Chamber and committees

I suspect that my councillor colleagues would welcome that.

We are doing budget scrutiny, and my briefing pack says that we need to wait for industry to bring forward a pipeline of projects and be clearer about that before we can identify additional resource for public bodies. Is that a budget reality because the pipeline of projects brings investment, which will help to fund those bodies, or is that a strategic thing?

I know that Governments hate timescales on such things, cabinet secretary, but I would not be doing my scrutiny job properly if I did not ask this. Are we talking about five years, seven years or 10 years? Given the uncertainty, what is the best guesstimate on when fields could become operational?

Convener, I was making the wider point that the communities that we represent who are living in poverty have to make the lifestyle changes that are required to tackle the climate emergency. If we do not support them at this time, the buy-in from those communities will be much more limited than it otherwise would be. It is also the right thing to do.

ScotWind, of course, primarily is for that step change that we have to make to tackle the climate emergency. We know that these are one-off moneys that are being spent, but the hope is that as some of the offshore wind capacity becomes operational, the Scottish Government will then be able to activate a fees regime.

What is the latest thinking in the Scottish Government about when we could activate some of that additional cash income for the Scottish Government? When might fields be operational? What does the modelling work show about the kind of income that we might start to receive from fees? It could be five years away or it could be seven years away, but future Scottish Governments will have to think medium-to-long term about what structural changes we have to make.

Convener, I apologise for asking a question back to Mr Whittle that is probably stating the obvious, but I think that it is important to put it on the record. The deputy convener mentioned a few matters that the Government has taken forward to address the issues of cost. It was either Mr Austin or Shivali Fifield who said that that does not guarantee that that will resolve matters, but the Government is looking at various issues. Can you understand why the Government has been treading carefully on this? The exchanges that Mr Whittle has had with the convener show that the significant exposure of the public purse in all of this has to be a concern. I know that that is not the concern that witnesses here today necessarily want to hear, but there is a significant exposure to Scotland’s budget, depending on how we take some of the reforms forward. Is that a reasonable contention to put on the record, Mr Whittle?

I know that you want to bring others in, convener. That was quite an extensive answer. I thought that it would, hopefully, be relatively brief. Let us just put that on record.

The deputy convener talked about the Government wanting to enhance non-judicial routes to justice and remedy, the review of protective expenses orders, the exemption of court fees from July 2022 and legal aid reform. I was merely, as part of that conversation, asking whether you appreciate that the Scottish Government has to think about the cost to the Scottish public purse as it takes forward potential reforms. I think that that was quite a straightforward question. I do not think that I actually got an answer to it.

Minister, on the funding going into bus services in Scotland, I see a significant financial commitment of £429.7 million, but I am also conscious that £370 million of that is for concessionary travel, be that for under-22s, the over-60s or other groups. Will any unintended consequences arise from such a significant split of investment between concessionary travel and the wider funding of bus services? What is the Government’s rationale for doing that? Is there a relationship between that and what we all see from time to time in our constituencies, namely certain routes being less commercially viable and the withdrawal of certain services? Is there a relationship between increasing that concessionary scheme—with the massive public investment that has gone into it—and some services being less commercially viable?

Thanks, minister. I have a slight reflection and then want to ask a follow-up question.

You are right. I cannot, as an urban MSP, deny that there will be unintended consequences for some remote and rural areas. However, I would point out that, in densely populated urban areas, there are large volumes of young people at school and children who use certain travel routes. Within cities, there can be unintended consequences, too; it is not simply a remote and rural issue. As a city MSP, I think that that is worth putting on the record.

Are you effectively saying, minister, that, in a few years’ time, we could be nudging towards half a billion pounds of public investment in bus services? While keeping that rock-solid commitment to concessionary travel, we must be able to find a better way of using that half a billion pounds so that, in a few years’ time, we have a more sustainable and affordable bus service. That level of investment is a pretty good start for bus companies. Is that a reasonable picture to paint?

I hope that I do not get shot down in flames by the witnesses but, having listened to the entire evidence session, it appears as though—I sit on the Social Justice and Social Security Committee so I understand the language that I am about to use—there has been a safe, secure and successful transfer of powers to a Scottish level, but they are clearly imperfect. They were imperfect before the transfer, and we have not heard about any improvements—at least, it is reasonable to say that the improvements have been modest at best. I am just trying to be balanced in my approach.

However, we heard from Bridget Marshall of SEPA that additional scrutiny and focus have been brought by ESS and that a wider range of issues are now being discussed, including more localised ones. That seems be something really positive that should be captured in this evidence session.

We are not the only part of the UK that is grappling with the issue. I am conscious that, in England, the Office for Environmental Protection is doing something similar—that is all that I have got in the tank in relation to what England, Northern Ireland and Wales are doing. I have just found out that there is an interim environmental assessor for Wales, which apparently is an advisory role to the Welsh Government.

My question is: where has Scotland done well vis-à-vis the other parts of the UK? Where are they ahead of us? Where can we learn from them about what we have to do better? This is not happening in isolation. We should learn from each other’s experiences across the UK.

If anyone has something concrete and meaningful in relation to some of that, it would help our scrutiny.

Moving on, convener—