 Good morning and welcome to the 31st meeting of 2017 of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. Before we move to the first item on the agenda, I want to remind everyone present to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices as they might affect the broadcasting system. The first item on the agenda is for the committee to consider whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The principal item of business today is to hear evidence in relation to the committee's inquiry on air quality in Scotland. We're joined by Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham, the Minister for Transport and Islands, Humza Yousaf, Neil Ritchie from the Environmental Quality Division, Andrew Taylor, Air Quality Policy Manager and we will be joined by Yvette Shepherd, the Environment and Sustainability Manager of Transport Scotland who has been detained on route. Members have a series of questions for both yourself, Cabinet Secretary and you, Minister. Obviously, we would appreciate the relevant person responding to the question. We've got a situation in Scotland where four out of our six areas are breaching the European Ambient Air Quality objective. Obviously, there's a human cost to that as well. People are dying as a result. How confident were you before the summer that Scotland would have achieved the legal compliance by 2020? How confident are you now post the announcement of the programme for government that will meet that compliance by 2020? I think that we are confident about that. I mean, our air quality already compares pretty well with the rest of the UK and Europe. In some areas, we're already compliant. We are, we think, in a relatively good place. The programme for government additional measures, I think, will ensure that that is motoring on. I don't think that anybody would try to say that there aren't some issues continuing. Of course, there are, but we believe that they are manageable with the right actions. So how confident are you right now that we'll meet those air quality objectives by 2020? Well, I'm as confident as I can be. I mean, I can't foresee the future, but I'm as confident as I can be that we are on the right track to do so and that the actions and the number of the things within programme for government help that considerably. I mean, I can't really say much more than that. We're keeping things under review all the time. As I indicated, because of what's in the programme for government, I think that that has helped in a lot of cases to considerably up the understanding and awareness, and I've been heartened by the extent to which, for example, local authorities are wanting to talk about low emission zones and actively engage on that. That is the kind of action that will make a difference, particularly in those areas where there's been some, where there continue to be problems. So, out of those four areas that are breaching the EU limits, are you equally confident that they will be sorted by 2020? Are there particular issues, say, with Glasgow or North East, or if you're the same degree of confidence across those four areas that are breaching legal limits? Well, I have as much confidence as I can have at this point that we will be able to achieve that, but of course this is a partnership and it does involve the engagement and the active involvement of others, including local authorities. As I indicated, I'm already pretty pleased that what's happening within local authorities suggests that they have become very much more on top of this debate. It's fair to say that the whole issue of air quality has moved rapidly up the agenda over the past few years, and I'm only glad that we are now able to have a conversation across a variety of different partners where people understand the seriousness of the issue and the need to do things about it. One of the reasons why we were keen that Glasgow should be the first low emission zone was precisely because of the nature of some of the hotspots in Glasgow. I don't think that anybody would disagree that that was an area that had to be tackled first. Equally, we have Edinburgh on board now wanting to talk very quickly about some of the issues that are happening within Edinburgh, and there are very particular specific sets of issues in all of these different areas. I can only relate to when I was last doing this job, if you like. My recollection of 2009-11 was that air quality was not in the same place on the agenda in terms of tackling. I think that we've moved enormously since then. There's been enormous improvement, and yes, there is still more to come. I'm as confident as I can be that by 2020 we will be compliant, but I can't categorically make a promise that I'm looking at a crystal ball time. I can't look into the future, and I don't know what things might happen in the meantime. Things might rapidly get much better, given some of the actions that we're already taking. At this point, there continues to be a degree of uncertainty around that. All that we can do in government at the moment is to get ourselves in the right place, start taking the right actions and ensure that everybody is on board with that, and that's how we'll make the difference. You talked about the agenda moving quite rapidly. Clean Air for Scotland was produced in 2015. In light of the programme for government new commitments, in light of the UK Supreme Court's judgment on the adequacy of UK plans, including our own plan, is now the right time to review Clean Air for Scotland? The judgments weren't specifically about what was happening in Scotland. We are keeping Clean Air for Scotland under constant review, and I think that the expectation is that by 2020 we would be looking to do more of a complete refresh, but it's being looked at constantly. We didn't regard that as a static document, so we are constantly concerned to make sure that it keeps up today. Yes, there have been things that have changed, and one of those things has been everybody's understanding of the impact on public health, for example, of poor air quality. That's become much more widely accepted and understood at the moment than it might have been even five years ago. In terms of the actions that are in section 14 of Clean Air for Scotland, some of those will be updated now because they interrelate to the programme for government. Are those actions being delivered? Are all of those being delivered? I notice that a number of them are on the transport side. Is there a budget? Is there time to deliver those? A lot of those actions will have been delivered. I think that a number of them will have been delivered already. A number of them are actually in the process of being delivered. You are right that the programme for government has quite a big impact on a lot of them. We continue to keep those under review. Humza might want to say something about any of the specific transport actions, but that, in a sense, is the checklist that we are looking at all the time. Is there anything that is causing concern at the moment? I don't think that there is anything very specifically that is causing concern. Obviously, when we see figures like we did this year, we need to go back and have a look and see if there are particular reasons that can be dealt with in a particular way. One of the actions that we are wanting to move on that will have an impact on those of the low emission zones, and everybody knows that that has become a much bigger, more focused discussion and debate than it would have been a year or 18 months ago. That is important. That is the kind of action that will then shift, I suspect, quite a lot of the specific items on the checklist forward. However, as I indicated, I think that 2020 was the point at which we would want to go back and have a look at the Clean Air for Scotland and consider the more wholesale update that might be required. 2020 is the point at which we would expect to see low emission zones in the four main Scottish cities. That seems to be a fairly useful point at which to look again at the strategy. Minister, do you want to respond to Mr Roscoe's question? For the interests of brevity, I want to simply re-emphasise what the cabinet secretary has already said. A lot of the measures that we are taking forward clearly rely on collaboration with local authorities. Therefore, there are some elements of that in which we are in control of and we are working collaboratively with local authorities, but clearly the pace at which local authorities can move will be determined by a number of factors, depending on the local authority. I do not have any major concerns. I have to say that I am very optimistic about the engagement with local authorities on low emission zones and, for example, our ambitious plans for the introduction of electric and low emission vehicles. Of course, we will talk more about that, I am sure, in committee. I have no major concerns, but it is simply a caveat that not all of this and the pace of all of this is necessarily within our control, but certainly the close collaboration with local authorities and other partners makes that a lot easier. I should perhaps add that when I talked about the review, I meant an actual formal review of CAFs. That would be a properly formal, not simply a refresh, but a substantive review. On that collaboration point that the minister has just raised, I noticed that under section 14 it has a column funding, it has ticks, it has little asterisks and it also has dashes. I presume that the dashes are areas in which there is a reliance on partial funding and a reliance on commitment from other partners. Therefore, there is perhaps more of a question mark over that delivery. Have I read that wrong? It is okay, while you are blowing your nose, I will answer from the low emission zone. Each of the actions will have their own funding mechanisms and agreements and so on and so forth. If I was to speak on the low emission zone for just a second, clearly with the conversations on having local authority, there is a discussion there that we would expect local authority to put up some funding, but clearly an expectation that the Government comes forward with funding as well. There is a very honest and frank conversation around actions and, obviously, the budget is less than 10 days away and that will give some more clarity necessarily on budgets. There are also some actions that, again, clearly have some internal work going on. Our plans to phase out the need for petrol and diesel cars and vans by the end of 2032 are being done on the milestones towards funding that would need to be associated with that. Again, some of that will come, of course, from Government, but a lot of that will be partnership working. Active travel, members are more than aware of our ambitious vision for active travel, increased and doubled our active travel budget. The community links scheme plus he knows is done through a match funding process with local authorities. Some of that will be collaborative. Again, going back to the point about whether any of that gives me concerns, the conversations from a transport perspective anyway are going in a really positive direction. Just finally, there has been some increased spend in England Wales on clean air zones, so there should be some consequential monies that Scotland is due. Is that something that has been discussed in the cabinet? Will that consequential money, if and when it arrives, be ring-fence for work on quality in Scotland? You would not expect me to be disclosing aspects of the budget before budget day. I can confirm that budgetary matters are a constant discussion at the cabinet. Indeed, this morning, the cabinet will be discussing the budget among other things. I just want to see if I have absolute clarity on that. Is it correct that we will meet our 2020 targets if, with the present plans of the Government and the present plans of local authority, if they are executed as planned, we meet 2020 targets? As I understand it, that is exactly what this would be designed to do. That is fine. Okay, thanks. Let us move on to Kate Forbes. Thank you very much. I have a few questions just on policy integration at a Scottish UK and an EU level. Most evidence that we have heard has said that the Scottish policy on this is well integrated into UK and EU approaches, but there are still differences in those approaches. How does the cabinet secretary and minister think that we can improve the transboundary impact of air pollution? How can we improve its assessment, and