Chamber and committees

First, it is not unusual for companies in development to have a landlord. If Ineos does not want to sell the refinery site and if it wants to be the site’s landlord, it will have responsibilities in relation to how the site is developed and it will have an awful lot of infrastructure that it must put right.

On issues that developers might be bringing up about the relationship with Ineos, I will come to Jan Robertson. A lot of the people who are speaking to us in the task force have already spoken to Petroineos. It is working in good faith with the people who approach it, some of whom have been redirected to the task force via Petroineos and vice versa. Conversations about what it would be required to do as a landlord are happening.

Petroineos wants development to happen on the site; it wants to work with us across both Governments, and it wants Scottish Enterprise to secure projects for it. That is in its interests as a landlord—it has not indicated that it would want to take forward any of the projects in project willow.

Quite a lot of work was done with Petroineos previously. When Michael Matheson was the relevant cabinet secretary, the Scottish Government funded studies on turning the site into a biorefinery. However, Petroineos’s board decided not to turn any of those proposals into reality—the shareholders on the board decided that they did not want to go there—and we are where we are, regrettably.

It is a source of regret that the refinery has stopped producing, because we have a situation where workers in the wider Grangemouth area are worried about what the future might hold—I do not have to tell you that, Ms Thomson. However, there have been constructive relationships between us and Petroineos, as well as between Petroineos and those who have come forward with proposals. I am not concerned, because companies build developments and have a landlord in lots of situations, and Ineos Olefins & Polymers will still have a footprint in the cluster.

I am not telling you anything that you do not know, but the Scottish Government’s £25 million just transition fund for Grangemouth is in place to support the progression of those projects, as well as ancillary work around the just transition and skills interventions in the area. As part of the Falkirk and Grangemouth growth deal, £50 million has been given for work in the wider area. Jan Robertson will be able to give the specifics of the detail on private finance.

We have an offer, because we have a fund that is in place to support some of the development that is needed to make such proposals commercial. That bridging funding is needed for the projects to get to the commerciality point.

Certain elements of what Mercedes Villalba talks about, such as the release of non-native game birds, are not covered in the bill. We wanted to keep the targets and the habitats regulations as the main part of the bill, and we do not have any plans to do anything on the release of non-native game birds. However, the target topics allow us the capacity to deal with invasive non-native species more generally, both at the moment and in the future, as the targets are set.

The bill is not prescriptive to that level of detail on actions. It provides the ability to set targets, which can be quite broad in nature and under which actions can sit. Invasive non-native species will have an impact on the health of a habitat or an ecosystem. That is why the PAG advised us to have those broad target topics. What you ask about is not ruled out; it is just not specified in the legislation.

First, biodiversity loss and climate change are inextricably linked and we must have protections and mitigations for them both. In every situation, decisions have to be made that take into account various pieces of evidence on environmental impact. The consent application processes are robust for offshore and onshore wind, but I think that we will be making them even more robust, particularly when there are consultations about things such as community engagement and the benefits that are associated with developments. Those consultations will become stronger as time goes on, because we need to be able to see that developments of any sort will not damage the environment and also that they put things back into the environment. For example, developers have taken action to restore peatland, and offshore wind developers are helping us with data collection on seabirds and fish species. Much of that is voluntary at the moment, but much more will become mandatory in that space—that is the trajectory.

One of the interesting things in relation to my portfolio is the restriction on how money that is associated with developments can be used for nature restoration. As a hypothetical example, let us say that funding has come from a wind farm as a result of its impact on the seabed. I cannot necessarily use that money for other mitigations in nature that would have a material impact on sea health, so it is very restrictive. However, things are adapting and changing, and I think that they are getting stronger.

You mentioned energy, so I will talk about what is happening in that space. The Scottish ministers have the power to amend the Habitats (Scotland) Regulations 1994 within the parameters that are set out in the UK Energy Act 2003 in respect of offshore wind activities only. However, that power does not allow for amendments to the regulations in respect of emerging technologies. A number of colleagues who represent the islands are at the committee today, including those who represent the Orkney Islands. The UK legislation does not allow for any flexibility with respect to the roll-out of our nascent wind and tidal energy technologies. That is because those technologies are not yet on the horizon for the UK Government—they are being developed in Orkney and in the waters off the Highlands of Scotland. We are aiming to plug a gap and give parity to other nascent technologies so that we can have flexibility. Rather than having flexibility in respect of one power generation sector, it is agnostic in respect of the means of power generation.

As a particular example, let us take wave technology. Scotland could lead on that once it becomes commercially viable, so I would not want to stymie it at all. At the same time, the protections in the bill, which are robust, will ensure that flexibility is not given for anyone to do anything that they want in our marine environment. We have to do something to reduce our impact on climate change, which is the biggest impact to our biodiversity.

Part 2 of the bill will give us flexibility around that and will bring it into line. It is agnostic about the technologies.

You have sort of answered your own question in that the most likely circumstance in which the Scottish Government would need to consider secondary legislation would be to align with a UK environmental outcome report, and that would probably happen in relation to the marine environment. The UK Government has legislative competence in the Scottish offshore region, but the Scottish ministers have legislative competence in the Scottish inshore region, so there could be a need for alignment there.

As you said, it is important—especially for renewable energy developments—that there is consistency. There has to be a degree of interoperability. We do not want to be bound by a false boundary because of who has the power.

If two regimes have fundamentally different legal requirements, there might not be an option but to pursue legislative change. Again, that part of the bill is about future proofing, given that we do not know what developments will be on the table in the future. We want to be able to be responsive and to work with the UK Government to align on issues where a lack of alignment might be a barrier to any deployment, which we would not want to be the case.

I would not say that they are incompatible; I would say that we have a changing environment, and having particular protected areas would not allow development. For example, a particular site might have been designated for overwintering geese and, in economic terms, nothing can happen on it, but the protections that are associated with the site are not needed anymore because the geese no longer overwinter there and have gone elsewhere. The issue is not about incompatibility; we are adapting to the reality and taking on board the most up-to-date data and evidence. There is no fundamental incompatibility between net zero and biodiversity, because the two go absolutely hand in hand.

You have referred to other regulations, such as the REACH regulations. I will take away that comparison that you have made and I am open to discussing that with members. The whole point of us sitting in front of you today is to hear your concerns and to think about how we can bottom those out, so I will absolutely take that away.

There might be other avenues that we can consider in respect of safeguarding. I am absolutely open to that. My officials and I are having those conversations even as I am sitting here listening to the committee’s concerns. Let me take that away.

There is no simple answer. I know that you have heard from some stakeholders who would like to see a non-regression clause in the bill. We want to be able to adapt our legislation so that we can meet the challenges ahead of us in a dynamic way and so that we can respond effectively to the twin crises. We do not believe that non-regression is completely and utterly objective.

There are no easy answers when it comes to environmental protection. We believe that decisions should be taken on a case-by-case basis. There can be very complex and competing issues within particular areas, so, in order to make the right decision about what to do, you must look at things case by case, and a non-regression clause would limit the ability to do that.