 Cwestiwch mwy gennym ond cersonal. Welcome allastame. Iron Nett disappointed me. Item 4 is consideration of evidence and item 5 is consideration of a letter on the draft national planning framework, which we will be sending to the local government, housing and planning committee. Do we agree to take those items in private? Thank you. That is agreed. Items 4 and 5 will be taken in private. For our next item, we welcome members of Scotland's climate assembly. We heard from assembly members back in September and we were keen to follow up with the assembly once the Scottish Government responded to the assembly's report at the end of last year. We note that the climate assembly came back together to consider the Scottish Government's response and the assembly published a statement last month. I am pleased to welcome three members of the assembly this morning, Ellie Clark, Lewis, Elliot and Joan Lawson members, and Susie Townend assembly secretariat. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for accepting the committee's invitation. It is a delight to have you here. We have just over an hour for this session, so we will begin with questions. I believe that Susie will allocate questions to the relevant member if that is okay. Let me start with the first question. One of the issues raised by the climate assembly in your statement of response was in relation to the need to retrofit homes across Scotland to reduce carbon emissions. One of your recommendations was the need to see greater clarity and greater detail about what financial assistance would be available to those most in need in terms of retrofitting their homes. In previous evidence sessions at this committee, we have heard that the support available is a bit confusing and not widely understood or accessible. I just wonder if that was part of your concerns behind the issue being raised in the statement of response. Susie, if you could wait just a second until broadcasting unmutes you, that would be great. Excellent. I think that I might start off by asking Joan just to reflect a little bit on her concerns around fuel poverty and making sure that the poorest were not disadvantaged by the recommendations or indeed by the Government response to how they could implement the recommendations. Joan, do you want to start off by saying a little bit about that? I might pass on to Lewis to come in after Joan. Go ahead, Joan, I think that I feel okay. Fuel poverty was one of the major concerns in our group. We feel that there is the hidden poor, the working poor, as we called them. People who live just above means tested benefits and they are going to be more impacted by fuel poverty. They will not have the money to pay. It is a real concern. We do not know, but there is not a lot of detail. One of the details that we did here was that perhaps in retrofitting your home, if you have any equity in your house, you will be asked to use that for retrofitting. That is quite a scary possibility, because a lot of people are not in that position. Fuel poverty is really important at the forefront, especially with the rising prices. You can see a lot of people panicking about things. I have an example. My mother was lived in a single end in Glasgow, and she got electricity put in in 1948, and we are told that it would never increase in price. She is a bit miffed, but I can pass on if that is okay. Thanks very much, Joan. Lewis, do you want to say something more on retrofitting? I think that the consensus was, or several people mentioned in the assembly, that the various themes and grants through which financial assistance can be provided to retrofit homes were already difficult enough to qualify for in terms of meeting the requirements to receive that financial assistance. In addition, there was another barrier, which was knowing about which schemes are available for where you live. There is the two-tiered barrier for that first qualifying for it, but before even that, being able to be aware of those schemes. Charities and NGOs are trying to spread awareness of those and to get those to the people who need them, but ideally we would have more assistance for the Government in making people who need those schemes aware of them. Thanks, Lewis. The only thing that I would add to that from the members was that they were very keen to see retrofitting. It was very much a strong recommendation, but they absolutely saw it as a way to address fuel poverty. They saw investing in insulation and helping people with insulation, and they talked about various grants that could be made available. We mean that people wouldn't have to spend as much in fuel, and so it was very much focused both on climate change but also on addressing fuel poverty. I hope that that covers the question sufficiently. Absolutely. Thank you. Those responses were very helpful. We completely understand the concerns raised. Retrofitting and the heat and buildings policy is an area that this committee has been focusing on through our local government inquiry, and it is an area that we will continue to focus on. It is a massive part of the climate change targets that we have in Scotland, and the decarbonisation of heat is one of the big challenges that we face across all aspects of the policy, so that is definitely your concerns in the area that is shared by the committee. The second question that I had was again on your statement of response, which highlighted that we would like to see a clearer road map. We want the Scottish Government to commit to more specific actions and targets so that we are able to hold them to account for delivery of climate change targets. Again, that is very much aligned with evidence that this committee has heard from the UK Climate Change Committee, local authorities and others. I wonder if you could be quite helpful if you could provide us with examples of where you think more detail is required if you looked at a climate change policy or targets and you thought that we agree with the target, we agree with this policy, but we need a road map, we understand what the destination is, but we need a bit more detail or much more detail in terms of how to get there and what it means for everyone in society. Thank you very much indeed for that question, convener. I think I'll ask Ellie to start off, perhaps particularly talking about some of the areas that she's concerned about, but she perhaps felt there wasn't a sufficiently clear road map and then pass out to Ellie to come back to you. Hi there. Hi. One of the areas that I looked into in the workstream that I was in was diet and lifestyle. It's just astonishing how impacting the diet habits of the nation have had on the carbon emissions as a country. I think that there could be a lot more detail in looking at the changes that we can make with diet and lifestyle to be able to enable us to monitor that. One of the recommendations that we felt was a really good short-term quick wound recommendation was the recommendation 26, and that was for a Government to have a committed leading by example in public procurement of food in public and also public education campaign for sustainable diets, and that was recommendation 39. We felt like that was something that could be monitored quite immediately. We know that agriculture and food are responsible for about 18 per cent of Scottish greenhouse emissions, so if you start with a figure like that and then you start implementing this change which would be the Government setting precedent and allowing people to take a culture shift away from high carbon foods, that could be something that we felt could take immediate effect. It didn't need investment, it didn't need technological exploration, it was something that could immediately be put into effect. I know that speaking to parliamentarians that the document for public procurement is being reviewed this year, and it is at a stage