Chamber and committees

On the same theme, I will ask Kat Feldinger about the priorities of the European Union. On a number of recent committee visits, I have picked up that there is an increasing focus from the European Union on the accession states in the east. I want to get your thoughts on responding to the EU’s agenda and on integrating and working with the EU. Where do you think the frontier of deeper engagement is, and how could a Warsaw office feed into that?

In that instance, Stirling Council has done great work in a complex and sensitive situation. Is it your impression that councils are able to support people right now, or are there particular areas where there is a difficulty and councils are struggling? You mentioned Edinburgh. There might be other areas where there are housing pressures.

I am aware that there are about 3,000 people who are still in their welcome accommodation and that councils are working very hard to offer people two options: moving into a tenancy or moving into hosted accommodation. However, is there a group of people who would prefer to stay in the welcome accommodation? I am thinking in particular about rural situations where somebody might have moved into a hotel—such as the Killin hotel, which Mr Brown has mentioned—got a job in the local area and become quite settled but the accommodation options in the community are pretty limited. I know that that was previously an issue, but is it still an issue? In that particular instance, a number of people moved out of the hotel—indeed, a family went to stay with Mr Brown, which is great. For people who have become quite settled in such areas and are quite satisfied with the situation that they are in, to what extent is there a bit of a residual issue in supporting them with what is appropriate and what they want?

I will pick up on one thread of that. In the international network strategy, there is quite a strong focus on hydrogen, which involves a number of offices, including Scotland house in Brussels and teams in China, France and Germany, and I imagine that Copenhagen will be in that mix, as well.

I am interested in how that work is co-ordinated practically, because it could look like a disparate way of considering particular economic opportunities in different countries. Who is leading that work? Is it the cabinet secretary with responsibility for energy? How is the work on hydrogen being aligned with the direction of travel of the UK Government on hydrogen? It would be good to get a sense of that. I will go back to Kat Feldinger and then bring in Catriona Radcliffe, because the China office has also been involved in that.

Can Catriona Radcliffe provide the Beijing office perspective on that?

I just want to make a brief point, convener, to pick up on what Elspeth Macdonald and Tavish Scott said about strategic environmental assessments. At what level would you wish to be more involved in that: at screening stage, scoping stage or development of the environmental reports? I am trying to understand what the missing bit of engagement is and how appropriate it is for you to be involved at different stages. Given what Tavish Scott said about not having enough staff to go to every single meeting, how involved can you be in the science and setting the baselines that are required through that kind of process? What did you feel was missing through your engagement in that SEA process?

It is indeed. I am left-handed, so I work that way.

Fundamentally, though, do your members see the need for restoration in the inshore?

Climate change is a factor as well—

Perhaps, you are jumping on that as one potential way forward. The whole point of a just transition is that it is led by workers and people in those sectors, so they come up with the solutions, whether it be for sea lice or biodiversity impact, and they use their technical innovation skills to do that.

I do not know what the solutions are for your sector—I do not work in that area—but is there something about the principle of asking, because we have strict biodiversity targets and we need to move forward, how we involve sectors in that change? How do we deliver the change that, I think, you acknowledge needs to happen? It is the same for fisheries as it is for the energy sector. How can such change be driven by the sectors themselves in a way that is just, rather than them just saying, “We do not want the change”?