Chamber and committees

Okay. Thank you.

Please, convener.

What I am trying to establish is whether that will shift because of the need to get to sustainability on a quicker timescale as a result of the loss of revenues elsewhere, or whether the investment pattern will remain the same.

Yes, very briefly. I was wondering whether witnesses recognise that the UK Climate Change Committee would be pretty relaxed if there were no alignment between the UK Government’s and the Scottish Government’s five-year budgets. One of its preferences was for alignment—I put that on the record. Wales, of course, does not align with the UK five-year budgets. Scotland would align with Wales, although I should point out that that would be by accident. Has Wales seen any difficulties in relation to not aligning with the UK?

Secondly, in case I do not get back in, I will add that, in written evidence to the committee, Glasgow City Council stated:

“The alignment of 5-yearly carbon budgets with UK budget periods may cause difficulty due to differing sources of data to calculate emissions.”

I am trying to get my head around this. How big a deal is it, really, and has non-alignment caused Wales any particular problems?

If you do not mind, convener, that was not the question that I asked. We have individual witnesses who are scrutinising the bill who have said—quite rightly, because it is their view—that we should align with the UK Government. They might be saying that because they think that not aligning with the UK Government has caused Wales difficulties. I am not asking people to speak for Wales; I am just asking whether they are aware that not aligning has caused Wales any difficulties.

Perhaps if we gave a copy of Glasgow’s evidence to the local authorities that are giving evidence today, they could reflect on that and write back to us with their views. I think that that would be quite helpful.

That would be helpful. It may be that some of those provisions could be developed further in secondary legislation, so you might want to consider that. Jamie Brogan wants to come in.

That is helpful.

Cornilius Chikwama, your evidence was very helpful. However, in your answer to the convener about the financial memorandum for the bill, you spoke about the need to have much more detail of the finances that will need to be deployed to meet the climate change plan. For clarity, were you talking about the financial memorandum for the bill or about the need for there to be detailed budgeting when the climate change plan is published—in, I would imagine, late 2025?

You like the focus that comes from annual targets getting media exposure and you want to ensure that that continues to be the case under the proposed annual reporting mechanism, even if it does not report against annual targets.