 Efallai, i chi'n g todasiaeth i chi'n zeithio i ei wneud, a gweithio gyda'r rhai oedd sydd yn gweithio i chi'n gweithio i chi'n gweithio i chi pethau'i glasadau. Erth cyn i gael, rai'n siaradau i chi ddim opogledio i chi oedd Mark Ruskell, felly dnewch â'r cylyn. mae hi wedi gydag ymddangosahodd ei wneud gweld. Mae'r gwaith ym raddwysus gwneud yn bwysigio'r cyfnod aethau panell cŵis, a oes cymryd cyfrofiadau yn gyrgyrchu eu cyfrofiadadau cyfrofiadau cyfrofiadau cyfrofiadau cyfrofiadau cwis yn cymru, stalu gymrif i ni i gynnig ymdagedd grandfatheri sydd wedi gweld yr oedden nhw ym hyn o'r cyfrofiadau cyfrofiadau yn cyfrofiadau cyfrofiadau cyfrofiadau. Pl poreidwch 23 oes gan gyddiwyr i'r cyfrofiadau panel convened over two residential weekends and held two online sessions in February and March, where it gathered evidence from a variety of witnesses. On 11 April, the panel reported its findings and recommendations. On our meeting today, we will discuss the report with a selection of representatives from the panel. Thank you all for joining us. We are delighted to have you here. I think the last time I saw you all, you were about to engage on your work and I was shooting off so I could watch the rugby matches. So a lot's happened since then. I'd like to thank you on behalf of the committee for your dedication, which has proved it in hard work and proved it in the report which you presented and we've read with great interest. So what I thought I'd do is start off with the panellists and come to you, Karen, first of all, and ask you just to introduce yourself and say where you're from and then I'm going to ask the committee so you know all of the committee where they're from. So Karen, do you want to start off by saying who you are and where you're from? No, I'm Karen Shakespeare and I'm from Ayrshire. That's down in the west coast. Kevin Rorte, originally from Edinburgh, now living in Paisley. Hello. I'm Malil, I'm based in Edinburgh. David. Yeah, hello, I'm David Harald, I'm from Strumnus in the Orkney Islands. Hello, I'm Louise Franklin and I'm from Eastin Bartonshire. Hello, I'm Scott Critching and I'm from Edinburgh. Thank you. Right, we'll just get around the panel. I'll start it off. I'm Edward Mountain, I'm the convener of the panel and I come from and represent the region of the Highlands and Islands region. Ben. Good morning and good to see many of you again. I'm Ben Macpherson, I'm the member of the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh Northern and Leith constituency and also deputy convener of the committee. Hi everyone, nice to see you again. Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland region, a member of this committee and I live in Blantyre in South Lanarkshire. Good morning everyone, thank you for coming along today. My name is Bob Doris and I'm the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow Mary Hill and Springburn. Good morning panel, my name is Douglas Slumstone, MSP for North East region and I live in Aberdeen. Sorry, Jackie, I shouldn't have pushed the button, I forgot you were here. Jackie, my mistake. Good morning, I'm Jackie Dunbar, I live in Aberdeen and I'm the MSP for Aberdeen Donshire. Right, thank you and I've just proved the point that you don't need to touch any buttons because the gentleman over there will make sure the buttons on your microphones are activated. So I made the mistake, none of you will, that's all perfect. I just wanted, before we move into specific questions, probably in the same order to just go through, to ask you a brief reflection on your views on what you've been doing. So Karen, do you want to go? For me personally I find it quite exciting to be asked about it and being asked to join in, simply because I work several jobs in several different places. For people asking me to have an electric car that I can't afford to buy, let alone even rent or anything else, is utterly ridiculous for me personally. And then for people wanting me to change things about my house that I can't afford, I'm really not into that. I don't mind helping the climate change and doing my piece that I can afford to do and that I can do and I can feel that it's quite a lot of other people in the country that would be in my position. So I felt it was really important that I took part so I could raise those issues that maybe other people are unable to really see or reflect or even understand, so that was important for me to put my voice in. I'm a big fan of the concept of deliberative democracy. I hadn't heard of it until I came along to the panel for this sort of topic. I thought that it was an ideal way to engage. I really hope that the pilot panels have proved useful to both the public and the Parliament that it will be further rolled out on a further subject, but I enjoyed the experience and it's very worthwhile. Just to echo my fellow panellists, it's an exciting process to be engaged in and being asked to come and be part of the deliberative just democracy process. I felt included. Usually people feel a distance from the parliamentary process and parliamentary politics, so it's a good step to take. Again, we reiterate the fact that deliberative democracy is a gift to the people of Scotland and it's electorate. In Scotland we appear to be ahead of the game compared to many countries. We had evidence through a sessions of citizens assemblies and the like, but many of them seemed fairly cumbersome and unwieldy. In the people's panel, we felt representative, relevant and listened to by the PACT team. If I may go on to add to the task that we were set on this subject of top-down communication, I feel that we'll maybe move on to this, but I feel that if we were marking the Scottish Government, it would probably be a solid B minus. Probably with the comment that much good work has been done, but much more is needed. For context, to back that up, I would say when you have a sizable minority within my own group who by the very presence are already engaged