is responsible for dealing with climate change a couple of weeks ago, and that was the precise area that I wished to talk to her about. We are very much pressing the EU to stick to the 30 per cent commitment, or at least to move towards it. We are impressing on the commissioner that although we are trying to take ambitious action, it cannot just be about us. You are right: a lot of it is not in our gift, and we need both the UK and the EU to step up in the same ambitious way.
On that subject, there is a note in today’s Financial Times that Britain, Germany and Poland are not taking a full part in the trading scheme arrangements. I do not expect the minister to have the details just now, but I hope that she can enlighten us about that, because it sounds like a sour note in terms of the achievement of this market, which is essential to our attempts to get 30 per cent.
I do not read the Financial Times on a regular basis. I certainly know that Poland is one of the countries where there is considerable scepticism. I would be disappointed if Britain and France were—
It was Germany.
Sorry, I meant Britain and Germany. I would be surprised if Britain was being a little more negative than I would have hoped. We will continue to press the UK Government and the EU on the matter. As you know, we exercise our capacity to do that at every possible opportunity. However, we are not a member state.
I am reassured by what I hear from the minister. You have explained the dialogue that takes place, particularly with the EU, and that is useful. Scotland can champion this work and make it a positive process. However, are you comfortable that the strategy is flexible enough to allow alternative approaches to be considered if the policies do not come to fruition at either the UK or EU level?
Yes.
You said earlier that it is not set in stone.
It is not set in stone. It is a strategy, and a strategy by definition does not detail every aspect. Instead, it describes the direction of travel and covers in broad terms how we expect to get to where we want to be. The underpinnings of the strategy will change from time to time, and we will have to reflect on aspects of it. Vehicle emissions, which the convener mentioned earlier, is an issue that all countries will have to look at carefully, and at some point we might have to make a decision about taking much more directive action than has been taken in the past. However, at the moment, we are making quite good progress across the board and we want to continue on that basis. The more we get the private sector, in particular, on board, the more progress we will make.
The strategy recognises local authorities as critical partners. However, Scottish Environment LINK’s recent assessment of single outcome agreements found that sustainable development did not appear to be widely understood either in those agreements or even in the accompanying guidance as an overarching framework for policy development, and that there are gaps in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Do you agree with that assessment? How can such gaps in local authority climate change policy be addressed by the Government?
As I understand it, that was a desk-based study of single outcome agreements, but I know that SOAs do not always reflect what is actually happening in the local authority area. Indeed, I have had direct experience of that in a particular local authority. Despite the fact that, on a regional basis, the local authority fully supports and funds the local biodiversity action forum, the SOA contains not a single line about biodiversity. I have indicated that I think that that is mad. If the local authority is the most committed locally in that respect, why not simply include in the agreement a line that reflects that? After all, it would be a very easy hit.
We might explore the issue further when we consider the public bodies duty paper.
In our view, no, partly because they have been part of the partnership the whole way along. Both HIE and Scottish Enterprise were, for example, involved with the joint ministerial initiative on environmental and clean technologies, and the collaboration involved in delivering the low-carbon economic strategy means that all this is already part and parcel of what the enterprise companies are doing. As a result, we do not believe that there has to be any formal or technical change to their purposes. Their present constitutions allow them to do all of this.
I realise that the roles of Scottish Enterprise and HIE have changed slightly, but I am interested in looking at the issue of skills. For example, I have heard that Forth Valley College in my area has decided to cut its engineering and construction courses. I do not expect the minister to answer this question, but surely the Scottish Government must mainstream those issues. If people are unable to learn engineering skills or skills to carry out, for example, adaptations in construction, how can we expect to meet our targets and aspirations?
That key question goes back to some of my earlier comments about identifying capacity in the private sector, which obviously will involve identifying gaps. After all, capacity is as much about skills as it is about money.
I do not expect you to look into what is happening at Forth Valley College. However, I am concerned that, in the context of the Scottish funding council’s relationship with colleges, for example, we should be emphasising the importance of skills development. If teaching posts are lost, we lose the skills that are needed to deliver training. I am interested in having some feedback on the matter.
You have raised an important point. It is about trying to bring every aspect of every sector along at the same pace, which is difficult. We are in the early stages of the process.
The strategy makes clear that SEPA will be one of the main bodies that will, on behalf of the Scottish Government,
I regard SEPA as a major success story. It is interesting that it is less a question of our asking SEPA to do things than it is a question of SEPA volunteering to do things and asking us whether we can develop work with it. I mentioned the environmental and clean technologies initiative, which arose out of SEPA’s work and has a massive amount of input from SEPA. SEPA is keen to take on board climate change issues and to do more than just monitor. We need to remember that monitoring is an economic opportunity and many companies are beginning to consider the potential in that regard.
