Seòmar agus comataidhean

I will comment on a couple of those points and I will then ask Alison Irvine whether she has anything to add.

As I said to the convener, the network is owned in part publicly and in part privately, so there is a limit to our oversight, or the local authorities’ oversight, of it. Although I was not in post at the time, I felt that it was right that local authorities should begin to charge. Folks are paying a great deal for petrol and diesel, and I thought that it was right that we should be able to recoup some revenue from electric charging.

There is a question about the extent to which local authorities have taken that up—some are charging and some are not—and about the levels of charging. It comes down to the question of the local authority’s right to decide on the existence of charging, to start with, and then its level. If that is causing concern, particularly among those who make their living from driving and require to charge their cars, we should look at that issue.

First, I welcome the change in the approach to the retained EU law bill. Its initial formulation was one of the most foolish, idiotic approaches to developing law for a country that I have ever witnessed—and, I think, that many people who have been doing this for a great deal longer than I have will have ever witnessed. It was utterly worthy of ridicule, so I am very pleased that a U-turn has been performed and that we now have to explicitly flag something up if it is to be lost, rather than that happening by omission.

For my part, I am concerned that air quality laws are contained in schedule 1. The Scottish Government as a whole has been pressing the UK Government on matters that have been included in schedule 1, and my view is very much that air quality laws should be removed. They should not be there and I do not understand the justification for their inclusion. I do not know what the UK Government intends to do in the absence of that law. It is very concerning. We therefore asked explicitly at director general level that it be removed from schedule 1, but that has been declined. The matter is now coming to me and I will communicate with my UK Government counterparts about it.

David can say what he wants to say on that, but I think that we should stick to the remit of the portfolio, just as we would not delve into agricultural policy or energy policy in depth.

Absolutely, but—

Thank you, convener. First, although I have deprived the committee of Fiona Hyslop, I am very glad to welcome her back to the Government in her role as Minister for Transport.

I am very pleased to be with the committee today. From all the evidence that the committee takes, you will be aware that we face a number of challenges as a country and more broadly. The climate and nature emergencies are front and centre of those challenges. As I see it, this is the collective fight of our lifetime, and my portfolio centres on that. My portfolio is vast, as you can see from the number of directors who are with me and, equally, from the number of junior ministers who take forward work across the portfolio on a daily basis.

I will give an initial reflection. This is the first time that responsibilities for net zero and a just transition have come together at Cabinet level. That reflects my work in rising to the imperative of tackling climate change and, equally, doing so in a way that recognises that the scale and pace of change are extraordinary and that we must ensure that we make decisions that are fair for the economy and society.

I will run through some headline priorities before we get into a discussion. On the net zero front, we are halfway there, but the hardest part lies ahead. A significant staging post will be the publication in the coming months of the draft climate change plan, which we are working on furiously.

Transport is, of course, the largest source of our emissions. Public transport is a key driver of our net zero goals, and it needs to be available, attractive and affordable. That is one of my priorities, as is decarbonising transport, and we are working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on the 20 per cent route map.

On heat in buildings, we are taking steps to decarbonise new buildings, and we will shortly publish a consultation on proposed bill measures to regulate efficiency and heating sources.

The portfolio also covers biodiversity, which includes the twin crises. My colleague Lorna Slater is taking forward a lot of work on that, including on a biodiversity strategy and natural environment bill. She also leads day to day on the circular economy and is taking forward work on a circular economy bill and a litter and fly tipping strategy, among other things.

Marine protection also comes within the portfolio. We have had many discussions about highly protected marine areas but, of course, the area is broader than that. We also have the marine protected area network, besides other matters.

The just transition is the thread that runs through the whole portfolio. A significant change agenda is before us on account of the emissions reduction targets that the Parliament has set and, more important, in the face of the climate and nature emergency that we face. However, we have to ensure that the decisions that we make are fair, take communities with us and learn lessons from the past. We seek to do that through our discussion papers and the final just transition plans to accompany all that work.

However, more needs to be done, convener. It is a very busy policy area. I am happy to answer questions on the vast scope of the transport, net zero and just transition portfolio.

We will attribute resources in a budgetary manner in the normal way. Once the consultation has been completed and we understand how the public feel about what we are proposing and once those proposals are more concrete, I will consider that as part of the portfolio budget.

