 Good morning and welcome to the sixth meeting of 2016 of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. The first item of business on the committee's agenda this morning is to consider whether to take item 3 in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you. We have apologies from Corrie at Beamish MSP. The second agenda item is for the committee to take evidence on the Committee on Climate Change's assessment of Scotland's Climate Change adaptation programme. We are joined this morning by a panel of members of the Adaptation Sub-Committee on Climate Change. I welcome Lord Krebs, the chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee. Echydeg Osdem Ryglu, who is a member of the Adaptation Sub-Committee and seems to have extensive knowledge of its work reading her biography. I welcome back, after a brief absence, Matthew Bell, the chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change. We have a series of questions, as you can imagine, for you this morning. I want to kick off by asking just for a brief summary of your overall view of the picture that you found in Scotland. Thank you very much, chairman, and thank you for inviting us to appear before you as witnesses this morning. We very much appreciate the opportunity to present our findings. Just to remind you, the Adaptation Sub-Committee is a committee of the Committee on Climate Change under the Climate Change 2008 act. We are obliged to provide advice to a Government, including the Scottish Government, on the risks from climate change. When asked by the Governments of the United Kingdom, we are statutory obliged to provide independent assessments of their climate change adaptation programmes. We are very pleased that the Scottish Government asked us to look at their first adaptation programme, published in 2014. We looked at the England programme, which was published a year before yours, and we did a report on that last year. In many ways, we followed the same structure in reporting on yours that we had on the England programme. The headlines, just to give very briefly, are that climate change is happening now. It is not something that is purely out there in the future decades ahead. There are impacts in terms of increased temperature, but also sea level rise in Scotland, increased annual rainfall. Quite possibly, although we cannot be sure about that, changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Those pressures from climate change, of course, come on top of many other pressures on the environment, on built and natural environment, pressures from population growth, pressures from economic development and so on. What do we feel about this gap? We think that it is a very good positive start by the Scottish Government. We liked the simplicity of the structure with three themes, nine objectives and 148 policies and proposals. It is a logical, simple structure and the themes made sense. We asked the people responsible for implementing those policies and proposals, how they were getting on, and the self-report, as you will see in our document, says that most of the policies and proposals are reported either as being completed or as being on track. However, we also highlight the fact that, with the ones that are not completed, most do not have a set timescale and do not have a clear senior owner. An owner may be in central government, it may be in some other organisation. That is one point that we would wish to draw your attention to. It is only two years into a five-year programme, so we recognise that this is the first step on the path. The areas of concern that we highlighted, as you have seen, we used a very simple traffic light scoring system, red, amber and green. Most of the areas that we looked at scored amber and green, but we highlighted two in red. One was soil vulnerability and agriculture, the second was development in flood risk areas, and we may wish to delve into those in a bit more detail. The other point is that in many of the areas we found it difficult to get data on whether or not vulnerability is increasing or decreasing. There is a question about availability of data. I should say that we drew heavily on climate exchange, which provided a great job in providing data, and we checked our conclusions with many stakeholders in Scotland. For example, on the soil vulnerability, we checked that with the NFU Scotland, so we have done quite a bit of consultation to ensure that our findings are robust. I think that the final point that I would make is that there are some very good examples of local action in Glasgow. In particular, we highlight in one of the boxes as an illustrative example a number of community level actions to alleviate flood risk. I think that what I would say is that you can take heart from the fact that stuff is happening, a positive start, the government is taking climate adaptation and resilience seriously. However, there is still more work to be done, and that is not surprising when you are only two years into the first five-year programme. Of course, there will be a second adaptation programme published in 2019. Thank you for that introduction, and we will delve into some of those points. Can I ask you at this stage, however, that England is a year ahead of Scotland? How would we compare in terms of performance with England? What are they doing better than us? What are we doing better than them? I think that it is difficult to make direct comparisons between England and Scotland. The England programme had a much larger number of individual actions that you would call policies and proposals that had over 370. We gave a similar proportion of those a red score, so if you looked at the score sheet, you would say that England and Scotland are pretty comparable. I felt that the Scottish programme was more focused and had a more manageable number of objectives. I think that in terms of the natural environment, which is very important in Scotland, the state of the natural environment is generally better, I would say, than in England, although there are some areas of concern, for example, loss of peat. Upland peat is important in both England and Scotland. I think that England is more susceptible to future risks of high temperatures and water shortage than Scotland is likely to be, although Scotland isn't immune to those risks. I don't know whether, Matthew, you would like to add anything on that. I think that that's a good summary. The important thing is trying to understand what are the most vital areas in Scotland and where is that distinct from some of the areas in England. As Lord Krebs said, if we're thinking about agriculture and forestry proportionally more important in Scotland and in England, therefore threats to agriculture and forestry are arguably more important to think about in a careful way. Thinking about it in that way, what are the opportunities as well? We highlighted a few opportunities in England and arguably more opportunities in Scotland for businesses. One of the things that we noted is that the SCAP in Scotland, the Attitude Programme, didn't have a lot in it about business, despite that being both risks and opportunities to business, despite that being highlighted in some of the climate change risk assessments that preceded it. Whereas the English national adaptation programme has a more comprehensive section on business, so thinking about how to incorporate business more centrally into some of the Scottish thinking is also a difference between the two and one that's worth thinking about here. Jenny Gilruth, do you want to come in with a supplementary? The report talks about effective engagement. In particular, it makes mention of the Climate Change Act 2009, which requires the Government to ensure engagement with stakeholders, specifically with employers and trade unions. I suppose that my question would be about case studies of good practice in that area. Are you able to highlight examples of where trade unions or employers have worked effectively in that field? One of the notable differences, partly linked to the previous question, is that there is much more in the Scottish programme compared to the English one about communication and engagement around climate change. As Lord Krebs alluded to, we have seen adaptation Scotland and stakeholder groups in Scotland picking up engagement and making sure that it is clear. The important thing is drilling down into some of the specific areas. If we are talking about agriculture and soils, what is the nature of the engagement that has to take place with the farming community and with the forestry community? We highlight significant risks to commercial forestry, partly exacerbated by climate change. What is the engagement when we look at an area such as flooding and flood risks, local authorities and whether they are carrying out the assessment of flood risk that is required, the level of engagement that needs to take place at local community level to make sure that the information is available. Local authorities may then decide how to weigh up that evidence and whether to prioritise different areas and whether development in the flood plain is sensible or