Chamber and committees

Yes, absolutely. That applies in the development of the just transition plan, and the climate change plan, which we are also working on just now and that we hope to present a draft of this year.

We must be able to demonstrate that technological advances will come on stream. We try hard to present that in different ways. If we have certainty about the closure of track 2 and Acorn’s role within it, for example, we will be able to say with a great deal more certainty the role that CCUS will play. If, for example, we are talking about some of the early-stage developments in agriculture for the capture of methane in cattle sheds, we have to indicate how early in its development that is and when we think it might come on stream.

We try to be realistic about the developments that are in play and the timescales at which they might start to reduce Scotland’s emissions and contribute towards the emissions reduction targets.

One of the most important things that we will do to bring all that together will be setting the vision for 2045. It will say to the people who are employed, those who are working or who have investments, with regard to the energy security needs of the country, what the Grangemouth area and the cluster will look like when we hope to reach net zero by 2045. That is not, and could never be, simply about emissions reduction to the exclusion of everything else—it must address what it is like to work and live there, and what needs Grangemouth continues to serve for Scotland.

I come back to the tripartite nature of the issues for Grangemouth: there is its economic importance; its importance to people, such as those who work there or who live in and around it; and its impact on the environment. Those are the three key strands that the vision must cover, and they will be developed hand in hand with people who are affected by it.

At this early stage, that is all that I can say, unless officials would like to add anything. It is about those three key points and developing a vision for how we get there in collaboration with the people who are affected.

That is a really important question. You are quite right: the Scottish Government considers carbon capture and storage to be absolutely vital to our net zero plans. That is backed up by our statutory advisers on climate change, the Climate Change Committee, whose advice is that it is a necessity and not an option. Coupled with that is the fact that Scotland is exceptionally well placed to have carbon capture, utilisation and storage functioning across the country and, in particular, feeding into Acorn at St Fergus.

The UK Government’s decision not to include Acorn in the track 1 process was inexplicable, and my view on that is shared by people across the political spectrum and, importantly, outside it. However, we welcome the UK Government’s confirmation that Acorn will form part of track 2. We are now trying to establish exactly when that process will close so that we can understand and track how and when CCUS, which is such an important component of our net zero planning, can come on stream in Scotland. It is linked with Grangemouth in many ways, because it is a core part of its sustainability plan, too.

I will take those points separately. I understand that there are concerns among some stakeholders, including Friends of the Earth, about hydrogen—about green and blue hydrogen, the different ways that those are produced and whether those are appropriate in a climate emergency. The Scottish Government supports both blue and green hydrogen, incidentally.

With regard to Professor Skea’s quotation, I think that I know what you are talking about, and I think that he was responding to the draft energy strategy and just transition plan. If Professor Skea was referring to the energy strategy not explaining exactly how we intend to launch the export market, I would just point him to the chapter dedicated to that in our hydrogen plan.

The straightforward answer is that I cannot answer that now with the surety that I would want to bring to committee because, as I said earlier, we are still developing it all. I will hazard a guess that we would not go—no, I will not, actually. I do not want to guess, because I do not want to create a hostage to fortune on any of that. This morning, I have laboured the point that what people tell us that they want to see will be important, so I do not want to pre-empt exactly how the plan will be formed.

We will engage with SMEs, but I come back to my initial point that we must be clear that we must start by engaging with the large emitters, because that is where the real challenge lies. However, I expect SMEs to be engaged with as part of the plan because of the supply chain work that we need to do and also because, if they are based in the area, they have a stake in it.

I add that I will be engaging with my colleague Richard Lochhead, who brought much of this work to where it is now and who is now the Minister for Small Business, Trade and Innovation, on what he expects and what he can do to support me in the development of our approach.

I based it on the work that was done to produce our final “Hydrogen Action Plan”, which was published on 14 December 2022. That sets out the Government’s strategic approach and the actions that we think are required to harness our capacity to produce hydrogen, to service our domestic needs but, equally, to be an export opportunity for Scotland to service the needs of countries across Europe that must decarbonise their industrial bases and, actually, whose industrial bases are far greater than ours.

As I say, we have the plan, which is backed up by £100 million-worth of investment, which Liam Middleton mentioned earlier. A chapter in the plan is dedicated to how we build the export market for hydrogen, which we know that Scotland can do. I would just add finally that, although we have done all that and we know that the potential is there, a great many of the powers, particularly over the regulatory framework, that are required to really launch Scotland’s hydrogen potential rest at UK level. Therefore, that is another one of my top asks of UK Government.

On the first point, the Grangemouth plan is, by its nature, different from other plans in that it relates closely to one area, one complex and one group of people who live and work there. It is different from the other plans for energy and transport, as they apply to the whole country—it is place based, and the just transition commission has welcomed that.

There are interconnections with other plans, so they will certainly relate to one another. Our economy is interconnected, so we cannot have an energy plan that is not mindful of Grangemouth, and we cannot have a Grangemouth plan that is not mindful of transport, given that 80 per cent of the central belt’s fuel and 100 per cent of our aviation fuel comes from Grangemouth. There are differences and there are interconnections, and we will work through all of them.

I am working closely on monitoring now that I have moved into this portfolio, because the question of building a just transition is one thing, but the question of how we know whether we have succeeded is another. I am working on the theory of that.

Practically, our plan—Andy McCall might want to say more about this, because he and I were discussing it yesterday—is that we need to do some work on baselining the economic and social position at Grangemouth, and we will develop the vision for 2045. Once those aspects are in place, we will be able to set out key performance indicators against which monitoring can be undertaken.

Monitoring will be part of the process, but we are at a very early stage in the development of that. The two key pieces of work that we are undertaking in phase 1 will inform how we monitor progress.

Yes, I am happy to do so. It is an important question. When I visited the cluster last week, I also met Forth Ports, and issues such as planning, the speed of consent and comparisons with the company’s experience elsewhere were raised with me.

A balance will always have to be struck between speed of consent and any risk of deregulation. We have to get that right. The change that we will see over the next 10 or 20 years puts pressure on us as Government to consider that and how quickly it can work.

On the point about the public sector, I come back to the Grangemouth future industry board and its novel approach to bringing the public sector bodies together. On it, we have the Scottish Government, Falkirk Council, Scottish Enterprise, Transport Scotland, SEPA, Skills Development Scotland and Forth Valley College. Now that we have done that, we will consider bringing industry in. We can already see how, with an issue such as planning, that group, which brings the Scottish Government and Falkirk Council round the table, will help us—and has already helped us—shortcut some of the issues that arise when we all have different responsibilities.

The second point on planning that I will briefly mention is the national planning framework 4. I think that the Grangemouth future industry board worked on and was successful in achieving the recognition of Grangemouth as an industrial green transition zone, and with its being in NPF4—and with NPF4 being made part of the development plan—that should give the certainty and the speed of consent that industry not only wants but needs if we are to make the change that we need to over the next wee while.

No, I do not think that it is. First, the industry board has given evidence in writing to the committee. My colleague Andy Hogg, who is a deputy director in the Scottish Government, is one of the co-chairs; he really wanted to be here today, which is why we asked whether we could change the timing, but that was not possible. However, my colleague Liam Middleton is also part of the board, so he will probably be able to say more about its constitution and who its spokesperson is. I am more concerned with the work that it is doing rather than who the spokespeople are.