Chamber and committees

Good morning, cabinet secretary and Mr Cook.

I have had a big interest in Prestwick airport all my life, and I think that it is a phenomenal asset and has huge potential for the area. From my line of questioning earlier this morning, you will know that I am concerned about the relationship with wind farm operators, specifically around the public inquiry report that was recently published. I know that there are on-going public inquiries, which we cannot discuss, but it is about the approach to the mitigation of issues in relation to building wind farms around the airport and the required radar upgrade, specifically to the Terma radar. I intimated that I spoke to NATS last week, to look at what the actual requirement is, and I also spoke to some of the wind farm operators.

To cut to the chase, as was accepted by the previous panel, on-going mitigation payments from wind farms are now being seen as an income stream. The inquiry report says that

“there is no basis to require ongoing compensatory payments”;

that the way in which those are calculated by the airport—by a charge per megawatt—is “not appropriate”; and, finally, that the way in which non-disclosure agreements are used to prevent some of those arrangements from being made public goes against similar agreements between commercial parties and wind farm developers.

How aware of that are you? How much does it concern you? Thankfully, the airport is in profit but, if public inquiries continue to find in such a way—that payment should not be an income stream, because it is supposed to be specifically for mitigation of the impact on radar—that would impact on the profitability of the airport. How aware of that are you?

Good morning, gentlemen. I declare a lifelong interest in Prestwick airport from the start, given that I used to live in Monkton and I joined the crowds in the football field across from my house to watch the inaugural flight of Concorde in 1969—that is how old I am.

I want to use my time to look at the airport’s income streams beyond flight operation; in particular I am interested in agreements with wind farm developers for mitigation payments. You will be aware of the findings of the reports on Clauchrie and Sanquhar. Having read the reports, it seems that the airport’s approach to negotiating mitigation settlements with wind farms has been challenged in several recent planning inquiries for such developments. From comments made by wind farm developers and reporters, it is reasonable to say that your approach is more aggressive than the norm. In particular, you have sought to receive on-going payments beyond an initial lump sum—you have sought to receive payments based on the number of megawatts generated. Most worryingly, you have taken an approach that uses non-disclosure agreements to conceal the value of payments and prevent public scrutiny. I am taking that straight from the report. Do you feel that that is an accurate description of the approach that you have taken to wind farms?

Anna, would you like to add anything?

The focus of your answer was very much on penalising those who do not comply, but there is another side to that coin. Should we not be encouraging people to comply? Instead of just a stick, do we not need a stick and a carrot? How do we encourage rather than penalise? I think that that is always a better approach to take, if you can.

My questions are for Jocelyn Blériot and Anna Larsson. At the moment, there is a lot of focus in Scotland on single-use items, such as vapes, and we are also looking at the disposal of unsold goods. The bill would give the Scottish Government powers to tackle those issues, but are there any international examples that we should be focusing on and which we could emulate to help us develop more successful legislation? I would ask that, when you answer, you comment, please, on how we can engage with business, as it is so important that we take business with us and ensure that there is no uncertainty about how to do business.

I put that question to Jocelyn first.

It was about charges for single-use products and whether we should adopt that idea.

Thank you very much.

I am going to try to dip my toe into the murky waters of the difference between devolved and reserved areas and how they could interact with the bill. I want to avoid some of the troubles that we have had in the past in developing policy in this area. I assume that my questions are for Aileen and Feja, but if I am wrong in that, please tell me.

As you said, there is a real complexity around the interactions. Although waste is a devolved policy area, it will inevitably interact with UK reserved areas, such as EPR and, as we saw recently, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 has also raised its head. I will ask a few questions about the key challenges in navigating that complex environment, especially because, as we heard earlier, divergence in policy is not necessarily a bad thing, in that one devolved nation can lead another by highlighting good practice. How do we use the common frameworks to support that policy coherence?

We have recent experience of the internal market act and its effect on the deposit return scheme and the single-use plastics ban. How do we utilise those opportunities and avoid some of the—to use a technical term—bun fighting that took place recently?

I will ask Feja to answer first. If I am going to the wrong people here, please let me know.

I commend my colleague Bob Doris for trying to keep politics out of this, but I am going to throw it back in again. Is the problem not that the relationship between the two Governments has never been worse, and that the lack of collaboration and the intransigence towards each other are complicating the way in which we are trying to develop the bill?

I thought that SNIB funded £5 million and up, and that Scottish Enterprise funded £1 million to £5 million.