Chamber and committees

What the committee may be establishing is that this is not about the five-year budgets but about getting the delivery plan in place and how we monitor that to hold Government and other agencies to account. We are considering enabling legislation, so I wanted to check that there is nothing inherent in the bill that would seek to dilute any commitment to a just transition or to climate justice.

Could that be mitigated by the annual reporting under proposed section 34A of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009? If that reporting made explicit reference to how any of this has impacted on a just transition or climate justice, would that give a degree of reassurance? Should that provision be explicit that that is to be part of the annual reporting commitment?

I suppose that it is a question for the local authorities. I was trying to roll it all into one question—thank you for your generosity, convener, in allowing me back in. No one is aware of any challenges that non-alignment has caused Wales; it was important for the committee to hear that.

Do any of the local authorities have any issues such as the one that Glasgow has raised about

“differing sources of data to calculate emissions”

making it challenging to align the budgets? I have no idea whether that is robust evidence or not, but it is evidence that the committee has received. Have local authorities considered any challenges in relation to aligning with the five-year budgets at UK level?

I will make that point in private as well, convener.

Okay.

Thank you. I understand it now, convener.

I understand that the bill that we are scrutinising is framework legislation and that further details will come in secondary legislation. However, would you change any specific aspects of reporting and monitoring?

That is helpful.

The deputy convener was exploring the theme of the information that the climate change plan would have. Would it be helpful for there to be as much transparency as possible on the amount of money that we would expect to be able to leverage in from, say, the private sector, and the amount of money that we would expect to leverage from local authorities, other public bodies and the Scottish Government?

There could be slippage on those amounts for whatever reason, whether because of UK Government capital cuts or because the market is not leveraging in as much cash as possible. Should the financial plan be an iterative process, so that it is regularly updated with as much transparency as possible? In year 1, we have financial assumptions, but we all know that those things are a moveable feast—we plan for the long term, but there are short-term fluctuations. What information on that would Audit Scotland find useful?

That is helpful; I note that there were a lot of witnesses’ heads nodding in agreement.

I flip back to my first question; Alison Leslie may want to pick up on this one. The committee wants to check whether the bill has any implications for climate justice and the just transition principles. As you know, each climate change plan must include a statement on both those aspects. Will moving from the annual targets to the five-year carbon budgets have any implications for that?

That is reasonable. Jamie Brogan wants to come in.