I thank the cabinet secretary for the answer, but, in that letter, he said:

“the Scottish Government does not agree with the assumption that much of the provision of assisted dying would be absorbed into existing budgets”,

nor does the Scottish Government agree with Liam McArthur’s assertion

“that the Bill will have minimal cost”.

Surely the cabinet secretary is able to indicate rough costings on the bill as it currently stands. Are we not talking about tens of millions of pounds, cabinet secretary?

We in the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee have heard that the underrecoveries for Ferguson Marine run at about £1 million a month. That is required just to keep the lights on, and there will be considerably larger costs to run the yard between now and when the contracts come on stream. Will the cabinet secretary confirm that the figure that was given to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee—of costs of 20 to 25 per cent over and above the costs at any other yard—is what it would cost to award the vessels to Ferguson Marine? Effectively, she is ordering four boats, but she could have bought five somewhere else. Is that figure of 20 per cent no longer valid?

I welcome the purchase of Ardrossan harbour and the work that has gone into it. I will park the fact that it should have happened in 2015, when the Glen Sannox was ordered. We ordered a boat that was longer than the length of the pier, which needs to be lengthened and strengthened, and the harbour needs to be supported by a new terminal and new liquefied natural gas storage facilities. Before buying the harbour, the cabinet secretary must have worked out all the costs that are involved in doing that. Will she tell the Parliament the costs of the repairs and when they will start?

I do not want to speak against the motion, but I want to speak about the fact that it has caused some confusion and some issues regarding the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. The political parties in this Parliament learned at 11:47 on Friday that there was going to be a statement on Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) in the chamber today. I know that for a fact, because, at that stage, I asked to speak when that ministerial statement was being made. However, it was not until Monday at 13:43 that Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) told the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee that it was unable to attend the committee meeting that was scheduled for this morning. That was less than 24 hours’ notice.

Presiding Office, I do not need to point out to you or members in the chamber the pressure that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee is under at the moment, along with many other committees of this Parliament. Only last week, we had to have three committee meetings to get our climate change report published in time to meet the Government’s last-minute deadlines. We are still taking evidence, and we will meet on 24 March, which is the last day when we can meet in the current session of Parliament, to sign off various items that still need to be considered. They include various statutory instruments that are being laid before the committee and a request by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport to consider a legislative consent memorandum on the Railways Bill. Those matters require a considerable amount of work and investigation.

It was therefore deeply unhelpful to be told less than 24 hours before the committee meeting that Ferguson Marine could not turn up because Transport Scotland had told it that it would be inappropriate for it to do so. That left no time for the committee to schedule some of the many other items of business that we could have taken, and we were left meeting at 8.15 this morning with a significant gap in our work programme.

I have two questions. First, does the Parliament think that it is acceptable for Ferguson Marine to have told the committee less than 24 hours before it was due to attend the committee meeting that it would be unable to do so when it must have known, like the Parliament, that the statement was going to take place? Secondly, will the Minister for Parliamentary Business and Veterans find out when Ferguson Marine found out about the statement and perhaps tell it to give due respect to committees of this Parliament, given their workloads? There is a considerable amount of work to be done before the end of the session, and the notice that it gave was totally unacceptable.

There are no contributions from members. Cabinet secretary, you get the chance to sum up but, as no one has said anything, I am not sure that you will want to. Do you want to sum up?

The Government does not always get its way—I am sure that you would agree, cabinet secretary.

Do members have any other questions?

It seems that no members want to make a contribution. Cabinet secretary, I assume that you do not want to sum up, but you can do so if you want to.

Welcome back. The next agenda item is an evidence session with the Climate Change Committee on the Scottish Government’s draft climate change plan. The purpose of the session is to enable this committee to hear directly from the Climate Change Committee on “Progress in reducing emissions in Scotland—2025 report to Parliament”, which was published on 25 February, and to explore how the CCC’s findings and recommendations relate to the draft climate change plan, which this committee reported on last week. As the Climate Change Committee’s report was published shortly before this committee agreed its own report on the draft plan, the session provides an opportunity to consider areas of alignment and divergence between the two reports and to inform the forthcoming chamber debate on 5 March.

I welcome from the Climate Change Committee Dr Emily Nurse, head of net zero, and Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive. Thank you for attending the meeting, albeit remotely. I invite Emma Pinchbeck to give a brief opening statement.

Just to finish that point, before we move on to the next question: as the Government made clear, it is your client, and it therefore controlled that information.

The next question comes from Mark Ruskell.

09:30

I do not know who will answer that question first.