 I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place, and face coverings should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. The next item of business is a statement from Graham Day on decarbonising Scotland's transport. The minister will take questions at the end of his statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions in the call on the minister for around 10 minutes. The climate and nature emergencies are the starkest issues facing humanity. For Scotland to appropriately address these, it will require all of us across this Parliament and wider society to work together to transition to net zero and achieve the ambitious emissions targets set by this Parliament in 2019. As our biggest emitting sector, some of the biggest changes need to be made in transport. We have today published a decarbonising Scottish transport report detailing the findings of research conducted by element energy on behalf of the Scottish Government. This is the first sector-specific research undertaken since the climate change plan update was published in 2020. The report's findings show how challenging it will be to decarbonise transport because it is a derived demand where people live, work, learn and access goods and services are all key to the need to travel. It will take action across government and across society to reduce the need to travel and promote more sustainable modes of transport. The programme for government set out how we will confront the twin climate and nature emergencies to deliver a fairer greener Scotland. The report helps to show what that future could look like. The good news is that there is a way for transport to do its share of the heavy lifting, but it will require radical behavioural change. Technology offers many solutions and in some areas development is forging ahead at pace. The Government is helping to put Scotland at the forefront of innovation, investment and careers in the green revolution. Last year, we established a hydrogen accelerator at Sandwich University. That will increase the speed and scale of hydrogen transport deployments in Scotland by providing expert advice on technology assessments, business models and opportunities to connect research with application. However, the report is clear that technology alone will not achieve the transformational change that is required. As the UK Committee on Climate Change has stated, clearly demand for travel also has to be reduced. This research shows how reductions in car journeys are key to achieving our aims. This Government has been clear that the predominance of private car use, particularly single occupancy journeys, cannot be overlooked. That is why we have committed to and are working with local government partners to reduce car kilometres travelled nationally by 20 per cent by 2030. I hope to outline measures to achieve that later this year. This research shows why our 20 per cent commitment is necessary, but it is now time for us collectively to deliver on it. The memory of discretionary workplace parking levy legislation passing through this Parliament last session and the dogged resistance from some who were simultaneously calling for action to save the planet sits uneasily. The time has come for contradictions like this to end. Actions must match ambition for the benefit of our environment and our wellbeing. This Parliament voted for world-leading emissions reduction targets. This Parliament now has to support the tough choices needed to meet them. The benefits for communities that are less dominated by cars are well known. Improved air quality, better public health through greater exercise due to more active travel, reduced economic and social impacts of congestion and accidents and improved areas of civic space for recreation and children's play are all part of that. The burden of change cannot be left to the poorest members of our society. That requires action from all of us for all of us. Indeed, the report is underpinned by the just transition principle that all sectors and all users must either share to pay for the cost of transition. That means expecting more from some in terms of changing their behaviour, particularly those who create the most emissions in their travel choices. Transforming transport offers the opportunity to create a greener, fairer Scotland with an inclusive transport system, affordable, accessible public transport, enabling better access to local services, leisure opportunities and jobs. Yet there is no one-size-fits-all. We recognise the challenges associated with rural and remote communities or areas where there is no alternative to the car. That is not to allow anyone off the hook, but to recognise that that will require local and regional solutions, as well as national ones. We will continue to work with partners nationally and locally to identify what works best, but the pace of that work needs to pick up. In setting out what is required to meet our ambitions for transport decarbonisation, the report validates some of the existing policy decisions, the 2030 date for phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, supporting the swiftest possible transition to zero-emission buses, removing the need for new petrol and diesel heavy vehicles by 2035 and decarbonising Scotland's railways by 2035. Those are vital components of the pathway, yet to return to the key finding of the report, technology alone will not be enough to meet the challenge. We need to start making different choices and behaving differently if we are to meet our 2030 emissions target. For every day journeys, particularly within and between urban areas, walking, wheeling and