Chamber and committees

But you have no idea when, cabinet secretary.

Cabinet secretary, at the start of the session, you talked about the vastness of the portfolio, but many people in the north-east in particular were pretty stunned that energy was removed from net zero and put elsewhere. Just transition is in your brief, but by virtue of that earlier decoupling, it has been decoupled from energy.

Do you have any reflections on whether those choices were correct?

Does the fact that the funds are being distributed through the SNIB this time change the thresholds for applications? The Scottish National Investment Bank usually has a threshold for applications in. Does the fact that the process has changed change those thresholds for applicants, and does it change anything about where the just transition funds should be put geographically?

I am very grateful.

Thank you, convener. Cabinet secretary, when the heat in buildings strategy came out about two years ago, it quantified the cost of decarbonising heat in buildings at £33 billion. Two years on, we are in a changed situation, so what is that cost now?

Indeed so, but in January 2023, your Government published a document called the “Draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan—delivering a fair and secure zero carbon energy system for Scotland”, and committed to publishing another three just transition plans ahead of the climate change plan update, which I understand will be published in November 2023. Recent correspondence seems to suggest, however, that those just transition plans will not be published until 2024. Will they be published prior to the climate change plan as the Government has committed to?

Are you saying that no contingency has been made or that you do not know whether a contingency has been made?

Indeed. The scheme administrator, CSL, is funded by business.

Who will fund CSL until that happens?

For the avoidance of doubt, are you saying that you do not know the nature of the investment that the SNIB made to CSL?