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It is welcome that you are prepared to look at that again, cabinet secretary, because we seem to be in a chicken-and-egg situation. The UK CCC’s clear advice at committee last week was that the draft plan needs to be available at the same time that you are considering a draft budget. Perhaps, with reflection, that was an issue in 2019. We did not have a sense of what a clear plan to get to the 2030 target looked like, but we were still having to set a 2030 target in this Parliament.

I would like a bit more clarity from you about how you see the draft plan working with the carbon budget, because, in an ideal world—this is what the CCC asked Government to do last week—you would bring the two things together. You would have what is achievable and have the necessary budget alongside that. Perhaps those are the two important things; that alignment is critical.

You are saying that the bill is introducing a level of flexibility, which might have some advantages in ramping up programmes and change, but there is nothing to hang things on, ultimately, apart from the 2045 target. There is a risk of failure, unless the action is really pegged down.

Will ESS formally write to the Scottish Government about the adequacy of the section 36 report?

So why not just reveal that?

Indeed.

Obviously, where we are is really disappointing. The 2030 and 2040 targets are being dropped and we are moving to a new system of budgeting. What are the top-line lessons that the Government should learn from the past five years? Mike Robinson spoke about the level of action planning. I know that ESS has done a number of reports that have held the Government to account over the production of climate change plans. We have also had a long-running discussion between the Parliament and the Government on financial budgets, a net zero test and the need to embed climate change thinking in the work of Government.

From each of your perspectives, will you nail down what you think the central lesson is from the past five years? How do we now get on track for 2045 or even earlier?

Mike, do you want to start?

I will try to beat that.

Cabinet secretary, when you talked earlier about the net zero assessment work that is going on within Government—that is, the net zero test of all Government spending—you said that it is still at the pilot stage. It seems to me that it needs to go way beyond the pilot stage if it is to deliver the level of transparency that we might get through climate change plans linked to budgets—and to carbon budgets, too.

I am going to get a short answer to this question—

So, every Government department will be using this approach by next year.

I have a question on the five years since the setting of the 2030 target and where we are now. We have rehearsed some of this in the chamber in relation to where the Government could have gone faster or where the UK Government was, arguably, limiting ambition. You could make that point, but I am after an honest reflection from you, on behalf of the Government, on areas where you think you could have gone a lot faster.

You had the advice from the Climate Change Committee in 2021 that the target remained difficult to meet. However, there were areas in which the CCC was calling for the Government to really accelerate action, such as home heating. With hindsight, in which areas could progress have been made? What lessons does that provide for the next five years and for what goes in the next climate change plan? Where should we really be ramping up action in a way that we perhaps did not five years ago?

My final question is about the section 36 report, which a number of witnesses have mentioned. Last week, two catch-up reports in relation to two years of failed targets came out.

We are going to need to do a lot of scrutiny of the budgets. We have had catch-up reports, but do witnesses have thoughts on the level of detail that was presented to Parliament? Did it address some of the concerns that SCCS, ESS and others have had about the lack of action that led to those failed targets?

This is the second time in three years that workers at the Methil yard have faced a very uncertain future. The yard at Methil was previously on a long list for a portion of the £500 million investment in Scotland’s offshore wind supply chain. Can the cabinet secretary confirm whether the Government has explored all options to lock Methil yard into that supply chain for the future? Can she also give a commitment that any investments that come through the green freeport will not undermine the case for investment at Methil but will work alongside it to strengthen the supply chain that we need to grow in the east of Scotland?