Chamber and committees

There are a few other questions, which I hope will be short and receive short answers. Sorry—I should not have said that before your question came up, Ben.

Bob Doris wants to come in, then Monica Lennon.

Cabinet secretary, I am delighted that you chose the committee to do that, and I am not criticising you for that. While I am trying to convene the meeting, I am also listening to what you and other members are saying, so it would be helpful to have that information in front of me. I can have that now, so that is perfect.

Sorry—I still am the convener. I will let you have one more question, then I will move on.

Cabinet secretary, you have made an announcement that, truthfully, I need a moment to consider. I do not know whether this is possible, but it would be very helpful if you could share what you read out with the committee clerks now, so that that can be circulated to committee members for them to look at when considering their other questions. Truthfully, I did not catch all that you just said and its ramifications.

There are no more questions for the cabinet secretary. Normally I would suspend the meeting to allow the cabinet secretary to depart; however, I am going to push on, because we have quite a lot still to do. I thank you, cabinet secretary, and your various teams, including the longstanding members of your team who have attended all three of our evidence sessions, for coming this morning.

The next part of our meeting is to ask members’ views on whether the committee agrees with the Scottish Government’s proposal to consent to the UK Government making those regulations within devolved competence. Does anyone have views on that, or are we happy to approve the proposal? Bob Doris’s point was interesting, and the committee will want to keep an eye on how that cash is allocated. I am happy to listen to any comments.

As no member wishes to comment, is the committee content that the provisions that are set out in the notification should be included in the proposed UK SI?

Members indicated agreement.

It can be a short question anyway.

The example of Lumo is interesting because a lot of people benefit from being able to get reduced fares as a result of an operator coming in from outside, and I am sure that you will bear that in mind.

My question relates to the issue of money operating in a round-robin fashion. Network Rail gets around £2.1 billion a year from train operating companies, which helps to finance Network Rail, and about £58 million comes in from freight. If you take the train operating companies out, they will no longer be making contributions, so the money for Network Rail will have to come from the Government.

I know that you will probably say that the Government already gives money to private operators to run the services, but are you convinced that the proposal will not lead to increased costs for running the track, given that more than 50 per cent of Network Rail’s budget currently comes from private operators? Are you satisfied that funding for the railway lines will not decrease?

Douglas Lumsden wants to say something, too.

I am definitely going to leave it at that; that is all the questions from the committee.

We will move on to agenda item 4, which is a debate on motion S6M-13568, which calls on the committee to recommend approval of the draft regulations. I remind members that only they and the cabinet secretary can speak in the debate. I invite the cabinet secretary to speak to the motion if she feels that it is necessary or just to move the motion.

Motion moved,

That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.—[Gillian Martin]