Seòmar agus comataidhean

It has been great having you here at this morning’s meeting. I want to go back to the issues of energy and the fit for 55 package. You emphasised Sweden’s role in finalising that, so is it now being implemented? I am interested to find out how that policy will reach out to countries that might be on the periphery of European membership or European Economic Area countries in order to meet energy needs within the European Union.

I was in Reykjavik at the Arctic Circle assembly last year, and there was a lot of interesting discussion around the potential for green hydrogen and renewables with sub-Arctic countries, industry, Governments and academics. I am interested to learn how, with green hydrogen and Europe’s hard-to-abate energy sectors, Europe will reach out to those countries that have renewable resources and draw them in to meet its energy needs.

Are there particular challenges with countries such as Norway, which is in the EEA, and the UK, which is now outside the European Union—Sweden is, of course, in the EU—in trying to devise an energy policy that incorporates and draws on the resources of all those countries, but which also designs rules that will ensure that energy needs are met?

I am aware that there has been strong debate and discussion about the inclusion of gas and nuclear in the taxonomy.

We had some evidence from grass-roots music venues that there is a need to ensure that the big economic drivers, such as stadium gigs and big shows that are extremely profitable, transfer some of that wealth and value through to grass-roots music venues in particular. The same could be said for screen productions in Scotland. There is increased investment into Screen Scotland, which is great. It will certainly drive growth in the cultural economy, but how do we get the value from the big productions and the big gigs down into the grass roots again? It could involve ticket levies or some form of payment for those who are making Netflix movies in Scotland.

I have one more question, which is about the world athletics indoor championships. The Scottish Government has largely funded the world cycling championships. My understanding is that there has been no contribution from the UK Government, even though the event will be seen as a Great Britain event that is hosted in GB. What about the world athletics indoor championships? Is the Scottish Government wholly funding that event or are there contributions from the UK Government? The championships will, again, be seen globally as a GB event.

I want to switch to the process of the development and climate proofing of the budget and the implementation of the joint budget review on climate. I welcomed getting the letter yesterday updating us on the progress that the Government is making on that.

I want to ask you about each of the three strands. The first strand that was introduced into this year’s budget is the climate change narrative. I welcomed seeing not just a carbon assessment but much more of a narrative that explains some of the policy choices that were made this year. What are your reflections on that? How might that narrative change in future as more work is done to develop more data?

That would be welcome. Previous committees have looked at the climate change plan and found it absolutely impossible to work out where the cuts in emissions were coming from. At the time, we were told that, because the TIMES—the integrated MARKAL-EFOM system—model that is used is extremely complicated, there are so many interdependencies that it is impossible to work that out. It would be good to have transparency in future.

This area is recognised as being one of international interest. The Fraser of Allander Institute’s report highlighted a number of international examples. Is your department continuing to make connections with other Governments, including the New Zealand Government, about their approach and how we can learn from one another? In some ways, it feels as though we are groundbreaking, yet we are also learning from Governments that have already broken some turf in this area.

In terms of strand 2, the taxonomy feels a bit rough and ready at the moment and it is very much restricted to capital rather than looking at resource spend and what that does. The future taxonomy will be the next big addition to the budget process—the next tool that committees such as this one will have—and it is going to have a greater breadth, covering both capital and resource spend, but what kind of depth can it get into? Will it be possible for us to look at individual capital infrastructure projects and say, “Oh, we can see now not just what the climate impacts will be in terms of construction but what that contributes in terms of net zero”? Will there be a clarity at the appropriate level of budget spend so that we can get our heads around the direction of travel of spending and what the choices have been within that?

I appreciate that the work with strand 2 will be taken forward in strand 3 to give much more granularity. You mentioned the climate change plan and the recommendation from the Climate Change Committee that the next climate change plan, which we will develop this year, should set out explicitly the carbon impact of certain policies. Does that give an earlier opportunity to take things that will go into the draft climate change plan, in particular, and assess those through the budget process?

If the plan has to be very clear about what the carbon impacts of policies will be, surely it would be relatively simple to extrapolate from that and say, “If we are spending on this particular policy in a given year, this is what the climate impact will be.” Does that give us a starting point with the climate change plan this year, whereby we can start to build some of that work into the budget, so that we can see a follow-through from the plan right the way through to spend?

You mentioned earlier the importance of increasing the scale of the roll-out of area-based schemes. How important is the national energy agency in helping to deliver that? Is it possible to accelerate the development of the national energy agency? It feels as though we could be waiting some time before it is up and running to full capacity and it can marshal some of the opportunities that are there for energy companies, councils and the private sector to come in and do things at the scale that we need.