Chamber and committees

I thank all the panellists for those useful answers.

I will move on. How could and should councils be using the powers to support bus use in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, which was passed in the previous session of Parliament? What is the next tranche of activity that councils should be engaged in?

I ask Paul White to answer first, after which I will go to Ewan Wallace.

Earlier, in your answer to Liam Kerr’s question about companies’ investment in the transition, you talked about getting away from expensive gas, which is driving the energy price. However, according to the International Energy Agency, in 2020, oil and gas companies invested only around 1 per cent of their capital expenditure in clean energy. Do you think that that is a fast enough transition? When do you think that the industry can get up to 70 per cent?

I have another question.

Alastair, could you comment on the practicalities of the next few months?

That message is heard. Chris Birt, do you want to add anything?

What percentage of capital expenditure is that?

There has been a lot of debate about the need to democratise energy, and there has been much debate in the Parliament about the idea of a national energy company. Minister, do you see the potential for local energy companies to be developed as a result of the work on the strategy? I think that you have already mentioned that there are examples of that being done. Do you see that as something that could accelerate as local authorities work through what is appropriate for their own areas?

It has been a sobering and moving session. I want to try to wrap things up. We have had a lot of information from you, but what should the Scottish Government be doing in the next three months? We have a window of opportunity in the summer, when energy usage will inevitably be lower because of the weather, but after that, with the cap coming off and energy use going up in the autumn, people are going to face a huge crisis.

What should the Government be doing to reduce demand for energy over the summer? What should be the priorities? What programmes should the Government be putting in place to ramp up the capacity to provide advice and support quickly and ensure that it gets to the people who really need it to reduce their bills? You have covered some of that, but I am looking for practical measures that the Government should be focusing on in programmes that could run over the summer.

Is that rapid deployment of energy efficiency measures best done through ECO, the energy company obligation, which can work through the registered social landlord sector, or is there another scheme that should come in alongside that? Last week, we heard about people who are just about managing, who might not be on a social rent but are now being hit—people in working poverty who are being hit hard with the cost of living crisis. Do we have a mechanism ready to go so that we can start to do that work, or does work still need to be done on that?

Perhaps I could pick up where we just left off, with the proposal for a deficit fund. How we would fund that seems to be absolutely critical.

I turn to Ross Dornan from the oil and gas sector. Does the oil and gas sector recognise that it could have a role in supporting vulnerable consumers directly? I point to the fact that, over the past five years, the sector has not paid tax on its North Sea operations—BP specifically has not paid any tax in the North Sea. I think that it was in February this year that BP’s chief financial officer said:

“It’s possible that we’re getting more cash than we know what to do with.”

Surely paying more tax and enabling the Treasury to put money into a deficit fund would be one way to do that.