Chamber and committees

Yes, if they wish; however, my impression from their earlier comments is that they think that there should be something in the bill to deal with the issue but are not sure what it should be.

I want to pick up on the issue of the section 36 report, which gets triggered at the point when the data on our overall sectoral emissions levels comes out and we see whether we have achieved what we said that we would achieve. If we miss our target, a section 36 report is required.

The bill will remove any requirement for a Government to do anything in the five-year period to revise either its budget or its climate change plan if it becomes very evident that it will not achieve the sectoral reductions that it was looking for. I understand the focus on delivery—the climate change plan is critical to achieving that—and I also recognise and understand the time lag in getting the data on carbon in our sectoral emissions and our national emissions. However, it would be good to get clarity on whether the bill should contain some statutory requirement on the Government and ministers to take corrective action when it becomes apparent that they will not achieve their intended targets through the carbon budget and the climate change plan or make the reductions that they had intended, and to produce a plan that demonstrates the action that needs to be taken to address the gap that might be starting to open up.

I understand the plan with regard to policy implementation and taking things forward, and I understand the time lag in the data, but I am trying to get clarity on whether we should wait until the end of the five-year carbon budget period or whether there should be a requirement on ministers to take action when it becomes apparent what is happening. In year 2, we could have a panel in front of us saying, “It’s very clear that the Government will not achieve what it intended to”, but there would be no statutory requirement on that Government to bring forward a corrective budget or plan to address the gap. Should there be?

Thank you, convener, and apologies for missing the start of the evidence.

I am trying to get a clearer understanding of the dynamics of the situation, which a number of you have referred to in your evidence. Clearly, there will be changes. When you are planning anything over a five-year period, you build in a range of risks into that five-year process, and there are a range of assumptions that you have to make. Of course, those assumptions could prove to be wrong, for a variety of reasons, and some of the risk that you may attach to some of those assumptions may eventually prove to be wrong, too. As climate science develops in terms of its own intelligence and understanding of what is happening, you have to take account of that. Technology can play a role, and there will be a degree to which the public sector and the private sector take up some of the finances that are required to meet this challenge.

I will explain what it is that I am trying to understand from your comments so far. In setting a five-year carbon budget, whether it is aligned with the UK or not, and in then producing a climate change plan alongside that, the biggest elephant in the room is probably the finance that is required to deliver those things. What do you think should happen if the Scottish Government sets a five-year carbon budget and sets out its climate change plan but then finds that decisions that are taken elsewhere—for example, a cut to capital expenditure by the UK Government—have a direct impact on the delivery of its carbon budget and on delivering its climate change plan? How do you think the process should work so that the Scottish Government could come back and point out that a 9 per cent cut to its capital budget has a direct impact on its ability to fund some of the programmes that would deliver on its carbon budget? How do you think the Scottish Government should go about saying, “Hold on—we need to take a step back now,” having set a budget for five years, so that it can revise it as a result of a decision made elsewhere in the UK that has a direct impact?

I suspect that Cornilius Chikwama is probably the person I am directing my question to the most here. Can you give a sense of how we achieve clarity and clear direction, which we heard about earlier, on how we are going to achieve our targets but also, as our colleagues from local government have said, how that will be financed?

We have touched on it.

I have a general sense that, if the monitoring and on-going evaluation are correct and transparent, there should be no surprises in the reports that come from the Climate Change Committee every two years. Transparency, along with clear, dynamic and on-going monitoring, will help to reduce the need for big set-piece reports that tell us every now and again to do something, and we should be able to take corrective action at an earlier stage. That is the general sense that I am getting from the evidence that we have heard today and from what you are saying.

Thank you.

It was touched on by Bob Doris. It was that the Climate Change Committee suggested—if I am reflecting it correctly—that it would probably look to report on progress twice during the period of a five-year carbon budget. That was in the correspondence that the Scottish Government received from it in May.

I want to get witnesses’ views on the Climate Change Committee’s current plan for reporting on progress against the Government’s carbon budget and climate change plan. Is it sufficiently frequent or should reporting be more frequent than every two years or twice during the five-year period? Do you have a view on that?

So, in your view, if we set a five-year carbon budget and there are external factors that have a direct impact on that, there should be a clear reporting mechanism for the Scottish Government to identify the factors that are impacting on the delivery of the budget and quantify the impact that those factors are having on the budget in trying to achieve the objectives.

That is helpful, because my impression was that the published climate change plan would be a final document.

However, there will be an external consultation exercise on a draft climate change plan, which the committee will be able to engage with.