Chamber and committees

I have been involved in the Skye project on behalf of constituents over there, and you and I well know the problems that have been faced, but it seems that it is moving forward.

I thank our witnesses very much for the evidence that they have given this morning, which has been extremely interesting. I suspend the meeting until 12:11, to allow the witnesses to leave, so that we can go on to our final agenda item in public.

Collette, I am sorry, but I can let you ask only one more question and only to one person, so you must choose your question and your answerer carefully. I was going to say “victim”, but that would not be right.

We move to evidence from the second panel that joins us today as part of our inquiry into Scotland’s electricity infrastructure and whether it is an inhibitor or enabler of our energy ambitions. On behalf of the committee, I am pleased to welcome Scott Mathieson, who is the network planning and regulation director at Scottish Power Energy Networks; Aileen McLeod, who is the director of business planning and commercial at SSEN Transmission; Morag Watson, who is the director of policy at Scottish Renewables; and, joining us remotely, Mark Hull, who is the chief technology officer at Community Energy Scotland. I thank you for accepting our invitation. I know that some of you were present during the earlier evidence session, so you will have had the benefit of that.

We are quite short for time so not everyone will be able to answer every single question. For those who are in the room, if I am glaring at you, it is because I want to bring somebody else in and to give everyone an equal opportunity to speak—read no more into it than that. The first questions come from Mark Ruskell.

The deputy convener has a supplementary question.

I will bring in Liam Kerr, who has a question about planning.

You have no time to think, Mark.

Scott Mathieson, do you want to say something briefly or just say you agree?

Thank you very much, Liam. Monica Lennon has questions. I will cheekily say to you that I will not interrupt you until just after 12, then I will interrupt you.

I am sorry—I will limit you all, because it could be an endless list. If you could each tell us one thing, that would be brilliant.

We move on to questions from the deputy convener, Fiona Hyslop.