how can we improve the way that we tackle that impact? Transboundary measurement is quite difficult, because, stating the obvious, air does not have a boundary. I do not know a briefing about our geography, but it is fair to say that Scotland is geographically in a good place in dealing with transboundary issues. We might not be saying that if we were sitting in Cardiff discussing the Welsh boundary, it would be a very different issue. From that perspective, that is dealing with the more localised air quality issues. That is not such a big problem. When you are dealing with the much more I do not know what the right terminology would be, for example, some of our air quality monitoring system is to do with the volcanic action. Clearly, there is absolutely nothing that we can do about some of the air quality issues that would derive from another volcanic eruption in, for example, Iceland. There are transboundary issues that are manageable and transboundary issues that I suspect are not particularly manageable. From our perspective, the trick is to try and ensure that, in those areas where they are manageable, we can do what we can. However, as I indicated, from our perspective, our border gives us a bit of an advantage, because we are not dealing with massive air quality problems on either side of our border. Obviously, the EU directive is working at a pan-European level, and I have already indicated that we are in a pretty good place in respect of that. As I understand it, the EU directive measures something a little bit differently to the way that we do our measurements at local authority level. There is a boundary issue as between local authorities. People tend to think of transboundaries as being national boundaries, but there are also local authority boundaries. On the extent to which some of that is being taken into account, it will depend entirely on how well neighbouring local authorities are working across their boundaries on some of those issues. I will leave a question on Brexit, which springs from that to my colleague David Stewart. One of the comments from Aberdeen City Council said that the legal status of the standards and objectives within the Scottish regulations and the EU statutory duties can be confusing to the public businesses such as bus operators, road haulage companies and other stakeholders. Currently, do you think that there are adequate resources being directed towards guidance and information for the public businesses and other stakeholders? Secondly—perhaps directed more at the minister—which are the most difficult sectors to influence positively when it comes to air pollution? Is it bus providers, freight, private vehicles? There are two questions in terms of resources towards guidance, and secondly, sectors that are difficult to influence. SEPA has a significant role to play in respect of overall guidance, as you would expect me to say. There are some real opportunities arising out of SEPA's ability to help local authorities in terms of modelling. I have already referred to the fact that between the EU and the domestic, there are slight differences in the way and in what is being measured. Some of that has been because we have taken a higher standard on particular matter. For example, Scotland has gone further than the EU directive would have indicated, but I am hoping that people are happy that we have done that and are not disappointed. There are slightly different requirements, and managing that, I guess, is right in asking about how well understood that is beyond those who have a professional interest. I would imagine that there are levels of understanding. From my perspective, and I will let Humza deal with some of what he thinks specific sectors might be involved here, but from my perspective, I think that the biggest challenge here is to get this issue across to the wider public who do not necessarily relate their actions to the problem. They might have a real concern about the problem, but they are not yet necessarily connecting the two issues. I think that that ability to persuade the wider public that they have a role to play here is probably one of our biggest challenges. I would hope that local authorities are very much across that, because, of course, people will relate in local areas to local problems, the kind of things that Mark Ruskell flagged up. Those areas from the sense of the broader public should be able to be turned into proper conversations about how to manage those problems. I suspect that the move towards low-emission zones is going to help to generate a far better conversation about what is needed. I agree entirely. If I take it a step back, I would say that I have been really heartened by the approach of local authorities. That is of all different political colours in relation to tackling the issue. To the extent where there has been a really quite welcomed competitive edge between some of the cities about low-emission zones, particularly between Glasgow and Edinburgh, I suppose I always have a competitive edge between each other. However, the determination to be more ambitious than the other on-low emissions is really welcomed. It is not something that we would have seen five years ago, maybe even three years ago, as the cabinet secretary has already said. I would be heartened by what is a shift in the discourse between policy makers, whether it is a Scottish Government level or a local Government level, and what I hear from the UK Government is well moving in a certain direction. Where we have the biggest challenge, I entirely agree with the cabinet secretary, is taking the public with us. Let's just be frank about it. One of the biggest challenges will be dealing with the issue of the private motor car. Listed Glasgow is an example of my home city. I have 12,000 cheap car parking spaces in the city centre. If I parked on the fourth floor of Buchanan Gallery's car park, I could almost literally take my car into the till of John Lewis, almost, if I wanted to. That would cost almost the same as a bus fare. It would cost me for an all-day ticket on a Sunday, if I was to do it. There are challenges that we have to tackle, but the cabinet secretary is absolutely correct that low-emission zones are a step in the absolute right direction. I am not suggesting that those 12,000 car parking spaces will be removed at all, but what I am simply suggesting is that if you could have that easy access into the city centre with your private vehicle at the time of your choosing and getting you from A2B, you have to ensure that if you are going to put some sort of restrictions around that in terms of low-emission zones or any other restrictions, you have to ensure that the public transport is absolutely fit for purpose. That is coupled or aligned with an improvement in public transport access, but it is also aligned with making it easier to make the transition to, for example, electric vehicles, which is something that we will talk about through incentivising the purchase or leasing of electric vehicles or ultra-low-emission vehicles. Changing the behavioural change amongst the public is going to be a challenge, but it is something that we have to get the narrative right, because I think that the cabinet secretary is right. People are very, very supportive of doing something to improve the air quality. Again, as a glass region, many people I talk to in my constituency, they will tell you that they can almost literally taste the difference in the air when they go on to Hope Street or Union Street in Glasgow. You just have to walk there and you realise that it is an air quality issue. There is a real understanding from the public that we have to do something. Coupling that with the action that needs to be taken is not quite there. That link is not quite made. I think that there is a power of work for the Government to do as well as our partners in local authorities and others. I do think that things are changing, I have to say, but it will certainly take political courage at a local level and a national level to put forward some of those measures. Other measures should say that they will help us to tackle the issue of air quality. Can I ask you the question that I touched on in specific sectors? If you take the city of Glasgow, I think that it is the case that Glasgow City Council brought in an incentive scheme for retrofitting of buses some time ago and had zero take-up, does that not cause you a little bit of concern as we move in an area where we need to incentivise and encourage the bus companies to look at their fleet? It does not cause me concern from the point of view that I am re-emphasising what the cabinet secretary has said previously, where I have just said that I think that the discourse nationally has moved on. Whenever I talk to bus operators, whether it is Ere Lothian McGill's first stagecoach or the smaller players on the market, all of them are greening their fleet in one way, shape or form now. Some of them are doing that with the help that we provide, with the green bus fund. Some of them are doing that of their own back and spending their own money and profits to do that. Many of the bus companies that I talked to are interested in some retrofitting scheme, and we have already put an amount of money towards that. Other bus companies say to me that instead of a retrofitting scheme, we would rather just have help with subsidising the cost of Euro 6 buses or even fully electric buses. For different companies, there are different solutions, and I think that our fund will be well used already as a green bus fund. We have the exact numbers here somewhere, but we have helped to green over 360-odd vehicles today. We had a good take-up of the green bus fund, so I do not doubt that when we have a retrofitting and abatement fund, it will be well used. 362 buses today through the Scottish Green bus fund are under £16.2 million, so no, I do not have too many concerns now. Following the IFALA-Yocl eruption that was in Iceland, huge disruption to air services, but in particular our lifeline services to the islands and to Campbell Town, where, because the number of passengers is low, they were well down the priority list for working out mitigations, are we clear that if there were to be a future similar eruption in any part of the world that affected us, we are better prepared at UK Government level and at airline level? From an aviation point of view, the other member is absolutely correct that for each of those incidents that take place, we have to learn and, of course, make our strategies more robust. The difficulty that we have in some of that, and the member knows us only too well, is that when it comes to our lifeline services, our air services to our islands, there is some need to invest in the fleet, because you have an number of ageing planes on the fleet. There is the budgetary pressure that is on that, but there are other things that can absolutely be done from a constitutional point of view. Of course, you will know that aviation regulation is still reserved to the UK Government. We have a good working relationship with the DFT in that regard, and we will continue to work with them, but yes, he is absolutely right that we have to continue to look at how to make our services more robust in the light of recent incidents that we are doing in conjunction with not just the airlines involved but our partners in the UK Government. Donald Cameron Thank you. On the back of Kate Forbes' question, I would like to return to the issue of collaboration between local authorities. I think that the cabinet secretary is alive to that. It seems to me that that is one of the biggest challenges here. How do you ensure that there is consistency of approach between local authorities so that the bus that, for example, leaves East Kilbride to travel into Edinburgh, which may cross certain local authority boundaries? Is there a policy framework in place that allows that to happen? I wonder whether you have any further observations to acknowledge the challenges, but do you have any further observations about how those relationships are managed? That sounds more like a question for the transport minister, because that is about the integration of people. I can speak to that. I want to say to the member that there is no magic wand. If we had one, we would use it in terms of complete alignment between Scottish Government's ambitions and vision and local government's actions and vision. However, in order to better align that, there has