Chamber and committees

Rosemary, you looked keen to come in on that.

Certainly—it is a useful example. Thank you.

I will pose my last question to Nicola Killean. You have already laid out what you and your office think would be useful changes to address the issue, but I will pose the question slightly differently. You will have a lot of contact with the groups that are pushing for, and sincerely believe that there is a need for, new discrete commissioners because of the overlap with your remit, as has been discussed. What would they need to see from Parliament specifically? It is a different question from the one about Government and existing commissioners. What would they need to see in the committee’s report to be satisfied that there is an alternative to new discrete commissioners?

I have a couple of quick questions. First, on process, you mentioned your understanding of protocol. The protocol for the initial publication and lodging of an FM is quite clear, but Liz Smith was right in the language that she used about the convention that has built up around that. My understanding is that, when it comes to the revision of FMs, we generally rely more on convention. Are you aware of or were you provided with an internal Scottish Government protocol on how to revise an FM and what Parliament would require from that, including timescales?

I realise that this will sound as though I am repeating the question. Police Scotland did not provide that revision to you directly. The first time that you saw it written down as a new set of figures was when we published the evidence that was provided to us.

You mentioned that split between the public and private sectors. I am interested in what you said about the fact that the report makes presumptions to mirror the OBR’s presumptions about all the necessary funds coming entirely from public spending. I would be keen to press you a bit on the logic behind that, particularly with regard to land use, land-use change and forestry—Lulu CF, to use your pronunciation of the acronym.

The Scottish Government has already started some quite significant pilot work in private financing around nature. There is a significant political debate to be had around that—I believe that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee is having that upstairs right now—but I am interested in why your report makes the assumption, particularly in relation to land use and so on, that the work will be entirely publicly funded, given that a £2 billion pilot using private financing has already taken place, which shows that what is already happening in that regard is not small fry.

Thanks. For my final question—I recognise that I am to some extent repeating myself—I am interested in the conversations that you have with the UK CCC. Last week’s report was incredibly valuable, and I agree with it as a reflection of the past 25 years and of a complete failure to meet the demands that the science has set out, but it left me with a lot of frustration.

We need to triple the amount that we spend on peatland restoration. You know that there is not £40 million of capital money just rattling around, so that will need to come from somewhere. For decarbonising buildings, it is not tens of millions but tens of billions of pounds that we are talking about. Is it not entirely unrealistic to expect the Scottish Government—keeping within the envelope that is available to it under the current confines of the fiscal framework—to deliver, in particular, the capital investment that is required to meet the demands of our climate legislation and the UK Government’s climate commitments?

That goes back to the point that Professor Roy was making about the choices facing Government. We cannot not build new hospitals. The cost of decarbonising hospitals is massive, but the challenge is how to balance the long-term unavoidable necessity of tackling that while keeping everybody alive in the interim by meeting all the other needs of society.

I am interested in what I think is a bit of a contrast between your report and the CCC report last week. I think that you have the balance better and I acknowledge what you said about having worked with the CCC.

Although I agree with the broad criticism in the CCC’s report that we are off track, I note that it was quite critical of the Scottish Government for highlighting the impact of United Kingdom Government policy making—particularly financial policy making—on Scotland’s ability to meet its own targets. However, as you have outlined this morning and in your report, we require a disproportionate amount of spend, but the fiscal framework does not take that into account and the devolution of the relevant powers is not uniform. The CCC made some pretty sweeping comments about the fact that transport, land use and decarbonising buildings are devolved.

This might be just a reframing of some of the convener’s initial questions but is it fair for me to conclude that, as matters stand, it is effectively impossible for Scotland to meet its climate targets and, therefore, for the UK to meet its targets, given how critical Scotland’s targets are to them, without a significant devolution of financial powers to the Scottish Government, an adjustment to the fiscal framework and more direct funding from the UK Government? Is it the case that something that is entirely within the gift of the UK Government needs to change? It is one thing to say that Governments need to co-operate, but we are not talking about two equal partners that have an equal amount to contribute. Are you saying that something needs to change at UK level, whether it is devolution of powers, increased block grant or whatever?

That would be useful and it would probably be worth while for the committee to engage directly with ministers on the handbook. My understanding is that the handbook is not specific enough in these circumstances and there is a clear need for revision.

I sympathise with you in that, ultimately, you are significantly dependent on the information that is provided by Police Scotland. It is unavoidable, because it is not like there are third-party sources for the kind of information that you need. Am I correct in my understanding of what you said, which is that the first time that you were aware of Police Scotland’s changed position was when the evidence that was submitted to us was published, because Police Scotland did not proactively contact you? When Police Scotland received our call for evidence, I presume that staff realised that what they were going to submit was significantly different from what they originally provided to you. Did they proactively contact you to let you know, or did you find out when our evidence was published?

Convener, I think that we need to take that up with Police Scotland, because I cannot understand why it would not provide that information. There are issues here with the Government process, but I am a bit disturbed that the police would know that they were making a significant revision yet not provide that information to the Government.