Chamber and committees

That is a very good point.

I do not disagree with what you say. The point that I was trying to make is that there is nothing preventing somebody who has done a music degree—often, they will be producing their own music—from switching tack and doing something different. I know that, because I did it. That was 30 years ago, when it was arguably even less common than it is now.

I see that Mark Logan wants to pop back in before I go on to my final question. Mark, do you want to pick up on this thread?

Good morning, everybody. It is nice to join you, albeit remotely. I have a couple of short questions.

The first is for Mark Logan. I am interested in your comments about the pace of change, creativity, entrepreneurs and so on. What can be done to utilise the creatives? I say that as someone who initially did a music degree and who quickly came to understand it, and describe it, as precision engineering, due to the accuracy required to produce certain types of music.

Subsequently, I did a postgraduate qualification in IT. I was told at the time, and then at the company for which I eventually went to work, that I had been recruited because of evidence of creativity. The company wanted that creativity in its IT department. Therefore, it seems to me that, in business and in the Government, at whatever level, there is not necessarily the understanding of how creative the creatives are, and how useful they can be in IT.

That would be useful, thank you. How about Triodos?

In some respects, I appreciate that I was being unfair in asking that, but, on legislators’ understanding of the transition, you have correctly identified that interim moves could be claimed to be greenwashing. A classic example is to say that zero waste is going to landfill, when 50 per cent might be incinerated and ultimately end up in landfill. You have correctly highlighted some of the transitional points that businesses might go through in scoping out the various options.

My final question is this: how would you help legislators to understand the transitional steps from your perspective, and the complexity that you have highlighted? John Ferguson did not have a chance to answer the previous question, so do you want to come in here?

I draw the attention of the panel to the fact that I am an ambassador of the all-party parliamentary group for fair business banking, which took part in the bankers for net zero work that has been mentioned.

Some say that there is a paradox between the endless drive for profit and the drive to reach net zero. Arguably, that is nowhere more evident than in our financial system. I want to ask the bankers, first of all, about the banks reaching net zero. Have your pension schemes set targets for when they will reach net zero and do you measure that? I see that Fraser Sime is nodding, so I ask him to respond first, then Simon Crichton.

Following on from that, I have a couple more questions for Fraser Sime and Simon Crichton before I bring David Ovens in on a general question. How, specifically, have your banks changed their measures—the balanced-business scorecard or whatever—in order to put net zero and not just profit at the top?

For my last question—I am aware that I need to leave time for other members to get in—I would like to bring in David Ovens. It is about risk appetite generally. Do you perceive that sustainable businesses are treated differently from a risk perspective, given that they are often new, innovative and smaller? What is your perception of risk appetite across the finance sector?

In that respect, I was surprised to see that the Bank of Scotland, or Lloyds Group, had not participated in bankers for net zero, given that that initiative will be presented at COP26. What was the thinking on that? I note that Handelsbanken and Triodos are in it, as is Barclays, which is one of the very large banks. What was the rationale for your not participating?

I want to quickly bring in Simon Crichton on the question that I asked about how, specifically, his bank has changed its measures to ensure that net zero is on or near the top, alongside profit, given the paradox that I described earlier.