Chamber and committees

There is a net zero portfolio in the draft budget, but we do not really have anything in the other portfolio sections that looks specifically at climate mitigation.

You talked about public and private sector costs. Interestingly, figure 3.3 on page 33 of your document shows that about 30 per cent of the total cost of capital investment required on the balanced pathway from 2020 to 2050 is in private sector electricity supply; the figure is 20 times greater than the figure for public sector electricity supply. That is not only 30 per cent of the total cost—it is also reserved, which shows the difference in the interaction.

That graph is quite interesting, because if we look at the total costs for the devolved sectors, we see that almost half of those in Scotland are public sector costs, but less than one tenth are reserved sector costs. Does that make you think that the public sector in Scotland has to take a greater lead than it is currently doing?

It is about consistency across financial memorandums.

So, when the draft budget is published every year, we would hope to see something like that, from a Scottish perspective.

Okay. Paragraph 27 of the financial memorandum says:

“The figures contained within this Financial Memorandum are the Scottish Government’s best estimates of the costs of the provisions of the Bill”.

Clearly, that is not the case, is it?

You have said that the oil and gas sector accounts for one in 200 jobs in the UK and one in every 30 in Scotland, but what share of taxation comes from that sector?

We will obviously deliberate in private session on where we go from here as a committee. If that is your questioning finished, I will move to John Mason, who will be followed by Michael Marra.

Police Scotland has said that it will cost nearly £5 million more than the figure in the financial memorandum. That is more than three times the figure in the memorandum. Do you think that the figures in Police Scotland’s submission are more accurate than those in the memorandum?

Michelle Thomson has a brief supplementary question.

That concludes questions from the committee. It is interesting to see the huge amount of money that this is going to cost, given that Scotland produces 0.1 per cent of the world’s emissions and oil production currently stands at 108.6 million barrels per day. It really is a global issue, and we can but play a part in resolving it.

Professor Roy, do you or your team wish to convey any further points to the committee before we conclude?

It is groundhog day for the committee. Paragraph 33 of the memorandum says:

“Many of the Bill’s provisions will require secondary legislation to be fully implemented.”

Why are those provisions not being included in primary legislation?