Chamber and committees

Okay. I will move on to the Acorn project and the CCS cluster. I think that there is recognition in the energy strategy and just transition plan that that is needed, particularly for hard-to-abate sectors. It is not clear that there is any other pathway to decarbonise those sectors. However, there are still risks and uncertainties around the deployment of the technology, and not least the track 2 process. What would we do if we did not have Acorn? Is there an alternative pathway in respect of energy? Are there other technologies or avenues that could be explored, or are all the eggs in one basket?

Thanks very much.

Can you give a picture of who will fund that, how it will be funded, and the relative contributions of industry and Government? Is there clarity on that?

Thanks very much for those introductions and, indeed, stories. You are all good storytellers, and you have given us some great examples.

I want to drill down a bit and look at what actually works with regard to funding, partnerships and so on. It sounds as if a diversity of connections is being made between your organisations and, say, statutory agencies, councils and other organisations in your area. Can you drill down into that and be quite succinct about what actually works? In previous evidence sessions, the committee has heard, for example, about the NHS in England employing people to go round and find social prescribing opportunities, and we have also heard about some of the partnerships that have emerged from community planning partnerships.

I am interested, though, in hearing your perspectives on the essence of this. How do you develop the funding partnerships that allow you to undertake more longer-term work in your projects? That question is open to whoever wants to come in.

I have a lot of questions about how to sustain what has been created and how to develop the partnerships that have been established by the various projects and make them sustainable for the long term. It seems as though the Culture Collective has seeded all that work in the communities, but how do you then build the network for the long term and get partners in that network to feed into it, recognise its long-term value and move beyond that period of great creativity and innovation that has lasted for the six months or two years? Ultimately, the need is there, the benefit is there and the commitment to communities is there, and expectations will have also been raised. Where do you go next?

I am happy to allow the discussion to move on.

I am interested to know to what extent, over the two-year process, there has been a different conversation in local communities about funding? Have discussions been galvanised about a transient visitor levy, 1 per cent for culture or funding from other sources? Is that embedding itself into future partnerships and future funding sources, or is it still embryonic? The momentum that you built up has to go somewhere. If, fundamentally, it is about funding and commitment over time, what are the areas that the community and peer-to-peer networks are trying to push forward? Are they trying to move the conversation on at local level about how things will be supported?

GBGB also said last week that a phase out of or a stark ban on greyhound racing would just drive it underground. Is it possible to drive greyhound racing underground? I am trying to imagine how that would work. Maybe it is—I do not know. Maybe there are examples of that happening elsewhere.

Does Sam Gaines want to come in on that?

Coming back to the point that you have made several times about the inherent risk of greyhounds racing at speed around an oval track, I am interested in whether it is possible to reform that. Last week, I put it to GBGB that it could consider racing greyhounds on a straight track. Is that something that the industry has meaningfully considered? Is there a way of removing that inherent risk in greyhound racing, or is there something about the nature of the sport—how it is televised, how it has grown up or how tracks are constructed—that makes that difficult? I am just trying to understand, because it seems to me that, if you remove that inherent risk, you perhaps remove a central part of the objection to greyhound racing.