not. But making sure that the information is available and that local authorities and local planning officers understand that they need to carry out some of these assessments before making a decision. I am making sure that engagement always drills down into the particular local area that is relevant in each of the sectors that are highlighted. Let us move on and look at the natural environment. We will start with biodiversity, Maurice Golden. I have a two-part question on this. What are the priorities so that Scotland's biodiversity can adapt to the impacts of climate change? Secondly, and this may influence the first part of the question, how have Scotland managed to establish a biodiversity baseline? Essentially, do we have the data to make assessments on how our biodiversity will be challenged and how that can ultimately adapt? I would like to ask H.A. to respond to that. One of the priorities is the soil quality and soil biodiversity. The other important one is the marine environment. In both cases, especially in the marine environment, a better understanding of the impacts of climate change on the marine ecosystems from plankton level to fisheries is required. It is a research priority, one of the recommendations that we made. I think that when we think about the biodiversity, we are also very mindful of other pressures on biodiversity for human use and how they affect the resilience and preparedness of the environment for added pressures from climate change. That is why we have concentrated on major uses in Scotland, such as agriculture and forestry. In forestry as well, one of the priorities, the impact is generally one of the risks from climate changes, faster and wider spread of current and new pests and diseases. One risk in forestry is that the forest stock could be, and there are actions to do so, could be more diverse to reduce the risk of larger sections of the stock being affected by a new disease or spread of a current pest. Maybe those three priorities in terms of soil quality improvement, understanding marine environment and impacts of climate change better and achieving better diversity in the forestry sector could be the top three priorities perhaps. Can I look at you for the data? I think in terms of you asked about baselines, do you have baselines to monitor trends? The answer is for some areas you do. For example, in bird populations you have very good temporal trend data. Some of the farmland and upland bird populations are continuing to decline in spite of measures to try and hold declines. When we looked at the evidence on condition of water bodies, for example, that looked very positive and the proportion of designated sites in favourable ecological condition is steadily increasing. You have temporal trends in the quality of habitats and designated sites and of particular species. Some are going up, positive, some are going down, negative and partly that's a matter of research to understand the causes of declines and partly a matter of encouraging those responsible for managing the land and the countryside to ensure that they do so in a way that encourages biodiversity. You also asked what will make Scotland's biodiversity more resilient to climate change. That's a very interesting question because one thing that may happen as a result of climate change is that new species arrive and old species disappear. The question arises, should one be trying to conserve what is here now or should one be preparing the environment to cope with what comes in in the future? That's a very interesting research question but I think the general conclusion that we have reached on the basis of the available literature is that if habitats, whether they're freshwater, marine, terrestrial habitats are in good ecological condition, however that is defined, they will then be resilient to climate change and will accept new species that will arrive and thrive as old ones go extinct because of climate change. I think that it's managing the environment to have habitats in good ecological condition, not polluted and with management of the current biodiversity to good levels. What are areas that are perhaps lacking and require further data gathering and how would we progress that? Well, I think that Eche has highlighted concerns about, you may want to come to that when we talk more about agriculture but about agricultural soils and the carbon content which you may think is not part of biodiversity but actually soils contain a very rich fauna and flora of microorganisms that help to maintain soil fertility. Eche also highlighted the marine environment where we have seen evidence that some of the key plankton species that support the food chain, zooplankton species are being replaced, cold water species are being replaced by warm water species and the warm water species are less nutritious, they have a lower fat content and that could have impacts on the whole food chain. So we need to understand from the point of view of resilience of fisheries more about changes in the plankton. I think otherwise, well, peatland again, we may well come back to that. I think peatland restoration is a major priority, continuing priority for Scotland even though you have done good work, there's a lot more to be done. A lot of the responsibility for more iconic species, birds and mammals that one would, you know, the public would recognise as biodiversity, responsibility there lies, I guess, a combination of landowners and the regulatory bodies that advise on conservation. So I think it's a picture that has many actors in it and it's not, there's no simple answer. Matthew, did you want to add anything? No, I mean, as you know, it comes under the rubric of the biodiversity strategy which sets out a level of ambition that's required. It's a question of making sure that there are concrete measures in place to monitor that ambition and so when it sets out an ambition that, for example, 15 per cent of degraded ecosystems are under restoration by 2020, are we monitoring whether that's the case, do we have a clear understanding? And indeed, as Laura Krebs mentioned in the introduction, with the next plan due 2019 and 2020 are relatively nearby, what's the ambition beyond 2020 and how do we make sure that we're monitoring the relevant baselines, as you said, whether it's terrestrial animals or marine animals or relevant baselines to know whether the changes are heading in the right direction and that's a theme clearly we pick up across the report. I want to move on to agriculture. Before we do that, Finlay Carson's got a brief supplementary on biodiversity. I suppose it's on the back of a modest golden's question. Do we have well enough developed models looking into the future to address all these issues you've mentioned? So when we look at sustainability of whether it's razor clams or scallops or salmon or whatever, are we investing enough to offset what I would suggest it's a good idea? That's a significant risk. Are the models there to look at every factor? For example, we concentrate a lot on water quality when it comes to salmon but if we ignore the fact that the feedstock, the plankton or whatever in the North Atlantic may change and that may be the most significant impact on our salmon stocks, are there enough investment in putting together future models to predict this sort of potential problem? It depends on what enough it is but I think what I would say is that the understanding of these basic processes, for example the marine food chain, are not uniquely Scottish problems so I don't think one should assume that Scotland has to invest independently of everybody else. A lot of the work on sustainable fisheries management is done internationally through either international bodies like ICs or through the European Union or at a UK level through the fisheries laboratory at Lowestoff Seafast. Whether there's enough research being done, I guess any scientist and I'm a scientist by background would say please can have a bit more money so I can do a bit more research. I think what I would emphasise is that this is an international body of knowledge. The plankton on which the fish feed don't belong to particular countries, they're a shared resource and we have to treat them in that way and manage them and research the factors on an international basis. You said shared resource but are we sharing the information that is being gathered effectively? I'm not sure that I'm in a position to say whether it could be shared more effectively but I think the bulk of the scientific work on modelling and collecting the data to support the models is ultimately published in peer reviewed literature and that is the gold standard for research to ensure its credibility if it exists in the so-called grey literature hidden in somebody's back pocket. We don't know how reliable it is. Once it's been out there, being tested and peer reviewed, then we can treat it as a reasonably robust contribution. We'll move on to agriculture and soils, Mark Ruskell. I wanted to ask you about food and farming and agriculture. It appears to me that it's a real stand out point from both this report on adaptation but also