Seòmar agus comataidhean

I think that it would be useful to have more detail. When I looked at annex J last week, I noted that some adaptation elements are included. For example, I think that £60,000 is being spent on bee health. That is fantastic, but that is in the same pot as the hundreds of millions of pounds that are going towards active travel, public transport and major investment in public infrastructure. The biggest challenge is trying to get a sense of scale and impact, because, at the moment, we have baskets of good things and challenging things.

I will ask specifically about local government. The classification that you mentioned now covers about 81 per cent of our resource spending, but it does not incorporate local government spending, which can be significant in taking us in the wrong direction or in propelling us towards tackling the climate emergency. Will you look at the classification of that spending, or would that require a change in the legislation?

The committee has heard about a lot of innovation from local government, which was certainly not there when we were considering the 2019 legislation. It is work in progress, I guess.

I will move on to strand 3 and the net zero test. We had a very useful discussion in Parliament last week with the Climate Emergency Response Group, which was hosted by Monica Lennon. I think that Mr Raines was there. We were looking at the guts of how the net zero test actually works within Government.

I would like some clarity about where the strand 3 work sits right now. I think the Deputy First Minister told the committee last week that the form and timing of how that work will develop in the future were unclear. Some of your comments in your letter to the committee have been interpreted to mean that that work might not be part of an annual budget process. That was not my understanding of the work that was being progressed; my understanding was that it would be integral. Are you able to explain where we are with the pilots and how the work will be part of the annual budget-setting process? That is surely where meaningful decisions are made.

Do you need more legislation to embed it into the work of Government?

I actually wanted to go back to the bus partnership fund. It is disappointing that the fund has been paused, but my understanding is that it is a pause: the Government has not scrapped it. The intention is to bring it back when capital budgets allow.

My question to the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition is on what councils and transport authorities should be doing. The funding is not there for this year, but should they continue to develop projects to allow buses priority access, and can that work continue in the next year? There has been a lot of nimbyism in relation to some of the schemes that have been put forward, and it has taken a while for councils and transport authorities to work through objections and that side of things to get to a point where they can put in an application and develop a scheme.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the support that is available for people living with, or affected by, dementia. (S6O-03004)

Organisations such as Town Break and meeting centres provide essential support to those living with dementia and their carers in Dunblane and Stirling. From peer support to social activities, such local independent groups provide exactly the care that people need to add life to years. However, the future of those groups is at risk and the local health and social care partnership’s funding for dementia services is unclear for the next year. Does the minister agree that all efforts should be made to properly fund such community-led dementia support groups as part of the Government’s strategy?

I have a follow-up question about the pipeline of onshore wind projects. It appeared to be quite clear in last year’s draft energy strategy how we would meet the 2030 target for doubling onshore wind capacity—slightly more than half of what we need was in the planning system and slightly less than half of what we need had been consented. I am trying to understand what the big bulk of work for planners is that we do not understand at this point. If that holds true, pretty much everything that we already have in the system will meet the target.

I do not know the extent to which the onshore wind pipeline has developed in the past 12 months since the onshore wind sector deal and whether we are seeing far more applications or whether there has been a reduction. In the draft energy strategy, it seemed that there was certainty about what was coming down the pipeline. I am interested in your perspective, or Susie Townend’s perspective, on whether that has changed in the past 18 months. Clearly, the onshore wind sector deal has been fantastic for the industry and a major thing that the Government has pushed forward.

However, for this year’s budget, the focus is offshore wind and building up the capacity in that supply chain, and that is where the jobs will come from.

I would like to rattle through some questions about the joint budget review with you and your team, Deputy First Minister. I will start by asking for clarity on whether you or the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition is ultimately responsible for that? We have had correspondence from you and Màiri McAllan.

Okay.

At the beginning, you mentioned annex J, which is a pretty useful spreadsheet where we can find the policies that will make a big climate impact and those that might make a negative climate impact. Monica Lennon talked about woodlands and woodland grants, which are listed there.

In the interests of transparency, could a further level of information be provided? We have broad categories of things that are positive for the climate and that have a high impact on it, but if we were to drill down and say, for example, that we need to prioritise woodland grants or something else, how could we look at that and say that we need to do it because we know that it will result in a big impact, and how can we see the figures behind that? Is there a level of further information that would be useful when it comes to budget negotiations or other scrutiny?