Chamber and committees

I will just unpack some of those issues. It is not long since we published our heat decarbonisation strategy, which was formed following a public consultation that included our colleagues in local government. They had an opportunity to feed into that process and they are able to continue to feed into our policy development in that area. I therefore do not accept the idea that local authorities have not had the opportunity to feed into national policy direction and our national strategy on that. It was an open consultation for them to participate in and to feed into, which they have been able to do.

Secondly, we commissioned work, which was carried out and which involved housing associations and, if I recall correctly, the chief executive of Inverclyde Council, to look at some of the specific challenges that local authorities faced around the heat decarbonisation agenda. The report from that was submitted to the Scottish Government last year, and it fed into the development of our strategy. Again, therefore, local authorities have been involved in helping to formulate that policy and our thinking around it and some of the challenges that we face.

I realise that the scale and nature of the challenge are extremely significant not only for local authorities but for our social housing providers. There are hundreds of social housing providers throughout the country that all face similar challenges. That is exactly why we committed to setting up the public energy agency to support local authorities and social housing providers.

One of the purposes behind the public energy agency is to bring together the skills and expertise and develop the advice and information that local authorities and social housing providers require to assist them in moving forward with the agenda, so that we do not have 32 local authorities all trying to do it differently and reinventing the wheel over and over. It will co-ordinate that work, provide expertise and provide the necessary guidance and support.

Your final point concerned the green heat finance task force that we are setting up. I hope that, in the next couple of weeks, we will be able to set out the details of its remit and membership. It has been specifically designed to consider how we can lever in external financial support alongside public sector investment in decarbonisation to support colleagues in the public and private housing sectors. They will have an opportunity to feed into that and I expect local authorities to have a role in the task force to ensure that their voices are heard at the heart of developing any recommendations that the Government might implement.

Was the lack of data an issue for the private sector companies—the potential investors?

I get the point that you are making, and it is a reasonable challenge. I will take that point away.

The UK ETS is performing as it was intended to. There have been discussions between the four nations in recent months to consider whether there ought to be some adjustments to the ETS. The four nations decided not to make any adjustments to the capping levels, given some of the energy price pressures that sectors are experiencing. By and large, the ETS is operating as was intended. Clearly, it will have to change and adapt for the future, and that is the work that the four nations are taking forward. I hope that we will be in a position to consult on that in the months to come.

I am not aware of how far the UK Government has got on the implementation of a carbon tax, which would have implications for the ETS. In the discussions that we have had with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about the future of the ETS, there has been no suggestion at any point that a carbon tax might be brought in that would render the ETS no longer viable. Our discussions with the UK Government have given no indication of the implementation of a tax regime that would replace the existing ETS. The order that we are discussing will align us more closely with the European Union emissions trading scheme.

The response is that there is no easy answer to what is a complex issue. More than 250 public bus providers in Scotland provide access to public bus services. Nationalising those services would mean nationalising more than 250 businesses and it would come at a significant cost to the taxpayer. People think that taking things into public ownership is the answer to it all, but to make that possible, we would need capital and revenue that we do not have.

That is why, in order to address some of those issues, we made provision through the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 for a range of measures, such as bus service improvement partnerships. The range of options that are available to local authorities includes local authority-run bus services. However, again, a local authority would have to capitalise a company for the purposes of achieving that, and that comes at a cost to the taxpayer—it is not cost neutral. The money would have to come from somewhere else to buy over the bus company or to buy buses and then run them.

A franchising mechanism is also available, as is a mechanism for joint partnerships between the public and private sectors. A variety of models is available that, deployed in the right way, could address some of the issues that your constituents have raised with you and improve services. At the same time, we must recognise that the idea of nationalising more than 250 companies overnight and then running them as a national bus service comes at a significant cost to the taxpayer, and the finances are not available for that.

We need to see more progress on the powers that are available under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 with regard to supporting local authorities to improve bus services. That has already happened in some cities outwith Scotland—Leeds, for example—where they have been able to transform the quality of their bus services by giving the issue greater priority and by having a much closer local bus partnership to ensure that services reflect local need much more.

I do not know off the top of my head exactly where we are with local authorities bidding into the fund, but I am more than happy to take the issue away and come back to the committee with more details in writing. It is the sort of thing that local authorities will be able to tap into for local bus service provision but, of course, if one big local authority were to decide to do something significant, it could try to call on all of the fund. We therefore have to ensure that it is accessible to all local authorities and that it is not eaten up by one or two local authorities looking to take big projects and proposals forward.

It reflects where Network Rail sees itself in control period 6 and the projects that it can take forward. As you will be aware, a significant number of capital projects were stalled or had to be stopped during the pandemic. The rail system operates on a system of control periods, and the spend reflects where Network Rail thinks it is with regard to the projects that it had intended to deliver in the current control period. It also reflects the efficiencies that it thinks it can achieve in some of the projects that it will take forward in control period 6.

Overall, though, the budget is very clearly about continuing to invest in our railways to improve them, to decarbonise them and to speed up the network, particularly to our seven cities.

We are carrying out a piece of work to consider how we will respond formally to the Climate Change Committee. I had a meeting with it to discuss the challenges that it has rightly put to us in relation to our targets and policy direction. I will give you an example of where we are setting out more detail: the CCC challenged us on the 20 per cent reduction in car kilometres and since then we have published details on how we want to progress that. We will provide a more detailed response to the points that have been raised by the CCC.

The CCC’s updated assessment highlights that, in relation to climate change, we have gone through a process of deciding what the targets should be and setting targets and we are now much more into the delivery phase; this is when we need to take forward the measures that will deliver on the targets that we have set. That involves making difficult decisions and pivoting away from some of the traditional ways in which we have used capital and into areas that were previously not as high a priority. Ring fencing 10 per cent of the transport budget for active travel infrastructure is a good example of that. It is not long ago that investment in active travel infrastructure was in the tens of millions, not the hundreds of millions.

The challenge from the Committee on Climate Change is that it wants to see much more detail on delivery. We are considering that and are looking at how to respond to the points that it makes about providing more detail on how we will deliver those commitments.

You are right that I cannot give you that information off the top of my head. Part of the reason for that is that some of that spending will span other portfolios. There will be elements of Shona Robison’s portfolio that will support our net zero objectives and bring investment into local authorities. I am more than happy to take away your points and see whether we can provide you with more detail, if that would assist the committee with its inquiry and would be useful.

To be clear, are you asking about town centre businesses that are finding it difficult to secure funding to decarbonise their businesses? The heat decarbonisation fund is not only for housing; it is also for non-domestic premises. That might be a route for some businesses in towns and city centres.