cycling must become the default choice alongside a major increase in the use of public and shared transport. Young people are already leading the way on this, and we all need to try to follow their example because they are showing us the future that we all need to get to. To support that, we will provide nationwide free bus travel for Scotland's young people aged under 22, from 31 January next year. That will benefit around 930,000 young people and build in our comprehensive package of funding, legislation and support to make travelling by bus a more attractive and default choice. People will only change behaviour if they are supported and enabled to do so, and bus is particularly important in all of this. We are also investing in infrastructure. By 2024-25, we will be spending at least £320 million or 10 per cent of the total transport budget on active travel. We are providing better information on transport options through mobility as a service, and we are supporting the development of 20-minute neighbourhoods where residents can meet their day-to-day needs within a 20-minute walk of their home. Scotland can and will do its bit, but we are also going to require others to help facilitate the actions that are needed. Those findings make it clear that a range of reserved and internationally regulated areas exist where focused action is going to be required. We are aware that we need to disincentivise car use to encourage people to make those more sustainable choices, but the more direct leavers here—fuel duty and vehicle excise duty—are reserved. We need the UK Government to play its part and use the powers that it has to support all of us in that endeavour. It must also work with us on those issues in a way that respects the constitutional settlement and we implore them to engage meaningfully. A true four nations approach allowing for the needs of communities across the length and breadth of the UK is a necessity. The report also makes it clear that on aviation, the scale of the challenge before us means there are no easy solutions. As the research suggests, without a reduction in aviation demand, the transport sector will not be able to achieve its emissions envelope for 2030. We will need good direct air connectivity in the future, not least to support inbound tourism and sustainable economic growth, but demand will have to fall. That is the message of this research. In Scotland, air connectivity provides a vital link for remote communities to access essential services, and it is crucial for our tourism sector, trade and particularly in the exports of key Scottish products. Decarbonising aviation will be challenging, but there are early and encouraging signs of progress. Just last month, the first ever hybrid flight in the UK took off from Wick and landed at Kirkwall Airport. An example of the work under way at the sustainable aviation test environment in Orkney led by Highlands and Islands airports, the UK's first low-carbon test environment for aviation. Of course, there has to be a strong element of international effort in all of that. Later this year, we will launch a public consultation to develop an aviation strategy for Scotland. That consultation will acknowledge the need to reduce the environmental impact of aviation. We intend for that aviation strategy to have decarbonisation and cutting emissions at its heart, but at the same time we cannot put Scotland at a global economic disadvantage. There are still substantive economic and social benefits from aviation. The Scottish Government could have rejected the findings in its research. We could simply have noted them, set them aside and ignored them, but that would have been incredibly full hardy. We cannot shy away from the difficulties that are set out here if we are to ensure that the emissions from transport are cut so that we might meet our statutory climate change targets. We cannot exclude any sector from that work. We must look at them all individually and collectively to determine the best way to decarbonise how we travel. With COP26 just over a month away, that report makes clear the scale of the challenge ahead of us. We are committed to cutting emissions in transport at an unprecedented pace and transforming how we will all get around in the future. I urge members of all parties to work with us constructively to achieve that transformation. The minister will now take questions on the issues raised in his statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions, after which time we will move to the next item of business. Can I ask members who wish to ask a question, whether to press the request-to-speak buttons or place an R in the chat function if they are joining us online? I call on Graham Simpson. I thank the minister for advance sight of the statement. There was very little new in the statement, although the report makes for interesting reading. The Scottish Government wants half of diesel buses to be replaced by lower-emission buses by 2023. Bus operators are telling me that the target has no chance of being achieved, so how was that date arrived at if it was not at the back of a cigarette packet? There are problems with getting the charging infrastructure in place. One operator that I have spoken to is using diesel generators to charge electric buses. You could not make it up. What is the minister doing about the infrastructure issue? Rural buses travel longer distances. That makes electric vehicle charging even more challenging. Will the minister say whether there will be any additional support for rural operators to help? There is a further issue with getting new buses built. The report mentions