Chamber and committees

It certainly opened my eyes.

Thank you. We will go round the committee members. I will start. I am the convener of the committee and I represent the Highlands and Islands region.

Good morning to those who are just joining us, and welcome back to those who joined us earlier, before we went into private session.

We have apologies from Mark Ruskell, who is unable to join us today because, unfortunately, he is not well.

Our next item of business is an evidence session with six representatives of the people’s panel on climate change. Back in September 2023, the committee agreed to establish a people’s panel to help us with our consideration of how the Scottish Government could better engage with the public on climate change.

A total of 23 individuals were selected to sit on the panel. The panel convened over two residential weekends and held two online sessions in February and March 2024, when it gathered evidence from a variety of witnesses. On 11 April, the panel reported on its findings and recommendations.

At our meeting today, we will discuss the report with a selection of representatives from the panel. Thank you all for joining us. We are delighted to have you here. The last time I saw you, you were about to embark on your work, and I was shooting off so that I could watch the rugby matches. A lot has happened since then.

On behalf of the committee, I thank you all for your dedication and hard work, which we can see from the report that you have presented and we have read with great interest.

I will ask each witness, starting with Karen Shakespeare, to introduce themselves and to tell us where they are from. I will then ask the committee members to do the same.

Thanks, Scott, and thank you all for your contributions. I now have a difficult task. Unfortunately, committees are not panels of one, David; otherwise, I would be able to ask all the questions, and I would not upset my fellow committee members by not letting them ask any.

I will try to get as many questions in as possible. I know that you will all want to answer every question but, sadly, you cannot do that, because I just do not have the time to bring you all in. I want to bring in as many of you as possible, however. I would ask you to keep your answers short. I used to waggle my pen to attract people’s attention when I thought they had got to the stage when they should shut up, but the danger was that I might let go of it, and it might come in someone’s direction—I promise that it will not. However, if I am looking at you and making this movement, that means that I want to bring in somebody else. It is all about management of time.

I have the first question. You were asked to assess how effective the Scottish Government was in engaging the public on climate change and on our climate change targets. What were the panel’s overall conclusions on the effectiveness of the public engagement strategy?

If you want to start off on that, raise your hand. If you do not want to answer, look the other way.

You had your hand up first, Scott, so we will go to you first.

That is good—and it focuses us. Is the Government doing enough, Kevin?

I will give that question some context. The committee looks at concessionary bus travel, which costs about £230 million, so making travel free on every single bus across Scotland might cost substantially more than that. David Harrold might say that he will power it all from the energy from Orkney. Does anyone want to comment on that point? It was recommendation 17, I think.

You are almost getting the pen launched at you.

We have one more question, which will come from Monica Lennon. Whoever puts their hand up first can answer it.

You ambushed me, David—I said there should be one answer and you supplied a second.

Before this session, the Parliament’s participation and communities team warned me that I was not going to get away with not being asked a question. I am not going to give you the chance to ask me a question—politicians never let other people ask questions; they work out the question they want to answer and then give that answer—but I guess that the question that you would have wanted to ask me is, what are we going to do with this report now that we have got it? The committee will decide after this meeting what we are going to do, but I can tell you some of the things that we will be doing. For example, the Climate Change Committee will appear before the committee next week, and I am sure that your report and some of the questions that are raised by it will inform our views and our questions to it. Further, we are about to deal with stage 2 of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, and I am sure that the report will prompt some of the discussions that go on at that point. We constantly have ministers in here from various portfolios, and we will ask them questions informed by our reading of the report.

At the moment, there is a process going on in the Parliament in which Government policies are reviewed to see how they contribute to reaching net zero targets. Conveners and committees are looking at ways to make sure that, when bills and policies are published, we understand whether they not only contribute to achieving the net zero goal but are getting the right messages out, and whether there is the correct funding within the bills. I think that the report will help us with that process.

When you were planning your ambush, David, the deputy convener ambushed me and said that we could write to the minister—subject to the committee’s approval, because I cannot do anything as a convener of a committee without the committee’s approval—and ask for a written response to your recommendations, which we could then share with you. I am not seeing any dissent from committee members on that point, so I hope that we can agree on that afterwards.

I stress that this has been a committee-driven process; it is not being driven by the Government. Karen Shakespeare suggested things that the Government could do. I can say that, if I were the convener of the Government, I am sure that we could get a lot done, but I am the convener of the committee, so we will have to simply take your points to the Government.

I thank and congratulate you for all the work that you have put in, because there was a lot of work. This is your Parliament and we are here to make sure that what the people want is delivered by the Parliament. As a committee, we are extremely grateful for all that you have done and for all the information that you have given us. I cannot reiterate my thanks enough.

We are now going to have to go into private session to see whether we can agree some of the things that I have just talked about and to review the evidence that we have heard. We will be in touch to keep you updated and point out things that have come about as a result of your participation in this deliberative democracy.

We will now move into private session.

Thank you. We will now move into private session and will resume in public promptly at 11.20 for our evidence-taking session with the people’s panel on climate change.

Good morning, and welcome to the 13th meeting in 2024 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.

The first item on the agenda is a decision on whether to take items 2, 3 and 5 in private. Item 2 is consideration of a draft letter on the resources and waste common framework; item 3 is consideration of a draft letter on net zero information in legislative documents; and item 5 is consideration of the evidence that we will hear today from the people’s panel on climate change. Do we agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.