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The answer is “if”. It is important because, when you get that momentum—or pipeline, which I think you referred to it as—people develop expertise. We have had a change whereby it is now regional transport partnerships that take a big part of the responsibility for many projects, although individual councils can apply as well. It is important to keep the experience and expertise; that provides value for money in and of itself. There is something around keeping the pipeline and momentum, which is what we want to do.

Do we want to make multiyear commitments? Yes, that would be desirable. However, we are not currently able to do that. Instead, we have yearly budgets that we have to report to the Parliament on.

It has been an open procurement. Whatever happens, there will be reduced emissions—that is a priority for us. However, as said, and as I relayed to the committee when we announced the procurement—obviously, ScotRail made the formal statement—it has been an open procurement, and we will have to identify what comes back from that.

The initial spending was about some of the planning activity. On the actual deployment, I referred to the £18 million—my officials will correct me if I am wrong. That has gone to, for example, the Highland and north consortium, which is bringing local authorities together as a package, and to the Glasgow and Ayrshire consortium. That was around November, so they have those funds.

The SSI is also constrained by the current legislation.

As I said, it is more than that—there is the £18 million that has gone to the consortiums. Ayrshire and Glasgow have come together and a package was announced for that. In fact, we did that when the Scottish Government Cabinet met in Ayr, when I met all the partners that are involved. The funding has gone out. All that I am saying is that there is probably a remainder of funding to go out in this financial year. The majority of the £30 million has been issued and, as part of the proposals, there is leverage—on average, for every £1 of public investment, £3.20 of additional investment is generated from the private sector.

In terms of the deployment, I was in Inverness and announced the allocation for the Highland and north consortium, after which it would start deploying. Obviously, that involves working with partners to develop, implement and deliver the actual chargers.

In addition, you will know that private sector chargers are developing all over the place—for example, I officially opened the rapid charger in Dundee last year. The pace and rate are increasing. You will see that more in deployment next year, but the funding has gone out this year.

I am not quite sure how that applies to the 2025-26 budget, but my recollection is that, when you previously raised this issue with me, I wrote to you to explain that with regard to this year’s funding, which we have been discussing, and the allocation to the councils applying for the funding for EV charging, they had to set out how they were going to achieve the requirement for that standard.

I will look again at the letter that I sent to you and at the draft implementation plan that we issued last year to see whether that is clear enough. I did reply to you in writing after you raised the matter as a constituency issue, and I am happy to do so again to ensure that the requirements that are being made of the councils receiving funding are clear. I have to say that I thought that the letter that I sent you made it quite clear that there would be specific requirements with regard to the standards, particularly in relation to the regulations that you have talked about.

I do not think that we will be in that position, but I would rather take the advice from the Climate Change Committee. Part of what we are intending to do is to see what it says in relation to that. I think that we would need to make more progress. I do not think that progress is at the level that it needs to be to make the shift. We are making progress, but we need to identify how we best do that.

Again, I come back to the point about having more reliable public transport for people to use. That is the incentive for people to make the shift, as well as availability, which is one of the key areas.

I know that the committee in its wider analysis is looking at how we tackle climate change and emissions. Reducing car use is important in that regard. However, let us put that into perspective. We know that fewer people are travelling by public transport as more of them are working from home. People choosing to not use their car one day out of five working days and using public transport instead is a 20 per cent change. In addition to having national plans, there is something around how we popularise the use of public transport and make it a real responsibility for individuals. We have to make it achievable for people.

As I have explained, there is £30 million going out this year, with an initial £5 million for rural and islands connectivity next year. As for what the phrase “appropriate measures” means, I think that you are right to pursue that question. We will identify how charging measures are being deployed, but I am afraid to say that, as far as the financial provisions are concerned, that is a level of detail that I do not have to hand today.

Indeed, some of the additional funding in this year’s budget is not for actual deployment, but for work within councils more generally.

Yes.