been an opportunity since the local elections in May this year, where we have a number of new administrations. Even those administrations that have continued to be the same political leadership have many of them appointed new transport elected members as transport spokespeople, coupled with many administrations long-serving chief operating officers of transport at official level. Recently, just a number of weeks ago, I co-hosted an event with COSLA in Edinburgh, in which we brought those transport spokespeople, the elected members and the officials together, along with RTPs at regional transport partnership chairs and so on. We brought them together along with other stakeholders, such as Solar Scots. We had a frank and honest discussion about what the Government's ambitions were in terms of transport and decarbonising transport, as well as active travel and a few other things. We heard from them where they thought the challenges were, whether that was on funding or other mechanisms, whether that was on ambition, scale of ambition, guidelines, TROs—you name it—a really, as I say, frank, robust conversation. If we have more of those conversations, then we will be better aligned now that the Cabinet Secretary is leading and chairing and taking forward a steering group for the four cities in relation to low-emission zones. Those kind of forums and spaces where we can speak very frankly in a private space as well is incredibly helpful to ensuring that we are aligned. However, there is, as I would say, to the member, no magic wand here in ensuring that local government and Scottish Government necessarily are completely 100 per cent aligned. However, as I have already said, I am extremely heartened, optimistic and positive by what I have heard thus far in Glasgow's connectivity commission, for example, which only gives me further reason to be optimistic. Can I ask about a different element of the joined-up approach? We had evidence from one local authority that said that they believed that there was a disconnect between policies directed towards local authorities on the one hand and policies directed towards infrastructure, which is a responsibility of Transport Scotland. On the other hand, are you content that policies are being consistently delivered to address that kind of problem? I am not sure that I entirely understand the ten of the question, so maybe I would look again at the transcript in a bit more detail. Most certainly, we know where our responsibilities are in terms of infrastructure. We know where local governments responsibilities lie, but where, for example, there is the ability to take on road collaboration or maintenance. We have a conversation and a forum with local authorities in Transport Scotland on that part of the infrastructure. However, if I took low-emission zones as an example, there is an understanding from local authorities that the Government will have to step in and assist when it comes to the infrastructure of low-emission zones, although they will be on local roads. There will always be some elements of tensions with local authorities in Transport Scotland and their desires and ambitions and our budgetary constraints and the processes in which we work. I am not aware of too many tensions and contradictions, but if you want to defunish me with more details, I can perhaps give you a more specific example or answer. I know that the question that I am going to ask you does not come under your remit, but it does affect air quality. On planning applications, previous witnesses have been asked if there are any examples where CEPA or Transport Scotland have stepped in on a local planning development plan to request that a specific development should be removed on the grounds of the impact that it would have on air quality. They said no. Basically, I want to ask, do you believe that planners should effectively evaluate the impact of emissions, develop special plans that reduce human exposure, and what work is the Royal Town Planning Institute, RTPI, should be doing to ensure that local strategic development plans are compliant with the CAF's clean area for Scotland, especially when applications are now being proposed locally, re-local incinerators? As the member knows, neither the minister nor myself are responsible for Scotland's planning system. From the perspective of my portfolio concerns, I would not just hope but expect that planning decisions are being made with environmental, climate change and air quality considerations fully taken on board. What I am not in a position to be able to give to the committee is a long list of planning decisions where that might have happened or people feel that it should have happened and did not happen. I would expect that planning authorities have all of those issues. It is not just to do with air quality. I am indicating that environmental priorities and climate change should all be part and parcel of what they are now considering. The extent to which the RTPI is or is not issuing professional guidance on some of this, I am afraid that I cannot answer. I can either try to find out a more detailed response for you or pass the query to the planning minister, who I understand is actually doing a statement this afternoon if I am correct on planning policies. I appreciate that planning considerations can be extremely important. We would be looking for an understanding of the need for green infrastructure, for example. We would be looking for planning authorities to be thinking about all of those things, to be designing. My particular concern is that we ensure that when new housing developments are in place, that there is an understanding of transport issues and all the rest of it has been part and parcel of that. However, it is not really for my portfolio specifically to deal with the day-to-day planning issues that are raised. I said that at the very start of my question, and I agree with you that it is not in your portfolio, but at the end of the day, air quality is. Sometimes planning can affect it. What would be your view on suggestions that have been a lack of example of intervention in development decisions that may impact on air quality, whether by SEPA or Transport Scotland or local authorities? I am sorry, but I cannot really answer that question if I do not have some specific idea of what it is that you are talking about in particular areas. I would need to go away and examine a particular planning decision in those circumstances. If there are particular ones that are of concern, I am happy if they are flagged up. We can go away and have a loop depending on which issue is the one that is concerning people and come back with some kind of response on those, but I am not really in a position to talk in general terms. There is one that the Minister for Transport could possibly answer, and I will rejig the question that I was going to ask. When it comes to a planning application where there is a multiple housing development, there is no transport going to that area, buses, etc. Everyone jumps in their car and their air quality shoots up because everyone can't get to them. Should we discuss with local providers that move their transport route and take in that housing development, would that improve air quality? I will speak in general, and I appreciate that the member is asking the question in the general as well. First, local authorities have air management plans and strategies at a local level, many of them, particularly in air management quality areas. Therefore, there are already guidelines there and measures that they should be taking in order to ensure that they are not significantly worsening any air quality issues. In general, I have had a good number of conversations with Kevin Stewart and the minister who is taking forward the planning review. The member will be heartened to know that it is cross-government working when it comes to the planning review. That has been one of the general criticisms that people have had as I have travelled around to local authorities or even RTPs. However, when I have spoken to communities, they do not feel necessarily that there is enough consideration of transport matters when it comes to large developments, not just from an air quality perspective but from a traffic management perspective as well. At this stage, I will give the member some reassurances that, from my point of view, we are speaking closely with the minister in charge of this, and we are hoping for a little bit more in terms of tightening up some of the measures around transport and the expectations around transport. There is obviously a very fine line here, which I know that the member appreciates having been in local government for many years before this, which is setting appropriate national guidelines and expectations, but at the same time allowing flexibility at a local level, because local authorities should know best. Many of those issues should be covered at the pre-application stage. For example, there is the environmental impact assessment as well. There are already measures there, but I appreciate the tone of which the member is asking the question, as to whether there should be more done from a planning perspective. I am not speaking for Mr Stewart at all, but we both recognise that that is why we are doing a planning review. Can I add a little bit to that? It goes back to what we were talking about earlier. I am not sure who was asking the question about the areas where I think a lot of more work needs to be done. In terms of public engagement particularly, one of those areas that is relevant to this question is that if we could get public to engage much more actively at the point where local authorities are doing their local development plans, because, frequently, local authorities set up meetings and are not well attended. People do not register what is in that plan. Ultimately, when an application goes in and it gets agreed, there is a bit of a hooha because folk have not really... I think that there are some real issues here about public engagement at a very early stage. The local development plan stage is that stage, but we still have a difficulty in engaging the public at that level. I raise a point about the conversation with other ministers in relation to that. Presumably, you would be quite delighted if, going forward, it was a requirement of all planning consents for new-built housing that electric charging points were included, whether at the stand alone houses or flats, that type of thing. Will those conversations go on? I absolutely state that those conversations are going on. I know that for a fact because I have been chewing Kevin Stewart's ear for a considerable time about a range of issues. It is not just about the one that you raised, but there are a range of issues where I would like to see some things. I know that we have not got to the actual Brexit question, but I am aware that, in 2019, the EU intends to bring forward a directive that will seek to ensure that no new build, whether domestic or commercial, proceeds without electric vehicle charging as an absolute basic standard. I raised that with Kevin Stewart some time ago, and that might be the kind of Brexit-related issue where we would want to say, notwithstanding the fact that that directive is coming in potentially post-Brexit, that seems like something that we would want to do anyway. I have those conversations with Kevin Stewart all the time. I would not be at all surprised if Humza Yousaf is not having the same conversations with Kevin Stewart all the time. We are very well aware that planning considerations, whether it be of the kind that Richard Lyle has raised, or future potential planning things, are important in this debate. There are local development plans and local transport strategies. There are also some concerns around the number of capital projects. When those capital projects were devised, perhaps in a different context, when we were less concerned or less aware of our quality issues, there are also issues around democratic deficit and some of the assumptions that are built into local transport strategies. What extent is the proof-checking of local transport strategies for our quality issues? I will come back to the member on the specifics, but it is not a case of proofing local transport strategies. What we are trying to do is get alignment. He will probably be aware that there is a review of the national transport strategies that we talked about. The 60 stakeholders involved and some of the