in the subject matter yet who haven't even heard of heat pumps or know how about the effectiveness or the importance in the whole message, you can see why we think there's still much to be done. Finally, what I learned from the process, and probably having been self-employed most of my days, I often think that the best committee is a committee of one, but that was absolutely not the case here. I learned not to be cynical of this process. I must confess to being fearful that of us all eventually adopting a group, I think, not in dog type mentality, however my experience couldn't be further from this. It's been enlightening, fascinating at times, but most of all a fairly compelling journey through a democratic process, the results of which we hope that you will find informative, honest and helpful in your quest to assess the Scottish Government's progress in this most crucial off-topics. I would reiterate the things that David and the other panellists have said, but the reason I came along to this is because I had to retire through ill health, so I really felt that I needed to do something that would bring me back on board with working for and with other people. I found this an exciting and interesting area because I didn't know very much about it at all. I'm ashamed to say that I now know an awful lot more, and there's lots more to learn, but as David was saying, I'm one of the ones who didn't know what a heat pump was. I didn't know a lot of the things that are going on in the country, and I found the whole thing quite enlightening. I'm quite impressed with some of the initiatives that are happening in Scotland, and I think that we're particularly in Orkney, where David is from. They seem to be trailblazers and really pushing things, but there's still a lot of work to do, and I'm mindful of some of the things that Karen was saying about there are people, many people, and it's not just the people who are on low income, people on day-to-day income. Those initiatives, some of them, are very expensive and unaffordable, so we need to look at that. I've learnt about recycling, about heat pumps, about how climate targets are not being met at the moment. I've learnt that there is not enough information available in primary schools, libraries, community centres and other public areas. I think that community climate hubs are a necessity. The panel has helped me so much, but I want to give advice to MSPs about what I've learnt. For example, I think that there needs to be more climate hubs. The main reason for that is for future generations of the people of Scotland who are going to suffer because of climate change. Thank you all for your contributions. I now have the difficult thing, because, unfortunately, committees are not panels of one, David, otherwise I'd be able to ask all the questions. I wouldn't upset my fellow committee members when I didn't let them in to ask questions. What I'm going to say to you is that I'm going to try and get as many questions in as possible. I know that you'll all want to answer every question. Sadly, you can't do it, because I just haven't got the time to bring you all in, but I want to bring as many in as possible. I would ask you to keep it short. In the last committee, I used to have a thing where I waggled my pen when I thought you got to the stage where I was trying to attract your attention to shut up. The danger was that I was going to let go of it and it might come in your direction. I promise it won't, but if I'm looking at you and going like that, that means I want to bring somebody else in. It's all about management of time. I'm going to get the first question. You were asked to assess how effective the Scottish Government was in engaging with the public on climate change and our climate change target. What were the panel's overall conclusions and the effectiveness of the public engagement strategy? I'm going to say who would like to start off on that. If you want to start off on that, you've got two options. Raise your hand, and if you don't want to be in it, look the other way. Scott, you had your hand up first, so we'll go to you first. We heard from so many important people, for example, the case studies that were heard about from Isartas, the director of action for climate empowerment observatory in New York. We heard about some of the impacts of climate change that is happening now, and around the world. For example, how it affects animals, their food, their life and their health. All those impacts have touched my heart and have learned that they are impacting us now, so we need to do something about it right now. We need to save the next generations of Scottish people. We learned from the climate hubs that they needed three years' funding to help them do their job, and then that will help communities more. That's good, and it focuses on us. Kevin, are the Government doing enough? It could do better. The question that I understood was how well are we communicating? Now, for me, there was a lot of good work going on that I was unaware of, so, clearly, it's not being communicated as well as it could be, so I would encourage a more wider celebration of the good things that are going on, rather than only people immediately in that area are aware of it, so it could do better. David, I suggest that you'd said B-minus. Do you want to amplify on that? That came about from what I probably touched on there, from what is an engaged representative group across Scotland. I felt just because I lived there not anything to do with me personally, but I was much more aware of a lot of the things that my fellow panel members really hadn't been aware of. Kevin said that there is a lot of information out there, but it's a top-down approach. I don't think that it's not working at all, it's just not working well enough. When the things that Scott touched on with the climate hubs, that's a great resource for you guys—for goodness sake, fund them. It helps people to give them that trust to