where changes can take place immediately. Even over a year, if that could then be monitored in a year's time and looking at the Government itself in its public procurement, you could quite easily quantify the changes that have happened within the public body. There are also the long-term effects that that will have on the culture change of people changing their diet habits that would have the cost at a bigger scale. I think that that is something that could be easily monitored if it was set as a reason and practiced as a prototype within the public structures. It could quite tangibly be monitored as well, but also projected into how the impacts of that postination are making that huge change in diet habits. Thank you very much indeed, Erie. I'm going to move you past the cost to Lewis to talk next about some of the things that you would like to have seen, a more detailed set of timelines, or more immediate targets. I know that you wanted to talk a little bit about packaging, and maybe that's one of the things that you would like to reference here. I was just trying to look for an example. The one that I found here is the response to recommendation 35 on food, carbon and labelling. The recommendation had a timescale of within five years to fully implement the food, carbon and labelling system. In the Government response, the Government supports the recommendation in principle and is committed to exploring the feasibility of implementing food, carbon and labelling. The response from the Government relaxes the same urgency that we were trying to get across by putting a specific timeframe on the recommendation. I understand that in order to do feasibility studies, it doesn't make sense to put an absolute end date on the project, but it would have been very helpful and encouraging to see an estimated date for the results of that feasibility study to come up. Even knowing where we're going for the next step helps us to be on the same page in terms of where we're going longer term. In terms of talking about food packaging, I'm not sure that I've got any ready examples that will be relevant to this question, so I'm happy to pass over to the next person. Thank you very much indeed for that, Lewis. Maybe, John, is there anything that you felt that you particularly wanted to see a more specific timescale on? The other thing that you might want to reference is about public transport and supporting the oyster card recommendation, where we wanted to see something a bit more urgent than has been agreed by the Government in their initial response. Finally, pass to John and see whether you want to see anything on that. Sure. One of the things that I was looking at was retrofitting again, and we had asked if it could be done by 2030. That, again, is a personal experience. We tried to get—it would have brought us up to passive house standards in our house insulation, but we can't get MD Scotland to do that. That's a great worry that there's no day available in the companies in England that aren't willing to come up and help out, but overall, I think I'm a wee bit disappointed with the Government's response, and I feel that we'd like to hold them accountable for the things that they said they would do as an assembly, and we'd like to check up on them in a year's time to make sure that things are going the way that we hoped they would go. I don't know if that helps. That's super, John. Thank you very much for that. I'm sure that we'll come back to a little bit more detail about what we would like to see going forward, but maybe I could just add to what the members have said around the public transport recommendations. The assembly members made a recommendation to have an oyster card, and I know this is something which Scottish Government has been talking about for some time, and I think members felt that the response slightly missed the motivation behind the recommendation. The assembly members really wanted to see a much more integrated, joined-up way of moving across between different types of transport from one bus, for example, to another, and to be able to make it cheaper, particularly for low-income families, that there would be a mechanism for doing that. I think the response was much more focused on seeing the oyster card as being a way of paying, rather than seeing the underlying principles around making it more attractive, much easier to use public transport and, therefore, having that knowledge to get people out of cars and onto public transport. I think quite often that the Government response, which members did say that they were grateful for, in a certainly very considerate response, was a detailed response. They were very grateful to the Government for being engaging on that level, but they did feel that there had been perhaps a lack of ambition, urgency and perhaps a lack of thinking behind what the members were trying to get in terms of the response coming back from the Government. I'll pass back to you, convener, for the next question for the members. Thank you very much. Those were very helpful responses. You raised a number of points. I think that there are good points on the oyster cards and the challenging 2030 targets for retrofitting, which, again, all those issues are something and issues that the committee will be looking at. I know that other members of the committee want to come in and explore some of those areas, so let me hand over to Fiona Hyslop to be followed by Monica Lennon. I refer members to my declaration of interest. I'm a member of the Assured in group for the climate assembly. Good morning and thank you for joining us, everyone. The climate assembly makes a very strong statement, and it says, we believe, from the Scottish Government's response to our recommendations for action, that the Government needs to think less about what it can't do and instead demonstrate a positive attitude, thinking hard about how it can make things happen. The Government's response was actually responding to recommendations from the climate assembly itself and a load of those recommendations, particularly those of the latter ones, are in areas where the Scottish Government doesn't have powers but the Westminster Government does. I know that you were informed by lots of expertise in different areas. Were you quite clear as to what the Scottish Government had responsibility for and not, or was that a deliberate action that you deliberately recommended to things that the Scottish Government couldn't take action on? The second thing is that when you say that they should think hard about how they can make things happen, is that in the areas that they do have responsibility on, or are you asking the Scottish Government to try and have impact on the things that are still reserved to Westminster? Thank you for that, Lennon. I think I'll go to Ellie first on this to answer those questions. Ellie, do you want to have a short answer? I think that we were aware of some of the devolved matters. I think that there's also this kind of overriding hope that the climate emergency is such a huge overarching issue that affects the UK, Scotland and the whole world, despite there being some barriers to making changes in policy and in law, that the Scottish Government might have some leverage in influencing UK Government, speaking with a louder voice of representing its people as a strong voice, as leaders, and also looking to the future of times when we do have these powers, if we do have independence, or looking beyond the horizons of what we're limited to in a political realm of today, but thinking just with a more aspirational, inspirational eye, I think that's what we were hoping, looking to our leaders for in this response. It felt a little bit dampening down. It felt a little bit like everything was staying within its comfort zone, but the lack of inspiration, I think, was something that we were