Does the Scottish Government have in place processes to address the situation in which the monitoring identifies areas in which the strategy appears to be not working or having a limited impact? If not, are you thinking about developing such processes? Overall, how will progress on the strategy be communicated to Parliament?
Your first question is a bit difficult to answer, because you would have to second-guess where the difficulties might arise and build in alternative plans on the off-chance that that was where there was a perceived slowdown. Rather than do that kind of anticipatory exercise or waiting for a point at which we might mark something as a failure, we are trying to set up a process of constant partnership working to identify issues as they emerge. Progress on the low-carbon economic strategy is being reported directly to the strategic forum at Government level, which is chaired by John Swinney. The forum brings together a wide range of people from the public sector. There is a continual process of looking at greater strategic alignment and ensuring alignment with the economic strategy, for example. The forum includes Transport Scotland and COSLA, and will support the delivery of the strategy and ensure maximum impact.
If there are no further questions on the low-carbon economic strategy for the minister, let us move on to the climate change duties of public bodies. I have a couple of questions about process. As of 1 January, the duties are in force. Consultation on the guidance took place pretty close to that date, with just a month between the close of the consultation and the Government having to take account of the responses and make any changes. Why was it decided to consult so close to the date at which the duties were due to be implemented?
As I understand it, a decision was made to hold a series of stakeholder workshops prior to the consultation. That was almost a front-loading of the consultation process, although it was not part of the formal consultation process. The stakeholder workshops were back in March, and they gathered views on what stakeholders wanted to see in the guidance. Although that was not a formal consultation in the strict sense of the word, we pre-consulted before we got to the point of developing the draft. The formal consultation process late in the day was predated by a lot of work that happened earlier in the year, so the situation was not quite as it looks on paper.
I am sure that the earlier engagement was of some use to the Government and those who took part in it, but surely there was an expectation that at least some responses would be generated through the public consultation from people who were not involved in the earlier process. Were there responses to the consultation from groups that were not involved in the prior stakeholder groups? If so, can you tell us how many?
I am not sure whether any of the officials have the specifics on that—I will let them leaf through their papers and see if they have the detail. Obviously, what was published on 1 January was draft guidance. I think that it was 4 February before we saw the final guidance. We worked on the consultation submissions that had come in up until that point.
What changes were incorporated into the guidance for the 4 February version as a result of that process?
There were some key elements, including further development and augmentation, and additional restructuring and formatting to ensure that the guidance is as easy to use as possible. The latter is more about how people access the guidance. A number of people said in their consultation responses that they did not find the process very clear, and we made some changes as a result. A number of submissions were about the need for an executive summary. We produced an executive summary, which was not part of the original publication. As a result of submissions, the sections on adaptation and sustainability were enhanced, and on areas such as best value, the climate change declaration and procurement, new sections were added or existing sections were strengthened. Changes were therefore made as a result of submissions. Some were qualitative changes and others may be bracketed more as quantitative changes; for example providing the executive summary obviously was not a qualitative change.
Jackson Carlaw will lead our next questioning.
I am not sure whether my questions will progress matters, because they bear a similarity to what has gone before. In advance of the obligation to comply with the duties, what action did the Government take to ensure that public bodies were in a position to comply ahead of 1 January? Is there a specific resource in the Scottish Government that supports compliance by SEPA and Scottish Natural Heritage? Since the beginning of January, have public bodies identified any challenges in complying with the duties?
Most people will be aware of COSLA’s indications a little while ago. In effect, it called on the Government to revisit the targets, because it felt—
I think that Cathy Peattie will address that specifically.
That was a big issue that arose out of this. I am not conscious of specific issues being raised outwith the issues around the guidance, which I have already discussed.
I think it fits the bill.
I agree with the minister that it is not simply about the Government delivering; it is about public bodies across the board examining their policies and how they deliver on climate change.
The local authority settlement will encompass all their duties, including the challenges of climate change and adaptation to it. I hope that, in Scotland, we will develop partnership working that will allow every part of the public sector to consult other parts of the public sector when support and advice is needed. We are working not just with local government, but with businesses and others to map out what organisations need to be doing to meet their targets, and there will be continuing dialogue along those lines.
I am interested in measuring whether local authorities and other public bodies—you are right to say that it is not just local authorities—do what they set out to do. When we took evidence on the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill, lots of people said that they were doing anyway what would be required. That worried us, because it is not about doing it anyway; it is about finding new ways of doing things, which provides an opportunity to measure and quantify what is being done. That is the area that I wanted to explore.
I know that there has been debate about this issue. I suppose that you are talking about mandatory reporting; I understood that that was debated during the bill process and that it was specifically not included in the bill. However, it is still an option, if people want to do it in the future. We must remember, though, that compliance with the duties is a legal obligation. The question is therefore not monitoring, but compliance.