engage at a local level and give them a point of contact to help them with things like explanation heat pumps and things like that. It's useful, and I think that recommendation 4 that you made in your report was such that we've got to get the message out there. I'm going to move to other people with questions. I'm going to come to the deputy convener, Ben. Thanks, convener. That follows on well from what you've said and what the convener said. You made three recommendations on the theme of communication, and I was just wondering if you can tell us a bit more about the evidence that you heard to suggest that the Scottish Government could do more to improve its communication on climate change. A consistent positive media campaign was recommended because there doesn't appear to be one just now. There are pockets of good work that's going on. It will be on the local news, maybe in the local paper, but not everybody is aware across Scotland that these important things are happening in Scotland. It's about widening the communication rather than keeping it limited to the locality where those works are going on. Do you think that there's a responsibility on the media to amplify some of the good work that's going on? If the Government is seeking to raise awareness of it, that's only one part of the story that the media has then got to take it forward and tell that story. That would certainly help. There's no doubt about it, but even if there was a central store of archival materials clips so that something happening in Orkney, for example, people in Bathgate could find out about it. If you happen to be watching the news when that comes on, you'll catch it, but what if you were working or you didn't see the news, you were at the football or whatever, then it's about how do you keep that message hanging around so that people can access it, and again, one of our other recommendations is about utilising libraries and existing spaces that people are going where, whether it's a newsletter or an update, or even a terminal in a library, where you could access this material. I think that it was mentioned earlier that a lot of good information is out there, but it can be quite tricky to find, and if there was a way to try and make that easier for people who have an interest in the topic, to come in and find the resources, this is what has been done, this is what we plan to do, etc. I'm very keen to get everyone in, and you made reference to learning more about what was going on. Do you think that this would be a positive way of doing it? There are reasons why people are not taking this all on board, and we need to look at that, and some of it is to do with the way that we are putting it across to people, so we need to look at different ways of approaching getting the message out there. I'm looking at, for instance, the youth where maybe we should be using more, and I know we do some, but we might need to use more TikTok and all these kind of modern things that I know nothing about, but you know, these kind of ways of getting them to come on board. Also, one of the things that we did notice was people were saying face to face, you know, communications with people to try, and it's not always let's go and look at something, let's go and go through the computer and things. I do think that it's useful. I mean, I think that there's lots of different opportunities that we could look at, but we don't need to reinvent the wheel. There is a lot out there, and we can, I think it would be good to harness those things and share them amongst us, and that's why Scott's ideas about the community hub is good, because there's lots there, and that wouldn't be, you know, the funding wouldn't be so much because we can utilise what's already been done and add to it rather than start again, you know. Thanks, Llewsyn. Karen, you were wanting to come in as well. Yeah, I think it's really important that we actually remember that positive messages are more important than negative doom and gloom stuff, so I know climate change is really important, and people are very focused on the doom and gloom of it, but I do think that we should be really positive about what we are achieving as a country, and yes, key areas that are doing really well, but even celebrating the small achievements that small towns or cities or villages make is really important to the whole country and the whole dynamics of everything, so positive messages would be more positive in the end result for you. Agreed. Thank you, my points have already been covered mainly by Louise. I think that covers all the communications areas that we had, the convener. Okay, I mean, I just wanted to push a little bit, if I may, back to me, I'm afraid. Just the evidence that you heard over your weekend's engagement with the Parliament, how much of that was new and how much of that do you think we could have heard of through other means rather than you coming here? How are we going to get that message out to everyone? How's government going to get that message out to everyone? Yes, I think that we need to do a lot more, so people learn about public transport, train stations, bus stations, just general transport, so we can see what's actually happening, because there's a lot of people that don't know about climate change. A lot of people would just say, oh, that's it, it's nothing that we can do, but I'll leave it to somebody else to deal with it. But I think that everybody of Scotland has got a responsibility to do that a bit and to save the climate and to help it and to slow it down for future generations of Scotland. I totally agree that that is critical. How are we going to get that message out there? Does anyone have any other things that weren't in the report? I mean, there's various things that you've come up with. Does anyone want to add to that? Louise, do you want to add to that or not? You talked about using the arts, music, arts, creating different things to demonstrate it, to capture people who