Chamber and committees

We will find out.

It is important to say that we do not have that clarity from DEFRA. I want to bottom that out with DEFRA, because, as it stands, our assessment is that the provisions in regulation 9D do not permit individual sites in the site network to be adapted in the ways that might be required to mitigate the effects of climate change. They do not allow us to modify the boundaries of sites or to remove features from site citations. Nothing that has come from DEFRA has given us any confidence that we would have the ability to do that on the basis of regulation 9D. If we had that confidence, we would have taken a different view, but we have bottomed that out and we have no idea what DEFRA is doing in relation to that. In saying that, we are in communication with DEFRA and are asking it those questions directly.

This particular power would allow us to mitigate the effects of climate change in a responsive and dynamic way, modify the boundaries of sites, remove features from site citations and do everything else that I have set out as part of our ability to protect nature, habitats and species in an agile way.

The current regulations have no powers to remove certain features from the reasons for designating a site—that is the issue. The bill will give us the ability to do that and to be responsive to changes in the environment. The example that I have just given is a real-world example of how a site being designated as a European site freezes it in time; that designation was fine for then, but, 20 or 30 years on—whatever it might be—the forest is adapting to climate change, and adapting more generally, too. This is not a case of there being an invasive species; these are naturally occurring changes in the forest. That is a real-world example of where we could be quite fleet of foot in changing the designation of a site, instead of having to wait years to do that. After all, nature itself does not wait.

—but it is an indicator. Look at the fish species that we do not see in the more southern Scottish waters but that we see in Ms Wishart’s constituency—things that we are finding in different parts of Scotland. That is an indication that climate change is real. If we have the flexibility that part 2 of the bill gives us, we will be able to respond to it in an agile way.

The targets are important in that regard. I mentioned to Beatrice Wishart the ability under the legislation for the targets to be changed, although they do not have to be reviewed every 10 years. Whether those targets are working or not, they are subject to parliamentary scrutiny—and, of course, there is all the reporting that is associated with the biodiversity strategy and all the questions that we have in the Parliament. A robust parliamentary system will scrutinise the use of all the powers in the bill, and, as I have said, the purposes for which the powers can be used are built into the bill. I think that they are robust.

It will allow us the flexibility, in the future, to adapt to changing technologies, changes in evidence and environmental impacts that we see that need a quick response. I cannot predict what those will be. That is why the power is not prescriptive—we do not know what will happen. We are talking about nature and biodiversity, and others have mentioned invasive species and the threats that they pose to particular habitats.

We know that climate change, in particular, is having a severe effect. Look at the overwintering geese—they used to overwinter in the south of Scotland and now they overwinter in Orkney and Shetland. Maybe I do not want to get in to the geese situation—

I heard that mentioned.

Yes, I am.

That has kind of been bottomed out in the negotiation with the UK Government on what it proposes for the Electricity Act 1989 through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. However, that does not account for other developments outwith offshore wind, which include the development of the transmission infrastructure that is associated with offshore wind. There is not much point in having offshore wind if you do not have the means to get the energy from it into the grid.

We have identified that there has been a gap there, but that is not the top-line reason for the powers in part 2 being in the bill; the top-line reason is to enable us to be responsive to a changing climate. With those two pieces of legislation, the UK Government has given us the flexibility in relation to offshore wind developments, but there is still a gap in relation to ancillary developments that would get that energy into the grid. There are technologies that are not to do with offshore wind that are nascent and could develop. Again, we are interested in a future-proofing element.

I want to emphasise the point that we have two exciting but nascent technologies in Scotland—wave and tidal—that are not accounted for in any of the UK legislation that we have mentioned.

You are right that we did consult. When it comes to tackling the biodiversity crisis, the provisions proposed in that consultation would address some immediate known issues, such as inflexibility and the wider constraints on protected areas, but they would not address some deeper-rooted concerns that we have about the legislative framework and its gaps, and we need to future proof legislation to allow us to be adaptable. We also felt that bolting additional measures on to an existing framework could have unintended consequences and would make it extremely complex to navigate.

For example, we took the decision not to progress protected areas as part of the bill but to look at the issue in future parliamentary sessions—with the caveat that this will depend on our priorities and who is in Government—and at that point undertake a more fundamental review and then reform the legislative framework in a way that covers nature conservation, including protected areas.

A lot of what we do in the net zero and energy portfolio is about assessing the efficacy of what has been done in the past and whether it is working, which comes back to the whole thing about dynamism.