Chamber and committees

It must be a brief one. I am sorry—I am just worried about time.

Agenda item 3 is consideration of petition PE1866, which was lodged by Daryl Cooper in May 2021. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce legislation to provide for wheelchair users to be able to face frontwards when travelling on a bus.

I refer members to paper 3, which provides background information and outlines possible actions.

At our meeting on 1 November 2022, the committee considered the petition and agreed to keep it open. The committee agreed to write to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to ask how local authorities were delivering improvements for wheelchair users on public buses. It also agreed to make representations to the UK Government on its upcoming review of the rules that govern accessibility on public transport.

I turn to committee members for their views. I note, in particular, the options that are set out in paragraph 18 of paper 3, which are to keep the petition open and await the outcome of the review of the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000, which is expected later this year, before agreeing further action, or to close the petition on the basis that the committee has exhausted all options to progress it and to agree to write to the House of Commons Transport Committee, which is undertaking an inquiry on accessible transport, to inform it of the petition and the concerns that it highlights and ask it to let us know the outcome of its inquiry. What are members’ views?

Mark Ruskell has a question.

We are all struggling to work out who is going to answer. Maybe I can help. We will hear from Daniela Diz and Colin Galbraith, and then we will have to move on to the next question.

You have 30 seconds to answer it. [Laughter.]

It is a huge question, so it is only reasonable that you tackle part of it, Dr Long, and then we can go to Colin Galbraith and Ruth Mitchell—and Daniela Diz, too, at a push; I will not exclude you, Daniela.

Ruth, did you want to come in briefly?

That is interesting, and I will be interested to hear from Colin Galbraith in due course what his take is. Resilience is really important. To hear that, in southern Scotland, we are now at the stage that we might have reached maximum golden eagle numbers is really exciting. Yes, we need to spread that across the country, but it needs to be done in a way that ensures biodiversity.

Thank you. It has been a really interesting evidence session. I could have spent all morning asking all the questions—I think that we all could. Thank you very much for your contributions.

I now briefly suspend the meeting to allow us to set up for the next agenda item.

I bring in Daniela Diz briefly.

Thank you. Those of you who are observant will have noticed that I have not asked a question yet. I have saved my question for the end, but, interestingly, it leads directly on from the previous question, so it is perfectly placed.

Having spent 40 years of my life doing environmental management, one thing that I have learned is that you cannot be all things to all people—and you cannot be all things to all species. For example, managing capercaillies in Abernethy forest cannot be done without control of pine martens, which are the biggest threat to capercaillies, and we have spent millions of pounds on that.

Similarly, I am taken by Deborah Long’s comments about deer. It is about carrying capacity, and the capacity not being the one that damages the environment. Sheep are as big a threat in my mind, as are hares on the high montane places of Scotland, where they will clip the heather and blueberries to such an extent that they cannot grow. Therefore, management is a difficult balance.

On the basis that I do not want to make Scotland—or see Scotland being made—exclusive for any species, I think that there is room for zoning, where we accept that we can achieve things for different species in different zones and therefore achieve something for all of Scotland nationally. A quick yes-or-no answer would suffice, but I suspect that I might not get that from the witnesses. I will quickly go around the table to ask whether the witnesses believe that zoning could play a part in ensuring species and habitat enhancement across Scotland. Ruth Mitchell, I will start with you.

Good morning and welcome to the eighth meeting in 2023 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.

The first item on our agenda is to make a decision on whether to take items 4, 5 and 6 in private. Item 4 is consideration of the evidence that we will hear today on the outcomes of the 15th United Nations biodiversity conference of the parties—COP15—item 5 is consideration of a draft report on the Energy Bill and item 6 is consideration of the committee’s work programme. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.