wouldn't normally engage in, as I say, written things. There's lots of things out there, lots of media that we can use. One of the things that I did notice is that one of the groups in Africa had utilised the grandparents. They have a special role as a kind of matriarchal society, and they had the grandparents telling stories about how things were playing out for them and what changes they needed to do. Because it was more of a family in a community thing, people tended to take it more on board. There were some interesting case studies that we looked at that helped us with that. I was looking over the notes the other day, and I was thinking, gosh, there's so much. What will we say here? There is so much. I'm sorry, but I think that, Karen, you mentioned about doing good news stories, not bad news stories, but having to reinforce the message to get across. Has there got to be some sort of, if we don't do this, this is what's going to happen? Have we got to do something a little bit, give the negative side to say how we can develop the positive? David, do you want to come in on that, or Karen? Sorry, I've caused confusion. Karen, you're off you go. Going with what Louise had said about the arts and culture section of the Government and where the funding comes from, as a group, we all liked that, but it wasn't voted on because it didn't meet the criteria or the questions that we were asked, but if funding was put towards doing some positive news or negative news, what would happen? Some plays, some poems, some artwork, some public space artwork to then bring in children, the education, and people who are not in education, so you've got all the young people who are not in education, who are school leavers or not school attenders, getting them on board with doing some public engagement artwork or some art forums or music, anything like that, because art does engage and it could be any types of art, dance, drama, theatre, anything, and Louise is right, you would bring people in because you would capture the older audience, you get to the newer audience and you get the people who'd maybe not want to do anything else, but maybe a bit of the black human black comedy, so you would capture a whole load of people that you would not really capture anywhere else via your signs, again what other people had said in the panel via the public transport at Central Station, they're now got a sign up for BLS, British Sign Language, so people who can't hear, can actually see via that what is actually coming up and what the trains are doing, what's the harm in us having that to do with climate awareness stuff or information up on some of those signs popping up now and again, using the spaces that we actually already have available and we're not utilising that. Perfect, David. Just quickly, if I may, I spoke with Neil Carmode, who's the chairman of, you'll know, the chairman of EMEC, a European Marine Energy centre up in my hometown in Strumlis, and his take on it was that we don't really have a software or hardware problem because, you know, everything's happening and working as regards the levels of communication, but we have a wet ware problem in that we have a problem with people's perception, getting the message through, if you like. We've talked a lot about trusted sources, and I think that that will mainly come not on a top-down approach from a bottom-up approach. So again, I would encourage the committee to consider the funding that you're putting in locally. Most of the local authorities have climate officers use them, fund them, and also back to the hubs again, fund them, give them more than one year at a time, because nobody wants a P45 every 12 months. You're not going to get the right people, you're not going to get the right people, but they're not going to stick around. You've got to give them longer-term funding. That's what horrible thought P45 every 12 months, but I'm going to come to the next question. Yeah, sorry, Ben. Just as a point of clarity, we'll of course take all the recommendations and press the government on your recommendations. It's for the government to make these decisions about funding and policy changes. Officially, Parliament votes for it, but just to hear your point about what to press on and that we will definitely consider it. If we press you, you press the government. Sorry, Louise. We spoke to three different climate hubs, representatives from three different climate hubs, and all three of them said funding was their major issue, because they really couldn't plan ahead for things they couldn't put in place what they needed, because they needed a minimum of three years, and they were only getting a one-year fund. By the time they got through that money or got that past, they were catching themselves up trying to think, we really can't plan ahead, because we don't know if we're going to have the money for the next stage of this, and it made things very short-term, rather than longer-term planning. The other thing was those three hubs said that they tried to share their information amongst each other, but there's a huge amount of work that needs to be done there, and that really there needs to be somebody overseeing the whole thing and sort of saying right here what's happening, and that's where our school thing came from, that really is a wee bit piecemeal everywhere, and we really need to, this is an important issue, and we really need to be making sure that all children, all young people, all adults, all the most diverse group of people, everybody gets to know that this is a big, big issue. I can absolutely tell you, one of the committee members is going to be pushing on schools later on in the questioning session, so I'm going to part the school idea, if I can, politely, Louise at this stage, because I want to get some questions in from Bob, who's got some questions he'd like to ask. I was actually just googling on climate hubs there to see what was coming up, so you already got me just trying to