Seòmar agus comataidhean

Have you asked all your questions? Are you happy with that?

Thank you very much, minister, and I must ask Sue Webber to accept my apologies for not saying at the beginning that she was present. She will get a chance to ask a question at the end.

I am pretty sure—in fact, I am 100 per cent sure—that this legislation will never apply to me, but I should for the record point out that I probably have the ability to get concessionary travel, given that I am over 60. However, I do not think that I am going to fall foul of this legislation—at least, I hope that I never will.

The first question will come from me—and no smirking, minister, because I really do not think that you will see me affected by what is in the code. Can you outline the evidence that you have heard on the issues that have emerged and the extent of the antisocial behaviour? It would be very helpful to hear that, given that we are talking about both ends of the age groups, as it were. I am pretty sure that it is not just young people whose behaviour sometimes slips.

Purely for the record, I think that anyone who makes use of concessionary travel and misbehaves to the extent that their bus pass should be removed, whether they are a young person or an old person, should have it removed. That sort of behaviour is unacceptable.

Mark Ruskell has some questions about the mechanics.

Mark, I will come in very briefly.

Minister, I fear that a lot of the questions this morning will be about understanding the draft code, which the committee has taken evidence on, and which would really help the committee in considering the instrument. It is up to the committee to say whether it supports the instrument—personally, I support its principles, but I am concerned about its implementation. However, I will sow this seed now: you have an option to withdraw the instrument and produce the draft code. The matter would then come back to the committee, and we would have a chance to look at the instrument again along with the draft code. I am not saying that that is what the committee wants, but you have said that there is something there. I fear that there will be lots of questions on the code, so I ask you to consider that. I would like you to respond to Mark Ruskell’s question, and that is just an option that I want to put on the table at this stage.

Sorry—whoa, whoa! While I am convening the committee, I ask members to quietly allow other members to get their questions answered, without adding bits in. Ms Webber will get her chance at the end, as I have indicated. [Interruption.] Ms Webber, you will get a chance at the end. As a respect to the committee members who do this week in, week out, let them get their questions in without making comments from the sidelines, so that I can hear them.

Michael Matheson wants to ask a supplementary on that. I know that Kevin Stewart and Bob Doris also want to come in, so there is a heap of questions. By the look on her face, I suspect that Sarah Boyack wants in as well.

Welcome back. We move to agenda item 4, which is subordinate legislation, to debate motion S6M-20054, which calls on the committee to recommend that the draft National Bus Travel Concession Schemes (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2026 be approved. I invite the minister to speak to and move the motion.

Welcome back. We move on to agenda item 5, which is an evidence-taking session on the Scottish Government’s draft climate change plan. The plan sets out how the Scottish Government intends to meet its carbon emissions reduction targets. The committee is leading a cross-committee effort to scrutinise the draft plan, and the Scottish Government has said that it will lay the final plan by the end of March. Everyone who gives evidence today will be contributing towards a final report that we will publish in late February, with a debate in the chamber to follow.

I put on the record that the committee is extremely grateful to the members of the Scottish Youth Parliament’s Transport, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee for attending a meeting with us last Thursday and for the evidence that it gave us.

I also put on the record that the committee visited the energy transition zone in Aberdeen yesterday, and we are grateful to ETZ Ltd for hosting us and showing us some of the work that it is doing. In the afternoon, we met community groups from across Aberdeen to discuss the climate change plan. I thank the attendees for attending that meeting. It was clear that, at all levels, people had engaged with the plan and maybe had different interpretations of it. A note of those meetings will be circulated to committee members, so that we have it for the record.

I welcome Professor John Underhill, director of the centre for energy transition and professor of geoscience, University of Aberdeen; David Whitehouse—who is here in person—chief executive officer, Offshore Energies UK; Adam Berman, director of policy and advocacy, Energy UK; and Simon Coop, national officer for energy and utilities, Unite the Union. Thank you all for attending this morning.

As is generally the way on the committee, I get to ask the very easy opening question. I will give you all a chance to answer. We have slightly overrun, and I am sorry for keeping you waiting. However, our time is quite short, so if you agree with somebody else on the panel and everything that they have said, you can just say, “I agree”, and if you do not agree with them, you can say, “I do not agree”, rather than rehearsing the whole thing again. I am sorry—that is probably over-icing the cake, but we are quite short of time.

My first question is, what position should the Scottish Government have with respect to future oil and gas licensing and production in the North Sea? I think that last year was the first year that we did not drill a well in the North Sea since—I was going to say 19-canteen, but it was certainly a long time ago. David, do you want to start off?

That was very clear. John, what are your views?

Adam is next.