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Finally, what does that reporting back to Parliament look like? Parliament is being asked to approve or to not stand in the way of your improvement plan that has come in on the back of an improvement notice from ESS—we have to say, “Yes, that is good”, or, “No, we think you need to think again”. If we are broadly saying, “Yes, this is moving absolutely in the right direction”, as I think that it is, what will the reporting back to Parliament look like? There is this unanswered question around scope 3 emissions, and I certainly want to see what progress is being made not in 2027—if we are still here—but in the interim period between, in 2025 and 2026.

Yes. I was having a look at the different areas of scope 3 emissions. The Government has categorised some of those as being really hard to bottom out and, if I understand it correctly, further work has been scheduled for that.

One of the groups is operation of franchises. How hard is it to work out the emissions from a franchise? This committee has discussed bus franchises. Surely it would be relatively easy for a council to work out how the operation of a bus service over time and the vehicles that would be used would contribute towards climate change, through the amount of fuel that would be used and the number of services that would be run. I want your reflection on that, because it did not strike me as an area where it would be particularly challenging to understand what the climate impact would be. If councils are making decisions on franchises without really understanding the climate impact, that is a bit concerning. I will take everybody who wants to answer that, starting with Clare Wharmby.

I presume that there is a conversation about local procurement. We quite often see in the press councils being challenged about why they are air-freighting chicken from Thailand or wherever and there is an active conversation about local procurement of ingredients. I understand the challenge of going down to the n^th degree, but my point is that surely carbon is not being prioritised in procurement.

Okay, that is fine.

The other issue is about local councils and the ability of householders and businesses to connect to an EV charge point at their home or business the car or van that is sitting outside on a public highway. There are planning issues around cables crossing footways, but I know of a number of local authorities that have effectively provided a derogation to enable certain types of guttering to be put on to the footway to enable homeowners and businesses to charge at home using a more attractive, cheaper tariff. Is there any progress with councils on adopting more enlightened planning rules to enable people to use those more attractive tariffs?

Okay, that is fine. Where we have got to with this is that there is a question about where you draw the line. You could go down to the nth degree but there is perhaps a point where that information does not add as much value in some areas as in other areas.

You have worked within the spirit of the ESS recommendation, you have adopted most of the recommendations, but there is still a question around the sticky scope 3 emissions. I am interested in how much progress you can make in bottoming out that question between 2025 and 2027 and what you can report back to Parliament.

It is clear that some areas—such as bus franchises, which you mentioned—look pretty easy to bottom out in terms of scope 3 emissions. I will add another one, a favourite of mine: road maintenance. I see that Andrew Mortimer is looking at me as I say that, but I think that, with road maintenance, it is fairly easy to understand the data around aggregates and some of the reporting in that sector. Getting verified data in that area that can be included in scope 3 reporting might be low-hanging fruit for councils, and might be easier than, say, doing so in the area of catering, where you have to try to add up all the ingredients, take account of all the suppliers and so on.

I am interested in how much progress we can expect to see in the areas that you think are a bit too hard right now and we need to go back and think again about. Are there some obvious areas that councils are not reporting on at the moment, such as road maintenance? The data around road maintenance is there, and it is quite a big area of carbon emissions and public spend. It would not be too hard to report on that area, and there probably would be some value in having an understanding of the scope 3 emissions, as that could form part of the decision making.

Right—but it is challenging.

Do you think that it is worth doing?

Okay. Jamie McGrandles or Mark Roberts, do you want to come in?

I would like to see the data on that.

Cabinet secretary, you mentioned councils reporting on scope 3 emissions under the different categories. How many councils have reported on franchises? What percentage?