numerous working groups on that, but cosland local authorities are key to that conversation. In fact, they co-chair many of those working groups and sit alongside me in terms of the partnership board. The purpose of doing that is to ensure that the integration of our national transport vision for the next 20 years filters through to local authorities. It comes to revising their national transport strategies. The member's general point here about local authorities doing a constant check of the transport strategies to ensure that they are cognisant, aware and taking account of environmental issues is a good one to make. I am hoping that the national transport strategy review and COSLA being so ingrained as part of that review process will have an effect. Do you reject a local transport strategy if it was predicting levels of traffic growth that are out of line of the national transport strategy? We certainly do not predicate on increasing traffic, and he knows that, whether it is on projects such as the Queensferry crossing or even smaller infrastructure projects. It would certainly give me concern if local transport strategies were predicated on increasing the amount of car journeys, for example. That would give me cause for concern. Thank you. We have raised the B word. We better explore it, David Stewart. Thank you, convener. The cabinet secretary has partially covered my question, but I was trying to look ahead to a post-Brexit Scotland about where new first-class environmental directors were coming from Europe that Scotland decided to adopt. Can the cabinet secretary say a scenario where that could be part of an agreement on the basis that the 27 countries have immense expertise on the environment? That is not taking away the immense expertise that we have in Scotland, but clearly there is a scale issue here. You know that the committee is fresh from coming back from Brussels, so I think that the jargon is equivalence. Can you see a scenario where we could follow in the future new environmental directives, which put stricter limits on emissions, for example, within Scotland that are coming from Europe? That is precisely what I have said on a number of occasions, which is what I want to do, not just to continue with the status quo, but to continue to improve. Whatever the status quo is at a particular time, I would not want Scotland to be lagging behind that, so it is not just about the position that we are in at March 2019, but that changed position as it will change going forward. What is interesting, and I was in Brussels—I have obviously been in Brussels for a fair bit, but one of the times that I was in Brussels, I met with Green 10, the European-level green organisations. What is interesting is the extent to which there are a lot more skeptical about the EU's green credentials. We tend to look at this as the EU, in a sense, providing a kind of gold standard for us. Their argument in some areas might be, well, actually, that the EU is not going far enough, either. There are issues about that, but, in fact, I think that I would struggle to think of an area of where there has been EU directives, certainly in this portfolio, that we in Scotland have not gone further than the directive. I would continue to want that to be the case. The difficulty, I suppose, will be the extent to which we can stay connected to the conversations as they develop at an EU level. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to meet with the Green 10 and one of the reasons why we are trying to continue that level of engagement. It is going to be extremely important that, if we are out at March 2019—and I still harbored this small hope that everybody will see sense before then—having developed other linkages is going to become extraordinarily important and establishing ways in which we continue to become connected or aware of and communicate with the developments as they take place within the EU. I am very conscious of that as being an absolute priority. It is one of the key things that I have been saying consistently, and I will continue to say consistently. Thank you, convener. I want to ask about LEZ quite specifically—probably a question for Minister of Home, but I would like to try to nail him down on some of the specifics as best we can. In terms of detail, when does the Scottish Government anticipate that an LEZ will be in place in each of Scotland's four largest cities? Have you got a time for each one? I think that we have already said that in the programme for government—four biggest cities by 2020. The first one, as we have said, introducing by 2018 in Glasgow, has recently been named as the location for that first law mission. And the other cities? I have also already had meetings with Edinburgh in respect of theirs, so this will now be a rolling conversation. I do not think that any of the cities particularly wants to get left behind. I should have said that, after 2020, the focus is on the other air quality management areas by 2023. What resources is the Scottish Government making available to support the development and implementation of the LEZ in Glasgow and then the other three cities? That is a really good question. I want to hark back to what I said previously, which is that the collaboration between ourselves and the cities has been really positive and the engagement has been really, really positive. He will appreciate our less than 10 days away from the budget, so I am not going to give him specifics in terms of numbers, despite his best efforts, but there is an understanding from the Scottish Government that clearly we are going to have to provide some element of funding. Now that element of funding is to help and assist with infrastructure in terms of making it enforceable, whether that is in relation to, for example, we have already talked about bus retrofitting or helping with subsidy for greening the fleet, or whether that is for any other element of low-emission zones. That is a conversation that is currently taking place. Clearly, again, that will depend on the geographic scope, the phasing of low-emission zones as local authorities see them. To give some reassurance to the member, there is no doubt that the Scottish Government is going to have to contribute financially towards the implementation of low-emission zones in some way, shape or form in the budget. We will give some more detail of that, and we expect local authorities to come forward with funding, too. That commitment will be in the budget, rather than your statement on Thursday. Again, I would not want to pre-empt either of them. We are within almost 12 months of being delivered in Glasgow. As far as I am aware, friends of the earth suggest that there is no commitment as yet to funding, there is nothing tangible. There has been some commitments to some elements of funding. For example, 1.6 million to support the first phase of the bus emission abatement retrofit programme, which is not the easiest mouthful for a fund, but that fund will help in terms of bus operators. We are already, in one way, putting our money where our mouth is. Clearly, he understands that I have a statement coming up as the budget statement, but I would give him absolute reassurance that we are positively engaging with local authorities on the funding question. He is right to push, but I would suggest him, and the answers to that should start to become fairly apparent. However, there is a good conversation happening with local authorities, and we will continue in that vein. I appreciate that you cannot pre-empt the budget and you cannot pre-empt your statement, but can you commit to giving the public and Parliament a fully-fledged costing of the LEZ in Glasgow and the parties who will bear the cost of that in the very near future? We should absolutely be transparent and as transparent as possible in relation to the finance, the scope of the LEZ and so on. I think that the member will appreciate some of this role. We have to have a safe space to be able to speak to local authorities about their ambitions for our low-emission zone, where we think that they should perhaps go further, where they think that we should go further in respect to finance and funding. Those conversations have to take place in a safe space. However, once that is agreed between local authority and Government, the member is absolutely correct. Throughout the appropriate processes, that will be made obvious and transparent. Can I return to the issue of the green bus fund? I hear what the minister is saying about not pre-empting the budget or your statement on Thursday, but it is just a point that comes to mind. There is no bottomless pit of money here. There will be a limit to what the green bus fund can offer. Is there a risk that you might have to restrict access to the green bus fund or might you restrict access going forward in order to support bus operators in the urban settings, particularly where we are going to have to establish LEZs? The message to the bus operators has been—I think that they understand this—that they have also got to put their money where their mouth is to, and they are doing that to a large extent. I am really impressed, having visited first stage coach McGill's low-emission buses and, in particular, those four big companies of their plans to green their fleet. They are already understanding that this is the direction that the Government is moving in. Their appeal to me and equally to Glasgow City Council, for example, and I am sure that it is replicated to other local authorities, is to give us an appropriate amount of time to phase this in. We cannot introduce and get those buses built overnight. However, we want to be careful to, of course, be understanding of that, but, at the same time, make sure that those timelines are robust. If the answer is a direct question, then, clearly, it will be limited by the amount of funding that there is. Therefore, I want to look at how we can get the biggest bang for the buck. The green incentive for the BESOG grant is probably an example of that. We are looking to review that, and within that review we are thinking, again, without committing and preempting. We are thinking of how we tear that so that, for example, the greatest amount of help is given to Euro 6 as opposed to Euro 4 or so on and so forth. That is what kind of conversations are in consideration at the moment. Again, that is not a final decision that has been made in those. We will have to be restricted by the amount of funding, of course, but we are also looking to see how we can make that pound go further. Thank you very much. 2018 is not far away. When do you anticipate that the enforcement of the LEZ will begin in Glasgow? We have heard that the funding is now going to be in place. When will the enforcement actually start? Have you a date for that? That is a good question. It is right that 2018 is not far away. I would remind them that, when we say 2018, it could be any time in 2018, of course. Glasgow has said to me that that is an ambitious target, but it is definitely one that we are committed to and working towards. On the enforcement point, I am sure that the committee is already aware of that, but if you look at examples of low-emission zones across the United Kingdom, there has been a phased approach towards enforcement. That is a wholly sensible approach. Clearly, it will be for Glasgow to determine the scope, the phasing, the enforcement and so on. It will be for them to come to the Government in collaboration and say that this is our plan. They have already got initial proposals, which are very high-level in Broad Brush, but they will start to put more meat on the bones as they are doing already and come with more details on that. I think that a phased approach to enforcement is an absolutely correct one. It has clearly been working in other parts of the United Kingdom and the European continent. I would expect them to take that phased approach. It is sensible for drivers of the private motor cars. It is sensible for the points that I have already mentioned to the convener in relation to the bus industry as well. Clearly, behavioural change will be an important part of that early conversation and phasing enforcement thereafter. I could not give him an exact date and timeline for enforcement, because that would be for Glasgow City Council to determine the proposals and for us to collaboratively agree. Thank you very much. We note the need for a phased approach. We are very grateful for the Greater London