Chamber and committees

I want a five-year carbon budget. I want us to set a trajectory. I want carbon budgets that show certainty in where we are going, as quickly as possible. I am not sure whether Northern Ireland made its decision before the Assembly was reconvened.

That is the reasoning. The Welsh Government will be aligned with us. It is not the timing of it—aligning with the UK Government—that will get us to net zero by 2045, but the action that is associated with the approach.

Are you suggesting that we publish a draft climate change plan without any advice from the CCC?

The CCC provides advice to the UK, Welsh, Northern Irish and Scottish Governments separately. We look with a keen eye at the advice that it gives the UK Government because, as everybody here knows, what happens in the UK with regard to its ambitions and getting to net zero by 2050 very much impacts on our ambitions of reaching net zero by 2045.

I might turn to my officials on when the UK Government is expecting its advice from the CCC. I do not have that in the front of my brain, Mr Lumsden, because I am concentrating on what we have to do. We will look at the advice that it gives the UK Government, which, of course, will inform aspects of our own thinking on these matters.

Since the new UK Government came in, I have been working closely with it on our shared ambition for net zero. I am pleased to say that we are in a space where the UK Government seems to want to accelerate action as much as we do. To take an example in a reserved area, the UK Government might decide to do something about the gas grid, such as reducing the amount of fossil fuel, in the form of natural gas, that is in there and replacing it with hydrogen. It has set out its ambition for a level of 20 per cent, which would make a big difference to Scotland’s approach to such emissions, so we would factor that in here, too.

We will be working closely among the four Governments—probably more so than ever before—on our shared ambitions on getting to net zero. I have said to Ed Miliband, and he has said to me, that as far as net zero is concerned, we will try to park party politics at the door. Our approach will be about action, co-operation, finding where we can work together on reducing emissions, and making right and fair judgments on where we can act.

In the devolved space, there will be no secrets from me about what we want to do. My climate change draft plan will go to our counterparts in Wales, Northern Ireland and the UK Government so that they can see what we are doing. During that process, I will meet cabinet secretaries and secretaries of state whose portfolios include climate change matters. If there are areas in which the UK Government says that it can go faster, and it challenges us to do the same, I will want to have those conversations.

The bill is about the three actions that we will take to change the system to account for the effectiveness of the actions in getting us to net zero by 2045. That is why it is a narrow bill—it is about the process and about adopting what the CCC has advised us to adopt in line with Wales, the UK Government and Northern Ireland, which have been using five-year carbon budgeting for some time now. We are now going to be in line with them as far as the process is concerned.

As for having a narrow bill, I understand why a committee such as this one, which I know very well, would want to get into the weeds of what is going to be in the climate change plan. However, the process that we want to go through is that, through the bill, we get the mechanisms in place to have five-year carbon budgeting. We also want a credible climate change plan that dovetails with the CCC’s advice, now that we are adopting that system of five-year carbon budgeting rather than the targets in the 2019 act.

I think that we are all pretty familiar with the action that needs to be taken to get to net zero by 2045, not just in the devolved space but in the reserved space, and not just in the Government space but in the societal space, too. As far as the climate change plan is concerned, my officials are constantly looking at certain areas where we can push things and certain areas where there are innovations. My Government colleagues are also looking at areas in their portfolios where they can push things and get as much carbon reduction as possible. The programme for government has also—

We are going to reveal it so that it ties in with the CCC’s advice and advice on the five-year carbon budgeting approach, which is different from the approach that is taken in the 2019 act.

The process will be the second one that you outlined. There will be an extensive period of consultation on the draft climate change plan. The draft climate change plan, which will be informed by the CCC advice, will be in line with the five-year carbon budget process and procedures that we want to adopt in this bill. It is my intention for that to go out as a draft for consultation as quickly as possible, and to give the committee time to conduct its consultation processes.