the previous report on mitigation. You highlighted in the adaptation report a number of areas of voluntary action and co-ordination and you point to land use strategy, potentially having a role there as well. To what extent can we get real progress on this area through those kind of voluntary measures or are we looking to make real progress on this area through perhaps a wholesale review of agricultural policy? I noticed that the French, for example, have just made agriculture the central objective of their agriculture policy. Do we need to make more fundamental shifts or can we continue to make tweaks looking at good best practice? I won't talk about the mitigation side because you covered that last week with Matthew. On the adaptation side, your question really is do we need more either mandatory or quasi mandatory intervention to improve the sustainability of agriculture? I think the fact that soil quality is declining and it's not purely due to climate change. Climate change will exacerbate the declines that are due to unsustainable methods of intensive farming. The fact that that is going on now shows that whatever we're doing at the moment isn't sufficient. I think that otherwise it wouldn't be declining. The question of why it's not sufficient I think is more complicated. Is it the lack of information? Is it the current subsidy incentives don't incentivise more sustainable management practices? Or do they have to be changes in regulations? I don't think that I have a clear answer to that other than to say that the use of public funds to support agriculture, which of course is very substantial, ought to take into account the long-term sustainability of farming for the future. I don't know whether, H.A., you want to add anything to that. It's worth emphasising clearly that the government has a very clear and very ambitious statement around soils to make sure that they're protected for existing and future generations. That's a laudable ambition. The question is, are the actions following on? I think that's partly what you're asking. Are the actions following on that will ensure that's the case? Right now, there are two things missing and you'll pick up one of them, the theme from what we've said in the past, is making sure that the monitoring and the evidence is in place to understand whether what is being done is sufficient. Although we have, as you will see in the report, bits of evidence about soil carbon, bits of evidence about coverage of soils and whether they're being eroded because of lack of coverage, we don't have a comprehensive picture of soil fertility and the impact of that combination of demographic change and urbanisation and climate change, a combination of those things on soil fertility and agricultural production. So making sure that we understand whether progress is being made. And then that allows you to say, well, if sufficient progress is not being made under the current largely voluntary, but as Laura Krebs said, is also considerable financial incentives through the common agricultural policy and others, largely voluntary but also financial schemes. If sufficient progress is not being made, then it's time to rethink and to move forward with different levels of measures. But right now, the evidence base is patchy and so then you're trying to draw conclusions from a patchy evidence base. Are you able to drill down in particular areas of particular sectors within agriculture that you think are problematic at the moment? Are we talking about lowlands? Are we talking about uplands? If uplands really relates to peat restoration and I think there are certainly significant issues there, lowlands, I think certain kinds of crops are more prone to produce soil compaction and therefore likely to produce runoff in extreme rainfall events. So I don't have a clear answer, that's why I'm hedging a bit, but I think particular farming practices will be more damaging to soils than others. I should also say that this is not a Scotland unique problem in the United Kingdom. We found very similar patterns in England. One, just to give you an example, we found that the evidence in East Anglia, which are the most fertile soils in England, the rich peat topsoil, will, if current trends continue, disappear within about a generation and then you'll be down to the mineral soil, which are much less fertile underneath. So I think it's a UK-wide and probably beyond UK-wide problem that current farming practices are essentially mining natural capital as though it was a depleting resource, rather than husbanding it for the long term future. So we have to think broadly about the relationship between current food production and future food production. We don't want to do our grandchildren down. Eche, do you want to add anything? Yes, just to point to one of the sources that we quoted in the report that there is a map showing the soil erosion risk, not so much about per sector but for area of Scotland and it seems the sort of east coast, middle of east coast, has got the highest risk in soil erosion, so that's one study. Which are the most intensively farmed parts? You've touched a couple of times already on peatland, so let's explore that. Recommendation 4 on your report calls on the Scottish Government through SNH to, by the end of 2017, have a peatland restoration target for 2030 in place along with a properly monitored delivery programme. How important is this in why? Oh, important. Peatlands are important because of soil biodiversity, but they also could be seen as part of mitigation, which we won't cover, but they're an important resource because they could serve both policies. I think the recommendation here was that there are intentions, there are targets, there are action plans, but maybe more specific actions and more time bound actions would improve the visibility or implementation of the plan. I think that was the recommendation rather than identifying a gap in the policy. I could just pick it up. I think peatlands are important, as Eirce says, partly for the ecosystem services that they provide, which are carbon storage and water retention, so well-managed upland peat acts like a sponge. If it's been gullied and gripped and drained, then the water goes straight down into the valley and causes problems. I think that one looks at it partly as a resilience issue from the point of view of both mitigation and adaptation, partly because they are important natural habitats. Scotland is very richly endowed with upland peat, so Scotland has a responsibility to maintain that habitat for its own sake in addition to the economic benefits that will derive from maintaining it in good state. Traditionally, a lot of land management practices have been hostile to maintaining peat in good state because land has been used for other purposes, whether it's grazing or forestry or grouse shooting, all of which involve treating peat in a way that makes the peat die out, drain rather than keeping it wet and resilient. Again, climate change is a further pressure on top of those existing pressures. This is a question for Matthew Bell, but when you take what you've just said and sit alongside mitigation as far as peatlands is concerned, where we're not measuring the benefits of upland peatlands, we're not measuring the benefits of rewetting, overall we really are missing a trick on peatlands, aren't we, in climate change terms? Yes, I think that soils and more generally agriculture and forestry is one of those areas that cuts across both the resilience side and production of food and prevention of flooding and all the things that Lord Credits has touched upon, as well as the emissions reduction side, because they store carbon and provide ways of storing carbon into the future. As an area that helps you to address both problems if you get it right, it's a useful one to focus on. It's also an area that we know the data and the evidence is less readily available than in some other areas, if we're talking about cities or renewable energy or whatever it is, where the data and evidence is more readily available. The starting point in those areas is always, let's understand how quickly things are changing and then start to think about what measures need to be put in place, but it's an area where we can benefit both sides of that equation. Angus MacDonald, you're the supplementary there first. Thanks, convener. I was just going to mention a recommendation for as well. Actually, on Friday, if I can give a pug, I attended a large bog restoration project, which has recently been completed on the Salman and Plateau, which straddles my constituency. Burglife Scotland has restored more than 210 hectares at that site, with more than 4,100 dams installed and 25 hectares of invasive conifers and scrub removed, and more than 650 species have been recorded on the site. Given your recommendation, I'm surprised, and I would expect that to be shared, that the national peat action plan doesn't already call for monitoring at the moment. Clearly, that has to be done, and you're calling for that to be done by 2017. Clearly, you share my concerns on that lack of specific action. The point that you