identifying. In our statement of ambition, we really communicate the kind of feelings that we were looking for as a citizens assembly. We didn't feel like that was picked up on in the responses, some more ambition, more zest, more determination that we can work through this, but that was lacking. We understand that there are issues that are solved, but it seems to focus on the can't do, then what we can do, what we were trying to get across. Thank you very much, Ellie. Lewis, are you nodding when Fiona was asking the question? I don't know whether you want to come in and add anything to what Ellie has already said. Yeah, I'd love to. I'd echo what Ellie says there. I think that there was an acknowledgement throughout the assembly that joined up thinking is one of the most important things to have a meaningful strategy of how we're going to get from where we are now to net zero, and that doesn't just mean within the sectors of Scottish industry or within the systems like transport and food and whatnot, but that also means within the holes of power, as it were. Although we were aware broadly of which powers are devolved and reserved, we also, especially in our statement of ambition, we expect the Scottish Government to exercise its responsibility as a nation within the UK to have those lines of communication with the UK Government and to express the interests of the people of Scotland on issues that are not devolved powers, on how we expect the UK Government to use those reserved powers in the interests of Scotland as one of the nations of the UK. In addition, when we talk about imaginative and innovative ways of getting things done, one of the examples of that was looking at climate change as a health issue, kind of a human rights thing. With one of the examples, I think I can remember, was the clean air and the having the right to breathe clean air, because we realised that the Scottish Government didn't have the powers to tackle that as a climate issue, but when considering it as a health issue, that could be thought of in terms of devolved powers. That kind of outside-of-the-box thinking enables a lot more action when you come out the problem from that direction. I would add that there was this strong desire, particularly that came to me from the statement that came out of the Kennedy to see better working across all levels of government, including local authorities and devolved administrations and with the UK Government. Just as Lewis was saying, that frustration that perhaps there could have been a little bit more creativity in responding, so perhaps the taxation power on fuel doesn't sit with the Scottish Government, but there are other things that could have done, which have encouraged the same sort of response. I think that, just in the tone of the response, to have looked behind the recommendations to see what the members really wanted and then engaged creatively with those rather than, I think that members sometimes felt that it was often used as a bit of an excuse. As Ellie said so eloquently just now, there may come a time when that can't be an excuse and so they would like to see what government could do in future. I'll pass back to Fiona. Thank you for your perspective. Clearly the Assembly has done great service to the people of Scotland and, indeed, beyond in your work, but the formal work of the Assembly ended with your weekend, your final weekend. What process is in place for further engagement deliberation, if any, and how does the Assembly propose to monitor the outcome of its work and continue to hold the Government to account for delivery of its recommendations? That's a challenge if it doesn't exist, but I'm also conscious that this is the second time that the Climate Assembly has given evidence to this committee, the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee. Are there any specific things that you think the Climate Assembly would ask of the Parliament or, indeed, of this committee in taking forward the work and, indeed, the monitoring and accountability that some of your members have already referred to? Thank you for that, Fiona. I think that Lewis is probably based on the conversations that he had with other Assembly members a couple of nights ago. You might want to start off with that and then I'll pass to Joan. We've been discussing just recently in what form the Climate Assembly will continue and how it's going to change and adapt to its new role of holding the Government to account based on the commitments that the Government has made in its response to our report. For me, one of the most important parts of that is creating a network where the members of the Assembly who want to continue in this new role will be able to reach out to independent climate experts, the media and also the Government, and especially committees such as the Net Zero Committee, and to respond to new developments in climate policy as they come up, especially relating to the recommendations and goals that we set out in our report. How exactly that's going to be done is still under discussion, but we're looking into funding the facilitation of the meetings of the Climate Assembly in the same way that it's been done by the NGO that's been helping us out and involved, I believe that they're called. Thank you very much. Joan, do you want to come in and tell us a bit about the children and how the children could continue to be involved and that interaction between the children and the adults going forward? Absolutely. It's a big thing that we want to hold the Government accountable. We want to check up their thing. I was so lucky to work with the children's Parliament and the children were amazing. The recommendations were astounding. They didn't hold anything back. The children also want to see the Government accountable. We had a meeting and one of them was talking about storming Government and things, but I feel quite proud of everything that we've done. I think that everything that the children have done is amazing. I take for that just to be wasted and nothing to happen. It's really important, because the children were so imaginative. I think that they were a bit more daring than the adults. They had that kind of freedom, and it would be such a shame to lose any of that. I think that it's really important. Thank you very much, Joan. The other thing that you mentioned was the idea about being a resource and having been through that learning journey as members of the Assembly. I think that you made a rather generous offer. I don't know if you want to repeat it in the committee of being available to sound check things. Do you want to say a bit about that? Sure. Education is key. When I started this journey, I knew nothing. It was an absolute panic on the first weekend, because I thought, I don't know what I've done. I used to work as a careers adviser at the job centre. The whole idea of no one's life behind is key. We're talking about the different careers that are going to be available and educating the country. I said, use us. We're ordinary people who have learned over eight weeks about climate change, so use us to speak to people and to talk to people and tell them about what our experience was and what's happening in the world. I still offer that. Thank you very much indeed, Joan. Maybe I'll pass that to Ellie. Maybe to say a little bit more about the idea of our scorecard with technology performance indicators and a system for holding Government to account, maybe whether you see any role for the committee going forward in assisting the members to do that. I'll pass to Ellie. First of all, I just wanted to express the position that we now feel in. I'm talking about the majority of us as Assembly members, but I think we all feel that we've been through this incredible journey of learning and ordinary citizens. We are now in a different place to where we were a year ago. Almost