that. It also calls on the Scottish Government to work with bus builders across Europe, so that does not excuse using taxpayers' money through the Scottish low-emission buses fund to buy buses, probably subsidised, built in China and not in the UK, let alone in Europe. What will the minister do to prevent that happening again? It is always good to hear Mr Simpson's glass half-full approach. Let us deal with as much of this as I can in the time that I have. At the core of this is the work with the bus decarbonisation task force. If Mr Simpson had the privilege of attending that, he would see what a constructive forum that is in terms of the input from bus operators, bus manufacturers and other financial providers who are supporting the work that is going on. We also have the energy providers involved in this. I recognise that he is right to point to the challenge around this target. It is a challenging target, but we are ambitious about what we are trying to achieve here. This work is creating jobs, because the overwhelming majority of the buses that have been supported by Scottish Government funding are built to ADL-Dennis, which I have the privilege of visiting next week. I also want to pick up on the point about rural buses, because it is a good point. That is something that has been discussed in the task force. We have a separate workstream being developed currently to look at the needs of rural providers and the smaller bus operators who cannot get that economy of scale with the double decker buses. There is some work being done on that particular point at the moment. I thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. With COP26 just over a month away, the report is a reminder of the challenge before us. Public transport must make a substantial contribution to meeting our net zero ambitions, but, frankly, public transport under the SNP Government is a joke. The total number of annual bus passenger journeys is down 120 million a year since the SNP came to power. Will the Government therefore finally give councils the resources that they need to reassert public control over local bus services and help them to provide the routes and fares that people and communities want? Why have they not taken stakes in the private bus companies that they have had to bail out? Does the minister not agree that the Scottish Government has to be bolder on concessionary travel for our young people and extend free bus travel not just to under-22s but to all of Scotland's under-25s? How can the transport minister justify how his massive cuts to ScotRail services can possibly encourage more people to leave the car at home and take the train? There was an equal predictability about some of that as well. On the issue of the ScotRail thing, we could rehearse yesterday's embarrassment in here with Labour calling for spend, spend, spend, with no hint of where the money was going to come from in the midst. I have to say to Mr Bibby that he sounds like a 1970s Labour MP. It is quite ridiculous some of the stuff that we are hearing from those benches. Let's listen to the minister's response. I have common cause with Mr Bibby. He is right to talk about bus usage. We need to drive that. There is a real challenge here, because buses are going to be key to getting the poorer elements of society on to public transport. We need to do a lot more work in that space and be innovative. That is why the bus partnership approach is not just about councils. It is about the bus partnership approach that offers so much potential around that. On the under-25s, of course, we can continue to look at extending that, but there is a bigger picture issue here about how we get people on to buses, and it will require a great deal of thought. On the ScotRail, we face some immediate challenges, short-term challenges, where we need to stabilise because of the financial challenges of the pandemic, but the commitment to public transport in the medium to long-term remains there. John Mason will be followed by Liam Kerr. The minister used the phrase radical behavioural change in his statement. Of course, there has been radical behavioural change because of Covid and the pandemic. Does he think that we can build on that in some way to go forward? In the short term, we may get some assistance from that in terms of what we need to achieve, but we will need to see how work and travel patterns settle down before we fully understand it. A lot of uncertainty has been generated by Covid around transport. Future trends, behaviours and commercial considerations are very difficult to forecast what will be required at the moment, but we have a certain number of challenges in the next eight, nine or ten years that we will have to rise to. We will have to cotton on to the travel patterns that emerge quite quickly, and in some cases anticipate those based on what we have seen during the pandemic to stabilise things, to get ourselves in shape and then have the capacity to build on that, both in terms of rail and indeed on bus. To help achieve that behaviour change, the Climate Change Committee suggests that we need 30,000 eV charge points in Scotland by 2030. There are currently 2,558 public charge points. Transport Scotland says that we need over 4,000 new public charging stations each year over the next decade. I see nothing here to answer that challenge. Can the minister help me out here? Is there an eV charge point plan to show that the minister's actions will match his ambitions? Indeed, and it is evolving. I am sure that the public looking in on that realise that this is a very serious issue, and yet we have petty party politics in