raised about the restoration in your constituency and the fact that some conifers were removed is another important illustration of that link between the adaptation and the mitigation side. On the mitigation side, there's lots of emphasis on the potential benefits of planting more trees and hitting the tree planting targets, but it's important that they're planted in the right places and that they're not planted on deep peatland where then there's a negative impact. Although there are opportunities to benefit both emissions reduction and resilience and adaptation by looking at soils and forestry together, we also need to make sure that we don't do things that are negatively impacting one side or the other in reaching the ambitions in the two areas. Okay, thanks. One proposal that came up during my visit on Friday was the possible taxation of peat use. Would you have a view on that? I think we don't have a view on particular policies, whether that would be the way to go, so I think the answer is no. I mean, just looking at the figures that we quote, so we say that over three quarters of deep peat soil in Scotland are heavily modified from drainage and afforestation, which will be more prone to the impacts of climate change, and that the National Peatland Plan established in 2015 has a target of restoring, with states that you could restore up to 21,000 hectares per annum as technically the same. The current rate of restoration is way below that 21,000 hectares, more like 1,400 hectares per annum. There's a gap between what could be done and has been identified by the Scottish Government as a technically achievable target and what is being done. Nevertheless, as you illustrate, things are happening and there are peatland restoration projects. We give 105 such projects in 2015 was the figure that we quote. Again, it's like with many of these things, the story is that progress is happening but there's no room for taking one's foot off the accelerator and probably in this case pushing it further down on the accelerator. You would like an ambitious peatland restoration target for 2030 put in place? I think that ambitious and monitored, yes. Okay, moving on to forestry, Kate Forbes. Great, thank you very much. I suppose that you've touched on this briefly already, but my question is when it comes to mitigation we know that there's still more work to be done to meet the reforestation targets. What are the opportunities for adaptation when meeting those targets? You've mentioned where we plant, you also mentioned what we plant in diversity. What are the other opportunities when we're reforesting? I think there's a research need, whether it's an opportunity because there's a research need to understand the potential arrival of new forest pests and diseases. I mean, we just highlight one example, which is red needle blight, which has the number of sites affected by it has increased by a factor of six within the last ten years. We know that some of the new forest pests arrive, tree diseases arrive by international trade. Dutch elm disease and sudden ash dieback and sudden oak death probably arose from international trade, but it's also likely that climate change will contribute to the arrival of new diseases. I would say from the point of view of opportunities to realise the opportunities of reforestation, we need to have a good research base in tree diseases, tree pathology and good monitoring systems to detect the spread of tree diseases. Alexander Burnett, you've got questions on this topic as well. Good morning. I'm very glad that all of you have mentioned forestry in Matthew in particular about how even more significant it is in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK, and I should refer to my register of interests regarding forestry. The Committee on Climate Change has recommended that the Scottish Government plants 16,000 hectares a year. The Scottish Government itself only has a target of 10,000 a year, and I believe in the last two years for data has only achieved 8,000 and 6,000. Would you like to comment on those lower figures and how important they are in achieving not just the climate change target, but as you made a point just a few seconds ago of how there are two angles here, not just the climate change target, but also the adaptation element of flood risk? On the emissions reduction, on the mitigation side, the job of the committee is to try to advise the Government on what targets for overall greenhouse gas reductions are achievable and fit within Climate Change Act Scotland levels of ambition. As we did that, we did that for each of the years 2028 to 2032. In order to understand what levels are achievable and fit within the ambition in the act, what we do is we look at a range of different scenarios and we say, under these different scenarios, is it possible to achieve this at least cost in a way that is achievable given all the constraints are in place? Looking at that, that is where the figure of around 16,000 hectares of forestry planting is possible and helps to achieve those emissions reduction targets. We are always very clear that the scenarios that we put out there are scenarios that satisfy the committee that the overall reduction of greenhouse gases is achievable given all the constraints that are in place. It is not intended to be prescriptions. It is clear for the Government to decide what combination of forestry, land use, transport, domestic buildings, renewable electricity generation and what combination of measures to put in place. Our assessment was that one way of achieving those targets would be to increase the ambition on tree planting. More generally, Scotland has a big natural advantage in what are called carbon sinks, of which trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as consoils and as do other things. The natural advantage that Scotland has in those areas means that it could utilise those very cost-effectively to help meet its emissions reduction targets. Having said that, as you rightly say, over recent years Scotland has not been achieving its current ambition of 10,000 hectares a year and it has been gently declining over the last couple of years. The renewed attention has to be paid to that. If renewed attention is paid to it, it has the potential to help on the adaptation side as well in terms of all the things that we were talking about, but flood prevention as well, that trees help with, biodiversity help with and, importantly, the forestry industry, which is important for Scotland and is arguably threatened by the types of pest and diseases that Lord Krebs was mentioning. Understanding those and understanding how to make sure that the forestry industry can continue to thrive and to prosper alongside providing emissions reduction and things like natural flood prevention is getting that nexus of three areas working together. I certainly accept that it is only a recommendation and it is the choice of the Scottish Government of how it achieves the overall target, but is it easy to transfer what that other 50 per cent turns into another recommendation? The point of the recommendations on the adaptation and mitigation side is that they should work together. The fact that we think that there is an opportunity for more tree planting to reduce emissions as well as an opportunity for more tree planting to improve the resilience of Scotland means that there are two reasons to be doing it, in addition to the economic ones. We've certainly seen historically in Scotland tree planting at the levels that we're talking about. If you look back into the 1970s, tree planting levels were at those types of levels. Some of that might not have been in appropriate areas. Some of that might have been on peatland where it has damaging effects. We're learning from that and it's important that it takes place in the right areas, but certainly those are not historically unprecedented levels of ambition. All of which points to the need for a fully functioning land use strategy, doesn't it? That would be a logical conclusion. Mark Ruskell wants to come in with a brief supplementary on coastal habitats. Yes, we know that salt marshes and tidal habitats are potentially under threat because of climate change. I just wondered if you saw a way to support the resilience of those habitats while managing coastal realignment. If there is a link there into mitigation as well, are those habitats that sequester carbon, they operate as carbon sinks? I think that our recommendation on the coastal habitats is exactly on that point. Like many other policy points or risk assessments, we need to think lots of different pressures together and find solutions that could address more than one pressure. In the coastal habitats, flood risk management and coastal erosion management is an opportunity to do that. We could create managed realignment or other more environmentally friendly or green options to flood risk management and coastal erosion management. It also includes diversity that could provide fishing nursing grounds and improve fisheries and that could provide recreational opportunities for the local population as well. Some of the