looking at the recommendations, I feel like they need to be updated again because the urgency has needed to be picked up. One of the questions that I've asked a lot of the ministers during this process of talking about our recommendations is what are the main barriers that hold Government back from acting with the urgency that we think is necessary, that we know is necessary. Speaking to Patrick Harvey and Humza Yousaf, in particular, they learned about the barriers of public uptake and public will. I think that what we can show and be useful moving forward as a citizens assembly is that, as ordinary citizens, having been exposed to the facts and the evidence and the reality of the situation, our leaders do not need to worry about public will and uptake from informed citizens. That is why the education aspect and the public information is so important, because, with information, people can make informed decisions and we don't need to worry about that as a barrier. I hope that, moving forward, as a citizens assembly, we can facilitate and help Government to be that voice of confidence, to be on behalf of the collective of the citizens of Scotland, so that we can reassure that we are ready, that we would be ready. If the majority of people did have that knowledge, they would be ready as well to move forward. It is important that we have something tangible to move forward with. The idea of the 10 key performance indicators is quite important to set. It would be decided by independent experts, but it could be something that the citizens assembly facilitate and oversee, but it would have clear numerical measurable targets so that we can also meet back on an annual basis and really clearly be able to interrogate and oversee what it is that is being done. The next 10 years are so critical. We are hearing from the IPCC, the climate change, and the health plan. Climate change is the greatest health threat to humanity in the 21st century. It is something that we have to make a difference in the next 10 years. Over the next coming years and incrementally, using these measurable targets is really important, and that is something that the assembly will hopefully help out with, working in partnership with Government. I would like to emphasise how impressive the commitment of members has been that they started this process almost a year and a half ago. They are still committed to an ongoing dialogue with Government, but there is not a clear mechanism to allow that to happen going forward. I would be grateful for any support that the committee can give in supporting the members with their very clear desire to remain engaged and to continue dialogue and to continue to hold the Government to account going forward. It is quite clear that the climate assembly is not going anywhere, but it is going into the future. Obviously, we are not the Government with the Parliament, but if there is anything that your members in continuing form and networking want to do in relation to the committee and to the Parliament, I am sure that, if we can keep in contact, that might be something that the convener might want to consider along with committee members as to what role this committee would have in that bit. On that note, I will pass back to the convener. I agree with our deputy convener. The work that you are doing is fantastic and we hope to have on-going engagement and dialogue with you. Your challenge to us as parliamentarians and to the Government is so important. I really agree with the points that are made about the contribution that the children have made. They are fantastic and I have been out and about locally speaking to schools and I think that children really get that this is about climate justice but also about social justice. I was really interested by the comments from Eileen Lewis about food a few moments ago. From speaking to young people when I do school visits, they are very active in collecting food donations for local food banks and charities. They are very aware of poverty and food poverty but they are also very aware of the amount of food that is wasted even within their own schools and they feel very frustrated by that. I wonder how the assembly feels that we can better address that. I know that other parts of the world have legislation that tries to ban food waste and it has quite serious measures. Is it more that you think that we can do in Scotland to reduce food waste? I will let Eileen start off and then I will come to Lewis. Thank you for the question Monica. It is our personal choices. We have so much that informs our choice of our personal diet. The food system that we are currently in is a broken one and we need to rethink the whole way of how we feed ourselves as a nation. There is excess eating, which leads to obesity and ill health and it is a burden on the NHS. The types of food that we are eating are not good for the climate, they are not good for ourselves. There is evidence to say that if we eat for a healthier climate, we are going to be eating for a healthier nation. There is a whole shift in the way that Scotland needs to perceive its own diet. Again, we go back to knowledge and education, which is so important for people to make informed choice. That needs to be accessible to all. One of the recommendations that we keep stressing that we are disappointed with the response that we gained from the Scottish Government is recommendation number 39, which is the public education campaign about sustainable diets. It is something that the Children's Assembly felt strongly about. If you do not have the information, you cannot make the right choices. If there is a public campaign around sustainable diets, that would include food waste. It would include eating the right amounts of food in the right way and it would have huge influence. The Government has a lot of leverage to change psyche, because it is a culture change. I have already mentioned recommendation number 26, which again, we were really disappointed that it was not uptaken by the response that we received. There is huge power in public procurement that the Scottish Government has followed. If you changed public canteens to be sustainable diets, you are giving out a clear message. You are setting precedent and you are setting a prototype demonstrating how we can eat healthily as a nation. For some people, it would only be one meal a day. It would not even be that, but if it is a clear message coming from the top down, people will listen to that. If it is accompanied by education campaign, the Assembly felt strongly that it is a quick win, but it is easy to adopt. I am disappointed that we have not had that take of that one. Thank you very much, Ellie. Maybe I should pass on to Lewis, who I heard who wanted to also talk about this. I agree with what Ellie said. In addition, our recommendation 3 about food packaging is essential to tackle the issue of food waste. We are disappointed with the Government's response in this area particularly. It is about perishable foods being sold in large amounts. The key with any effective change that is brought in based on our recommendations is that it has to target the decision-making points of the relevant parties. In the case of the supermarkets that are selling large numbers of fruit and vegetables that will go off reasonably quickly in big bags and not selling them individually loosely, the rhetoric behind the decision from their point of view is that, while we package them together, we do not give the consumer any choice about whether they can buy only one or buy the large quantity. They are going to buy the large quantity because it is the only way to get the food that they want. The waste is not our problem because it happens in their home. If they eat one or two of those fruits and then the rest of them go off before they are used, that waste is not something that the