Chamber and committees

The way that it is inventoried—not just in Scotland or the UK but in every country—is that each country must report on its domestic emissions.

I am not going to talk about Peterhead power station.

11:00

There are smaller-scale carbon capture and storage options. We already have carbon capture in a number of small sites throughout Scotland. The Scottish cluster was brought together in order to look at emissions from a lot of processes, not just energy from waste—from concrete production, for example—using Scotland’s existing pipeline infrastructure, some of which is not being used and could be repurposed. The Scottish Government has been working on that with the industry—with SGN in particular.

Obviously, we want a Scottish cluster to exist. We want Acorn to go ahead. There are smaller-scale opportunities as well but, at scale, we want Acorn to happen.

Exactly. They are full. The sites that are in planning should have been operational by now, but for various reasons to do with private financing, inflation and construction costs going up, as we have seen, they are taking a bit longer. SEPA and the Scottish Government have a line of sight as to when those sites should be available. When they are in operation, that will make up for the shortfall.

The simple answer is yes. We have an easy-to-read version, a version for young people and children and a Gaelic version. You are right that some people want a lot more detail, but I had a discussion with the climate change hubs, and they said that the plan was too large, complex and detailed, and that they wanted something more accessible. They also made the point that they have to respond to local authority climate change plans, so they felt a bit of overload.

Phil Raines has just reminded me that, in order to make such a large document accessible, we put all the sectoral detail in the annexes, so that somebody who just wanted an overview of the plan could read the first part of it—the condensed summary—and somebody who wanted additional detail could go into the annexes.

That point was made to me by the representatives who came into Government for the young people’s Cabinet takeover in the two years that I have been there. They wanted more resources to be put into schools. As a result of that, I had conversations with Jenny Gilruth about making sure that schools had all the necessary materials available for work on climate action more generally.

It is a huge area of work, and I really prioritise it. It will not be in the climate change plan, because it involves a separate piece of work on the good practice principles.

There are two areas of work. We have the voluntary good practice principles that are associated with community benefit in Scotland. We like to think that developers will sign up to those, but they are advisory, because we do not have the powers in that area.

There has been some movement on the issue from the United Kingdom Government, and the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 will allow community benefit and the principles associated with that to be mandated. I did not want to wait for community benefit to be mandated, because I did not have success in convincing the previous Government to mandate it, so we went ahead with the revision of our good practice principles. The consultation on that is closed, and my officials and I will do a separate piece of work on refreshing the good practice principles and looking at how we can embed some of the developments at the UK level that now allow us to mandate levels of community benefit and industry engagement with communities.

That will not be in the climate change plan, because that work will not be completed until after the plan is in place. Also, it does not necessarily have an impact on emissions.

I hear you.

I will need to get back to you on that. [Interruption.] Actually, we can say now.

Thank you. It is always helpful to be able to summarise before any questions are asked, so I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. Today’s meeting is part of a much longer and wider process and I know that the committee has already done a great deal of pre-budget scrutiny.

It is important to set our conversation in the context of the Scottish Government’s overall approach to the budget. As the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government have made clear, the budget focuses on a fiscal programme that will deliver for the people of Scotland and that is balanced, sustainable and impactful. Our focus is to align Government spending with the delivery of our four priorities: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency and ensuring high quality and sustainable public services.

However, it is clear that the Scottish Government continues to face significant pressures that are outwith our control, including a constrained funding settlement from the UK spending review, rising costs across public services and demographic trends that increase demand for health and social care. Following the UK autumn budget, resource funding is expected to grow by an average of only 1.1 per cent in real terms each year across the forecast period. For capital funding, which makes up the majority of my portfolio’s requirement, the position is even more challenging, with Scotland’s capital block grant due to reduce in real terms by 0.3 per cent per annum until 2029-30. Nevertheless, the budget and the Scottish spending review protect and build on the substantial investments that this Government has already delivered for the people of Scotland.

I am proud that the 2026-27 budget commits record funding of more than £5 billion for activities that will have a positive impact on the delivery of our climate change goals, including those to deliver on the potential of renewables, help tackle climate change, increase climate resilience and protect and restore nature. That underlines the important cross-portfolio approach that we take to tackling the climate crisis, recognising that reducing our emissions and mitigating the impacts of climate change offers an unprecedented opportunity to build a more resilient and prosperous economy that is fit for the future. Action to minimise our country’s contribution to global warming also brings with it innovation and systems change that can provide jobs, improve human and environmental health, reduce the cost of living, create energy and food security and position Scotland as an exporter of expertise.

As part of that, my portfolio will provide £436 million to support initiatives accelerating the transition to net zero, restoring nature, and enabling communities and businesses to build resilience to climate impacts and, crucially, will do so while unlocking responsible private investment and supporting skilled jobs across Scotland.

The budget supports policy development and public engagement for climate change and adaptation. I have protected the funding to support climate action hubs that directly involve communities—something I view as essential in our journey towards net zero. We now have 24 such hubs active across Scotland and those have held a total of 781 training and learning events, reaching more than 10,500 people, as well as providing non-financial support to 1,048 community groups.

The £26 million for nature restoration stays at the record levels of last year, keeping us on track to deliver the ambitions set out in the Scottish biodiversity strategy and delivery plan.

The activities in my portfolio to help tackle the climate and nature emergencies have an impact on wider Government priorities, particularly on growing our economy. The budget provides £93 million to maintain momentum in building critical offshore wind infrastructure and developing the supply chain, leveraging significant private investment to maximise economic impact and create thousands of jobs.

The budget provides £16 million for the just transition fund, responding to the particular needs of the north-east and Moray by delivering benefits for businesses, workers and communities. That means that we can continue supporting initiatives like the energy transition zone’s energy transition skills hub, which was opened by the First Minister in September and was delivered with £4.5 million of Scottish Government just transition funding, combined with ETZ investment.

I am determined to secure Grangemouth’s just transition, and the budget builds on work that we have already announced, which includes supporting the construction of MiAlgae’s new omega-3-producing bioreactor at Grangemouth, which looks to create up to 130 direct jobs by 2029. The £6.2 million of Scottish Government funding to support Celtic Renewables’ new biorefinery project in Grangemouth will create up to 149 direct roles.

11:45

I recognise the importance of our regulators, public bodies such as SEPA, which keep us safe from environmental harm and help to keep our air and water clean, alongside playing a pivotal role in providing flood warnings to families and businesses across Scotland, and NatureScot, in ensuring that we all flourish in Scotland’s landscape.