Seòmar agus comataidhean

That is very interesting. I was going to ask this question later, but I will ask it now, because you mentioned renewable energy and the idea that, given that Shetland islanders are hosting such infrastructure, they should get more infrastructure that will benefit them personally by transforming their lives and that will support them to help us to meet our carbon ambitions.

Has the Scottish Government explored opportunities for community ownership of renewable energy? Countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands are often cited in that regard. In Denmark, there is 50 per cent community ownership of renewable energy, although that could include community and local authority ownership. Have you thought about entering into those conversations? Ownership, rather than benefit, could bring considerable income for local authorities and communities to help us to achieve the ambitions that we are talking about.

For sure. Let us look at community and local authority ownership of onshore wind. Orkney Islands Council has done a great job in setting about offering ownership of a number of wind farms.

Although the scale is big and we need private finance, is there a space where the Government, perhaps through the Scottish National Investment Bank, could support communities to own a piece of such developments? The Government has the ambition of at least 10 per cent of energy being community owned. It is fantastic that the island of Yell has five wind turbines and that Tiree has one, but I am not talking about small developments. When big wind farms are put up onshore, communities need to have some ownership of them. I think that that would help with the general direction of travel that the Government wants to go in to meet its renewable energy ambitions.

Fulton, you mentioned that you might have a supplementary question. Did you manage to get a response to it?

You do not need to switch on the microphone; we will do that for you, Philip.

We might need to have a jargon-busting glossary to explain what Blue Petering means for some people who are watching this or reading the Official Report.

I want to pick up on the cabinet secretary’s points on Granton. Throughout this parliamentary session, there have been conversations about how we get out of silos. It seems to me that Granton is a very fine example of considering everything together, including transport and housing. I want to celebrate that and note that it can be challenging to get out of those budgetary silos. Once something is on a spreadsheet, it can be difficult. Granton is a fantastic example and it would be great to see more of that happening across Scotland.

We will move on to partnership working, community engagement and infrastructure. I will bring in Willie Coffey initially with a few questions.

Great. We now move on to our next theme, which is data and monitoring. I will bring in Alexander Stewart for that.

Okay. This is not necessarily a question but a comment to tie together a couple of things that have come up in the behavioural change piece that you just talked about and what the cabinet secretary said about the need for trusted partners and trusted sources of information.

When COSLA, SOLACE, SCIS and others gave evidence to the committee, I was heartened by the amount that they were leaning in and wanting to get on with it. I wonder whether more could be done by national Government to support the telegraphing—getting it out to people—that our public services are doing the work and they understand that we have to take action on climate change.

Those services are already putting work in place but, somehow, that is not necessarily filtering through to people on the ground—to constituents. I was just really struck by how ready the services are—they are beyond ready; they are already doing it. They are or need to become trusted people who could telegraph the need for behaviour change, modal shift and so on.

Thanks very much.

I will pick up on a quick supplementary question that I meant to ask earlier. You mentioned climate action hubs. How much support do those get—how much checking in and bringing them all together? How many do we actually have across Scotland, and how much support do they get? You have identified them as an important place for people to come to for an understanding of what is going on and how they can participate and contribute. How much are they supported?

I have certainly attended hubs in my local authority area. They are very vibrant and active in doing great work.

That brings us to the end of our discussion and our questions. I very much appreciate your joining us this morning. It has been very helpful and insightful, and I look forward to seeing how we have influenced the final plan through our sessions.

I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

11:03

Meeting suspended.

11:11

On resuming—