It is certainly a road that I would like to go down. Of course, the 2009 act allows us to return to that issue.
Yes. We can go back to it, but we have chosen not to at this stage.
A subject that is close to my heart is proportionality. The guidance talks about major players in terms of dealing with climate change impacts and bodies that do more in comparison with certain other public bodies. Can you explain the thinking behind the concept of proportionality in this case?
It is an important issue. It recognises that the early responses in particular will reflect resources, the nature of what a particular agency or body does and the fact that there will be a much greater expectation on some bodies than on others to deliver. We are trying to create guidance that will recognise that diversity and support compliance in terms of actions that are appropriate to circumstances. That is important, because we cannot ask people to do something that is impossible because of their circumstances or the stage that they are at in their process. I know that some of the huge variety of bodies out there are concerned about that. However, we are trying to tailor the guidance to allow for that diversity.
No. I am aware of the report’s contents.
Okay. I will not go there.
I want to get an idea of how proportionality will be applied. Under current regulations, we allow public bodies to decide wholesale what action is appropriate. Could that lead to some public bodies not being motivated or skilled enough to comply with the duties?
You would have to give me some examples of the kind of thing that you are talking about. I am not aware of any public bodies that are not capable of complying with the duties, to a greater or lesser extent. Some of the duties might be harder for some bodies to achieve compliance with, particularly in the early years, but I would expect all the public bodies to be working extremely hard to identify where they can achieve early successes. I remind everyone that, according to the legislation, it is for the public bodies themselves, not the Scottish Government, to make those decisions. That is why continued partnership working is important. It is likely to be an area that the public sector climate action group will monitor constantly.
Thank you for that.
Glasgow City Council and Highland Council can measure their own footprints, can they not?
Yes, so do such things figure in statements about what the Government’s or the public sector’s footprint is? Do we have a measure from which to start?
Bob Irvine wants to come in on that.
Thank you, minister. Those are possible starting points, but it might be more important to reflect on the minister’s point that it is for public bodies to work out what they need to do by way of compliance with the legislation. We must recognise that, as with any other generally stated duty, there will be some authorities and public bodies that are further along the track than others. To an extent, no amount of regulation will change that position instantly. The minister and Councillor Hay have talked about redesigning and developing the public sector climate action group so that it allows good examples to come forward that others can learn from, imitate and perhaps even better. Information about the local impacts of the policies and activities of local authorities and others will be an important part of that, but it is not the only thing that is important here.
We are at a very early stage—we are barely in the first weeks—of the process, so it is very early to make definitive statements about which parts of the public sector will be more successful. We know that it is unlikely that every part of the public sector will go at exactly the same pace on exactly the same aspects of what is required. Understandably, each organisation will pick the easiest first hits—those areas in which it can achieve the biggest successes as quickly as possible.
I was thinking about those organisations as being major players under the definitions that we are talking about.
The Scottish Government has a major role to play, not least in that, as part of the public sector, we have our own obligations to comply. The guidance is part of the process of us doing the job of ensuring that the rest of the public sector understands what it has to do.
I wondered whether the Government had an overarching view of the performance of bodies, given that these are major players of whom much is expected.
The most important consideration is the overall progress towards the statutory targets, which is subject to a very specific reporting arrangement between Government, the Parliament and indeed the public. If it becomes apparent in that reporting that Scotland is not getting near or is undershooting the targets, there must be an assessment of why that might be the case and consideration of whether additional actions—be they regulations, new policies or new proposals—are needed to rectify the situation. At that stage, the Government and public bodies will have to consider whether, collectively, they have done as well as they might have done and whether there are any deficiencies in regulation, finance, people’s behaviour or whatever.
The guidance suggests areas that might be covered in reporting and, in fact, recommends a reporting schedule for various agencies and parts of the public sector. The vast majority of the organisations, particularly the major players, produce annual reports that are laid before Parliament and I expect that any such report from, say, SEPA, Scottish Water, SNH or anyone else that did not make it absolutely clear what the organisation was doing would be challenged by the Parliament. We should not be too pessimistic about all this.
Perhaps we should tease out whether there needs to be something else between individual public bodies making their own judgments about what is appropriate and, in the worst-case scenario, court action in which it is made clear that their judgment was wrong. Even if the Government does not want to be proactive about monitoring public bodies’ compliance, given the range of views even in local authorities about what is appropriate—for example, some local authorities in Scotland have as a result of the spending squeeze asked for a complete delay in meeting the Government’s climate change targets, while others have been more proactive—is there not a need for a stage in between a public body making its own judgment and, in the worst-case scenario, the kind of court action that we all want to avoid?
Indeed—and, in a sense, the guidance is about directing various public bodies towards what they should be looking at, what they should be doing and how they should be doing it. The expectation is that they will comply.
