Chamber and committees

That was helpful. Martyn, do you want to respond?

That was very useful. Any further detail that you have on the just transition work will be of particular interest to this committee. I agree with your point that workers need to be at the heart of the conversation on such a transition.

My final question is about the road equivalent tariff, and I will go back to Gordon Martin to ask it. In your submission, Gordon, you stopped short of saying that RET should be scrapped, but you made quite a good case for that to happen. Some people in island communities might agree with you on that, given RET’s impact on demand and so on. Is that your position? If it is, should the Government consider something different from RET that could do the same thing but in a slightly different way and without the unintended consequences? I am interested in fleshing out whether you have a fixed view on RET.

In answer to a previous question, Gordon, you said that you felt that unions and ferry workers have been cut out of the procurement process. Do you want to say more about that? Has there been no engagement at all with workers and unions, or has engagement been ineffective or badly handled? I will bring in Martyn Gray after you have responded.

Thank you—that was very useful.

Moving on to climate targets, I noted the comment in the RMT submission that there is no maritime sector transition plan for how we are going to meet net zero in respect of that part of our transport emissions. How would you like to see such a sector plan develop? Are there any particular challenges that you would zoom in on at this point? I go back to Gordon Martin on that.

The working time directive, which we have perhaps all taken for granted, is a useful example.

Does Mr Clancy or Mr Livingstone want to respond, too?

I suppose that there is a wider context here, with, for example, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and the potential removal of environmental assessment procedures and so on signalling a shift in policy.

Does that, in effect, invite courts to second guess the direction of policy and the direction of political decisions about environmental legislation, for example? I go back to the habitats directives. Obviously, a vast amount of case law has come on the back of those that relates to consideration of the public interest test and other aspects. Does that require courts to look at what might be coming on to the statute books and where things are going, or is the temptation always going to be to look back at the 50 years of progress and say that that is part of the “proper development” of the law?

I am interested in how the status of retained EU case law might change as a result of the bill. I was struck by the points that are made in a number of the submissions, including that from the Faculty of Advocates, about how the status of retained case law might be diminished in some way if it was judged that that case law might restrict

“the proper development of domestic law”.

I do not have in my mind what the “proper development” of domestic law would be, in the minds of ministers. Could you expand on that? It would be useful if you could give particular examples to colour that scenario.

I will start with Dr Hood and then move on to other witnesses.

Martin Johnson, you work with many sectors, including rapidly growing sectors such as offshore wind. What is your perspective on how we create the space for such development?

I have another couple of questions, which I will wrap together for the sake of time. First, what are your thoughts on the fare structure for commercial businesses and how that could be reformed? Secondly, how could the responsiveness of ferry operators—not just CalMac, but others too—be improved? Can you point us to any good practice?