evidence on that is weaker than other services that it provides. We did recommend on the coastal management that there are targets and considerations for increasing the use of managed realignment in flood risk and coastal erosion management for the reasons that you outlined. On one figure that Matthew has drawn my attention to, on whether actions are taking place to manage coastal flood risk, to date only one managed realignment scheme has been delivered in Scotland. There's a question as to whether that programme needs to be increased in the rate at which shoreline realignment takes place. Why is that? Why hasn't more been done? I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that. It's a managed realignment, it's not the most straightforward thing. You have to trade off a range of uses for the areas in between seaside and where urban settlements start pitching up. What we've seen partly in and around Glasgow as well is that there are ways of combining urban settlements and managing the shoreline. Some of the salt marshes and other mechanisms then provide a range of benefits, can improve, I'm sure will come on, to health and wellbeing, can have positive impacts on health and wellbeing as well as positive impacts on flood defence and biodiversity. However, there are often short-term costs, whether financial or in terms of changes that have to take place, and it's that trading off of the short-term impacts with the longer term benefits. That can only be done at a local level individually, and different local levels of circumstances will be different, so it's hard to generalise in that respect. However, there's clearly that tension in every local area between the short-term requirements and the short-term changes that would be necessary against the long-term benefits that that might bring. I think that, just if I may follow up on that question, what we say is that there is currently no national long-term vision or plan for the area of intertidal habitat to be created through managed realignment in Scotland. I think that one reason more isn't happening is that there isn't a national vision as to what should be happening. In terms of the extent of shoreline management plans in individual areas, the existing ones for Fife, Angust, East Lothian, Dumfries and Galloway cover about 4 per cent of the Scottish coastline. We're at the beginning of a process but we don't have a long-term vision and we haven't got far in implementing the development of shoreline management plans. That's a sort of answer to your question. Okay, thank you. Let's move on to the built environment and final way casting on flooding. You stated in the report that there's been no long-term assessment of flood risk management investments needed. Are you satisfied that the way we assess flood risk has been carried out properly? We've got PVZs but still we have communities that are flooded, particularly in my constituency. We had a community where 26 out of 32 properties were flooded but weren't included in a potentially vulnerable zone. Are you satisfied that there may not be enough assessments carried out but are you satisfied that the assessments that are being carried out are fit for purpose? One of the problems with flood risk assessments is that it's a moving target. It's likely that it's a moving target because of the imprint of climate change, but we're seeing changes in weather patterns that will... We've had some historically high intensity rainfall events. If you think back to last December, the focus in England was particularly in Cumbria in December and January, where the rainfall intensity was of a historic high. We can't say that that individual event was due to climate change but we can say that warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and when the moisture drops it's going to drop in more intense rainfall events. The question of whether the current flood risk assessments are fit for purpose is partly... I'm not saying that they're not fit for purpose but partly we're looking at a moving target here over time. I think that it's also a question of whether what's an acceptable level of risk, whether in a risk assessment one is saying that properties are 100 per cent protected or that you have a certain level of risk. I think that there's an interesting question about how we communicate the level of risk. Normally it's communicated as a one in 200 year or one in 100 year risk, which is easily open to misinterpretation. For example, if there are 100 sites each with a one in 100 year risk, the likelihood is that one of them will flood every year. The other way in which it might be misleading is that people may think that if I've had a flood last year and I'm a one in 100 year risk, I've got 99 years to go till the next time I'm flooded but of course each year it's the same statistical probability. I think that we need to consider carefully how we communicate risk and we need to recognise that risk isn't ever zero and we need to recognise that the conditions under which we're assessing risk will change over time. That's what I would say about, are the flood risk assessments fit for purpose? It's not a simple story. Okay, thank you. Dave Stewart. Thank you. A lot of times you made an interesting point earlier when you said that climate change is with us now. It's not just some science fiction event in the future. I mean, I'm very concerned about flooding obviously in the UK but particularly within Scotland. Your report, I think, very clearly identifies why there's a problem in Scotland, which is increasing pressure to build on flood plains. That is a real problem in that 90 per cent of properties which are at risk of flooding haven't got flood prevention measures. That's extremely worrying. What changes would you like to see? I am interested to see that you've highlighted this as a red in your traffic light system. Does that really require more work urgently? Yes, I think, I mean, what we have highlighted here and it's actually very similar in England as in Scotland, not all local authorities have undertaken a strategic flood risk assessment to inform their local development plans, so that's clearly an important duty on the planning authorities to ensure that they have really looked properly at future flood risk. There's also evidence that site-specific flood risk assessments are not always conducted when they should be. Individual developers putting in planning applications should carry out flood risk assessments and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, CEPA, should be consulted on those and their advice should be taken into account. The problems are partly related to the way the planning system is being implemented. I'm not saying that you shouldn't build in flood risk areas because there could be very good reasons for doing so, but I think that we need transparency and a proper process of risk assessment that feeds into that. On the risk management side, you mentioned the figure that 90 per cent of at-risk properties are not protected by flood defences, which is a pretty remarkable statistic, I think. Also, there are things to do with the way we manage surface water because surface water flooding is certainly in England, and I imagine that Scotland, too, is probably a bigger cause of damage than coastal or riverine flooding. There, we are still seeing in Scotland, as we are in England, an increase in paving over permeable surfaces within permeable surfaces, whether it's front gardens being paved over parking space or concrete surfaces for car parks, whether they were previously soft surfaces. We have suggested that, both in England and in Scotland, we should be very cautious about creating more problems by paving over with impermeable surfaces. We have also advocated in England and in Scotland the uptake of sustainable urban drainage systems of suds, and we point out that the data on the actual uptake of suds in new developments are not being collected in Scotland, so again, it's an information gap. It's a variety of actions that are required in risk assessment and in flood risk management when new developments are in flood plains. Thank you for that. I think that it was a very clear summary of where we are. It seems to me that this is one of the most worrying aspects of climate change in Scotland. I think that you are right to say that there are issues around how we use the sustainable drainage systems, and on the very mundane and practical point, my own experience in Highlands and Islands where we have had, as you may know, severe flooding in muddy and parts of Inverness, was very mundane and simplistic things, such as the failure to maintain culverts correctly and the lack of that maintenance causes more widespread problems. It's not to say that there aren't some good examples of... I think that we refer to examples in Glasgow where, at a community level, there are systems put in place to manage surface water flooding, at the same time providing amenity for the local community and space for wildlife, space for biodiversity. I think that there are some multiple wind solutions if the motivation and the resources are there to implement