Chamber and committees

I am very happy for anyone to answer for Wales or on any experience that they have of what Wales has done.

Does anyone have an answer to that?

Okay. I will hand back to Monica Lennon.

I think that we are going to run out of time if we have to consider another method of doing it.

Mike, I have been allowing a certain amount of leeway, but we are trying to scrutinise the bill that is before us. I am going to drag you back to how we can do that, how we—as a committee and a Parliament—and the people of Scotland can hold the Government to account, and whether the bill needs to be changed.

Thank you. Mark, do you want to come in briefly on that?

If that is a reasonable ask, do you believe that it would help you, as a council, to work out how you will deliver on the climate change plan that will be produced, Alison Leslie?

I will flesh that out a bit. If the plan is to reduce heat in buildings and get every property up to a sufficient standard, whatever that standard is—it could be the energy performance certificate or whatever comes from that scheme—and you know that there are 10,000 houses that do not meet that standard and that the average cost of addressing that is £30,000 per house, you will work out exactly how much money you need to upgrade those houses. Having that set out in a plan would make for nice reading, but it would not make it possible to quantify or achieve that.

I worked out that it would take the Highland Council three quarters of its annual budget over the course of a couple of years to get its properties up to the required standard.

Claudia Cowie, do you want to add anything before I bring in Bob Doris?

Does the committee agree to take consideration of our draft stage 1 report on the bill in private at future meetings?

Members indicated agreement.