Chamber and committees

I thank the minister and his officials. You are welcome to leave as we continue with our meeting.

Agenda item 4 is consideration of a negative instrument. The instrument is laid under the negative procedure, which means that its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annul them. No motions to annul have been laid.

As no members have comments on the instrument, I?invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes the public part of the meeting.

The question is, that motion S6M-08262, which was lodged on 16 March in the name of Jenny Gilruth, be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

People are entitled to claim expenses for their trips. I wonder whether that is about encouraging women. Will there be additional payments to assist women with childcare if it falls to them to undertake it?

And it will include the ability to transmit it to where it is needed.

Our next item of business is an evidence session as part of our inquiry into Scotland’s electricity infrastructure: inhibitor or enabler of our energy ambitions.

On 21 March, the committee held its first evidence session with energy industry stakeholders and experts. We then heard from the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, the statutory regulator for electricity markets in Great Britain. Since then, we have held an informal online event with energy entrepreneurs, which was really useful, and on Monday some committee members were in Glasgow and at Whitelee wind farm as guests of Scottish Power.

Today we will explore the intersection of devolved and reserved responsibilities in relation to Scotland’s future electricity infrastructure and I am pleased to welcome Andrew Bowie MP, the Minister for Nuclear and Networks at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in the United Kingdom Government, and Jeremy Allen, director of the energy portfolio office at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in the UK Government.

Thank you, Andrew, for accepting our invitation. We are delighted to have you here. I understand that you want to make an opening statement.

I am not asking about that. I am asking about the general issue of taking people with us on the net zero journey and making sure that all involved buy in to the consultation. It cannot be too heavy handed.

As you have mentioned, minister, we have discussed this matter with Ofgem, and one of the questions raised by others is whether its statutory duty should include the wording “achieving net zero”. Ofgem said that it did not need that, while other people said that it did. Do you have a view?

I will push you a wee bit on that. If you do not believe that the wording is needed, do you believe that Ofgem is doing that? Indeed, will you direct it to do that, even if it does not appear in the wording of its remit?