Chamber and committees

Sticking with financing, my second question is about the UK Government’s financing to reach climate change targets. The Climate Change Committee has estimated that an extra £50 billion a year of capital expenditure will be needed from 2030. Does the UK Government take any view on whether that estimate is reasonable? In any event, will you help us understand how that will be financed?

Good morning, Mr Sharma. You mentioned the nationally determined contributions and the need to mobilise international financial support to assist developing countries to make those NDCs following COP26. Regardless of whether the amount ultimately agreed is $100 billion or otherwise, how will that financial support be administered, allocated and shared with the countries that are most in need of support to achieve their targets?

Yes. It is a reference to the report from the Climate Change Committee.

I appreciate that this might be a question for Mr Dey, whom we might bring in, but what is the Government going to do to ensure that that does not happen again? Do you know off the top of your head what has already been put in place?

I am grateful. I think that what I am hearing is that, in some ways, the focus has changed from supply to demand, and it is about what needs to change when it comes to demand.

Just sticking with the policy on a publicly owned energy company, I saw that your party’s conference voted at the weekend for a different policy from yours, in that it would prefer that an energy company was created. Will that impact on your thinking? If so, what steps will be taken?

I understand your point. What I am hearing in relation to my concern is that next year, with the publication of plans, is critical. You mentioned hydrogen, which I might come back to, although I will not make a substantive point on that at this stage.

On a slightly different topic, the Scottish Government announced four years ago that a publicly owned energy company would be created to generate and supply energy but, £500,000 later, it seems to have been dropped—we heard last week that it will not go ahead. Will you help the committee to understand why the policy changed? When was the decision to drop the policy made and by whom? Do you have oversight of what the £500,000 was spent on?

Last week, the committee discussed the just transition. We heard concerns that plans may not yet be sufficiently developed. You alluded to the announcement of £500 million over 10 years for a just transition fund, but we do not have any detail about that yet. What is the timescale for us to have details of the just transition plan and fund? When can we expect concrete plans to be in place? I presume that, until those plans are in place, the Scottish Government will not take decisions that would jeopardise jobs in the sector.

As Jackie Dunbar has raised the issue of transport, I would like to ask a very brief question about ferries. Last December, our predecessor committee described the management of the procurement of the two new ferries as a “catastrophic failure”. Since then, we have been told that the new completion date is 2023, which is, I think, five years behind the original schedule, and that the final costs will be over £200 million. My question, cabinet secretary, is this: do you know whether that is the final projection for the target date and cost, or could that move again? Given the need for on-going vessel replacement, what is the Government doing to ensure that that “catastrophic failure” does not happen again?

I have a brief question on that topic. Dave Moxham mentioned the college sector in passing. There must be a requirement for specific courses to aid any transition, and furthermore for lecturers to deliver them. That needs to happen up front, because in order to drive a transition you need those courses to be delivered and for people to be coming out of them. Is there any evidence that those courses are being put in place and that lecturer skills are being put in place to deliver them, or has that stalled waiting for a transition plan and, if so, does action need to be taken very quickly?

Good morning, gentlemen. I will continue with the line that my friend Jackie Dunbar has been pursuing, because it is such an important one. Jim Skea said earlier that the words “just transition” are used as “magic dust”. I understand that point, and you rightly flagged up issues about the practicalities. I read a BBC report this morning that said that if Cambo went ahead, associated with it would be

“1,000 direct jobs in Scotland and 2,000 more in the supply chain”

and

“another 500 elsewhere in the UK.

The report contrasted that with the Viking project—described as a “vast new wind farm” in Shetland being put together by SSE Renewables—which would have “35 permanent jobs” associated with it. For a transition that we all accept that we need to make, is there an issue with not only the practicalities of what can be achieved but the realities of it?