Authority and Transport for London sending us a submission on this regard where they much talk about a phased approach and the need for it. From that one can only imagine that it is going to be a very tight timescale and the fact that you are not able to give us a date for when the enforcement will begin. I would have thought that it would concern you because you are putting up the money and you would want to know when the results will be delivered. There is certainly a huge amount of people in industry, in transport, in the bus sector who would be absolutely critical that they know as soon as possible that they have a deadline that they are working to. We are committed to introducing Scotland's first law omission zone by 2018. The success of a law omission zone is not the amount of fines that are chalked up. In fact, the exact opposite is less fines than we know that it is working. The point of enforcement, of course, is absolutely important, but I think that a pragmatic approach is the submission that you have received from Greater London Authority will demonstrate that a phased approach is sensible. The money and the funding that we are going to put out, in my opinion, will go towards assisting with things like, for example, the infrastructure to assist with the enforcement. We have already discussed incentivising transport operators to green their fleet bus operators in particular, but it may also go to other elements of infrastructure as well. I do not have concerns about—I am not going to release the funding without a detailed conversation with Glasgow City Council on Donald Cameron's point about giving transparency around that. I think that it is a good one, but let us just not confuse that the success of an LEZ is simply down to, for example, how much fines it chalks up. That would be a wrong approach to take. You are confident, and I think that you said by 2018. By the end of 2018, that is what I would take from what you have just said. For introducing the law omissions zone? Right. That is not the enforcement by the end of 2018. That is not what will be—a phraised approach to enforcement will be necessary. I think that it is for Glasgow to come forward as a first law omissions zone to suggest when that enforcement would take place. Of course, we will do that in conversation and concert. Once there is some more detail and finality about that, we are able to ensure that that is very much in the public domain. Okay, thank you. I am just returning to something that you said earlier. You are confident then that all the infrastructure—there is time for the infrastructure to be put in place, the cameras, the signage—will be in place in that sort of timescale. I am presuming that that is probably a dafflady question, but the legislative framework will also be in place by then. That is a very reasonable question to ask, and the answer would be yes. We would expect, again, for the introduction of the law omissions zone, that the appropriate legislation would be in place, but also where appropriate the infrastructure would also be in place. Finally, should LEZs include private vehicles—I think that you alluded to that already with your remarks about John Lewis—and should emissions be reduced per passenger or per vehicle? On the question of the private motor car, I think that I have probably answered that, but just to re-emphasise that my steer to Glasgow and other local authorities that I have spoken to is to be as ambitious as possible. Again, understanding the need to phase and that all makes sense to me, but it is very important that they are as ambitious as possible. From a perception point of view, even the perception and presentation would look quite difficult, wouldn't it, if you had a Euro 6 bus in a law omission zone, but next to it was a 20-year-old land rover that was chugging out heavy emissions? It just wouldn't look great and it wouldn't really make much sense. Therefore, it certainly, to me, makes sense that you look at the private motor car, you look at busses, you look at any taxis and so on and so forth, you look at them holistically and in the round. Again, that will require, as I say, phasing in—understand that—and that will require some element of political courage, of course, for that difficult conversation. In terms of the per passenger, per vehicle, again, I will maybe refer to multiple officials. In that respect, my official is on the left here, but he will be aware that we have just concluded a law omission zone consultation that concluded at the end of last month. We have had something in the region of 600 responses to that, so we will analyse that. Of course, we will give feedback to the committee and Parliament, but I don't know whether Eitlin wants to add any more in particular on that issue. The consultation included questions around what vehicle types people felt should be included within LAZ, so we will analyse that. That is one of the questions that we will analyse in the consultation responses. What is the consideration around all vehicle types being included? That will feed into the national law omissions framework development in terms of guiding local authorities as they go forward. Have you any early thinking on that? What type of vehicle should be included, notwithstanding the consultation? I think that we will reflect back to Mr Yousas' point about anticipating local authorities being ambitious and taking account of all the vehicle types that they need to include to make sure that they can deliver the objective of the LAZ. That involves CEPA and the modelling and the science and the air quality issues being considered holistically. We are seeing Glasgow as probably the one that comes forward first. We have had some papers from Glasgow councils suggesting that a lot of it will be based on modelling and air quality predictions. If the Government is putting money into LAZs, what is the network going to do to ensure that we do not have, in five years' time, five completely different ways of implementing LAZs and five different databases and five different sets of cameras that do things in a different way? What sort of joined up approach are you going to have? What framework is there going to be to ensure that we, a bit like the role light of bin collections across the country where some local authorities have thrown money down the drain if they had only been a national framework to work within? There might have been some savings. With more emphasis on big data and whatever, what is the Scottish Government going to do to ensure that there is not public money wasted by everybody trying to reinvent the wheel every time they look at bringing in LAZs? That is a good question. It goes back to something that I said in my previous answer, which was that there has to be a fine line that is walked in relation to a national framework, which is important for all the reasons that the member has already highlighted, but it is allowing local authorities and local areas to have the flexibility, so one size does not always necessarily fit all. There has got to be a given a bit of take on that. It is a fine line, as I say, to walk in. I think that the member probably appreciates that. On the national framework, I do agree that there has to be some element of national framework in around that. If a local authority in the future wants to decide to implement a low-emission zone, which we would welcome, they have to be able to almost take off a shelf, at least some element of a national framework. The consultation is important for that, which I mentioned has had 600 responses, which is an excellent response to that consultation, so that will clearly give some element of high-level objectives that we have and expectations on the low-emission zone. I have already mentioned that the cabinet secretary is chairing a steering group that exists, a relationship group that exists between ourselves and the four biggest cities that have plans to introduce low-emission zones by 2020. Once Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, and the low-emission zones up and running by 2020 are introduced by 2020, I should say, then clearly that will perhaps set the tone, but they have to just be careful here because what might work for those urban areas as a low-emission zone might not always translate into working best for a rural setting, for example. I will remember that I will be more than aware of that particular point, so I just emphasise that it has to be a balance here between national framework and giving local authorities the flexibility to design a low-emission zone that works for them. The four cities leadership group is having its first meeting this month, so I think that once we have the four cities around the table, precisely some of those questions are liable to be part of what the discussion is. That does not necessarily mean that every other low-emission zone that comes there after is going to follow exactly the same model. I would imagine that that is likely to set the parameters within which it seems sensible. It is fair point to remember that some of the hotspots, some of the places on the hotspots list, would have been surprising to quite a lot of people. A low-emission zone that is being considered for parts of Glasgow or parts of Edinburgh is going to be quite different in requirements to a low-emission zone in some of the areas that are on that top 10 list in one of which I happen to live in. That is going to be a challenge because the challenge of managing, and some members will know what I am talking about, the challenge of managing that. It is going to be interesting. I am just on that subject, cabinet secretary. On Finlay Carson's point, developing that, would you welcome—notwithstanding what the minister has said about each local authority having the right to make its own decisions—a synchronicity of approach, as it were, between the four cities so that there would be a uniformity of approach where it is possible to achieve that? Would that be one of your high-level objectives? That is one of the things that will be a matter for discussion for the four cities leadership group because where possible people will want to iron out any inadvertent issues that might arise. Some of the things that Finlay Carson is raising are exactly the sorts of things that I should imagine officials and all the local authorities would be trying to avoid, because quite apart from anything else, we all know that if you are looking for technological input, economies of scale do come into it, so rather than have lots of different models and everybody buying different things, there is a potential purchasing advantage of choosing a single model. The thing that I was just trying to say in caution there is that there are some places where some of the fixes might have to be very different simply because of where they are. Minister, a few moments ago you used words like ambitious and political courage. I'm just wondering if we are serious and ambitious about tackling air quality. Should there not be a place for congestion charging and workplace parking webbies, albeit if it were possible to have a dispensation where car sharing is involved? Don't we need to take such steps, however unpopular or politically courageous they would be? Political courage is important for the reasons that I've already mentioned. Although people are very sympathetic on the air quality point, the actions that are needed to meet our ambitious targets on a local level and a national level are going to require some measures that some people will frankly not be so enthusiastic about. We already see some of that. I have spoken to some stakeholders when Glasgow has announced its first law mission zone, who, as I say, were not particularly enthusiastic about the economic impact that they perceive to be on their businesses. We have to make sure that we give them the counterargument, which is that if we get that right, that will bring more people into our city centres and buses can carry way more people than a car can, for example. We can get more bums on seats, more people go to their shops, more people go to their cafes and more economic regeneration for the city centres and our town centres. In terms of workplace parking webbies, for example, which is another measure that we have seen in the United Kingdom and Nottingham where my memory serves me correct, we made mention of that in the draft climate change plan. We spoke about workplace parking webbies. I have to say once again that I am