supermarket is considering. Legislating to make sure that options are available to buy those perishable goods in loose, single quantities to give the consumer that control over what is or is not wasted in their home is an incredibly important thing that has sadly been missed out of the response that we got from the Government. Thank you very much indeed. I think that you can point members with the original recommendation that you were just talking about. One of the things that they were thinking about was reducing the fruit waste if you have to buy six apples in a packet rather than buying an individual apple, but also having to pay for six apples rather than one apple, which is obviously more expensive and goes back to what Ellie was talking about in terms of making sustainable, good quality fruit affordable. That points to the way that members really thought in a very holistic way in the rest of the thing about climate change, but they were also thinking about how they could make Scotland better going forward, and it was very comprehensive. I will pass back to Monica McLeish. She has further questions on that. Thank you very much. Very grateful for those responses that you have certainly given us food for thought. I think that there are things that the Government can do, but also there is clearly a lot that we can do as members of the public to put pressure on retailers as well. I want to return to public transport, because I know that you have some really important and really good recommendations and a lot that we could get on and do right now. We had a session with some of the children from the children's Parliament last week, and they also made points about just making it easier to read and navigate around timetables. That really fits in with what you say about the oyster card, about just making it easier. I think that we would all agree with that. I think that it was drawn earlier on that it talked about people on lower incomes and people who just miss out from benefits. I am just wondering in the context of public transport, what are your ideas around making public transport more affordable and more accessible for as many people as possible? I am aware of a campaign right now that everyone is aboard, which is trying to extend the national concessionary scheme to people 26 and under and people on low income and on benefits. However, when you have a line in the sand, there is always someone who misses out. I would be keen to hear what kind of model you think would work or we could work towards to make sure that people are not priced out of public transport. I think that I will pass to Joanne to start this one off. Thanks for the question. I think that it is really difficult because a lot of benefits are means-tested. My experience from working in the job centre is that a lot of people just missed out, so doing a means-tested low income, you really need to think about it and have a cut-off of how much money people earn a year. It is not going to be easy. It is going to be really difficult to make it fair. It is great that we have done the free transport for young people. I think that a lot of the time it was not highlighted that other people are eligible for free transport, like disabled and things, going back to education again. I do not envy the Government in that, but it is going to be very difficult to make it fair. Thank you very much indeed, Joanne. I think what the members said in their statement was that they really welcomed the fact that under-22s are now able to use public transport free, as can older people, but they had really expected when they made the recommendation that the provision would be much wider and particularly Joanne was referencing for the working poor, people who perhaps are just missing out on a whole lot of things. Those people really need to be helping to get on to public transport. Monica, do you want to come back on that question at all? I am watching time in the convener's eye, but I suppose briefly related to that we want to make it more affordable. I know in my local community across many parts of Scotland that the service does not exist and bus routes have gone. It is not easy to use public transport. Just if you have any comments to make on how we can make sure that we have good public transport right across the country, particularly in rural and island communities. I think that I will pass to Ellie to talk from her own experience on that. I know that she knows better every row. Thank you for that question. I am a cyclist myself and I have recently moved to the Scottish Borders. I am finding it really difficult to travel in a sustainable way. Maybe that is my thought for moving to a rural area, but it has made me realise that the community around me really do not have options available. There is no bus service on a Sunday. There are inconvenient timings for evenings. Again, the integration of public transport does not seem to work. There are certain bus timetables that work in anerobot to get the bus to Edinburgh. It does not sink together. There are also other things in this area that I think could improve on encouraging active transport with more facilities for bikes on buses. There are a lot of systems that just are not working to support that. I also look at the idea that Scotland could be really leading in the way and looking at the issues with a more inspirational eye. Public transport is free to everybody. We do not raise our horizons of aspiration and not get caught up in the nitty gritty of who can and who can't and what's fair. Let's open the amount of dependency on private car use. It makes it fairer and more effective. That was the question that we were posed as a climate assemblies. How can we change and tackle the climate emergency in a fair and effective way? I just feel that, for fair and effective way, let's public transport, let's aim for it to be open and accessible and free to all. Tax could be coming from private car use and carbon emissions from that. That was a real message that I took away from the SNP, which perhaps surprised me a little, was that the members recognised and said how difficult it is for Government, but how ambitious they were and how prepared they were to tax areas that they felt were not helping Scotland in terms of climate or divided societal benefits in order to support the things that they felt were really important like providing goods and affordable or free public transport. Thank you very much, Susie. Thank you, Ellie, for being so honest and being a very strong advocate of active travel and public transport. Please don't apologise or apportion blame to yourself for moving to rural area. We need to hear the voice of rural Scotland, too. Thank you very much. Mark Ruskell, to be followed by Natalie Dawn-Mark, please. Thank you for your incredible climate leadership. I have to say that, as a politician sitting on this side of the table, it is pretty humbling. That is how it should be, so keep up the good work. I was talking to some members of the French Climate Citizens Assembly when they were in Glasgow at the COP. One of the things that they are doing is working quite closely with the French Government on a number of areas of policy going forward. I wondered if that was something that the Scottish Assembly had discussed, or their particular priority areas, where you feel that you want to go a lot further in terms of working directly with the Government, whether that is retrofitting or public transport or other areas. How you would want to do that? What kind of level of engagement do you feel that you are able to have going forward? I think that conversations are still at a reasonably early stage, but I will see if Lewis wants to come in on that. Yes, thank you for the question. I would certainly be excited to have conversations at any level possible with Governments on policy. In terms of the ongoing