Chamber and committees

I will ask you to reflect on one final thing. I cannot recall which witnesses gave this evidence, but, in a discussion that we had with witnesses on what community benefit looks like, it was suggested to us that a community in close proximity to a wind farm can hoover up the community benefits, even though there is a low-income community with significant deprivation not that far away. We also spoke about offshore wind, and the concern was raised that, particularly as floating technology is developed further, it can be hard to identify which community should get the community benefit.

As an MSP who represents an urban area that is far away from that activity, I point out that we will still have large low-income and high-energy-cost communities who would also like to benefit from Scotland’s renewables revolution, which we all want to see. How can we get community benefit right and in a way that does not create inequalities or inequity?

Thank you.

That is very helpful.

I have a brief observation, convener. I am not sure that, once approval is given, the die is cast for evermore, so to speak. The committee will be in another form in a few months and we will leave a legacy report.

I also sit on the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, where we frequently use the expression “shared space”. In consenting to the making of regulations, we make a shared space for our successor committee. I am not sure that our scrutiny of these regulations will be on-going if we agree to them being made. Notwithstanding the massive volume of work that the committee has within its current remit, I wonder whether we could leave a breadcrumb of work in our legacy report about bringing the HSE in at a later date for the committee to find out what the regulations will mean in practice.

I get that that would happen after we agree to the making of the regulations, and that is problematic for Mark Ruskell, but I am trying to think how we could take a responsible view and follow up some of his concerns in the next parliamentary session. That might not be helpful in relation to this agenda item, but I am trying to find a way forward.

I will try to be as brief as I can, given the time constraints. I want to look at some of the cross-committee scrutiny of the climate change plan. In particular, I want to look at identifying skills gaps and the workforce planning that will be required. It was drawn to my attention that there was a climate emergency skills action plan for 2020 to 2025 from the then Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform—who was, believe it or not, Roseanna Cunningham—and the Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills, Jamie Hepburn. There was quite a detailed route map around identifying the skills gap and how to address that. Is similar work under way across Government for the current iteration of the five-year plans?

I am getting the sense that you are fully across your brief, cabinet secretary.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. We heard that from the Economy and Fair Work Committee. There should be proactive co-production and co-design—rather than unions having to just react in what is a worrying period for some in relation to the sustainability of jobs—with the opportunity to create many more well-paid fair work opportunities.

I will pick up on a comment that Edward McHardy made, that we would not want to have another 15 annexes to the climate change plan and that we want to be sure that ordinary people in communities can understand it.

The deputy convener also asked about all the disaggregated data. I suspect that, as Mr Stewart said, very few people read the plan in the first place, although I am sure that his constituents have.

Is there any chance that, despite all the extra detail that the committee is asking for, we could get a slimmed-down, jargon-free, accessible, practical, realistic and tangible plan that the public could engage with in a meaningful way? You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, cabinet secretary. You slim it down too much, and we criticise you. You pad it out too much, and we criticise you. It is about getting the balance right, but could there be multiple versions to make the plan more accessible?

Jess Pepper established the Climate Café network across Scotland. She and others told the committee that it is important to ensure that communities have the capacity to engage proactively and meaningfully in relation to what climate change means for them, and that they can do so in a way that can benefit them and which enables them to embrace the process. However, they also wanted to make sure that there was enough resource to ensure that that community capacity could be built up over a long period. Do you have any reflections on that?

Mark Ruskell has exhausted most of the taxonomy questions, which is relatively new for me to see. I take no credit for the development of the climate change taxonomy, cabinet secretary, but I can look at the capital taxonomy of the budget and see that, for example, £543 million is earmarked as negative high or low expenditure, and £2.9 billion is positive high or low. We get a breakdown of where the money will go and the impact of it, but there is a narrative around that. There could be essential spend under the negative high category—it could be an essential road safety project or a resilience project that just needs to be done. What is next for the taxonomy? There needs to be more of a narrative that explains that, sometimes, the Government just has to do things that do not always fit in the budget line that you want them to go in, which would be positive on the taxonomy front. There should be more understanding of what is next and a narrative around some of it.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I will reflect on some of the evidence that we have heard during our budget scrutiny. We heard from a variety of anti-poverty and child poverty groups. When those groups come to Parliament, they say really positive things about the Scottish Government’s investment in tackling child poverty and they commend direct action that is making a real difference, but they also talk about the statutory child poverty targets and they want clarity about what a credible pathway to delivery on those targets would look like. Will you say a little more about where there is strong success and where we are falling a little short of those targets? What big ideas are under way to drive us towards meeting those targets?