heartened by the number of local authorities who have approached me—maybe I will be the same for the cabinet secretary, I am not sure—who have approached me and said, when are we going to start introducing the legislation around this? We are quite keen to explore this, we are keen to look at this, we are keen to learn from Nottingham and bring it up to XYZ local authorities. There is a real desire there to be a leader in some of this in Scotland, and I am very pleased about that. Condition charging, as you know, is not part of our policy. Low-emission zones have the ability to help us to get to our outcomes in a way that I think is palatable to the public, but also very ambitious. That is where the emphasis lies at the moment. In terms of the freight consolidation centres option, what progress has the Government made in exploring the role that that might play in assisting us in this journey? I have to say that the evidence on consolidation centres can be a bit mixed. A number of pieces of evidence will suggest that they are very good for an urban environment, but many others are suggesting that they do not quite have the impact that you might first envisage when you hear about them. Internal conversations are happening about freight consolidation centres. What I would say on freight, perhaps more, with more enthusiasm, is that our discussions about moving freight from road to rail are going very well. We are on the cusp of some really exciting projects, particularly on the timber front, but I think that there is a huge opportunity, and in Scotland's food and drink sector, as well as looking at whisky and other Scottish produce. We are, as I say, on the cusp without being able to say too much at this particular committee meeting, but we are on the cusp of some really exciting opportunities on freight. If we crack some of those, I think that it will really open the floodgates for a number of other schemes being developed. Obviously, we have Government funds in order to assist freight facilities grant and others to help to shift, as I say, freight from road on to rail. What are some of the specific negatives about freight consolidation centres? Again, others will be able to furnish the committee with a little bit more detail on that, but it is not that they are negative, it is just that perhaps they have not quite had the impact that people would have expected them to have. There are also some concerns from the business community, as you would understand, and so on and so forth, but mainly actually it is not about a negative, it is more that perhaps they have not quite had the impact. We are still viewing it with an open mind, I should say. I am not taking it off the table by any stretch of the imagination. If we are looking at other parts of the UK, where freight consolidation centres are, again, it is early days to take a definitive view on that, but it just maybe has not quite had the impact that people maybe necessarily would have thought. Let us move on to Claudia Beamish. Thank you, convener. Good morning to you all. I would like to turn our focus to active travel, which you have already highlighted, minister. I am briefly in your remarks. We heard from Craig McLaren of the Institute for Town Planning Scotland that although it is in CAFSA, I would like there to be more. I would like greater recognition of the role active travel can play. The doubling of the budget for active travel is a step in the right direction, but we need to make sure that it is used in the right way and that it has the maximum impact. It would be helpful if you could share with us your thoughts at this stage on that, minister, and also not to forget the national walking strategy as well, as that is a robust part of active travel. Yes, I would reiterate what the member said about the walking strategy, sometimes overlooked. It is the easiest form of active travel, really, is it not? You do not need too much fancy equipment for it, good pair of trainers, preferably, or if you wish to be a bit more energetic, hiking boots and so on and so forth. As overlooked, and just going back to what I said in the debate on active travel, when I had Sir Alex Ferguson come to my constituency to open, he was born in Govan, so I had opening a walkway in Govan. He had mentioned that when he was Manchester United manager, the best exercise that he could recommend as players was walking. As I said in the debate, Alex Ferguson is probably the greatest football manager in modern history after Jockstein, so it is a good point to raise. That was a bit gratuitous. On active travel, the emphasis from stakeholder groups has been that doubling of the active travel budget has been very welcomed, but we have to make sure that we spend it in the right way, so we get the absolute most bang for our buck. I had a very early conversation with the stakeholders that the member will be aware of and that she meets with them on a regular basis and I meet them on a regular basis, to start to tease out what some of that will look like. I would say that it does not mean that we have to chuck out everything that we have done before, because a large part of that money will be spent on infrastructure. I am a big believer that segregated cycling infrastructure in particular is really important to give people confidence to get on their bikes. There is a large part of the money that will be used on cycling infrastructure. Behavioral change, for sure. There is a lot of work for us to do, in my opinion, on behavioural change and emphasising the many benefits that cycling can promote, and not just the health benefits, which we talked about earlier, but the physical health benefits, obviously the mental health benefits. We are also trying to do behavioural change in respect to drivers, many of whom are cyclists themselves, but we are also, for example, doing businesses and saying, look, actually, if you have more of your employees, engage in active travel, you have a more productive workforce and so on and so forth. As the evidence bears out, there are many good examples of businesses doing that. Then there should be a focus, as the Liberal Democrat amendment in the active travel debate highlighted, on training and cycle training for young people. I am a great believer in early intervention. Then there will be some of that money that we talked about with the cycling lobbying organisations that some of that money should also be used on. As I would describe it, some out-of-the-box thinking, some let's trial some things in Scotland, that Scotland has always been a good test bed, and we should not be afraid of trying out some new initiatives and incentives to get people cycling and being active, whether that is through walking or cycling. I have tasked my officials to work closely with those cycling organisations to come forward. There is no lack of ideas or enthusiasm from them at all. Clearly, we are going to have to make sure that we get the most bang for the buck of that budget for the reasons that the member has already mentioned, that very ambitious vision that we have, but also for the importance of our health outcomes. I focus on the 10 per cent of journeys being made by bike by 2020. We have had comment when we took oral evidence on air quality, specifically recently, from Steven Thompson of Transport Scotland, who said, and I quote, colleagues in Transport Scotland seem confident about working towards that target. There are others, as you will know minister, who are far less confident. If you could highlight some of the ways in which you are confident, as well as your officials, of having highlighted that? The first thing to say, of course, is that it is a vision. It is going to be difficult, fully, except that I support that the member has made to me previously. If we get hung up on absolutely meeting that vision or that vision or that vision, we can be in danger of losing sight of the bigger picture. I do not get me wrong. We should absolutely be striving to get to that 10 per cent by 2020 without a shadow of a doubt. That is why we have seen, for example, the doubling of the active travel budget, which is popular initiative between myself and the member. However, there are many other people who have asked me, is that the right priority? I have been very robust in saying absolutely right, but that is a significant record level increase in that. That is why we have doubled the active travel budget. It is also why, as I said to the member, my previous answer, I have to ensure that I get the most bang for the buck because I want to try as hard as I possibly can to get us towards that 2020 target. It is going to be difficult, it is going to be absolutely challenging, but doubling the funding is certainly, in my view, going to significantly help us to get there. I should have declared an interest because I am a co-convener of the cross-party group for what is now cycling, walking and buses, which I think is important, moving on from the previous Parliament where it was cycling and that integration. Could I ask you specifically, minister, and whether the cabinet secretary has any comment on how you are working in your departments and in discussion with other portfolios to look at how active travel will help the air quality ambitions? It is certainly part of considerations without any shadow of a doubt. Another part of that conversation is looking at electric bikes. I am very keen that my officials explore the use of electric bikes alongside, as we say. We have a lot of emphasis on electric vehicles, but we should be looking at electric bikes. They can make what might be usually a difficult five-kilometre journey for some people very manageable and very easy, particularly in sometimes Scotland's more hillier landscape. That is part of the conversation and part of the emphasis. I am pleased that it happened to hear that the cross-party group also includes buses in its title and conversation. That was a point that was raised with me directly—I am sure that you won't mind me saying it—by the MD of McGill's buses, Ralph Roberts, who mentioned to me that he looked at a number of initiatives that he thought would increase cycle space on his bus. For example, RACs at the front is seen in some European cities, but apparently there is a regulatory or legislative impediment. I think that he suggested to me a UK impediment to that. I said to McGill that I would work constructively with the UK Government to try to see if we can work around that. I am really pleased, because integration of transport is usually important. That is why we have had numerous conversations about how to increase cycle spaces on trains and the new HSTs that will be coming in next year. I think that that issue is really important. I can give her an absolute assurance and guarantee that when we talk about low-emission zones, it is improving the quality that active travel is a very effective component of that. I wonder whether there is consistent level ambition from local authorities in implementing the measures that are needed to push for active travel. Let us take 20-mile-an-hour speed limits, for example. Government policy is to push 20-mile-an-hour speed limits in residential areas where cars mix with cyclists and pedestrians as well. There is an inconsistency. If you look at Dundee, as any couple of streets that have got 20-mile-an-hour zones, if you look in Fife, virtually every residential area has been designated as 20-mile-an-hour speed limits. Are there other issues in terms of consistency on that and other measures around Scotland? How do you push that? On the wider, I will address this point on 20-mile-an-hour speed limits, which the member obviously has a great interest in and has been doing a lot of work on in relation to his own bill. The general point on aligning policy is, hopefully, something that I answered previously when I answered a question from Donald Cameron, which was that there is not a magic wand for this kind of stuff. It is only going to happen through engagement, through focused steering groups that we already have, through holding events like I did jointly with COSLA to try to re-emphasise the message, and through where we may have appropriate levers through funding, for example, of low-emission zones and so on and so forth. There is no silver bullet or magic wand in order to have absolute 100 per cent alignment between what our ambitions and targets are and what our visions are with local authorities. However, we are working closely with local authority