Mr Matheson will be aware that previous climate change plans have gone out for extensive consultation, because that informs the public discourse around what needs to happen in that area. There are areas in the climate change plan where people might ask us to go further. There are other areas where the sector might say that the draft climate change plan does not align with a just transition. The Just Transition Commission and the Parliament and all its stakeholders will want to look at the draft climate change plan. Nothing in the process will squeeze that consultation in any way. We have to ensure that the plan has oxygen and consultation around it, in the same way that we have done with successive climate change plans.

The committee will have its own views on the time that is needed to scrutinise secondary legislation and what that process involves. I am happy to listen to those views, which the committee will put to me in its stage 1 report. Convener, I ask you to remember that I was in your position during the previous parliamentary session, so I understand that the committee wants to take full evidence on everything.

The secondary legislation approach is tied up with the Government’s response to the Climate Change Committee’s advice to us. Our response will consider the targets that we will set in secondary legislation. It will not be about the action that is required in order to meet them, because they are informing the climate change plan. Although we will be working on that plan throughout the whole process, we already have a good idea of the actions that we will need to take. As you said, we have had stretching targets in the past, so there will not be any ramping down of actions; instead, they will be ramped up.

As for the time that the committee would like to have, it is important to look at the full picture. The initial consideration and written advice by the independent experts at the CCC will come to us, and we will consider that. We will work on a draft plan, which will be formally laid before Parliament. There will be many areas for scrutiny in all the elements that will inform the climate change plan. We want to get the plan to the committee as soon as possible, so that it will have the minimum scrutiny period of 120 days. I also want to get it to you as quickly as I can so that the work will not go into the next parliamentary year, if at all possible.

The Climate Change Committee has said that it will give us advice in the spring. I hope that, if the bill is passed in the timeline that we would like, that will give the CCC more time. We might then get its advice earlier than planned, which would allow this committee more time to explore what it means for our targets.

I am willing to do everything that I can to give the committee more time, if it does not delay our climate change plan being put in front of members. I have been watching all the committee’s sessions with experts. Some of the evidence that you have taken, and aspects of your questioning, have been in the space of the climate change plan. The bill’s narrow scope is about the procedures and processes that are needed to propose the budgets. The real meat is in the discussion about actions that will be taken in the climate change plan, which is where the committee will need most time for scrutiny. That is very much in my mind.

I understand the committee’s slight irritation about how quickly we are asking it to do the work, but we had a general election. We also have a deadline, after which we would not be meeting the expectations that were on us under the previous legislation.

The process must be done within the given time, but I want to give the committee as much time as possible, when it really matters, by getting the climate change plan to you as early as possible. That has informed everything that we are doing and how we are doing it.

At the moment, we are bound to the previous climate change plan, which is in action. I am not going to put anything partial in the public domain, because that is a really tricky situation to put yourself in. A lot of people are relying on a credible climate change plan that is informed by CCC advice, our different approaches to the various emissions envelopes that we want to put forward and the new five-year carbon budgeting process. If you were in my position, you would probably feel the same. I do not want to put anything in the public domain that is partial or unfinished or has not been deliberated on. Obviously, I work with all my Cabinet colleagues on this, because it is not my portfolio that makes all the delivery commitments to reduce emissions—it is a cross-Government approach. If I were to put anything out there that was not fully informed by the CCC advice or the secondary legislation that we will bring forward, it would be partial and probably subject to a great deal of change, so I will not do that.

However, I want to leave you with the fact that the work on the climate change plan never stops. It is an iterative process. The climate change plan is a living document that is being worked on by me, my officials and my colleagues all the time, as we look at potential areas for getting the most emissions reductions possible in a fair and just way with the available budget. That process never stops. Obviously, the key moment is aligning it with the advice from the CCC, which we analyse. I will not put forward a climate change plan in draft form to the committee or wider stakeholders until we have run through all that advice and discussed with Cabinet colleagues what that means for their individual portfolios and all the different sectors in society.

That would be a matter for the committee. The committee has its processes for the scrutiny that it wants to carry out—

Yes. The committee is part of the Parliament, and the committee has its own process. However, I believe that the process for scrutiny of the climate change plan provides a minimum of 120 days. I hope that you appreciate that I want to get the plan to you as soon as possible.