Chamber and committees

I am grateful.

I appreciate that you will not talk about an on-going consultation, but the Government must have horizon scanned and thought about the possible outcomes of changing regimes. You have talked about some of the benefits that might arise from changing regimes in relation to skills and the supply chain, for example, but could there not be a counterview that, by changing the regime, you would make projects more expensive and thus reduce the incentive for renewables?

Andrew Bowie, you talked about contracts for difference and their importance in stimulating and moving forward with renewables. The UK Government has recently launched a consultation on the contract for difference regime and my understanding is that there is a feeling in Government that it would be better to move from a straight consideration of bid price to incorporating other factors—such as supply chains, filling skills gaps and innovation—when bids are made for such contracts.

What are the benefits of a shift to such a regime and what are the risks?

Without prejudging, let us look at the potential positives. You talked in your opening remarks about the importance of storage; you talked about batteries and hydrogen as storage mechanisms. If those changes to the contracts for difference regime were to come to pass, might such changes provide a better route to market for storage mechanisms such as hydrogen? In any event, what is the UK Government doing to incentivise the development and rolling out of such storage opportunities?

You made some recommendations on cleaner air for Scotland 2. When I asked about it last week, various stakeholders said that, although cleaner air for Scotland 2 made some good links to things such as national planning framework 4, the linkage was not quite so precise with some other areas, such as Transport Scotland strategies. What impact might that lack of linkage in some areas have on our ability to deliver the continuous improvement that you have been asked about? Does that need to be looked at again?

I am grateful for that. I have no further questions.

I will be very brief. The question was about the support that you are giving; we have heard about the funding and the cabinet secretary has talked about other initiatives, but what was previously done to establish from local authorities what was actually required? In the earlier session, ESS told us about concerns, at least, about planning departments. What was done at an earlier stage to look at the funding and resource needed to achieve what everyone wants?

I have no further questions.

On a related point, we heard the Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland say that a quarter of planning department staff have been cut since 2009. Does that concern you? Does that give us a challenge around implementing what we need to implement?

I am very grateful. I have no further questions.