partners, regional transport partnerships and others to try to get to that position. In terms of the 20-mile-an-hour zone, it still remains the Government's position very much that local authorities should have discretion, because there are some local factors that may well make it absolutely right for local authorities to designate a road 30, as opposed to 20. Now, the member is aware of that, because I have noted in his own proposals that he is examining and exploring that issue as well in relation to a more blanket approach. I can just emphasise what I have already said to the member previously that I keep an open mind in government. On that, I do think that there are some practical and pragmatic issues that he will have to consider. Obviously, we will raise them with him in the course of the debate on his bill. I also welcome the opportunity that the member has given me to brief me on the over 2,000 consultation responses that he has had to his bill, which I understand are vastly in favour of his proposals, but I would be keen to speak to him one-to-one to understand a little bit more about that. I will say on 20-mile-prousons. Let's move on to Finlay Carson. I would like to move to tackling particular air quality hotspots. We have received written evidence proposing a range of measures on how to prioritise air quality improvement in certain areas, particularly those who have been in persistent breach of nitrogen oxides. We heard that Aberdeen City Council is suggesting that we should be more targeted. You have already said that there is not one-size-fits-all, and there may need to be a range of different actions to address particular hotspots. Out with the CAFs and out with what might be included in local air quality action plans, what quick wins do you see there being to tackle hotspots that could be included, for example, installation of green walls that would moss on them to absorb some of the pollutants, use of dust suppressants or even subsidised travel passes? If there were any really obvious quick wins, we would already be able to look to implementing them. There are some of the areas, particularly when I look at the top 10 lists of places where there are major issues, that there is not necessarily an obvious way that you could fix that. I made a very vague reference to the fact that I live in Creef. Creef is sitting there as one of the top six succeeding for particular matter. Creef's high street, which is what this is measuring, is part of a trunk road, so green walls are not good to work. One of the problems here is buses, choked into a small area, so increasing the number of buses at this particular moment worked so that I am not wanting to create a problem. If there was a really easy answer, we would be able to find it. The low emission zones, I suspect, are going to be the quickest, biggest win here. They are the ones that I suspect are going to create the biggest difference. Certainly, I would be hoping that those areas that are in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee, that are particularly bad, will see quite speedy benefits from them. That is much larger scale than what is being talked about. I may say that, where I live, rather astonishingly, for me, our bus timetables have just literally been doubled. What was an hourly service to Perth is now half-hourly, and what was a two-hourly service to Stirling is now hourly. The likelihood is that that is going to increase the number of people on the buses, but it also increases the number of buses. At the moment, there is the issue of trying to get buses moved over to green buses. Some things will not necessarily work in lots of areas where there will be some difficulties. I think that the bigger scale idea around something like low emission zone is what is actually going to deliver the biggest hits the soonest. You are not going to get a low emission zone and grief anytime soon, or in spring home and Crockett forward with the E75 travels through? Arguably, we have to come up with some kind of plan that we cannot simply ignore those areas. However, we all recognise where the biggest problems are. Most people will not recognise those as being nationally significant problems. I guess that is how people will look at it. The people do understand that Glasgow and Edinburgh and Dundee and Aberdeen are that. That is why, if there were very easy quick wins for the cities, which is where the biggest problems are, we would be finding them. The active travel debate is interesting, but I find it, and I am hoping that my colleague here does not mind me saying that. A lot of the walking cycling discussion tends to talk about walking and cycling as if it was recreational activity. That only works in terms of air quality if we are persuading people to replace their car journeys with the cycling. If we do not replace the car journeys with something better, it does not necessarily have the impact that we want it to have. There are lots of places and issues in which the interplay does not always work as best we might hope. That is why the notion of there being some simple magic wand quick wins. I think that we have to approach with a degree of caution, because it will not necessarily deliver the kind of results that we are wanting in the shorter term. If we are moving away from the big four again, is there enough of a joint up approach being considered? Can we consider accountability being written into the single outcome agreement or the joint health protection plans within councils? That is a matter for local authorities to consider whether or not those issues should be in their single outcome agreement. I certainly would like to see that if that was possible, but I do not think that we do not mandate the single outcome agreements. We talked to local authorities about the development of them. It is collaborative, but we are not imposing single outcome agreements on local authorities. Nor, I suspect, would local authorities welcome an attempt to impose single outcome agreements. However, that goes back to some of the conversations that we have been having about a wider engagement about a lot of those issues and ensuring that everybody involved understands the implications of some of the decisions that are being made. I think that we have three themes that we still want to cover. So, to start questions and answers, we will be welcome. David Stewart. Thank you, convener. You will know that we took some evidence from the Great London Authority and they were doing a lot of work around schools in disadvantaged areas, which are subject to very high pollution. Is there any work that the Scottish Government is doing around similar examples within Scotland? Well, we do not have specific plans related to schools particularly, but clearly there are schools that will be in part of these hotspots and so they will be a part of the discussion that is taking place in respect of low emission zones. We think at the moment our current monitoring programme is enough to pick up any particular issues. There is not an issue at every school. There are very particular areas where that might be a concern, but at the moment we absolutely recognise the issue of air quality on health and specifically the vulnerable groups that have the biggest impact, so that is not just the elderly with respiratory ailments, but young people with respiratory ailments. We think at the moment that the monitoring network across Scotland is the best way to use our resources. It means that monitors are located in the area of most concern and that might or might not include schools. To that, if I may, it is that people are aware of our guidelines, and they are guidelines around 20mph zones and schools, for example, and roads around schools, certainly being candidates for reducing the speed limit to 20mph zones, which is largely for road safety reasons, but obviously meet the equality objectives as well. I would say that, as part of the doubling of the AIDs travel budget, we are giving serious consideration about how we ramp up our bike ability. Some people are almost like a cycle of proficiency, but getting our young people in primary schools and getting them trained on their bikes both within the safety and sanctuary of a playground, but also giving them on-road training, which is part of bike ability. Can I go back to the cabinet secretary's point about monitoring? You know also that we took evidence from Ricardo Energy and Environment, and they made the point that they felt that there should be more automatic monitoring stations in Scotland. You know that there are currently 95, roughly three per council. Their criticism really was that the data is not good enough from the current diffusion tubes. I notice that it is a technical point, but perhaps it might be one for the officials to answer. Is it something that the Scottish Government is conscious of, the lack of automatic monitors and the lack of the poor data allegedly coming from the existing technology? Our view at the moment is that we are operating a comprehensive monitoring network. We could always argue or make an argument for the numbers of these stations to be increased exponentially, but you would then be increasing them perhaps in areas where the greatest need is not always. We are constantly keeping that under review. I also need to say that that is very expensive. Those are not cheap pieces of kit, so we need to think quite carefully about where they should be deployed. Do you have any response to the criticism about the poor data from the diffusion tubes? That is the current technology. I would have to ask for more specific technical briefing on diffusion tubes. Perhaps you could do that. The technicalities around that are correct. I was not expecting the Cabinet Secretary to do that, much as I admire the Cabinet Secretary's ability to be able to answer questions. The final point that I have, convener, is an interesting point. The legal requirement to protect people in local air quality management areas is vague and there is no penalty for failing to reduce harmful air pollution. Do you agree, cabinet secretary? There should be some legal recourse for a well. I think that one would have to be very cautious about that. One of the issues that we deal with is that the direct relationship to an air quality and public health, there are so many factors involved in that. It would be quite difficult, I think, to specifically narrow down for the purposes of a court action, which I guess is what is ultimately considered here. That, speaking from somebody given my previous profession as a lawyer, would allow endless get-out clauses? Well, do local authorities currently have powers to cut out spot checks and vehicles to ensure that they comply with air quality standards? My understanding is that they do. There is a kind of power to do precisely that and that there is financial support through the Scottish Government allowing them to undertake roadside emission testing, if they wish, and to target idling vehicles. Idling vehicles is the thing that I get quite a lot of constituency mail about and is one of those things that I think needs to be dealt with, I suspect, is the cause of some of the top 10 businesses that we're seeing. Will local authorities that have LEZs have more powers than other local authorities that don't have LEZs? That comes down to the consultation that's just taken place in terms of the legal framework, the national framework, and we'll come down to the scope. Different local authorities may well want a different scope, different enforcement measures and so on and so forth. I thought the John Scott's point around ensuring that the legal framework is in place for the introduction of LEZs was absolutely important and I've given a commitment that we'll certainly be working towards that as our commitment is to introduce our first low emission zone by 2018. I know something that the members pushed us on repeatedly as well. You might well have a different approach to enforcement, depending on how the local authority wishes to take forward a low emission zone. Our job and government is to hopefully ensure that legislative levers are there. Will that require primary legislation, or can you do this by statutory instrument or secondary legislation? Again, we'll have to look at what the consultation responses are, how far people want us to go, how far we need to go in order to get the outcomes that we wish to achieve, so if the member won't mind our reserve judgment on that specific. I'll