Seòmar agus comataidhean

I will take those points separately. I understand that there are concerns among some stakeholders, including Friends of the Earth, about hydrogen—about green and blue hydrogen, the different ways that those are produced and whether those are appropriate in a climate emergency. The Scottish Government supports both blue and green hydrogen, incidentally.

With regard to Professor Skea’s quotation, I think that I know what you are talking about, and I think that he was responding to the draft energy strategy and just transition plan. If Professor Skea was referring to the energy strategy not explaining exactly how we intend to launch the export market, I would just point him to the chapter dedicated to that in our hydrogen plan.

The straightforward answer is that I cannot answer that now with the surety that I would want to bring to committee because, as I said earlier, we are still developing it all. I will hazard a guess that we would not go—no, I will not, actually. I do not want to guess, because I do not want to create a hostage to fortune on any of that. This morning, I have laboured the point that what people tell us that they want to see will be important, so I do not want to pre-empt exactly how the plan will be formed.

From what I can see, and from my experience of speaking to Ineos and other companies, funding is available. Oil and gas companies are increasingly referring to themselves as energy companies, because they are diversifying.

For our part, the Government can set the direction of travel and the regulatory environment, and give companies confidence. As Liam Middleton rightly pointed out, we can also provide a small amount of funding; it is not seed funding, but it can back up what companies are seeking to do.

Absolutely. There are many lessons to be drawn from that. The focus on Grangemouth is absolutely right, because its contribution to our economy and to everyday life in Scotland sits so closely beside its emissions reduction and what it is doing there. If I have a vision for what we are seeking to do, it is about the trio of the economy, jobs and emissions. My vision is that we retain and grow economic value and jobs, and drive down emissions.

On learning from previous experiences, you talked about the community and workers; early and meaningful engagement with communities, workers and their trade unions has been so important. Liam Middleton might want to say more about that, but there has already been engagement. To date, we have worked with Unite the Union and I met union reps when I visited Grangemouth. Obviously, we are looking for ways of working with the Scottish Trades Union Congress just transition officers that we are funding. Another important initiative for this specific area is that we have decided to fund a Grangemouth community engagement officer to be a liaison between the Grangemouth community, what is happening in the cluster and what we are doing with the plan to make sure that the voices of people who live in the area, many of whom are employed at the site, are heard really loudly.

Liam, I do not know whether you have anything to add to that, particularly relating to the experience at Longannet.

That is a really good question. I go back to the point that, when we are trying to act with the pace and at the scale that the emergency demands from us, we must ensure that, in our efforts to respond, we do not forget about the really basic and important fundamentals of close and meaningful engagement. That means not just listening, but actually being able to demonstrate that what we heard was acted upon. Having come into this post, and with the Grangemouth just transition plan in front of us, I am absolutely determined that community involvement and engagement and a clear line of sight so that the community can see that its views have been reflected in the plan should be very much part of the plan.

I make no apology for returning to the point about us deciding to fund the employment of the community liaison person. That is someone from the area coming into the work to give an invaluable insight into what it means to live in the area, how people relate to the industrial complex, and what they want to see that do for them in future. That relates not only to the complex and its decarbonisation; it relates to what it feels like to live in the area or to travel around it. For example, there is an on-going issue with flooding in Grangemouth, which I know is a concern for many people.

I want to have as early and as broad a consultation as we possibly can, and it is my intention that we will be able to demonstrate exactly how views have been borne in mind and built into the plan.

Yes—absolutely. I do not blame any community for having consultation fatigue, but that does not mean that we should not do it. We have to do it. As you say, we have to be able to demonstrate fairly early on tangible ways in which views have been listened to and reflected upon.

I go back to my initial point about phasing. It is not going to take long. We are talking about publishing a plan in spring next year. By the middle of this year, we will be able to set out the economic baseline work that we have done, and we will have set out the vision for 2045, taking into account what we have heard from the consultations that we have undertaken. By the time we get to spring next year, there will be a tangible plan for the community, for workers and for industry, and for us and the public sector bodies that are involved in the future industry board to reflect on.

I will hand over to Andy McCall on the point about when and what we will publish.

It is right to say that the experience of the community can be independent of what happens at the cluster or deeply connected to it. Both have to be borne in mind.

We are at the beginning of the process, and I have talked about the desire for, and my intention that there will be, close engagement with the community. I expect that the issues relating to transport in and around the area and to the quality of housing and living experience in and around Grangemouth—how it is now and what it might be like as we move to the decarbonised cluster of the future—will come to the fore. Our community engagement officer will be able to feed in those views as they arise in the community. I do not want to pre-empt things by saying that those are the subjects that will come up, but I think that we are right that they will.

On transport, I know that there was an appraisal for a new station at Grangemouth as part of the second strategic transport projects review, but it was not recommended because of the current movements of people in and around the area, with people coming into the area from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling and elsewhere. However, that is not the only transport issue. We need to think about how well communities are served by bus and by other means, and I expect that all that will form part of the feedback that we get from the community and will inform our thinking as we develop the plan.

Absolutely. My colleagues can come in if they wish to add anything about the planning for this, but all that I can say is that I expect such issues to be born out of the discussions that we have with communities and that, when that happens, I expect to be able to demonstrate how they have been taken into account in the plan.

Indeed, through the Grangemouth future industry board—which, again, represents a novel approach with regard to the public sector coming together over something of such importance as Grangemouth—there has already been close working with Falkirk Council on, for example, road issues such as congestion and the movement of heavy goods. Work is on-going. I am very open to hearing the communities’ priorities, and I want to demonstrate how those views are being taken into account.

I absolutely take the point that people should be able to expect staging posts and tangible outcomes at various points along the way.

I agree that Grangemouth—the cluster, the people who live there and the public sector bodies—is much greater than the sum of its parts, although I broke it down in that way in order to demonstrate the way in which we are engaging.

I take on board the point about co-ownership and co-leadership. Those are important because change can be frightening, and the more the people who are involved in or impacted by that change are empowered to lead it, design it and be responsible for its working, the more sustainable and successful it will be. To me, that is a core concept that applies equally to the just transition and to a lot of the work that we seek to do across Government in order to rise to the challenge of the climate emergency. We can all think of a few examples that are pertinent to that just now.

I have talked before about the fact that I need to have the feedback from all the interested parties, be that on transport, housing, flooding or employment, including the industry’s views, before I can say with the surety that I would want to give the committee exactly how that will be taken forward into the plan.

I come back to the phase 1 work that is very much under way, which is about working towards the vision for 2045 on the basis of close consideration of the economic and social issues. At the moment, it is difficult for me to say exactly what the issues will be and how they will be built in.