Chamber and committees

I am very grateful to you both.

My understanding is that there is a requirement under the current tendering and contract system to use vessels that are owned by Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd. If that is right, should that continue if the current tendering process continues as it is?

I understand.

This is my final question at this stage. In your experience of the contracts that are being put out for consideration, do you think that there is sufficient scope in them for innovation to drive both commercial imperatives and the product for the end user?

I am very grateful.

Very good. Is there an issue with basing those reviews only on publicly available data, given, for example, the lack of sewage overflow data, which we examined earlier?

Forgive me for interrupting. My question might not have translated well. I asked specifically about the 10 per cent of sewage overflows that are monitored, which is markedly less than the proportion being monitored in England. Why is there that disparity? Why are we monitoring only 10 per cent of overflows? Is it your view that we should be monitoring many more?

I have a brief supplementary question for Jo Green. Natalie Don asked an important question on the subject, but I am not sure that I heard the answer.

Jo, you said that SEPA is comfortable with its capital allocation, but I note that the capital spending review cuts it by 53 per cent, which is around £3 million, and the overall budget allocation represents a real-terms cut of about 7.3 per cent. I put to you the question that I think Natalie Don was getting at: how will such a cut impact on SEPA’s ability to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises, or will it not do that?

Good morning. I want to change the topic to water quality and sewage overflows. Jo Green, only 10 per cent of sewage overflows are monitored in Scotland, whereas 80 per cent are monitored in England. Why is there that disparity? Should that be changed?

Good morning to the panel. ESS issued its air quality report towards the end of last month, as Neil Langhorn and Jim Martin mentioned. Your investigation found evidence of

“a continued failure in some areas of Scotland”

to meet legal limits for nitrogen dioxide, and

“weaknesses in ... current operational and governance arrangements”.

The report made six recommendations. Neil Langhorn mentioned that an improvement plan needs to be prepared. My understanding is that that is a requirement under the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021. To go back to Monica Lennon’s line of questioning, what actual power do you as an organisation have to enforce the recommendations and to demand from the Government timelines for compliance?

So the improvement plan must come back to the Parliament. I have read the report’s key findings and, in my subjective view, they were pretty damning. For example, they suggest that the Scottish Government is not using powers that are available to it and that the overall governance frameworks are complex. Before the improvement plan is prepared—one can anticipate that that will take time—is there any requirement on the Scottish Government to respond to your report?