Chamber and committees

Thanks very much, convener. Sadly, I have the Climate Change Committee lurgy here at home.

I want to ask about the advice around the five-year carbon budgets and go back to the point that you made at the beginning of the session, Chris. What is the Climate Change Committee’s view on that? We have heard some criticism from Piers Forster about dropping the interim targets—2030 and 2040—but you have just said that moving towards a five-year carbon budget and away from the annual targets makes sense if the action is batched together into climate change plans and is backed up with strong advice from the Climate Change Committee.

Will you offer a bit of clarity as to your view on the interim targets, what happens to them and how they relate to the five-year budget?

When will you be able to issue that advice to both the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament? When we were setting targets in the 2019 act, we were perhaps not getting such formal, solid advice. If the Scottish Parliament were to legislate again on climate targets, we would need to have that cast-iron advice coming from the UK CCC in time to deal with that legislation.

We would expect that to come within the next climate plan. One of the criticisms that you made a number of years ago was that the previous climate plan did not have the numbers in it, so do you expect the next climate plan to have hard figures as to what each and every policy programme will deliver in the years to come?

I appreciate that and your points about needing to learn from the 2019 act and the process around setting targets in that regard.

You offered quite a few reflections on the early climate package that was announced last week around the intent to legislate and you have spoken at length about heat and the positivity around the heat in buildings programme and how that will get us on the right trajectory—not to meet the 2030 targets but certainly to meet the 2045 targets. Do you want to comment on any other elements of that package? You have already spoken about Grangemouth, for example. There is a commitment in the package to see a just transition plan for Mossmorran that will be early and involve workers. There has also been a commitment to finally roll out air departure tax. Do you want to reflect on anything else in that package as potentially signalling a change in Government policy or a welcome acceleration?

I want to ask about checks when things come the other way—from the EU to the UK—and whether that might change the dynamic a little bit. Scott—do you want to comment on that?

Fiona, you mentioned that your sector is a net importer. How do you see things panning out, once the checks are brought in?

I presume that for salmon and shellfish organisations there is less of an issue than there is for your colleagues who operate on the continent and import to the UK. However, that raises a question about how your sectors are working with your European compatriots, in the current political context, to affect EU regulations and to effect change.

Tavish, I am aware that the vast majority of salmon farms in Scotland are owned by Norwegian companies. Does the fact that Norway is in the European Economic Area give you an advantage in terms of being able to influence the European Union through that route? As a multinational industry, does that give you a voice beyond London?

You will be involved in rule making and not just rule taking.

Donna, do you have anything to add on how your sector operates?

Joel?

Okay.