Chamber and committees

Regarding the section 36 report and everything associated with it, there will be a statement in Parliament on Thursday, which will include this matter.

I would not think so. However, if we do not change the mechanism in law to five-year carbon budgeting, the CCC will not know what advice to give us.

The reason is simple. If we were to align with the timing of the UK Government’s carbon budget, we would have to wait until—I will check with Philip Raines—2028. We want to go as quickly as possible. We do not want any void in setting out our plans for the targets or for setting out our carbon budget.

Coincidentally, if we move at the pace that we have intimated to you, we will be in line with the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government is not in line with the UK Government.

Fundamentally, we have to work back from the 2045 target. The UK Government has set a 2050 net zero target. We went further because we have been told many times that we have more capacity for the sequestration of carbon—for example, in peatlands and in having more room for planting woodland. We could go a lot faster and reach net zero by 2045. Working back from 2045 has informed the starting point of our carbon budget. The UK Government is working back from 2050.

I do not think that aligning the timescales would make any material difference because, as I said, work on all the actions that all the Governments are taking is happening all the time anyway. We are working together to make sure that what Scotland does will help the UK to meet its 2050 target, and that what the UK does—if it takes the action that it says it will take, as I hope it will—will help us to meet our 2045 target. That is the real reason. I do not want this envelope—this carbon budget—to start in 2028, because that would be wasted time.

I will tell you why I did not consider that to be the best approach. If I introduced a bill that did not put in place a new target structure, we would have a void—the previous targets from the 2019 act are not achievable, so we would have nothing in place, and building a climate change plan out of that would not be possible.

We require the bill, which I hope that the Parliament will agree to, in order to have five-year carbon budgets and to set in train this different approach, on which we will get advice from the Climate Change Committee. Once the bill has been passed, the Climate Change Committee will put together its advice to us; it will give us the advice on the targets in spring next year; and the systems that we must have in order for us to take the advice, put it in train and set the targets in secondary legislation will be in place.

If you are suggesting that we should have had legislation just to change the timing of the climate change plan, I note that it would be difficult to put a new climate change plan in place without advice from the CCC, because we would not have such structures in place. If that was ever considered, it was off the table quite quickly.

As acting cabinet secretary, I came into this with the view that we were going to introduce a narrow bill that would put the structures in place, as well as the three things that I mentioned in my opening statement. The bill will allow us to have five-year carbon budgeting and allow the climate change plan to follow that, once we have set our targets in secondary legislation. That is the swiftest approach to getting in place a credible climate change plan in which the action will be described.

Ms Lennon, maybe I can take that point away, because whether I am able to write to the committee to tell you what work has been done is a different question. It is a different ask for me to give the committee a draft of a draft of a draft plan, and that is what I was really talking about. However, I am perfectly willing, with my officials, to look at all the work that has been done leading up to the climate change plan. It is perfectly acceptable for me to say to the committee what day-to-day work has been done on that. However, I will not give the committee a draft of a draft of a draft plan. I do not think that any Government would do that.

I am happy to do that. I maybe did not get your question in the first place—I thought that you were looking for the document to be put in front of you.

No.

Yes. I will give you more detail on what has been done. A joint Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament review of budget matters pertaining to the climate reported at the end of last year. There were three strands of work in that report, which Scottish Government officials are now taking forward. That speaks to what I was talking about in relation to wider cross-portfolio work.

The first proposal is to include a dedicated climate annex in the Scottish budget suite of documents. That action was discharged during the 2023-24 budget cycle, and such an annex will be included in all future years. Every cabinet secretary has to report on what they are doing in their budget to reduce emissions in their sector. As Mr Matheson knows, climate change action does not sit just in my portfolio—it sits in the transport portfolio, the housing portfolio and the agriculture and land use portfolios, too.

There is work to develop an enhanced taxonomy methodology for capital and resource budget spend, and on presenting a supporting document to the 2024-25 Scottish budget. There is also work on developing a net zero assessment for policy making, and that is in the pilot stage. I want that work to accelerate, with an intention to roll that out across Government from the beginning of 2025.

I often reflect that, when I was the convener of the committee’s predecessor, the Government had one cabinet secretary, Roseanna Cunningham, who did not even have a junior minister, in front of us talking about the 2019 climate change legislation. One criticism that was made, and one piece of advice that was given to the Government off the back of that, was that our approach to climate change needed to be mainstreamed across the Government.

I have seen a sea change. It is quite apparent that responsibility has been taken for climate change across all portfolios and departments of the Government, but you cannot take action without having the funding behind that in the budget.

On the integrated aspect of getting to net zero, the fact that, since the First Minister came into post, net zero has remained one of his core missions shows you how embedded that is. However, there is still work to be done, particularly with regard to the budget.

Can I clarify that?

If the bill is passed and if we have royal assent by November, the Climate Change Committee will be asked for its advice on the basis that we will have a five-year carbon budget process. I think that the committee had representatives of the Climate Change Committee in front of it last week. As it stands, that committee is saying to us that it will be able to get that advice to us in spring. We have the same question as you, namely, when in spring—in what month? Obviously, I want the advice as early as possible, but it must be the right advice.

Once we get the advice, we will analyse it and put forward the secondary legislation as quickly as possible, to get it through Parliament. At the same time, as I have explained, we will be working on the draft climate change plan, which we want to get out to the committee, stakeholders and the public as quickly as possible. If the advice from the CCC comes in, say, April, I feel confident—without making Mr Raines here too nervous—that we can publish a draft climate change plan before the summer recess. That is my ambition.

If the CCC does not give us that advice until June, the situation will be different. You said that spring ends in June; I thought that that was summer. However, that is all the more reason for getting the process in place. As soon as we get the bill through and everybody, including the CCC, knows that we are moving to five-year carbon budgets, the CCC can get working on that advice for us. I hope that we will get that advice early in spring, which would allow this committee and our stakeholders to have a draft climate change plan to chew over and deliberate on in time for coming back from recess in September.