Chamber and committees

I will ask an additional question about highly protected marine areas, if I may. It is good to see those mentioned in this one-year PFG. Can you detail what exactly will happen to develop such areas in the next 12 months? There is quite a timescale here, out to 2026. I imagine a lot of stakeholder negotiations and discussions are needed and a lot of lines on maps. It would be good to know what is happening in the next year.

The session has been really interesting. There is definitely a sense of a pipeline of opportunities for renewables.

Coming back to public transport, I note in the PFG a range of commitments, including reinforcing the roll-out of free bus travel for the under-22s. Can you say a bit more about the Government’s vision for buses? How does it cut across your work on capital investment, concessionary travel or better regulation or opportunities for local authorities to regulate bus travel? People have written to me to say that although free bus travel for the under-22s is great, there are still issues with the reliability of local bus services, and they are frustrated about how bus services are being run and the quality of service. What is the Government’s vision for bus services, particularly the work that will be taking place in the next year beyond concessionary travel?

Do you see the community bus fund as a way of building up the business case for more transformational change?

I suppose that there is a hint of that in the programme for government, where you talk about potential new duties on public bodies to take account of well-being and sustainable development. That feels like more futures thinking, which obviously encapsulates some of the climate change issues. Minister, do you have anything to add to that?

Are there issues around transport governance—who is making decisions and who is implementing projects—that need further consideration?

Thanks. I will move on briefly to look at nature-based solutions. Jackie Dunbar might be interested in this area as well. The climate and nature emergencies run alongside each other, but solutions to climate change can come from investment in natural capital within council areas.

Are there ways in which the Scottish Government could enhance support to local authorities to do more of that work, to consider adaptation, to consider investment or to bring forward investable models so that private capital can come in as well? It feels as though we often talk about climate over here and nature over there, but some of the solutions, the tools, the planning and the investment that are required feel as though they are in a similar space. What can we learn from the work on climate when implementing nature-based solutions and improving natural capital?

Cabinet secretary, I want to go back to what you said about the regulatory framework for local authorities on climate. It links in with what you were saying, minister, about developing the new deal for local authorities. Do local authorities need more duties within that framework? My impression is that some local authorities are very much focused on their own corporate emissions and doing what they can to reduce emissions within that scope but thinking less about the emissions from the wider area and about place making. Do more duties need to be placed on local authorities?

Will the bill include reforms to the powers of the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which are currently restricted to domestic animals rather than wildlife?

I wonder whether, at this stage, there are particular lessons to be learned about the hard-to-count groups. Those include more transient populations such as students, those with English as a second language and those living in particular types of housing. Reflecting on what you said earlier about marketing—there was a lot of marketing out there—can you tell us whether that marketing was targeted at those groups? What lessons can be learned about how it could be improved in future?

The evidence this morning has been powerful. From it, I have taken the sense that the world has already changed and that, if organisations have to change, there is no sense of failure, but that there needs to be that headroom and support to enable that change to happen. I am sure that other sectors, including health, are having to think about how they respond to the new world as well.

Julia Amour, Janet Archer and Kirsty Cumming mentioned the transient visitor levy. There is a commitment from the Government to deliver that in legislation during the next year. What has the conversation been locally about that? Clearly, it will be a discretionary power that councils can use. What they can spend it on may also be discretionary, although there is a strong argument that it needs to be put into culture and wellbeing.

I do not know how that local conversation is panning out. Obviously, there will be some dissenting voices on the use of such a levy—perhaps from parts of the hospitality sector, who may not understand the benefits of how it could be used. I am interested to know how those early conversations are going, because whether the levy gets used is going to be pretty critical, including to the extra funds that could be brought in.

I see Julia Amour is nodding.