Chamber and committees

:I want to turn to the climate change plan itself. You will probably have had a chance to glance at the report that we published last week, in which we highlight a number of concerns about the absence of specific delivery plans. We question whether there is enough detail in the CCP to map out the policies, timelines and responsibilities so that certainty can be provided in relation to delivery, particularly for the first carbon budget period.

You have made similar points, and I want to give you the opportunity to expand on what you think should be described in a delivery plan to build certainty and show leadership on meeting objectives. Are there particular sectors that you want to highlight?

:There are certainly a lot of hockey-stick-shaped graphs in the plan, by which I mean periods of slow growth followed by sudden shoot-ups in future carbon budget periods.

I am interested in how you tailor your advice and in how this committee and our successor committee can engage with the plan, in the next carbon budget period in particular, so that if there comes a point at which we do not have certainty about how delivery rates will suddenly shoot up in future carbon budget periods, we will know what the early warning signs look like. If there are still contingencies and dependencies that have to be worked out, and if programmes have to change and evolve over time, that cannot be done at the end of the next parliamentary session. We cannot all look at the climate change plan again at that point and say, “We’re not sure how we’re going to deliver that.” There needs to be a process for evolving the delivery plans over time.

What advice would you give us on that? At what point in the next carbon budget period would you give that advice, so that plans and delivery plans can be revisited if we do not have certainty about what the trajectory for the next 10 years looks like?

:I move on to the subject of negative emissions technologies. The assumption in the draft climate change plan is that there will be about 12 megatonnes of emissions reduction in the third or fourth carbon budget. That is double what the Climate Change Committee has recommended. What are your thoughts on that? Is it really credible to double down on that emissions reduction? What are the key risks and contingencies, particularly given that some of the main sources of carbon that were going to be fed into Acorn at Grangemouth and Mossmorran are no longer going to be feeding in and that there are questions about delivery in relation to Acorn?

:Can I just intervene? You are giving useful context, but there is only one negative emissions technology proposal on the table at the moment, and that is project Acorn, which is on track 2. There are concerns about the deliverability of and risks to that. I am interested in your thoughts about that, particularly in relation to the climate change plan. The cabinet secretary was in front of the committee a few weeks ago and she said:

“If CCUS did not develop at the level that the Climate Change Committee has modelled in its calculations, that committee would have to go back to its assumptions and provide additional advice”.—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 10 February 2026; c 45.]

So, on the point about the Scottish Government having a plan B if project Acorn does not materialise, it is clearly saying that it is for the Climate Change Committee to think that one through. If project Acorn does not happen, what do you see as the contingency plan? What would that plan B look like?

:The difficulty for the committee is that we are trying to understand the implications of project Acorn not going ahead. You have flagged up one sector where it has been difficult for the Government to make progress, and that is buildings. Are you saying that we are going to get a 12 megatonne reduction in emissions from buildings and that that is the way forward? If you are not able to point to what a plan B might look like at this point, when could that advice be given to the Scottish Government? It is clearly asking the CCC for the advice.

It is disappointing that there is no automatic seat on the board for worker representation. ScotRail’s board has a representative who has come from a senior position at the Scottish Trades Union Congress. That is the kind of representation that we look for on a public utility.

I come back to the balance of non-executive and executive members. You said that Steve Dickson represents the interests of employees and employee rights, but we do not know what his background is. We will get his CV—maybe we can google it.

I also note that the reduction in executive board directors involves the removal of the role of chief operating officer, who would normally be responsible for all elements that relate to staffing, recruitment and terms and conditions. I am a bit concerned—and I think that the Water Industry Commission for Scotland has also raised this concern—that, with the COO no longer in existence and part of the board, there is a danger that some of the staffing issues, which have been in the public eye through the concerns of unions, could somehow slip off the agenda a little bit more. Who from the executive board team will be primarily responsible for those issues, which are of concern and importance?

:Do you have the resources to do that? If there was stronger engagement between the Climate Change Committee and subject committees in this Parliament—perhaps in the way that Environmental Standards Scotland representatives, for example, often attend committees to speak to the reports that they produce for the Government—would resourcing that be a challenge for you as chief executive?

:I want to get a sense of how you think the Government should be reporting against individual sectors. It is clear from the climate change plan that some policy choices have been made in one sector, such as for livestock in agriculture, which have then been picked up as a higher ambition in another sector, such as the transport sector. What is your view of that? For example, is there a credible pathway to net zero for aviation within the aviation sector, or is it implicit that other sectors will have to pick up the slack, because, politically, it is too difficult to talk about demand reduction in aviation?

I am interested in how you report and analyse potential political trade-offs between sectors and in how they are made transparent. Alternatively, is your starting assumption that every sector needs to get to net zero, even though that might be politically and practically quite challenging?

:I will turn to the issue of electric vehicles, because there is heavy dependence on those vehicles in the climate change plan.

As Emily Nurse said, using an electric vehicle is one of the biggest changes that an individual can make to reduce their carbon emissions via technological approaches. The Climate Change Committee has stated that the CCP includes “credible plans” for electric vehicles, but you also note that there is not a lot of detail about specific Scottish Government incentives and programmes to support EV uptake. Why are you confident that the assumptions about EVs in the climate change plan are solid and credible?

:It certainly looks positive, and the cost of purchasing a vehicle is definitely coming down. However, I am interested in the cost of electricity and charging. I remember that, five or six years ago, charging at a public charge point was free. Now, if people are lucky enough to have a driveway at home, they can get on an EV tariff and pay about 8p per kilowatt hour, which is a very low cost. However, the cost at some public chargers is up to 60p per kilowatt hour.

I am interested in hearing your reflections on the charging regime, because it seems that, in effect, some companies are now profiteering. The cost of electricity on a basic tariff at home is 28p per kilowatt hour. How can people justify charging 60p per kilowatt hour? People consider real-world factors such as the accessibility of cheaper charging when they decide whether they could switch to an EV.

To what extent are you factoring that in? Is there a role for the Competition and Markets Authority to look at the price of electricity or other aspects?