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I will try to build the case against that.

That is a good point. We always have to assess the progress that we are making as well as look forward to the next targets.

Only last week, I made a statement to the Parliament on the 2021 target, which we missed by 1.2 percentage points. That told me two things. First, that, in 2021, we were tracking quite closely where our world-leading targets dictate that we need to be—we were 1.2 percentage points behind where we needed to be for that year. That is positive, albeit that I would have loved to have met the target. The other thing that that tells me is that there is much work still to be done. In all candour, that is increasingly the case as we move towards the 2030 target.

I was not in Parliament when the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019 was passed, but members who were will remember that the UK Committee on Climate Change, as it was called at the time, was clear that it did not recommend the 75 per cent 2030 target. I think that it was changed at stage 3 with cross-party consensus. My view is that it is exceptionally challenging to achieve that target, but we have to do everything that we can and that, by aiming high, we will get close to where we need to be in the shorter term. I am confident of the long-term progress for the mid-century—2045—point.

That is indeed very challenging. It goes back to a point that I was trying to make previously: that no stone can be left unturned. If, for whatever reason, a significant stone such as carbon capture, use and storage cannot be overturned by the Scottish Government and we require intervention from the UK Government, that makes things very difficult, because there is not really scope across other sectors of the economy to compensate for that.

In my role, I can continue working with UK Government colleagues, including through the net zero interministerial group, to impress on them the ample scope that we have in Scotland for CCUS and the necessity of bringing that on track as soon as possible because it is mission-critical for the decarbonisation of industry. The CCC has made it very clear that this is not something that is nice to have but is essential, and I share that view.

I will continue pushing on CCUS. There has been some positive movement of late, but I need a timescale for when track two will be complete, particularly because of my work on the climate change plan.

We have also been trying to take forward other work. We have set up a working group to look at bioenergy and CCUS and are trying to progress that as far as possible. If the question is whether we can compensate elsewhere for work that is not done, the answer is that that is very difficult to do.

That question demonstrates the vastness of the portfolio.

The biodiversity strategy is an important piece of work. In one space, it collates all the many important interventions that the Government is making across the piece. It should also be the platform from which we strive for greater progress. Officials from David Signorini’s team have been undertaking quite a bit of work on it. Recently, research has been commissioned against two or three of the outcomes that we published alongside the vision for the strategy. That work is on-going. I think that we had done economy and one other outcome and were looking to commission research on the social outcome.

I think that we always need more. That is why one of the first things that the Minister for Transport did was to launch our vision for the public charging network. To date, we have done very well. You will have heard us say ad nauseam that we have the most public charging points per head of population outside London, but we are not resting on our laurels. That is why we are, as you pointed out, making more public funding available to continue the spread.

I understand, of course, that people are more likely to have the confidence to buy an electric vehicle if they have confidence that they will be able to charge it. We have done really well to date, but we are continuing to push on. Our ambition is to double where we are today.

I suppose that all our considerations in respect of the project could have a bearing on it. I will set out more details on that this summer, for our final consultation.

Future approaches to the distribution of the £500 million fund are subject to future budgetary choices. There is no saying that we will not return to the way that it was before and there is no saying that the next funds will be distributed by the Scottish National Investment Bank. That is the way that we have chosen to distribute the first and the second pots, and I will make my decision about the third suite of funding when I get to it.

I am really sorry, Mr Kerr, but I missed the start of your question.

It does not change the geography, and I do not expect that it will change the thresholds, but I will check that latter point and come back to you.

We are working on the final details of what we are going to consult on and we are moving to start that process as soon as we can. However, we are in quite a delicate period of development so I do not want to pre-empt it exactly. It is a major part of our draft climate change plan, which will be laid in November. I hope that that gives you an idea of timescales.