Chamber and committees

You mentioned peatland restoration, but rainforests could take us quite a bit further. The budget of £1.7 million is a drop in the ocean, so we could look at how we can increase that fund. There is evidence that rainforests could give us more benefits, in terms of carbon emissions and nature, than peatlands. I think that we need both, but it is something to look at.

Would you say that the shift from the sub-Cabinet committee to the delivery group is one of the most significant changes that you have made between the draft and the final climate change plan, or have you changed specific policies as well?

I loved what you said to David Barratt about the power of parliamentary scrutiny in helping your thinking and the Government’s thinking about your portfolio. I will give a preamble before asking my climate questions. I am concerned that the word has got out that this committee’s remit on climate has been hollowed out because major areas related to climate—transport, rural affairs and energy—are covered by other committees, so the game is going on over there rather than here. What are your thoughts on that? How are you working with your colleagues with responsibility for energy, transport and rural affairs—you and Jim Fairlie have responsibility for rural affairs—to ensure that action on climate and nature is central to what happens?

You say that we are gathering a lot of data and that we need to get on with taking action. I get that. However, because of the gull amendments to the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026, you have been gathering data on gulls but only on adults and juveniles and not on eggs, so we do not have a full picture of what is going on with our seabirds. That is a good example of the kind of thing that I am talking about.

In addition, at the moment—I would say that this goes for SEPA as well—the way in which the data is presented makes it really inaccessible for people who are trying to do citizen science or to help us to do better on nature and climate.

10:15

I will move off data because, as I said, we will talk to you more about that in the future.

I want to ask about the idea of having a single land agency, which brings in Wendy Kimpton, Nicole Paterson and Nick Halfhide. What could be the benefits of public land being held within one agency?

Scrutiny is a role that ESS, Audit Scotland and the committee all have in common. What might be the biggest challenges for the committee? How can we best complement what your organisations are doing on scrutiny and enforcement?

You talked about how you follow the public pound and make sure that the money is spent well, but you said that you do not really look at the merits of the actual programmes. Maybe that is something that we could look at.

That was very helpful. Thanks.

I will put my next question to some of the other witnesses. Could the ability to share data and think about how you collect it and work with it potentially improve if there was a joint environment body, and could the expense be reduced? I know that, at this stage, there are question marks about where we are going, but it is important for environment organisations to have data.

I want pursue the line of conversation around public service reform. I will frame my concerns, some of which have been voiced already this morning. We have the 30 by 30 commitment, whereby we are supposed to protect and restore 30 per cent of Scotland’s nature by 2030. That is less than four years away, and now there is talk of critical public bodies going through a large restructuring. Another issue that, for me, hangs over this whole session is the nature security assessment on global biodiversity collapse that was done by a UK joint committee.

I hear you all saying that the proposed restructuring offers a great opportunity, and I loved what Nicole Paterson said about having a single front door, which is important and is an issue that came up a lot in session 6 at meetings of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. However, as Dan Paris said, if we go down the proposed route, it is really important that we frame the purpose of the new organisation. This will be the first of a number of conversations that we will have over a period of time as we try to understand what the proposed restructuring will mean.

I want to ask Nick Halfhide about the challenges of data collection, which might also be a question for SEPA. An issue that has been brought up with me is the fact that we do not collect the right data. If we are to have a single body overseeing our environment, we need to have a data collection process that is accessible to the public. What I hear is that NatureScot collects some data but not all the data that it should collect, and that it puts that data online in the form of Excel spreadsheets. If we are to have a single body whose work is based on the scientific evidence, how do we ensure that it collects the right data? Could you see that happening as part of the proposed change?