them. The other point, convener. In the longer term, we know what the problem is about the extent of flooding in Scotland and, indeed, the whole of the UK. Is there a wider issue, then, apart from being very careful about building in flood plains and very careful about taking it vice-asipa, because sometimes sipa is a vice that is not taking on board, is also about how we look at housing design. Do we need to look in a lot more preventative way about how we do design? We, again, on the figure that we quote, on property-level resilience measures, because there are things that individual householders can do to protect their properties, even if it's not a new build on existing properties, and only nine out of 32 local authorities have implemented, this was in 2014, figures, nine out of 32 had implemented schemes to promote the uptake of property-level flood protection. There's no data on which we could assess the actual level of property-level protection uptake. We do think that that's an important additional measure of what individual householders can do. Just as an aside, as you know, for houses built before, I think it's 2010, will be covered now by the new flood insurance scheme called Flood Re, which enables householders in flood risk areas to get an affordable insurance. One of the points that we have made to the chief executive of Flood Re is that, over the 25-year lifespan of the scheme, one important measure is that houses that are affected by flooding when they're restored under Flood Re should be restored in a more resilient way so that their problems, if they're flooded in the future, will be manageable and insurable. The transition plan for Flood Re has to build into it something about property-level protection and resilience. I'll finish, convener, with just a very practical point. I'm not looking for an answer because it's fairly technical. In a previous Parliament, we took evidence from the Met Office and they explained that in England there's a complete coverage with high-density radar of which predicts incoming weather. Unfortunately, Scotland doesn't have this complete coverage and Murray in my patch, which has had severe problems in the past, does not have this high-density radar. The ability for local authorities and others to predict whether it's more restricted. Is this something that your committee has looked at? If not, is this something that you've been interested in raising with the Government? We haven't looked at that particular matter. We do regularly talk to the Met Office about their forecasting services. I guess what we've talked about is more the sort of structural issues of planning decisions, hard services and sustainable urban drainage rather than day-to-day forecasting. What you're talking about is really for the emergency services to have in place sufficient advance warning to be prepared. I'm not sure that we have looked at that. Not that particular scheme, but returning to the theme, in a sense, the very ambitious commitment in the strategy side of things to have no net increase in flood risk for Scotland is what's lacking then is what's the follow-through for that. What are the series of things building in floodplains, improved radar coverage, improved soft defences, improved household-level defences? What are the series of things that could be put in place that would allow you to know whether, allow the Government to know whether it's achieving that ambition of no net increase in flood risk? The disconnect that we see right now is that it's very difficult to understand whether the series of measures that are being put in place are working towards that ambition. When we do the point surveys, which is what we've done, we observe that individual planning applications in flood risk areas are largely not being supported by flood-specific assessments. Lord Krebs even mentioned the floodplain development and the fact that local authorities, a small proportion of local authorities are promoting property-level protections, but they're not being taken up. There's no national database on building in the floodplain, so we don't know how much of it is happening at a national level. Against that ambition, the series of things of which radar is clearly one, Government needs to decide what series of things that will be put in place that will be consistent with meeting that ambition and that can be monitored in a way that allows us to check whether or not that ambition and allows the public more generally to check whether or not that ambition is being met. That's the disconnect that seems to exist right now. Could I just come back on one more point about emergency response? I've just found a bit in the report that does talk about that. I think that this is something that the next SCAP in 2019 might pick up. Your point about the ability of the emergency response system to deal with extreme weather events, and part of that is having an appropriate forecasting weather radar scheme to enable the emergency services to be prepared. I think that it is highlighted, but it's something for the next SCAP, rather than something for this one. Jenny Gilruth wants to come in. Before we move to Jenny's question, can I just clarify something with you? It does strike me reading the report and listening to what you're saying today that you're almost as critical of local government as you are of national government, or maybe more accurately, to do us that you're preparing for improvement applies just as much to local government as national government. Is that a fair observation? In some areas, absolutely. I think that one of the things about building a resilient Scotland is that it's not the responsibility of one entity. It's not the responsibility of central government. Local government has a role to play, but as we discussed in relation to property-level protection, individual householders have a role to play business. We've talked about the farming community, business has a role to play. I think that an important part of the way that Scotland will become more resilient is through engaging everybody in recognising that this is a problem for the future, and if we don't do something about it, it'll only get worse. I think that programmes like Adaptation Scotland, which are trying to bring together different players, different stakeholders are really important in generating a wider public action. I agree with you that, in a number of areas that we point the finger at local government, I wouldn't want you to feel that this is all the responsibility of officialdom. There's a wider responsibility in business, in local communities, in individual householders. That's useful. Get that on the record. Jenny Gilruth. Just drilling down further into that local authority issue, the report highlights in 2014 that only nine out of the 32 local authorities in Scotland had implemented schemes to promote the uptake of property level flood prevention. I understand as well that there's no data available on the actual uptake. Are those nine already experienced flooding? Do you think that the Scottish Government should compel the other 23 local authorities to act? Do we know whether the nine will want that at hand? Certainly some of them have, and we could get you the exact detail of which have, which not. I think that the second part of the question, in some ways, is the most interesting one, is that do you compel local authorities to place these measures? I do think that we have to be careful about compelling people to do things if it's not appropriate for their local area. There may be some local authorities where flood risk is very, very low because of their location. That's where the transparency in the communication becomes very clear, becomes very important. Local authorities where there is a risk and they have to be able to assess that risk combination of Met Office information, national information, making sure we're collecting. One of the reasons why we point out the fact that there's no national database on development in the flood plain is that that's something that could be done nationally, but local authorities could draw upon to understand whether there are particular risks in their local area. Having those checks and balances in place such that local authorities where there is a significant risk do take it seriously. One of the things we know about flooding to date is that although some of it is down to sea level rises, Llyw Krebs said a lot of it down to rainfall, to the combination of risks from climate change and urbanisation and hard services. Even local authorities who are not, for example, by the coast and might think, we might not have a problem, are likely to face some risks of flooding. To do that assessment is then important. For some of them it would be appropriate to promote property-level protection measures, and for others that might not be a wise use of what are scarce financial resources as well. One recommendation we made in closing the gap on evidence was also to work with the infrastructure providers because you might find in some cases that they have better data on what assets they have and what risks those assets face and where. The