Chamber and committees

Yes. Community-wide approaches are needed in this particular area, and it is important that RSLs, councils and others have the ability to drive this in order to get the scale of roll-out that we need in our communities. The mechanisms in question will enable funding to come in and achieve that.

I will make a brief comment. I think that, to make progress in the area, we will need community approaches, and it is important that funding mechanisms are available to registered social landlords and the public sector in order to establish heat networks. Understandably, a lot of the focus at the moment is on individual households getting assistance and applying for finance, but I think that it will be some of the broader, community-wide approaches that will crack the nut with regard to retrofitting and decarbonisation. I do not have any specific comments on the SSI beyond saying that we need to accelerate the work.

Okay.

Okay. My other question is around associated work that councils might be thinking of doing as they implement the regulations. One area might be around the designation of loading bays, where there might have been calls from the community for a long time to put a loading bay in place. This legislation brings that to a head, because the ability to pay and park will be taken away, quite rightly. I am wondering where councils are up to with that. Is there a need to push through a lot of traffic regulation orders on loading bays at the moment, or is there other associated work that councils are having to think through when they consider how to make communities work?

Helen, is there a reason why your business has not bid so far?

Has either of your businesses ever bid for a Scottish Government-supported ferry route?

It is good to see the instrument being presented to the committee and that progress being made.

My question is about how the hearings process for exemptions will work in practice. Would a council bring together all of its exemptions and all of the associated issues into one hearing, or would there be multiple hearings for different towns or different parts of a council area? I am trying to understand how that process might work.

If there is a longer list, it would be good to see it.

Cabinet secretary, you mentioned in your opening comments some of the implications of the current impasse, particularly for horizon Europe and energy trading. Could you expand on those two issues? What are the current implications for Scotland?

I see that Jonathan Jones wants to come in, but I have another question, which is about international precedent. It feels as if we are in quite a unique situation, but in recent years have any other Administrations in other parts of the world sought a similar level of executive power over their Parliaments? I will bring Jonathan Jones back in at this point.