Chamber and committees

I will ask Alison to come in with some of the details on that, but, on the generality, there is likely to be a rebound in aviation as people travel post-pandemic. I am very much of the view that we have to tackle aviation emissions—of course we do—but we are an island nation and we do not want to cut ourselves off from travel and from economic and cultural exchange and so on with the rest of the world. A number of options are open to us, including the development of sustainable aviation fuels, among others.

On the strategy, I will hand over to Alison.

That is a key point, and it is one of the many complexities. There is the availability of the charge network, the speed with which people can charge and the amount that it costs. All the variables that I mentioned in answering Mr Doris’s question also apply, in that the infrastructure is owned by different companies and set by different local authorities in some cases.

Obviously, our aim is to have the ultra-rapid chargers rolled out to the greatest extent possible, because they are the quickest and most convenient. I am increasingly seeing them, and they are a mark of how the technology has developed quite quickly over the period as people’s expectations of charging an electric car have grown. There is a mixed picture on the types of technology, their roll-out and the costs. Of course, ultra-rapid and fast chargers are the optimum and what we would all want to see.

Absolutely, but—

If you do not mind, it would be helpful to separate those issues out in my thinking, because they require different things. I often think that I sometimes hope for rain and sometimes hope that the rain will stop—there are different issues.

First, given that we are in a period of the year in which water scarcity is a problem, I arranged for a round-table discussion last week because I understand how much the issue might affect constituents just now. Ultimately, I am very confident that, between us in the Scottish Government, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, which is the independent regulator that oversees CAR—Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011—licences and abstractions from the environment, and Scottish Water, which is responsible for the public water supply, we have a robust means of monitoring water levels in the country virtually 24/7, 365 days a year.

The political challenge is on abstractions and what happens when the water levels are particularly low and SEPA observes that there could be a risk to the environment. We then get into the situation where licences for abstraction have to be curtailed. Last year was the first summer that we have ever had to do that, and we were very deliberate in the aftermath of that to take time to learn all the lessons from it, including that we should have communication as early as possible about the risk of prolonged periods of dry weather. We also had a clear idea for farmers, businesses, aquaculture and hydro businesses about the conditions in which their abstraction licences might be changed. On your question about the suitability of the current framework, we have tried to do all that.

I move on to flooding, which is another significant issue. There are two points to make about flooding. The first is about funding and the second is about the future framework and preparedness. I mentioned in response to Liam Kerr’s question on adaptation that, under an agreement that we reached with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—in 2008, I think—we have provided £42 million per annum to councils for flooding. It was agreed that 80 per cent of that would be spent on the strategic project, and 20 per cent would be distributed among the other 32 councils for other projects. We have made £150 million available in this parliamentary session.

However, it has to be said that, as the risk of flooding increases, the need for investment in projects is beginning to outstrip the funding that is available. We have a Scottish Government, COSLA and local authority working group that is looking at funding for flood mitigation schemes across the country. It is looking not only at levels of funding but at how the funding is distributed. I await recommendations on that because I recognise that we have some very expensive schemes in the pipeline, and I want us all collectively to be prepared to do what we can.

I have slightly forgotten what my other point about flooding was. Yes, sorry—it was about funding and the strategy. The other bit of work that we are doing is about making sure that we are as up to speed as we possibly can be on everything that flooding demands of us, as we set out a new draft strategy. It is the very beginning of the process, and we are working across civic society on it. In particular, I have asked that it be made a great deal clearer whose responsibility it is on the ground and that there is better joined-up working among agencies.

As we all know, in our constituencies, when something happens, you wonder whether it is the road network and gullies that have caused the blockage, what SEPA’s responsibility is, where the council comes in and where we come in. I hope to make that much clearer.

The first concern is that we do not know what would replace it. Let us assume that there is no plan. The most concerning aspect would be monitoring. I am not intimately familiar with the legislation, but it is about monitoring and the transparency of monitoring. To lose that overarching piece of work would be a great concern, and that is why we have been pushing for its removal from schedule 1.

It is my intention that they will, yes. Phil Raines says that he can come in on that.

The statutory requirement regarding the plan is for it to be laid later than we are proposing. The Bute house agreement says that we will publish the first draft in November. My intention is that the just transition papers should go alongside that, because of the statutory commitment in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 for the Government to demonstrate that it has taken into account just transition principles. In my view, the publication of those plans is the way in which we will demonstrate how we have done that, and I think that it is right that they should coincide. I do not know whether Phil Raines wants to add anything to that—

David can say what he wants to say on that, but I think that we should stick to the remit of the portfolio, just as we would not delve into agricultural policy or energy policy in depth.

I will comment on a couple of those points and I will then ask Alison Irvine whether she has anything to add.

As I said to the convener, the network is owned in part publicly and in part privately, so there is a limit to our oversight, or the local authorities’ oversight, of it. Although I was not in post at the time, I felt that it was right that local authorities should begin to charge. Folks are paying a great deal for petrol and diesel, and I thought that it was right that we should be able to recoup some revenue from electric charging.

There is a question about the extent to which local authorities have taken that up—some are charging and some are not—and about the levels of charging. It comes down to the question of the local authority’s right to decide on the existence of charging, to start with, and then its level. If that is causing concern, particularly among those who make their living from driving and require to charge their cars, we should look at that issue.

First, I welcome the change in the approach to the retained EU law bill. Its initial formulation was one of the most foolish, idiotic approaches to developing law for a country that I have ever witnessed—and, I think, that many people who have been doing this for a great deal longer than I have will have ever witnessed. It was utterly worthy of ridicule, so I am very pleased that a U-turn has been performed and that we now have to explicitly flag something up if it is to be lost, rather than that happening by omission.

For my part, I am concerned that air quality laws are contained in schedule 1. The Scottish Government as a whole has been pressing the UK Government on matters that have been included in schedule 1, and my view is very much that air quality laws should be removed. They should not be there and I do not understand the justification for their inclusion. I do not know what the UK Government intends to do in the absence of that law. It is very concerning. We therefore asked explicitly at director general level that it be removed from schedule 1, but that has been declined. The matter is now coming to me and I will communicate with my UK Government counterparts about it.

Yes.