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Seòmar agus comataidhean

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 4 April 2025
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Displaying 2616 contributions

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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

The flip side is that, if blue carbon was brought into the inventory, that might affect the targets but it might also provide solutions, such as blue carbon marine protected areas and seagrass or kelp restoration. As well as having to account for an entirely new part of our biosphere in our thinking on the inventory, that might open up opportunities for progress.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

Were particular lessons learned from the Beauly to Denny project, which took forever to get through? Landscape-scale mitigations were put in place, communities came forward to seek reductions in the wirescape in their surrounding areas and substations were moved, so some benefits flew from the project as well. Is that feeding into the current thinking? We have been here before with the Beauly to Denny project, where there were debates about undergrounding and everything else.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

I want to go back to the issue of community benefit for windfarms. When a lot of the windfarms were being developed in the early noughties, the community benefit payment levels were set quite low. Sometimes, the level is set at around £1,000 a megawatt. Some of those windfarms are seeking to expand or they are repowering. Is that an opportunity to dramatically increase the amount of money that communities are getting per megawatt from those projects as they seek to expand and become more efficient?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

The ambition of an extra 12GW is huge, so the potential benefit to communities is huge as well, regardless of whether that is through ownership or, indeed, through a smaller amount of money coming through a community benefit payment.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

I want to go back to hydrogen to explore the Government’s vision for that. We have targets in the energy strategy, for 5GW of hydrogen by 2030 and 25GW by 2045. I want to get a sense of where you see that generation coming from and the mix of blue hydrogen versus green hydrogen, or the transition to green hydrogen. Where do you see the 5GW of capacity coming from and how can that shift over time?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

I guess that the blue hydrogen would come from Grangemouth and maybe on-site generation at Mossmorran. Beyond that and the Acorn project cluster, are we looking at green hydrogen going forward?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

Okay. I will move on to the Acorn project and the CCS cluster. I think that there is recognition in the energy strategy and just transition plan that that is needed, particularly for hard-to-abate sectors. It is not clear that there is any other pathway to decarbonise those sectors. However, there are still risks and uncertainties around the deployment of the technology, and not least the track 2 process. What would we do if we did not have Acorn? Is there an alternative pathway in respect of energy? Are there other technologies or avenues that could be explored, or are all the eggs in one basket?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

Thanks very much.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

Can you give a picture of who will fund that, how it will be funded, and the relative contributions of industry and Government? Is there clarity on that?

Meeting of the Parliament

Europe Day 2023 and Alignment with European Union Laws

Meeting date: 9 May 2023

Mark Ruskell

The Tories’ Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is not only a failure of statecraft but an attempt to systematically dismantle the state and, with it, the protections and rights that Britain helped to create during our decades of membership of the European Union. There are some welcome signs that the UK Government may be forced to weaken its approach to throwing EU laws over the cliff edge in December, but are there particular portfolios where the threat of a race to the bottom in standards still hangs over Scotland?