Chamber and committees

There is a whole lot of supplementary questions. If you will excuse the expression, you have let the cat out of the bag.

I now come to members who are not on the committee. I will start with Maurice Golden, then go to Fergus Ewing and Brian Whittle.

Okay. Thank you. We will go back to Mark Ruskell.

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

The aim of the inquiry is to scrutinise what electricity infrastructure will be needed to realise the ambitions that are set out in the Scottish Government’s recently released “Draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan”, and to understand what will be needed to deliver that infrastructure. This is a short inquiry that will lead to a report to the Scottish Government as it finalises its strategy.

Last week, during the first evidence session of our inquiry, we heard from two panels of key energy industry stakeholders and experts. Today, we will hear from the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, which is the Government regulator for the electricity markets in Great Britain. We will discuss the evidence that we have heard so far and hear Ofgem’s views on the delivery of the aims that are set out in the draft energy strategy and on the decarbonisation—there are a lot of long words in this brief—of our electricity infrastructure.

I am pleased to welcome Steven McMahon, deputy director for networks and head of Scotland at Ofgem, and Jack Presley Abbott, deputy director for energy systems management and security at Ofgem. Thank you for accepting our invitation; we are delighted to have you here.

Before we start our questions, I believe that Steven would like to make an opening statement.

Thank you. Before we move to questions, I would like to remind members and those people who are listening that, as a farmer and a landowner, I have electricity transmission lines across the farm in the form of 11kV lines—the small ones—33kV ring main lines, which are the bigger ones, and I am in negotiation for a 132kV power line to go through the farm. At some stage, all of those will generate some income for the farm, so I want there to be no doubt that I have some interests here. I will continue to make that declaration as and when I think it appropriate to do so. I do not think that it inhibits me from doing my job as convener, but I want committee members to know about that.

The first questions will come from Mark Ruskell.

Mark Ruskell wanted to come back with a brief question.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2023 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. We have apologies from Ash Regan. I welcome Collette Stevenson, who is joining us as a substitute member.

The first item on the agenda is to decide whether to take items 6 and 7 in private. Item 6 is the consideration of evidence that we will hear today as part of our inquiry into Scotland’s electricity infrastructure and whether it is an inhibitor or enabler of our energy ambitions. Item 7 is consideration of evidence that we will hear today on Scotland’s deposit return scheme. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Maurice, I have taken you as far as I can on that. I need to go to Fergus Ewing for his questions.

Before we move on to the next question, I want to clarify that I did not mishear something. I think that you said that you work roughly 80 hours a week, but did you answer Mr Ewing’s questions about any other payments, such as pensions? Sorry, I may have misheard.

In simple terms—and I am sure that whoever needs to be watching the committee meeting will be watching it—you are saying that you need the answer now.