role of the Climate Assembly, we are likely to see some reduction in membership based on the new form, whatever that might be, that the assembly will take. We do not know how much that will be quite yet, but when we know how many people we have got left, there is also a question of whether, individually, we might want to specialise a bit more. Obviously, although we have been discussing a broad range of issues, individually, some things resonate with some members more than others. One thing that might be exciting and interesting would be to have certain members of the Climate Assembly network with some climate experts to increase their knowledge and awareness of certain issues to a greater depth than we were able to do during the first run of the climate assembly, and then use that as an in-roads to more in-depth discussions on certain items of policy with the relevant parts of the Government and the Parliament. Thank you very much indeed, Lewis. I will let any come in in a moment, but I just wanted to let you know that, based on one of the conversations that we had with the ministers over the summer, the ministers team reached out from education to say that they would like to talk to some of our members about education because they were bringing their lived experience as teachers. Actually, at lunchtime today, a couple of our members are meeting with officials and education to talk about how to integrate climate change, learning much more into the curriculum and bringing that experience both of being an assembly member and of being a teacher. I think we would really encourage more of that going forward. What we probably need to do is make sure that we have a mechanism for officials and ministers to be able to reach out to the assembly members, and we haven't quite got that sort of yet. But I'll pass to Ellie to see if she wants to say anything more about that. Thank you for that question, Mark. I think that, as an assembly, we'd be very interested in learning from other assemblies around the world, especially the climate assemblies, and maybe forming links so that we're part of a greater whole because this is a global crisis that we're in. That's interesting that the French Business Assembly are working more with the government on more focused topics. I think that there's definitely scope for that. I think that we just had our very initial meeting after the official assembly has finished. We are in a situation now where there's obviously no funding to support the continuation of the assembly, and we do think that it's important that we continue to be supported with some kind of facilitation and also working with experts, we think is very important, so that we are updated with the latest evidence and that we are still managing to hone back in on the original question of working in a fair and effective way to hold our integrity and our authority as a collective voice. We need to continue our own knowledge journey and being informed. We're not experts at all, we're just general and regular citizens, so we will need some kind of framework that will hold us in this space for us to continue our work effectively. I ask the committee now what can be available in terms of funding for that. We're also householders, we have families, we have two-year-olds, we all have a pressure on time too, so there's a limit to what we can commit. We obviously want to give as much as we possibly can, but there needs to be a framework to make that feasible for us to continue the work. Thank you very much indeed, Ellie. I'm just finding the children perhaps to talk about how we can perhaps continue to engage with the children going forward and how the children part of those conversations with the Government. Yeah, I think that would be a great benefit if we could incorporate the children's parliament along with the adults. I missed the meeting that I had about taking the climate assembly forward and I think that it's of vital importance that we do and we continue to check up, but having the children involved brings a bit of fun, which is also great. As I've said at loads of times, I must be bored and senseless, but their enthusiasm and their zest for change is just inspiring. If we could keep that going alongside the adults, I think that we'd be doing a really good job, but it's how do we do this? I think that it's not just the children who are inspiring during I think it's the older assembly members, but I'll pass back to Mark and let him come in again. Yeah, I think we've all been inspired by the work of children's parliament and it's just a creativity that young people have as well. I often see links that we don't necessarily do. I had one detailed question I wanted to ask and that was around some of your recommendations on aviation. I wanted to ask just around some of the tax options with that. Is it your view that a frequent flyer tax could be brought in and that could operate alongside an air departure tax or did you have thoughts about how the air departure tax should be changed to apply that to frequent flyers? I guess that this is an area where we could go into quite a lot of depth and it's maybe for a longer conversation with Government, but given the work that you've done on this at the moment, I just wondered if you had any emerging thoughts about how we changed that tax regime for particularly frequent flyers. To be honest, the whole concept of light travel after everything that we've learned in the climate assembly and the situation that we're in at the moment, it just seems like it's history and I find it difficult to even grapple with the fairness of taxes, with the luxury of people being able to fly and take short flights. It absolutely should not be congratulated for frequent flyers, which is, we all know, damaging and adding to the carbon emissions hugely. I find it almost exacerbating to even have conversations about flight travel when we're trying to reduce the carbon footprint on micro-levels and sorry, I'm a bit complex with that one, I can't really add more to it. If you want to come in and say something, we've been particularly about recognising absolutely what Andy had said, but also that Scotland is now a very diverse nation with lots of new Scots who do have family around the world and original recommendation suggested that perhaps people could have their first flight without having to pay additional taxes, but once you were paying for, once you were doing lots of travelling, then there would be an incremental taxation scale to be the discourage asset, particularly to discourage business travel. Do you want to say anything a bit more about that? One of the ideas that we discussed was a banded emissions allowance system where for your first flight, depending on its length, you wouldn't pay additional tax after you've flown a certain distance, the tax would be increased. I'll be the first one to put my hands up and say, I don't exactly understand the current system of taxation, but I do wholeheartedly support, as most of the assembly I would expect, the principle of taxing frequent flyers more than occasional flyers and making alternative options available, particularly for people who have family abroad to make access to high-quality internet speeds for conference calling and things like that, to make both business and family reasons for travelling to have alternatives that don't involve the huge emissions that come with air travel. I'd also like to say in terms of the Government's response to some of our recommendations around air travel with regard to frequent flyers, the idea in one of our recommendations of eliminating or banning frequent flyer bonuses or air mile bonuses was pretty much ignored, and the assembly was very disappointed in that, because we see that as another one of the easy, high-impact, easy wins that could have a major change on the culture around flying and the