look back at that, and once we have some early indications, I'll make sure that via the committee, convener, the committee is informed of our plans. John Scott and Finlay Carson On that point, we'll probably need to be introduced by subordinate legislation, and given the likely bottleneck of subordinate legislation coming through, could I just put on the record the thought at any rate that it would be well worth having this job done and dusted as soon as possible, given the Government and the Parliament's ability to deal with an expected increase in secondary legislation about the critical time that it's going to be required for LEZs? John Scott Some early work has already been done in terms of identifying the appropriate secondary legislation in order to just enable low emission zones to be introduced by 2018. I suppose my point was further to David Stewart's point, if that further legislation required primary, secondary in relation to enforcement or any other scope of low emissions that a local authority wants to bring forward. Clearly, we'd have to give that consideration and now take the member's point absolutely that clearly we'd need to move very, very quickly on that. In order to get the introduction of low emission zones, yes, the secondary legislation for that, we're well aware of and already conversations on how and when to take that forward. Briefly, Finlay Carson. Finlay Carson Thank you very much. Earlier in the sessions, we've had a number of witnesses saying that the amount of data that's available now, the information that's available through maybe the Met Office or automatic number plate recognition or looking at congestion charges, whatever. Given your statement that the cost of actual physical detectors and the lack of them or the shortage of them only three per council, there was a suggestion that there could be more joined-up thinking to produce better modelling, which would give indications of pollution and hot sports, whatever. However, there was a lack of anybody to facilitate joined-up thinking. Given the costs and the concerns regarding air quality, is that not something that the Scottish Government should be doing? Facilitating joined-up thinking with all the data that's out there to reduce the costs and monitoring air quality? The lack of shortage of phrases that you've used, they weren't phrases that I used. I did indicate that one could argue an exponential increase, whether that would necessarily help or not is another matter. I did say in response to a very much earlier question that SIPA was undertaking modelling work, which we think will be of assistance to local authorities, so it's not that those issues are not being looked at, they are. I would expect that there will be lively discussions at the leadership group and other forums about precisely that. Angus MacDonald, the issue of air monitoring stations and AQMAs, which have been raised just quite recently. The cabinet secretary and the minister may be aware that the committee visited Corsdorffan and the Corsdorffan Community Council in October, and a hastened ad that we travelled by service bus and 10 out of 10 to Llyrion buses for the service that they provide. There's an AQMA in place in Corsdorffan and a monitoring station. Now they've seen NO2 exceedances improve over the short period or over short periods of time, however the annual mean limit continues to be exceeded. The short term improvement has been put down to changes to the traffic flow at the adjacent junction, which you probably both know, and cleaner buses. However, the council officer that attended the meeting said that it's difficult to pinpoint the exact reason. With that example in mind, how can public bodies be certain that actions taken to improve your quality at known hot spots is being effective? I'm looking through the briefing because I know that in here somewhere there is an indication of areas where it is quite clear that actions have made a considerable difference, so those sorts of areas are important to emphasise to others. I'm just looking if you'll just give me a minute or two to pull up the relevant section. I know that I saw in the briefing a very clear list of places where one could argue that it was the actions taken as a result of the AQMA. St John's Road in Edinburgh is certainly one of those where one can point directly to improvements. There are others that have two, so that's not a one-off. Cooper and Fife is another area and, again, it's an interesting one that it's back to areas that are not necessarily in our city Grangemouth, where there's been a lot of collaborative work done, and I know that the member will probably have an interest in that particular area. Pathhead Midlothian, where Midlothian councils has actually been able to revoke their air quality management area, had been declared for domestic emissions of particular matter, but the revocation was took place after the village was connected to the gas grid. There are areas where specific actions have meant that AQMAs have resulted in very positive outcomes. The trick, I suppose, is being able to develop actions under AQMAs that fit very much for those very local circumstances. There might be some, and this goes back to the quick wins kind of argument, at the level of this kind of thing. There may be some issues that are quick wins, but we won't necessarily know all of them because they are being done at such a local local level. Okay, thanks. You rightly raised the issue of Grangemouth, where there was an S02 issue and exceedency is there. However, any of us did invest about £70 million in a software recovery unit, which clearly had a positive impact. Cooper and Fife, the changes came about because there was a change to traffic signal and the traffic flow was changed. That led to a reduction in nitrogen dioxide, so in very local areas it can sometimes be quite small things. Okay, thanks. We've also taken written evidence, which, ironically, blames the rise in air pollution on traffic calming measures by influencing acceleration and deceleration. For example, at many roundabouts, speed humps, pedestrian and cycling specific zones, and with apologies to Mark Ruskell, 20mph zones as well. I was wondering what your views would be on that. Can you say the first part of your question against what happened to Mr Ruskell? Sorry, we've taken evidence, which blames the rise in air pollution on the measures that they... I've seen some of that, and again my apologies to Mark Ruskell too. In our first meeting, which I'm sure he might be saying in the first meeting that we had around 20mph zones, I didn't make the point that there was some evidence that showed a rise, as he rightly said, or a worsening picture for air quality in relation to 20mph zones, but having examined and explored the issue in more detail, there's much more evidence to the contrary to that. For me, I think that we're absolutely going in the right direction here, doubling the active travel budget, low emissions zones, the work that we're doing on electric vehicles, and the ambitious programme that we have in relation to phasing out the need for diesel and petrol cars by 2032 and relation to 20mph zones. I'm aware of the evidence that Mark Ruskell talks about, but there's a lot more evidence to the contrary to that, so we'll continue to hold our position, but as I said to Mark Ruskell previously, just keep an open mind. One of the things that's happening across Scotland is the introduction of domestic wood burners and also in commercial premises biomass boilers. Clearly that's helping the CO2 agenda, but is it damaging particulates in SO2 and NOXIS? If so, what can we do? I think that, of course, there's a very attractive wood burners, so people want to have them, and I suspect that questions have been getting asked about this for quite a while. I think that we'd have to say that the modern versions of the stoves and boilers are probably sufficiently high standard to deal with some of those particular earlier questions. There is an issue about testing appliances in smoke control areas. I don't live in one of those, so I'm not quite sure how that operates. We're back to our friend planning, because there are usually permitted development rights, which means that local authorities don't have much of a handle on how many of those things are out there. Unless they're in an air quality management area, it'll be difficult for local authorities to really try and assess the impact, because they won't know the number of installations and therefore it's hard to monitor the impact. I think that this is one of the developments that suggest to us that the Clean Air Act does need to be updated, because the Clean Air Act predates the move and is back to some of the interrelationships between policies that, in a sense, have both a good and a bad side to them. I am aware that local authorities have recently completed a survey among themselves about complaints about smoking odour. I'm told that they're going to be writing to the Government about their findings shortly, so this is obviously something that is moving up the agenda. We are aware of it, but at the moment I don't think that there are any immediately obvious solutions. I think that this is final. We've got two members of the ministerial team in front of us today. It's suggested that a number of European countries are successfully doing things in agriculture that might help this agenda. Clearly, that's another minister's responsibility. My sort of open question is, can the ministers who hear identify others of their colleagues who can have a good side or a bad side effect on this particular agenda, so that, if necessary, the committee can engage with them too? Hi, well, quite. I think that the member knows perfectly well which other portfolio will have an interest in this, and in these circumstances it's probably helpful for the committee to raise it directly with that portfolio. We are aware that total annual ammonia emissions in Scotland are significantly impacted by emissions from agriculture, but, despite the automatic assumption that this is about green coos as opposed to non-green coos, the fact is that it's mostly from organic and inorganic manure application to soils rather than the coos themselves. In fairness to coos, I've often wondered if anybody had tried to measure the ammonia emissions from the human livestock on the planet, but I suppose that there's a difficulty about going there. So, lavender fields round Sallillage, can you do that? Can't you make one observation on Stuart Stevenson's point? I'm going to try to raise the tone after that remark. When I first became a minister a number of years ago, Minister for International Development, I was an external affairs in international development. I was sitting around the sub-committee on climate change that we had at the time. I was heartened then, as I am now, with the recent conversations that we've had around the draft climate change plan, that all the ministers that come in who have relevant portfolios to this. There's a very open discussion. There would be a temptation for ministers to put their arms around their portfolios and say no more, but there's a real collaborative working between ministers. Again, I won't divulge everything that's said in those meetings, of course not, but there's a real collaborative approach across the ministerial team here to say, look, we're all trying to get to the same place here and we have to, because we were committed to doing that. I think that you've seen that probably from the draft climate change plan. Yeah, the climate change plan, which is going to be published in February, will include issues related to that. I could advise the committee about current action that is being undertaken or looked at, but I will ask my colleague in the other portfolio if he would prefer to write formally to the committee to update the committee. Thank you. I think that that would be useful. There are obviously a number of follow-up items that we've identified today, and we'll have the clerks and your officials' ways to take that forward. I think that that's been a very useful extended session this morning. I thank you for your time, both of you. At its next meeting on 12 December, the committee will hear evidence from various stakeholders on the Scottish Government's draft budget 2018-19. As agreed earlier, we will now move into private session, and I ask that the public gallery be cleared as the public part of the meeting is now closed.