More widely, there is a question within all this about public sector funding versus private funding. The Government’s view is, first, that the public sector alone cannot pay for the restoration of nature, particularly when we set that alongside everything else that needs to be done in the climate and nature emergencies; and, secondly, that there is scope to leverage in responsible private finance. We see that as being part of the development of the delivery plan for the biodiversity strategy. However, I make it clear that that must be responsible private finance and not greenwashing. It must have integrity. We are working on all that through the interim principles for responsible investment in natural capital, which I always wish had a shorter name.

On how these things link up, as I mentioned, Ms Slater is leading on this on a daily basis, but she, Mairi Gougeon and I have regular trilaterals on natural capital and the natural environment to make sure that, from both Mairi’s perspective and mine, there is reconciliation between our portfolios. The nature emergency is also part of the Cabinet sub-committee on the climate emergency, and I expect that Ms Slater will want to present on it to that sub-committee at some point. There are, therefore, a number of ways in which we can make sure that the policies and strategies are linking up across Government.

I will be as brief as I can, convener, although sometimes in such complex matters it is helpful to set out the discussion in the clearest terms possible.

I am here to discuss a proposed UK statutory instrument to extend the expiry date for the specific use of a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, which is a persistent organic pollutant that is regulated under the UK POPs regulations.

The purpose of the amendment regulations is to extend the expiry date from 4 July 2023 to 3 December 2025 to allow the continued use of PFOA in specialist textiles for oil and water repellency, for the protection of workers from dangerous liquids that comprise risks to their health and safety.

The UK POPs regulations implement the Stockholm convention in the UK. POPs are chemicals that remain intact in the environment for long periods and become widely distributed geographically, accumulate in the tissues of humans and wildlife, and have harmful impacts on human health or the environment. POPs therefore present a risk to the environment and people that extends beyond national borders and so require a coordinated international response.

The chemical commonly known as PFOA was listed as a POP under the convention in 2019 and is subject to elimination. That means that it cannot be made, imported, sold or used in signatory countries. Several time-limited exemptions are included in its listing, reflecting the continued need for its use in a number of critical applications in signatory countries. One such use is the subject of the UK statutory instrument. The use of PFOA is required for a defence-critical capability; the use is small, critical and the chemical is used and disposed of by professionals.

Having considered the matter, I am happy that that use presents a very low risk to the environment. I am less happy about the timeframe in which the Scottish Government has been asked to respond, and consequently the impact that that has had on the committee’s schedule. However, I understand that there were good reasons for the timescale and that ministers and officials in the UK Government alerted us as soon as they were able to. The committee should also note that the UK Government is having to break its own 21-day rule in order to lay the instrument before 4 July 2023.

In summary, I consider consenting to the UK instrument to be an appropriate course of action to allow continued access to a critical defence function, and its availability across Great Britain, including Scotland.

You should certainly come back in on this point, Phil, but I would begin by saying that it certainly does not feel to us like any sector is being given a bye. Ms Regan asked about the long-term targets. The stretch and the pressure that our targets place on every sector across our economy cannot be understated. I take the point about how we set those things against each other.

I will bring Phil Raines in, but first I want to draw out some points that he has already made. When we are making policy to 2040 in a fast-paced area in which we require innovation to come to our aid, we have to be able to give some scope to technological advance and to actions that the UK Government might take.

You mentioned agriculture, Mr Ruskell. I take the strong view that technological advances will come to our aid to an extent in the decarbonisation of agriculture. Some of those advances are in train, so we can allude to them and build them in, and some of them will undoubtedly come on track before 2040—we do not even know about them yet.

I would not expect either of those things to come to pass. The reason why the extension is required just now is that the technical progress on an alternative has not reached a sufficient stage, as I understand it. I expect that the extension would focus the work on that technical alternative and give the time to develop it. That is our expectation anyway.

I will hand over to Phil Raines, but the work is taking longer because monitoring is exceptionally difficult. This goes back to my point about emissions reduction numbers and the ability to measure emissions in megatonnes of carbon.

However, it is not as easy to measure adaptation. Phil Raines will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the approach that has been taken to date to our adaptation programme is to assess the fulfilment of the policies that we have identified will contribute to adaptation. It is harder to have separate monitoring of adaptation as a whole, because it is so many different things in so many different circumstances. Phil, is there anything that you can add to that?