dominating this. On the issue of eV charging points, there is a point in this process at which we cannot continue to use public money to fund everything. We are already seeing private sector money being brought forward. We are seeing that there is a major company that has announced 50,000 points across the whole of the UK. The point here is that the role of government is to ensure that any additional eV charging networks that come forward are in the right place and available to everyone, be it in rural settings, maybe in tenement settings in wreath, that it is not simply the easy option that is taken by those who are providing it, whatever sector they are in, and that work is on-going to ensure the stability of the eV. There is very much a plan. Clearly, one of the major challenges to decarbonisation of transport is how we introduce and scale up the use of hydrogen in transport, particularly trains, buses and potentially shipping. What progress can the minister report on how the Scottish Government is driving this forward? Talk about opportunities. Hydrogen is very much at the heart of this. There is a lot of potential. The Scottish Government has already invested more than £15 million in hydrogen transport demonstration projects to develop the tech and the business models. I mentioned earlier the hydrogen accelerator at St Andrews University, but I also had the pleasure of visiting the hydrogen train under development at Bones. We are going to continue to work with transport energy in other sectors, and there is a lot of potential, as I should have said, in hydrogen terms. To identify pathways towards introduction of hydrogen at scale across the network, we have a hydrogen action plan being developed for publication later this year, which will outline in detail what we intend to do over the coming five years to recognise this potential. Does the minister acknowledge that the Government's plans for electrification of railways exclude many parts of the network, for example the stretch from Gervan to Stranraer? There are genuine fears over what that means for the long-term commitment to those routes, which are already facing significant cuts and services from next year. Surely we need to have a long-term commitment to a rolling programme of electrification, which goes up to 2035, but also beyond, until we get 100 per cent electrification of the network. I welcome that question from Colin Smyth, but I think that he is absolutely right, and that is what we are setting out to achieve. I am a little bit concerned. I hear about his concerns about Gervan. I will look into that and come back to him on it. As far as I am concerned, there is a plan there to deliver across the network. Decarbonisation will not simply be in the form of out-and-out electrification. In some locations it will involve hydrogen, in some locations it will involve battery storage. Currently, 75 per cent of passenger journeys are on electrified, decarbonised lines. The aim, of course, is to get to 100 per cent and also to get free at the heart of that. I undertake to come back to Colin Smyth on that point. Thank you. I call Audrey Nicholl, who is joining us online. She is followed by Beatrice Wishart, who is Nicholl. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Do what degree will Scotland achieve in its targets be dependent on policies that only the UK Government can deliver and international agreements? We are constrained by current devolution. A number of key areas remain reserved and we require urgent action. It has been disappointing the lack of meaningful engagement on, for example, fuel duty, but we will continue to press the UK Government for this. That is also about international agreements, as Audrey Nicholl pointed out. We need an international policy approach. COP26 presents an obvious opportunity to do that, but there is other dialogue, specific to sectors such as aviation and shipping, going on. What we need is an approach that globally recognises the challenges that we face on transport, but I reiterate that Scotland is very much ready to do its part. One final point with regard to the UK Government. I intend on the back of this report being published today, writing to UK Government ministers, drawing their attention to the report, highlighting to them where urgent attention is needed to reserve the areas and requesting meaningful engagement with Scotland on those matters. After years of missed climate targets and with emissions from transport unmoved since 1990, now is the moment for the Government to rapidly accelerate measures to decarbonise transport, the biggest polluter in Scotland. The minister says twice that demand for aviation must fall if transport is to do its part in meeting Scotland's climate targets. Why then does the Scottish Government continue to hold a contract with Heathrow in support of a third runway, a contract designed to deliver 75,000 more flights to Scotland from London, and with it, 600,000 tonnes of extra emissions? Now that the Scottish Government has said that aviation demand must fall, will it cancel that contract? Let me respond to that point. We are going to have to accelerate measures, so there is no doubt about that. However, as I said in my opening statement, there is a balance to be struck here with aviation for the important role that plays in the country's economy. On the issue of Heathrow, the Government is in the process of developing an aviation strategy with all parts of the aviation sector. We will reflect on everything that goes into that in terms of connectivity and the challenges that that poses, and we will produce a strategy that will reflect the