The idea is simply to acknowledge that the Government’s role is to govern and give leadership. I assume that the Government wants to close the gap that we acknowledge exists between those who are further forward and those who still have progress to make. Is it your view that that gap will begin to close and that we are taking no risk of exacerbating it?
We are talking about two groups of public sector bodies that are broadly different—one group is central Government agencies, non-departmental public bodies and so on and the other is the huge part of the public sector that is local government. The Scottish Government’s relationship with those agencies and NDPBs differs from its relationship with local authorities.
I take that point. However, in 2007, the current Administration took a fairly proactive stance to negotiate a new way of working with local authorities.
Absolutely—that was about partnership.
I agree that going in and saying, “Thou shalt,” would be a more extreme position. However, I am talking about giving leadership and a sense that we will all move forward together. Are you convinced that the Government’s approach to the relationship with local authorities will close the gap between those who are further forward and those who are left behind or who have further to go, and that some authorities will not continue to lag?
I cannot say with certainty that some will not be further behind the game than others are. I said that not all parts of the public sector will progress at exactly the same speed and in exactly the same way. That will not happen in local government any more than it will happen across the public sector.
I am interested to hear what the Government is doing to fulfil its duties. What is happening across departments and portfolios to ensure that the Government delivers what it needs to do to meet its public duties?
Quite a lot is happening, because we are a key player and we provide an example for the whole public sector. We have agreed a carbon management programme in partnership with the Carbon Trust that covers our operational emissions. We actively encourage more sustainable methods of travel for business purposes, and we are committed to achieving a 20 per cent reduction in central Government business travel emissions by 2011, building to 40 per cent by 2020.
There is one more supplementary from Alison McInnes before we move on.
It is not a supplementary on this section, but a completely separate question, so the minister can take it at the end.
Okay. I will take Marlyn Glen’s question first.
Part of my question has been answered. I think we agree that some public bodies have years of experience in climate change policy and delivery. As you made clear, minister, best practice should be shared throughout the public sector, and you have talked about dialogue and partnership working. How will the Scottish Government initiate that type of knowledge transfer, when will it take place and—importantly—which organisations might take the lead?
It is already happening: it is taking place organically right now. The work that SEPA carries out proactively across the public sector is part of it. Meetings are being held at a level that includes me and Alison Hay: they involve the leads in a number of the public sector agencies and are about exchanging experience and information. We have just reformulated the way in which that all works, because we think that it can work slightly better.
I think that there is a lot of optimism, and it is good to be optimistic. However, is it all a bit vague?
That would be part of the conversation that Alison Hay and I would have in the organisation that we jointly chair, and the issues would begin to come out through that.
So it would just cascade.
At a certain level, but there is a limit. As I indicated in discussing the public engagement work, I want to get down to a slightly lower level to interact with people who are more at the front line in dealing with these issues.
Okay—I will take that as it is offered.
Minister, throughout the afternoon, you have stressed the importance of the public bodies taking their own actions. Page 25 of “Public Bodies Climate Change Duties” is the only place in the document where the Government underlines its guidance and almost strays into direction. It concerns emissions arising from transportation. However, the complexities of EU procurement rules mean that the situation is not quite as clear as is laid out in the document.
I have already indicated that the document provides guidance. It is not compulsory in any way, really. We are trying to guide public bodies in a particular direction, but they will have to make their own decisions on specifics. The guidance is not a list of mandatory rules.
The statement on page 25 is the only piece of guidance that is underlined. It shouts out of the document and I wondered why it had been given that status.
The point that is being made there is that some of the actions are subject to rules that are not in our gift. I appreciate what you say, but it would not be the first time that organisations have had to comply with EU directives that contradicted, in some cases, other EU directives. That tension is built into the system and we reflect it back to the European level in some areas.
I understand that, but it takes us back to some of the discussion that we have just had about how some people who do not want to move forward will rely on that as a way of opting out.
We do that all the time. In the guidance to which you referred, we were flagging up the fact that European legislation is part and parcel of the matter. When other countries achieve derogations from, or find a way to work around, that legislation, that is fair enough. However, often, when we examine the situation, it turns out not to be quite as straightforward as it at first appears.
That is right. The statement in the document is bald for reasons that, I hope, the minister has explained.
The procurement rules from Europe have their unhelpful elements. However, the ambiguity of saying that
We would act on legal advice. That smacks to me of a paragraph that has been included because of legal advice. It can always be tested.
Even if it concerns rail freight as opposed to road freight or low-carbon vehicles?
We should remember that testing European legislation sometimes results in whacking great fines. That must be factored into the equations as well.
There are no further questions on the public duties. I thank you and your colleagues for the time that you have given to answering questions.