Chamber and committees

I do not have the information in front of me. It is a perfectly acceptable question, but I do not have the information. To my knowledge, they have not.

That is quite easy to answer because, with the exception of the scope 3 emissions part, everything in the ESS report made absolute sense. It was great to see that the report was looking at particular sections of Scottish society such as local authorities where there is an awful lot of procurement and buying power in relation to a lot of services and goods, and was asking whether the legislation and the compulsions are fit for purpose, given that we have a net zero target for 2045, and what more we can do to accelerate action around mandating that organisations create climate change plans, and monitoring their work on that.

We were grateful for the recommendations—that is why the service was set up after Brexit, so that we had environmental standards that were being looked at by an independent arm’s-length body that could make recommendations to the Government and Parliament, and I think that it did its job well. The scope 3 emissions situation is tricky, but it is right that that was there, because all Governments need to think about that.

The biggest opportunity for joint work is with the other three nations in the UK. Our improvement plan and the ESS report’s recommendation has prompted things to move a little bit faster in Scotland than in those other countries, but it is coming down the line there, too. The UK has no mandatory requirement for local authorities to report on their greenhouse gas emissions, and the Welsh Government, which does not have one either, is running into the same difficulties that we are. I have quite substantive discussions with my Northern Irish and Welsh counterparts on our net zero ambitions and what we can do in the devolved space to accelerate action around them. We also meet regularly on the issue with the UK Government, so that joint work will be factored in.

We would like to share with other countries the work that the focus group is doing and our wider research. We should also keep a keen eye on what happens in the EU, because this is an issue for every country that wants to accelerate its emissions reduction, and the issue of scope 3 emissions is becoming more of a discussion point in that regard. The methodology around that needs to be bottomed out so that it is fair and will work.

We will continue pressing ahead with the work that we are doing but, at the same time, we will keep an eye on what is happening in the European space and, I hope, we will influence what happens in the wider UK space, too.

As you have heard, I cannot quantify what resource is required. It might be that, after we have done all the necessary work, I will go back and say that councils will require more resource to enable them to do the necessary work, but, for this budget, that piece of string has not been bottomed out yet, as it were.

A few local authorities are already reporting voluntarily. One council—I think that it was East Renfrewshire Council—did a piece of work that involved publishing the emissions data for its supply chains, but it found it difficult to report accurately on that and on how it would impact on decision making.

We must remember—I cannot believe that I am telling this to a former councillor—how varied and broad the services that a local authority procures are and the number of organisations of different sizes that bid for contracts to supply goods and services. Therefore, it could be difficult to ascertain what the scope 3 emissions are, for the reasons that we have all talked about. Some organisations are larger than others, and some have the data while others do not. There is also the issue of whether the data can be relied on.

I come back to what I said at the beginning: ESS has published its report, the conversation is under way, the improvement plan is in place and the Scottish Government is working with COSLA. We have held a few workshops with local authorities and have started to talk about the implications for their activities in identifying scope 3 emissions. Things will have come out of that process that will have prompted action in some areas.

Members of your previous panel mentioned the conversations that have been had with suppliers. For the larger suppliers, that data might be readily available or they might say, “We are moving in this direction in order to reduce our emissions. Can we give you some information on that?”

When it comes to voluntary reporting, will local authorities spend time on that? I think that they will make a judgment about whether that is the best use of their time. Before we put mandatory reporting in place, we need to bottom out a methodology that local authorities are comfortable with.

I do not have that information here. I do not think any have reported on that.

They are not compelled to do it at the moment.

Yes. Also, we have the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service working with them on their emissions reductions and the data for the things that we ask them to do.

We are proposing a couple of mechanisms. First, as I said in my opening remarks, we will still have annual reporting, which will be important. Instead of annual targets, we will have annual reporting on the progress towards the five-year carbon budget ambition.

The bill will retain our current rhythm of reporting on greenhouse gas emissions and on where we are with the climate change plan and how that has been embedded.

Reports on the climate change plan will be unchanged. When we were taking forward the bill, we were clear that we wanted that aspect to be retained completely as it was in the 2009 and 2019 legislation. Under the 2009 act, ministers are required, each year, to lay before the Scottish Parliament

“a report on each substantive chapter”

of the most recent CCP.

We are also required to lay in Parliament a report on emissions reduction every year, indicating the percentage by which the net Scottish emissions are lower than the baseline. That has happened every year, and it will continue to happen every year—nothing in the bill will change any of that.

Your point about how important that is is not lost on me at all. A five-year carbon budget is not about waiting five years before reporting on it and then saying, “Oh, we have not managed to make progress on that.” Work is also taking place to embed those actions more deeply in every portfolio in Government.

I was listening to your evidence when it was suggested that an approach would be to report on key performance indicators in the climate change plan. I am open to considering anything. Work is under way on our having sectoral envelopes in the climate change plan. Obviously, Ms McAllan or I will be reporting on them every year, once the finalised climate change plan, as consulted on, is available.

That checking in on how we are doing every year, with Parliament scrutinising how we are doing annually, and being able to ask me or Ms McAllan questions on that, is fundamentally important. Perhaps changes will need to be made; things might need to be accelerated or there might be blockers to things happening. Conversely, achievements might have been made in certain sectors due to innovation that we did not anticipate. Whatever the position, we are able to report on which sectors are doing particularly well and which ones perhaps need some other assistance and support.

It is absolutely essential. We have seen that, when there is rolling back in climate ambition at UK level, that has an impact. Bob Doris asked an important question about the funding associated with that. When a UK Government puts net zero front and centre of its ambition, that is great news for me, because it means that there will be consequential funding. However, it is also about what is happening in the reserved space. I mentioned energy infrastructure, which is one example of something in the reserved space where there is real scope for activity. There are also regulations. There could be regulations on the types of fuels that are used for aviation or the percentage of sustainable aviation fuel that might be used. The UK Government has lots of levers that could make a material difference to our getting to net zero by 2045.

When Governments at the UK, Welsh and Northern Ireland levels prioritise getting to net zero, not just in the targets that they set and the rhetoric that they use at the United Nations climate change conference of the parties, but in actual policy action and the associated funding, we are all winners. I genuinely feel very positive about the conversations that I have had since I became acting cabinet secretary in this space. Obviously, I would have liked the budget commitment on net zero action that was made pre-election to be retained. We will have to see what comes forward in the UK budget and what that means for our budget in this space but, in terms of the action that needs to be taken to reduce emissions, if all Governments have the same ambition, we will do it.