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Is the energy strategy also linked to the climate change plan? Will the energy strategy have to wait until late 2025 or into 2026 before it can be finalised?

It has already been delayed. Do you know when we should expect to see it back?

I am just looking for clarification. The Government has said that the energy strategy cannot be released because we are in a pre-election period. However, while we have been in committee today, the Scottish Government has published its national events strategy. How can one strategy be released but the other cannot?

It sounds as though the minister will not support amendment 207. However, from listening to Maurice Golden, I think that it is important to set out exactly the direction of travel, so that people can make investment decisions. If that is not going to be in the bill, can the minister say when that information will be forthcoming? I think that it is needed, and that it would bring a lot of investment.

I want to dig a bit deeper into the timescales to see what you can and cannot answer, cabinet secretary. The latest point at which the climate change plan could be laid before Parliament is November this year—I guess that, as things stand, that would still be the case. However, that will not happen, because the bill removes that duty. Is that correct, and is it correct that you cannot set out the timescales for a new climate change plan today?

So, it might be this year, but it might not be—we have nothing to go on yet.

Yes. I think that fuel duty was frozen over the two most recent budgets. Did you support that freezing of fuel duty, or would you have liked to see fuel duty increased, which would potentially have made getting to your targets easier?

Okay, I will move on to something else. I am not sure whether you will be able to answer this, but, in the letter that you sent to the committee on 10 May, you said that there is

“A plan to deliver approximately 24,000 additional electric vehicle charging points by 2030”.

Can you clarify whether that includes the up to 6,000 charging points to be delivered by 2026? Does the 24,000 figure include that, or is it additional to the figure of 6,000 that has already been announced?

Okay—I apologise if I picked that up wrongly, but I am sure that I heard in the chamber that the energy strategy could not be released because we are in a pre-election period. I will double-check that in the Official Report.

Yes—I will say a few brief things.

The deputy convener has raised a useful point in relation to when the power will be used and on what. The problem with the bill is that, once it has passed stage 3, there will not be any more debate in the chamber and the time for consultation will have passed.

We often hear coffee cups being mentioned. The power could be used far more widely than just on coffee cups. Graham Simpson mentioned packaging for fish and chips, but there are other things, too. Take a tin of beans. That is a container, so will there be a charge on that? There are also unknowns about VAT. I do not know whether the Government has identified whether VAT would be payable on that charge. There is quite a lot that we do not know, which makes it quite difficult to—