onus, to repeat Lord Krebs' message earlier, is not only on one party, but several parties work together to generate evidence and make decisions together. That is one of the recommendations. Perhaps expanding on that point, when we have seen very graphically the impact of severe flooding, I just want to explore how we should respond. If you take the example of Balator in the north-east of Scotland, which is sort of a devastating flooding in the last while, when we look to restore the infrastructure that was taken away, I know that the Cairn Gorms national park has considered very carefully whether it should restore the path network where it was previously located given the risk of an event like this happening again, and yet we restored the road network in exactly the same place. We saw the broadband cables hanging out in mid-air because they were located alongside the road. Going forward, what do we need to do better? I recognise the challenges around rewocating the roads and broadband infrastructure, but surely the same logic applies to that as it does the path network. It has to start with understanding those risks. We point out, for example, that the 2015 infrastructure investment plan does not consider future climate change risks and resilience of infrastructure into the future. We similarly point out that Scotland's digital future, published in 2013, also does not consider the risks to digital infrastructure from future events and potentially exacerbated by climate change. It starts by acknowledging and understanding those risks in more detail and feeding them through to the plans. As we have been saying, that has to also filter down because, at the end of the day, lots of these are very local decisions, where you site a road or where you give permission for electricity lines to go or for digital communication fibre optics to go, is a very local decision. That national level information then has to filter down so that sensible decisions can be made at a local level about how to keep infrastructure resilient to some of these changes. Mark Ruskell. I turn back to the issue of local government again. Do you have evidence to suggest that capacity and funding are serious issues in terms of how local government adapts? Just looking at what we have already talked about this morning, maintaining culverts, development, planning control, individual property protection subsidy schemes, major capital projects, that is a lot of work to manage. We know that local government often plant teams in relevant parts of the councils that are becoming smaller, not larger. Is that something that you have encountered? We have not looked specifically at the resource constraints, but from my personal experience, since local authorities vary in how well they deal with climate adaptation and how high it is on their agenda, I suspect that the least part of the problem is the priority that local authorities give to these matters, which may be driven by the elected members or by the executive. I would not want to jump automatically to say that this is a resource constraint problem, it may be a prioritisation problem. Life is very hard there because there are so many competing priorities and climate adaptation and resilience can always be seen as a slightly longer term thing that we could put off till next year or the year after. I do not think that we have any evidence on which to say that the failure of local authorities to meet certain objectives here on resilience is an entirely result of a lack of resource. Matthew, do you have anything more to add to that? I think that that point is the main one in a different publication of the Scottish version of which we are also putting out today, the climate change risk assessment. We do look a little bit at local authority resourcing in all of the UK and in Scotland. There is that combination of staff that used to be in place whose main responsibility was local adaptation measures and lots of those positions no longer exist or have been combined with other positions. That affects whether or not things are prioritised because if it is not somebody's main job to look at it that it easily does not get prioritised alongside the range of other very real pressures which will come on to next social services and other pressures. I think that it is a difficult balance and local authorities are clearly under an awful lot of pressure but you are right to observe that particularly when it comes to adaptation and lots of these measures have to be thought about at a local level in order to get the right solutions in place. Let's move on to the resilience of society to the impacts of climate change. Jenny Gilruth. In terms of public understanding of climate-related risks it speaks at the very tail end of the report on page 152 about raising awareness about the effects of climate change. It is likely to be most effective when people are already dealing with the effects of extreme weather which strikes me as the horse is already bolted and we are retrospectively dealing with the impacts of it. It then goes on later in the report to cite evidence from the Ready for Emergencies website which I know is an online resource developed by Education Scotland. Do you accept that there needs to be a level of education which will build upon behaviours in the next generation to guard against combating, I suppose, well to actually combat climate change itself and further in building resilience in the next generation in dealing with the effects of climate change? Yes, we do need to do more to engage people. As I said in answer to an earlier question we can't say that building resilience is the responsibility of them out there. There was a responsibility for them out there meaning public authorities and so on but it is also an issue that every citizen of Scotland should be engaged with. That's easy to say but not necessarily so easy to do and I think it's an interesting communication challenge to understand how best to get across messages that may seem a bit abstract, may seem a bit theoretical in a way that actually says, no, these are practical issues that affect you here and now which is why I started off by saying don't let's talk about climate change as something that's going to happen out there at the end of the century, let's talk about it as something that is affecting us now and the concerns that are happening to you citizens on a daily or yearly basis are in part a result of climate change and we need to think about how to manage that. I agree with you that we need better communication. I don't have a magic bullet as to how to achieve that. In terms of the level of education that goes on because what I'm interested in obviously is we're trying to encourage behaviours in the next generation which will guard against climate change and recognise the importance of education in doing so. We're looking here at the Ready for Emergencies website. I'm not sure to be honest to what extent a website is a valuable resource in developing those behaviours. Do we need to have a more critical approach in terms of how that's delivered in school via the curriculum, for example? We haven't done an assessment of the curriculum to understand whether it has sufficient weight or insufficient weight in the curriculum. What is clear is that the response and the communication needs to combine both that emergency response as well as the longer term adaptation and some of the figures we were looking at earlier about uptake of property level protection measures are partly a lack of education and a lack of understanding and so you need that combination of people understanding what risks are there and are able to react to it in a preventative way and in advance of emergencies happening as well as having the emergency plans in place when things do take place and what we're pointing out on the page that you quoted is that although ideally you would avoid the emergencies taking place, when they do take place you should take advantage of them as well to make sure they don't take place repeatedly and one of the things that we've noticed in a range of evidence that we've looked at is that, and Laura Cress quoted some of it earlier, you think you've been flooded this year therefore it's unlikely to happen for another 99 years whereas actually we should use that as a way of saying you've been flooded this year let's put in place measures to make sure that the very both physical damage but also lots of evidence of psychological damage it impacts on employment and a range of other things don't get repeated time and time again in very similar places. On the subject of emergency planning a number of the committee members visited the national resilience centre in Dumfries recently and I think we were all very impressed by the arrangements in place with Dumfries and Galloway council around knowing where vulnerable individuals are located in order that when an emergency arises as they have experienced these people's evacuation could be prioritised for example are you aware of that example and how are you aware of that being picked up in other places as best practice? We do pick up on that example in