future needs of Scotland and our need to respond to the climate emergency. Clearly, cutting emissions in aviation is going to be challenging while also trying to sustain connectivity. What role can technology and decarbonisation play in that? The member is right that those are challenging objectives, but it is essential that we undertake them. We should be inspired and intimidated by the long-term challenge. In the context of aviation connectivity, I want to offer a bit of reassurance here. I said last week that Transport Scotland's aviation teams are doing a lot of work to restore connectivity. However, where it is doing that is seeking to ensure that its greener aircraft are involved as a starting point in that. By way of example, the recent announcement by WestJet that all our connectivity in Canada in 2022 will be in the latest generation aircraft significantly reducing emissions compared to 2019. There is a lot more going on in the aviation sector, not least of all in your neck of the woods, whereas there are some very heartening developments on electric flight. You will find that that happens a lot, minister. Maurice Golden is to be followed by Mark Ruskell. The upcoming rapid expansion of electric vehicles, while welcome, has the potential to increase levels of non-exhaust emissions owing to the increased vehicle weight exacerbating tyre and brake wear. Can the minister confirm if research will now be carried out on how electric vehicle uptake might impact non-exhaust emissions? I should acknowledge that the member has raised that with me in written parliamentary questions over recent times. The answer to his question is yes. I think that nothing should be ruled out now. We clearly have some policies that have been acknowledged as being appropriate, but there will be others that we need to develop. I am happy to commit to to seek some further information on that and to engage directly with them on it. Thank you, minister. Mark Ruskell to be followed by Stephanie Caller. For years, Greens have highlighted how the relentless growth of aviation is wrecking the climate, so I warmly welcome this major shift from the Scottish Government, a recognition based on science that aviation demand will have to fall if we are to have any chance of meeting climate targets. Can I ask the minister if he agrees with me that domestic mainland flights often undermine demand for intercity rail services and that that must be factored into the forthcoming aviation strategy? All things should be factored into the aviation strategy, but also in there is the opportunity that arises from low emission fuels that are being developed globally. Is there an opportunity there? There is a target across the world to have 10 per cent of flights undertaken by those fuels by 2030 and an ambition to go further. On domestic flights, I hear what Mark Ruskell says, but rail is not available to everyone if you live on an island. I must say a number of colleagues here who represent islands. Ferries or aircraft are the only means of connectivity. If one considers the example that is being developed in Orkney just now with electric, hybrid flight initiating then electric, there is a real opportunity and an ambition in the part of this Government to decarbonise our aviation sector domestically. I will get back to you in the low emissions ferries later. Stephanie Callaghan, to be followed by Paul Sweeney. The minister will be aware that in the last climate change bill process, Opposition parties were keen that government goes further and faster, and there was support across the chamber for the ground-baking statutory targets set in the legislation. What message does the minister think the sector-specific research provides for the Opposition? The same message that it sends to the Government. That was a collective decision to set those targets. We have a collective responsibility to achieve them. The Parliament set the targets. The Parliament recognised that transport was a significant, a very significant emitter. We are going to have to have some grown-up dialogue about how we tackle that. As I said earlier, sitting here voting for challenging targets and then in no time at all supporting measures that completely fly in the face of them is hypocritical to say the least. The report stipulates by 2030 that all 3,800 buses manufactured prior to 2015 must have been scrapped or repowered if we are to meet those 2030 targets. I press the minister further on a clear commitment to link up the opportunities with Scotland's manufacturing industries to ensure that we reap the benefits of that. We saw the Calary railway works in Springburn closed just two years ago, and the Scottish Government stood by glacally doing nothing on that one. Can the minister commit to building all those buses in Scotland and restarting train building in the way that the Welsh Labour Government has done in Wales? One does not wave a magic wand in settling manufacturing capacity in the edges. That is not going to happen in the real world. However, we have demonstrated very clearly our commitment to the Scottish industry with the work that has gone the way of Alexander Dennis on the bus front, and we have also done a lot of work on the retrofitting opportunities that exist on buses. I hear Mr Simpson chunking from a seriatory position. Let me repeat from the overwhelming number of buses. More than 200 were manufactured in Scotland. Surely even he can find it in his heart to welcome that. Thank you very much Minister. That concludes questions on the statement, and we move to the next item of business. I will allow a short time for the front benches to change.