Chamber and committees

I understand that Jeremy Balfour also wishes to make a comment at this point.

Okay. I call amendment 109—

Okay—that is certainly on the record.

The question is, that amendment 3 be agreed to. Are we agreed?

Members: No.

We move to a new section, on appeals to the First-tier Tribunal against process decisions. I call amendment 116, in the name of Jeremy Balfour, which is grouped with amendments 117 to 125.

Those things could be picked up in the secondary legislation.

I have a follow-up line of questioning on the framework nature of the bill and the setting of five-year carbon budgets by statutory instrument. I understand that the Government has landed roughly on the affirmative procedure, but I have been asking questions about whether the super-affirmative procedure would be appropriate because it would allow draft regulations to be lodged and considered by the Parliament and wider civic Scotland such as NGOs. It would also allow the Government to take a final position and lodge that with the Parliament. I am sympathetic to that, but it would take a one-and-a-half-month parliamentary timescale to around five months. When it arrived at the level of parliamentary scrutiny, was that timescale an issue for the Government? Five months rather than one and a half months to pass a statutory instrument, when we want the climate change plan to be published as quickly as possible, might be a barrier. What are your thoughts on that?

Thank you, cabinet secretary. We heard some of that in the earlier evidence session. There is lots to follow up on, but I believe that my colleagues will pick up on that in due course, convener.

That is helpful. I have a final question. We get advice from the UK Climate Change Committee, but it does not give policy advice. It may give advice on setting carbon budgets, but it has no say over financial budgets for the Parliament. I was pleased to hear of the constructive, non-partisan approach that you and Mr Miliband have taken, with the Scottish Government and the UK Government working together. Does it include discussions over the long-term capital and revenue investment that will be required at both a UK and a Scottish level to deliver the UK climate change plan and our devolved climate change plan? Budgets matter, and it would be nice to get both Governments into a space where they are not arguing about, but agreeing, the public finances that are required to deploy those plans appropriately and ensure that they are properly resourced.

I will come in briefly. I get the desirability of having that line of sight to 2045 with three carbon budgets, and of having a longer-term delivery plan, but should Government embrace the uncertainty, if you like, because Governments have no idea what capital budgets will look like in, for example, year 6 to year 10 or year 11 to year 15? They have no idea what technological advancements there will be, so should we expect the second or third climate change plans, if produced up front, and the carbon budgets, to change as a matter of course over time, and should Government embrace that uncertainty but give a line of sight to 2045 nevertheless? I hope that that makes sense.

Yes, I was looking at the legislation on my phone, convener.

First, though, I will respond to Douglas Lumsden’s questions to Thomas Muinzer. Douglas made a reasonable point—although I do not necessarily agree with it—in suggesting that the bill could be narrower and that we could remove all targets altogether. My concern is that that would leave a vacuum. We should get the carbon targets entrenched in law and then have a discussion about the scrutiny of the statutory instrument that will deliver those five-year carbon budgets. I do not know whether Dr Muinzer wants to comment on that. Would you rather have the carbon targets entrenched in law, or remove the current set of targets?