Chamber and committees

Yes—the one that you are asking now.

We will write to the Scottish Government to that effect.

That concludes our meeting in public. We will now go into private session.

I do not want to get into whether public ownership has benefits. What is slightly concerning to me is that the public performance measures for ScotRail have gone down. We are told that a lot of that is to do with problems south of the border that result in trains coming up late—that is the excuse that we are given, despite the fact that the service has been cut. I want to be sure that reducing the amount of money that private companies contribute to Network Rail is not going to exacerbate the problems and is not going to affect Caledonian Sleeper Ltd, which uses rails south of the border to provide the service. Are you convinced that there is not going to be an increased cost or a diminution of access to the tracks south of the border?

Welcome back to the meeting.

I apologise for the fact that we are running a wee bit late, as another item was added to the agenda earlier. However, if people can keep their questions short, I might be able to get us back on schedule.

Agenda item 3 is consideration of a draft statutory instrument. I welcome Gillian Martin, the Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy—thank you for making yourself available for this session, cabinet secretary. I also welcome, from the Scottish Government, David McPhee, deputy director, circular economy; Mark Sweeney, senior policy adviser, product stewardship; and Carolyn Boyd, who is a lawyer. Thank you all for coming.

The instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that it cannot come into force unless the Parliament approves it. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited, under the next agenda item, to consider a motion to recommend that the instrument be approved. I remind everyone that Scottish Government officials will be able to speak during this item but not in the debate that follows.

I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.

Please do not take that as a criticism.

Monica Lennon wanted to ask a question.

It is fair to say that we should include in our report the concerns about moving forward together as the whole United Kingdom and refer to the flexibility that is required to do so.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. Some of your officials are staying, but I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow other people to change places.

Cabinet secretary, is there anything that you want to add?

No, but I did.

Bob Doris has a couple a questions.

I will let you come back in, cabinet secretary, and then I am going to move on to the very important question that Jackie Dunbar asked just before the committee meeting, which has allowed you to make your statement.