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I listened carefully to what the cabinet secretary said. I do not think that amendment 62 contains anything that would require the Scottish Government to fully fund the Climate Change Committee. The amendment relates very much to the work that that committee does in relation to Scottish carbon budgets. It is important that the issue is continually raised. If that is done through interministerial forums, so be it. An understanding of our needs, of the issues that are emerging from deliberation on our climate change plan and the budget and of the CCC’s capacity to deliver on that need to be part of an active conversation.

I will consider whether it is worth revisiting amendment 62 ahead of stage 3, but I do not intend to press it at this point. I appreciate that the cabinet secretary has, I think, acknowledged that this is an issue. I think that she has acknowledged that—I am not sure. [Interruption.] She has—right, okay.

Amendment 18 seeks to ensure that the climate change plan will state the expected emissions reductions for each policy. We recognise that that is good practice, and the UKCCC has been recommending it. My amendment seeks to ensure that climate change plans will include that detail. I do not think that we have ever had that detail up to now, as the Government has said, “This is too difficult to do—it’s too difficult to work it out and we can’t make it that transparent.” Going forward, we absolutely need that transparency, because it could be that some policies deliver unexpectedly large reductions in emissions while others may result in less of a reduction. Amendment 18 seeks to improve scrutiny and transparency, which is important.

Will the minister take an intervention?

I will speak to amendments 5 and 59, and offer some comments on the amendments that have already been discussed. First, I thank Stop Climate Chaos Scotland for its detailed engagement with the bill and its discussion of how it can be improved.

Reflecting on the evidence that we took at stage 1, I think that setting a carbon budget is a very important step. In removing the interim targets and moving over to that process, the Parliament is taking a significant step. I appreciate the timescale issues around the setting of the first carbon budget, but I feel that a super-affirmative instrument is the best way forward for committees to scrutinise budgets, to take evidence from those who are going to deliver carbon reductions, to get the granularity of the discussion about the contributions of sectors, which we have already discussed this morning, and to come to a judgment about whether the carbon budget is adequate or not.

As I said, I recognise the situation that we are in with the first carbon budget and the need to expedite that quickly. Therefore, amendments 5 and 59 do not apply to that first budget, but in future we need to have adequate scrutiny. The kind of situation that we could be in, where the carbon budget is passed through an affirmative instrument and a committee could, in theory, just discuss it in a morning, would be ridiculous. The evidence points to the need for a more thorough super-affirmative process, which is what amendments 5 and 59 put forward. I put that to the committee for a decision today.

It makes sense that the Government should publish how the target-setting criteria are being taken into account, so I welcome what Monica Lennon has put forward in amendment 52.

I will be interested to hear from the cabinet secretary on amendments 37 and 45, both of which would establish a timescale for the introduction of the first carbon budget. Will it be 90 days or three months after the CCC’s advice? My impression is that the Scottish Government already has a lot of advice. It already has advice from the CCC. What will come in the spring next year will be more about the second and third carbon budgets. I am interested in the cabinet secretary’s thoughts on that and in what she considers to be practicable right now, given the advice that the Government already has and how quickly it can bring forward that first carbon budget.

Reflecting on that phrase “broadly indicative”, do you not think that we need more detail when we are setting the budgets about how Government will meet those targets and carbon reductions, and that there is a danger that what you propose in amendment 53 could be very loose? It could be as loose as a broad pathway that the UK Climate Change Committee is proposing and it will not really enable the committee to get into the guts of whether the targets or the budgets that are being set are the right ones.

Can you explain very simply what the groupings of policies would look like? My concern is that, depending on how things are grouped, such an approach could mask transparency with regard to what policies in certain areas would achieve. As you recognise, that has been the problem with the climate plans the whole time—it has been very difficult to see what individual policies have achieved.

Can’t move, won’t move. [Laughter.]

I am happy to speak to amendment 62. The climate change legislation relies heavily on the advisory body, the UK Climate Change Committee, which we all recognise provides really invaluable formal advice as well as really invaluable informal advice to Government and this committee. It is fair to say that, over the years that the CCC has been in operation and since the Parliament and Government have engaged with it, there have been issues relating to its capacity and resources and, because of that, with how responsive it has been in providing the advice that is needed at the right time, given changing circumstances.

If we think back to 2023, when the climate change plan was delayed, Chris Stark was vocal in saying that the delay had thrown out the CCC’s work programme as well as the window that was available to it to provide advice for the Scottish Parliament on our emissions reduction progress. In effect, we have been in a position in which the level of advice that the Parliament was expecting has not been available, because of the CCC’s capacity and its work programme.

We were in a similar position with the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019, in that the CCC was unable to provide formal advice on the 2030 target because it was still completing its work on the peatland inventory. When we set the targets for 2030 under the 2019 act, we did not have full advice from the CCC. That was not the CCC’s fault; it was to do with its capacity and work programme.

I lodged amendment 62 because the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 provides that, whenever Environmental Standards Scotland produces its annual report, it must communicate a statement to the Parliament on whether it has adequate resources to discharge its responsibilities. We cannot require something similar from the UKCCC because of how it is set up, although I think that it would be preferable if it could publicly talk about any capacity or resources issues that it has. My amendment is competent in that it requires the Scottish Government to report on whether there are capacity issues and to consult the CCC in doing that.

In relation to the risk, you will understand that there is concern about the panel model, and there is not good evidence that that kind of system has worked well across the United Kingdom. However, your key argument is that going down the panel route reduces the risk of legal challenge. What evidence do you see for that?

Yes—briefly.