the report and the existence of the national resilience centre is an important part of coordinating the emergency response. Again one of the points that we make is also alongside that putting in place the monitoring and evaluation to know what impact is it having and off the back of that being able to understand where should it be rolled out and where should more be done. Can I raise an issue around health? Recommendation 18 was extremely interesting on one which was to look at assessing the risk of vector-borne diseases you're particularly concerned about which are presumably mosquitoes and ticks I think that the answer of pods is the technical term and they are cold-blooded so they are more sensitive to climate change clearly in other parts of the world clearly malaria is a huge problem caused by mosquitoes and of course west Nile fever is something that we've seen a bit nearer to home within Europe what are your concerns about that for monitoring and protection of our health for so-called exotic diseases that might be likely because of climate change? I think that this really is a matter of research to know what the likely you've highlighted a few possible diseases what the likely impacts of climate change on vector-borne diseases is and there is already research going on on that so we need to ensure that that continues I think that surveillance is very important so we know when new diseases do arise we've got a good handle on plotting their progress and they won't just jump into Scotland out of the Mediterranean they'll be creeping up northwards there will be plenty of opportunity to monitor their arrival and therefore to ensure that when new diseases do arise in a way that's appropriate for tackling those so I think that this really comes under the heading of and the owner we suggest should be Health Protection Scotland for the next gap to ensure that they have a proper research base and a monitoring base, a risk assessment and monitoring base On a related point the other issue is about air pollution and clearly that's a growing problem with climate change and I see that in Scotland for some of our urban streets in Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow have very high levels of pollution the policy area of which Scottish Government is looking at and which I certainly support is the introduction of low emissions zones which I think we have in London currently which are a very good way of reducing pollution and reinvesting the funds into public transport what's your view on the concerns around air pollution in Westminster the advice from the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution they have increased their assessment of the number of premature deaths caused each year by air pollution very substantially and I can't remember the exact number but it's in many tens of thousands so this is a very significant public health issue in the UK as a whole not just in Scotland and I think as you highlight the changes that would be important and contributing to reducing air pollution have multiple benefits so if you can encourage not just more efficient vehicles low emissions vehicles but also which will have the advantage of reducing our carbon emissions but also encouraging people to use public transport or bicycle or walking all of those are health gains adaptation gains by reducing air pollution and mitigation gains by reducing carbon emissions so for me there's multiple benefit to be had by trying to encourage people to use different forms of transport and where they do drive to drive in low emission vehicles ultimately in ultra low emission vehicles like electric cars is very strongly emphasised by the mitigation side as transporters in the area of emissions OK, thank you for that Finlay Carson Thanks convener I'm pleased to say that a lot of the answers I was looking for have already been provided I declare an interest in being an elected member for Dumfries and Galloway and I'm very proud of the way that Dumfries and Galloway council have responded to climate change particularly in regards to resilience and the small rural communities we have and how the councils have facilitated these communities in putting together their resilience plans One of your recommendations is that the Scottish Government will work closer with local authorities to assess the impact and health and social care, emergency planning recovery from extreme weather conditions whatever are all very locally based that need local solutions What's your opinion and how we can provide more capacity and funding for small communities to have a grass roots led approach to resilience and climate change rather than a top down? Well I think a grass roots approach is very positive and goes back to the questions we were discussing earlier about public engagement if the community is actually generating resilience plans that definitely involves local engagement on the resource question where is the money going to come from I don't know that I'm in a position to say that except that I know some of these projects in Glasgow have attracted money from the heritage lottery fund for example community led projects so that might be one source that people could apply to and I don't know whether the Scottish Government itself centrally allocates resource to those sort of community plans One of the points that we're making is that there's a risk that lots of these things are viewed in silos and so you view the air pollution problem and the risks of premature death from air pollution in one silo and you view adaptation in another silo and you view flood risk in another silo and actually if you bring some of those together and you look at whether it's urban green spaces or some of the coastal defences that we were talking about then you bring together the health impacts and the adaptation and resilience impacts and the mitigation impacts and making sure that in that context local bodies who are very short of financial resources are making the most efficient use of the financial resources they do have by looking across the piece and seeing where can we get multiple gains from a single action in the kind of constraints that exist today OK, so let's wrap this up by looking at what happens next you've produced this excellent report what discussions do you anticipate having with the Scottish Government over its content are you anticipating the Government will produce an action plan based on what you've said where do we go from here? We are meeting with the minister later on this morning so we'll be discussing it with her I don't think the Scottish Government has said they will produce a formal response to this report but we anticipate and indeed what I've seen in the press coverage that the Government has welcomed it and we think it was a very good thing that they asked us to carry out an independent assessment we would look forward to being asked again at some point in the future to carry out an independent assessment whether they ask us to do it on this adaptation programme or on the new one in 2019 is a question for discussion because clearly by 2018 which was the final year of this programme it's quite likely that not much will have changed a bit may have changed but not a lot so it may be more sensible for us to look at the next adaptation programme in England we are obliged to report every two years to Parliament on the adaptation programme whether that model is appropriate for Scotland I think is a matter for discussion with the Government it's worth noting that the next the Scottish Government itself has to produce a progress report on the adaptation programme and that's due in May and we would certainly expect that that progress report reflects the evidence and the analysis that we've put forward and given the independent assessment that the adaptation sub-committee has put over the adaptation programme that should be reflected in the progress report that the Government itself has to produce anyway in May of next year perhaps if nobody else has another question one final question on something specific in the report you identify the need for a senior owner for each objective to be held accountable for delivery can you offer suggestions of which parts of Government ought to take responsibility for specific objectives I think the senior owners won't necessarily be in Government they may be in executive agencies like SEPA or they may be owners in other organisations business representative organisations and so on but we haven't done down across Government departments where we think the responsibility should lie but I think that that would flow automatically from the kind of area that we were considering OK, right, thank you for that clarity can I thank all of you for coming along this morning it's been a very useful exercise for the committee to hear from you once again thank you for an excellent report it's given us a lot to consider at its next meeting on the 4th of October evidence on climate change adaptation from stakeholders as agreed earlier we'll now move into private session and I ask the public gallery to be cleared as the public part of the meeting is closed thank you