decisions that go into that by making it a less attractive option to people who use that as their current solution for business travel or seeing their families. I hope that the committee will discuss and encourage the Government to discuss options for eliminating and heating those frequent flyer bonuses. Thank you very much. Finally, perhaps two points about Joanne has said throughout around education that the members also wanted to have clear labelling on the carbon impact of flying and indeed of all travel so that people were able to make choices at the moment. We heard even from one of the ministers that we spoke to that they weren't entirely sure whether it was better to go by train or by car or by plane, and really what we need to do is to be able to present that by clearly to people so that their people can make the choices. Mark, a couple of supplementals in this area. Jackie Dunbar and then Liam Kerr. Good morning, panel. It was in regards to what you were just discussing about the frequent flyer levies and increasing the ADT. I was just wondering if the Assembly had considered the just transition impacts of implementing these, especially for the highlands and islands, because sometimes that is the only mode of transport sometimes. Yeah, and I definitely did consider this. One of the recommendations was around investment in low carbon flight as well, particularly with an eye to the island communities and those critical services, which will continue to rely on flight. Members were not suggesting that there should be no flights between the islands and the mainland, but they were thinking about how they could produce the carbon impact. They were very concerned about that. I would say that we had members from the island communities who were able to speak to that from their personal experience, but I don't know whether, John, you want to say anything more to Jackie on that? No, I don't. Jackie, is that sufficient? I wish I could make a bit more detail. Not really, because to be quite honest, you're answering the questions very, very fully today, and it's much appreciated. When we talk about flying, sometimes we always think abroad, and it's not always the case, but I am very thankful to the panel today for their answers. Thank you, Jackie. Liam Kerr, please. Thank you, convener. I'd like to ask the panel to follow up on what I thought was Jackie's very good question. I'm just going to press you for a little more detail on that, please, because I hear the proposals, but what did the assembly conclude would be the practical impacts of proposals such as a frequent fly levy or increasing ADT on jobs, on the ability of the lower paid to fly, and on connectivity for places such as Highlands and Islands and somewhere that Jackie and I would be very concerned about the northeast? So what did the assembly conclude would be the practical impacts of these policies? It said you were very aware that there will be questions in that change, just and fair, and that no area and no community should be left behind, and I think you've heard very powerfully from Joan and from the others about how they have really thought very hard about people on low incomes, and so I wouldn't want you to think that they haven't taken account of that, and that's why some of the recommendations around flying were around thinking about we can have the first flight available so people can see their relatives, that we do make exceptions for emergency flights for the islands, but that doesn't mean that we can continue to behave as we have, and I think you've heard very powerfully from Eddie that there do have to be changes, but Joan, you want to come in a little bit more talking about the process of making sure that nobody is left behind and speaking to some of the concerns that Liam has just raised? Yes, sure. It's going to be a difficult process, it's like with the public transport as well. I think it's going to be hard to make sure that no one is left behind and it's going to be really difficult, but we're going to have to, as Lewis was saying, balance it out with the good internet connectivity, with people who are family abroad keeping it away, but we didn't want to put any barriers in place to people travelling, but again it's a difficult one, it is. Thank you very much indeed, Joan. I would just say that one of the areas where the members particularly recognised that the Government had made significant progress was in the area of skills and reskilling and providing education for people to move from the carbon intensive industries into the greener industries, things like investing in skills for retrofitting as well as encouraging people to retrofit, and so that was an area where I think that they really felt that the Government had made quite a significant response and that perhaps speaks to some of your concerns around what happens to those areas and those individuals who are at the moment in industries in which there will be less of and perhaps there will be none going forward. What happens to them is to make sure that they are not left behind. Great, thank you very much. Liam, let me bring in Natalie Dawn, please. It's to see you all this morning. You've answered the questions really fully, so I'm just going to pick up on a couple of points that are sticking out to me. I'd like to focus on the Assembly's response to the sustainable diet public information campaigns. I know that it was noted that you feel that the Scottish Government has been inadequate, and what new initiatives and public information campaigns you would recommend following on from that. I also want to add in that despite those who are informed and those who are aware of the situation and making more sustainable choices, it's not always possible for people who are on low incomes. We've touched on that already this morning in terms of talking about bulk packaging and things in our shops, so I'm just wondering if the Assembly has any other ways or ideas that we can open up choices for everyone. Thank you. I'll pass to Amy on this because I'm conscious of time. We consider that quite deeply, and we looked at food tax on high-carbon foods, which will allow less carbon-herby foods to make organic fruits and vegetables become more readily available. It seems an unfair system that we have at the moment in our food system that only wealthy people, only some people can afford the healthy food options, and that we feel is completely unjust. It is part of this whole social justice movement that comes hand in hand with the climate change movement suggestions that we're making. The public information campaign is such an awesome way to pick it up in the children's assembly as well as early ready keen learners. It needs to be something that is run out across the board through schools, through public establishments, public catering, and that's why we felt that the switching from public procured foods to plant-based and low-carbon would be a clear message from the Government that would go hand in hand with an education programme that would help to set this change that is needed in our shift from the system that we're in at the moment to a fair, healthier, more sustainable future. Thank you very much indeed, Ellie. I'll pass back to the moderator. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Natalie, I think that's fine. Natalie, I believe that you have one more question. Yes, I just wanted to go to land use. Sorry, I know two quite different topics, but I know in your response the comments in relation to community land ownership, and I'm just wanting to inquire how you feel that communities can be better supported to address the climate emergency. Do you believe that outright ownership of assets is the only way forward for this or could better partnership working also achieve those goals? What additional policies would the committee, sorry, the assembly like to see implemented? I'll pass to the rest for that one. I think that we've seen some really good examples. We heard some excellent evidence of cases where unused land was turned over to community ownership and was turned into a very positive and climate-supporting use for growing land through production, and that worked both in cities and in more rural areas. I don't know whether the ownership of the land is going to be a key factor or not, but I think that what was very important was that, once land that can be used in that way has been identified, that we also consider the context of its use and make sure that we're not applying a blanket approach to this and make sure that it is fit for purpose with regards to whether it's in a rural or urban area. Thank you very much, and that also speaks to one of the children's recommendations for the recording for more community gardens, and they didn't specify the land ownership model, but they were thinking about how they could perhaps use skill sites to tell about growing the food and encouraging people to grow food and to learn how to grow food, so it was a very comprehensive approach. It wasn't necessarily based on one single model of land ownership. Okay, Natalie, thank you very much. Liam Kerr has a brief final supplemental. Yes, thank you, convener. Natalie and Monica asked about food production quite rightly, and I thought that there was a recommendation of the assembly around ending industrial fishing. Going back to the question about aviation, I just wonder if I might put the same thing here. What did the assembly conclude around the just transition aspects of ending industrial fishing for those employed in that sector? What did the assembly conclude would be the impact of ending that on food supply and the price to those who perhaps have less to spend on food? I'll pass to Ellie in a moment, but I would just note that some of the recommendations for industrial fishing also came from children's parliament, particularly from children who were based on island communities who were recognising both that there was an impact in terms of their biodiversity and the natural environment from the way that the land and the seas were being used. The other thing that I would just point to is when members were making some of the recommendations around food, they really wanted to see local growing the food, so they were absolutely not saying that Scotland should not be an agricultural producer at all. They were saying what they wanted was to prioritise local growing of food and also just go back to some of the questions around taxation. They were talking about whether the taxation on high carbon food, in particular things which were being perhaps thrown in from overseas, those strawberries that were being thrown in compared to strawberries that would be used to subsidise the low-carbon food and so increasing that price differential. I'll pass back to Joan for a final word on that. Again, I think that you were talking about the skills of the workers. That's what I've picked up on and again, it's education, it's fundamental. There are so many different areas that you can look at, like skills development in Scotland and using the job centre and stuff. Again, as I said, use the climate assembly, that's what we're sitting here for, but it's exploring what new opportunities would be there and it's by bringing all these departments together. Thank you very much, Joan. I think that that's probably quite a good point to end on, the idea of using the climate assembly as a huge resource and that commitment from the members for ongoing dialogue may get you going forward. Before we do end, could I ask one further question? The Assembly wants government to create a scorecard with KPIs, which personally I think is a very positive idea to ensure measurement of those things, but why does the Assembly then feel that the reporting duties under things like NPF4 and other similar schemes are not adequate, are not going to deliver that measurement that we all want to see? Liz, do you want to come in on that at all? Yeah, I think our recommendations specify that the KPIs should be set by independent climate experts. We think that that is a very important part of the recommendation because that ensures that we're benchmarking Scotland against other comparable nations and countries across the world and that we're measuring ourselves in relevant metrics that are up-to-date on the climate change science and particularly having that independence ensures that we're not allowing the Government to carry pick statistics that paint them in a good light or that highlights the positive work that they've done, which certainly exists, but we need those KPIs to be truly reflective of how Scotland is doing and how much better it could be doing, and for that to happen, we believe that the independent experts should be the ones to define those KPIs. Thank you very much, Liz. I think that that was very clear. The other thing to add is that the members were asking for a very accessible one-pager. Even just in the response that they got back from Government, which was thorough and comprehensive, it was also extremely long and detailed and quite hard for people to get their heads around what the Government response was. That's really why the idea of having a 10-graphic one-pager, which was updated twice a year, was about everybody to be able to see whether Government was on track or not with some of the things, which, as the members have said earlier, they would have the expert advice on where the key indicators going forward for Scotland, but something that was very accessible for everybody to look at with one-pager, rather than a 200-page report, which is often what we need to have on Government. That's something slightly different than what we can find. Very grateful. Thank you. Back to you, convener. Okay, Liam. Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of our allocated time, so let me thank the panel once again for joining us this morning, sharing your views on what the Scottish Government should be doing to tackle climate change. Thank you to you and the assembly members for your many, many months of hard work. I know that there have been work meetings during the evening, during the weekend, during lockdown, so your work is very much appreciated and valued, and we look forward to on-going engagement between the committee and the climate assembly. Thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your day. We now move straight on to our next item, which is agenda item 3, consideration of three negative instruments. The instruments are laid under the negative procedure, which means that their provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annul them. No motions to annul have been laid. The first instrument is SSI 2022-8, financial assistance for environmental purposes Scotland Order 2022. Do members have any comments on these instruments? There are no comments. I therefore invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to those instruments. Is that agreed? That is agreed, thank you very much. The second instrument that we are considering today is SSI 2022-9, the Scottish Roadworks Register prescribed fees regulations 2022. Do members have any comments on those regulations? There are no comments. I therefore again invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to this instrument. Are we agreed? That is agreed. Finally, the third instrument that we are considering is SSI 2022-26, M8, M73, M74 motorways, 30 miles an hour, 40 miles an hour and 50 miles an hour speed limit regulations 2022. Again, do members have any comments on those regulations? There are no comments. I therefore invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to this instrument. Are we agreed? That is agreed, thank you very much. I now close the public part of this meeting.