learn a little bit more. There were five recommendations in relation to making it easier for everyone to contribute to tackling climate issues, and I really like the expression that there was an action gap in relation, not a willingness gap, but an action gap because I wonder if any of you want to say a little bit more about that. I was clearly taking a little bit about the climate hub ideas, but they're making it easier for people to engage and to act, so maybe some, not even some concrete examples of things that you think government consider or local authorities consider to make easier for people not just to be aware of climate change and those challenges, but to identify and fill that action gap that's referred to in the report. It's not about one little item that everything has to join together, so for example, someone being able to take part in helping a wee bit, which is maybe take the bus or public transport, but for that to happen, the public transport has to run where they are needing to go, for them to be able to ditch the car, for them to be able to do that. It needs to be cheap enough for them to do it, so it's not cheaper for me to drive my car from Irvine to Glasgow and to park it than it is for me to get a train ticket. I return, which it is, it's cheaper for me to drive than it is to catch a train, which is a bit ridiculous, so it's all about looking at the costs and factors of what people can do to help themselves and to help with the climate change. Yes, it's about public transport and making that cheaper and more accessible for everyone, which would mean that someone has to oversee where everything links together. For example, the mums that like to, the mums and dads, not one to separate anyone there, to drop the kids off at schools in the morning, will you get free bus travel for kids? For any kids or young people in education up to the age of 22, so without being rude, why are we not overseeing that and making sure that the bus stops are there for the young ones as well so that the parents can just drop them off very safely where the bus is going to pick them up to drop them off at school without the parents having to drop them off and there's not a big huge traffic jam. So it's all about making sure that schools are interlinking with the parents and it's about the connections. Someone actually needs to start communicating with people down on the ground floor, so it's nice enough that the Government wants to do something about it, but then the Government has to filter that down to the councils. The councils need to filter that down to where people are needing it most, so some of it is going to be down in the schools communication, which is then parents and anyone who looks after it, anything like that, and then you're talking about the disability services. So it's not just one answer fits all, it has to fit different people in different situations, which I understand is about a challenge, but it's not just about one thing, it's how people can change their habits. So yes, we've looked at lights, heating and everything else, but it's the general day-to-day things, which is going to make a huge difference, because the day-to-day things is what everybody does, so it's how everybody can change that small little thing that they can do to make a difference to then help the bigger picture, and that's where we're looking at. That was a really helpful answer within that. All of it was very helpful, Karen, but you started off by something that is challenging for politicians to to fund and achieve, and that's how we significantly improve bus services and make it more affordable. There's work in that area, but I wouldn't go off on a tangent, but you then give a very specific example of the school run, where we can't fix everything at once, but can we work in specific areas to make a real and meaningful difference? That was a concrete example, which I found really, really helpful. I'm just wondering if there are any other concrete examples that other participants might want to share with us on how the Scottish Government or local authorities can support communities in relation to that action gap? Just like quick examples, I think that we heard different methods of transport share that happens more locally as well, such as car shares and community transport options. I think it's more about having different options available and having infrastructure for it to function as well, so it has to be more options, but also very coordinated options, I think. Sorry for that, I didn't mean to jump in there. Are you finished? The climate hubs are bringing people together to try and solve local issues relating to climate change, so it could be some low-level things like it could be litter, it could be pollution, but it could also be that they are trying to get businesses engaged with supporting some of the local issues. One of our recommendations is that if we are funding businesses, we really should be looking for some payback and they should really be taking on board some climate awareness issues within their business. We'll give you money, so here's what you're doing. The climate hubs are there to find what's needed locally, to discuss that amongst themselves and to come up with the issues that they think are the highest priorities and come up with their own solutions, which could be to do with transport and a range of other things. I'm really helpful. I'm conscious that the circular economy bill has revenue aspects to it as well, where money can be plowed back into community initiatives. Again, you're allowing us to join dots about how revenues can be used as effectively as possible. I'm sorry for cutting you off there, David. Do you want to come in? Just one quick one as regards a practical example. I'm sure my fellow panel members are fed up with hearing about Orkney, but when you come off into the airport in Kirkwall, one of the first leaflets that you'll see is car share schemes, obviously Orkney lends itself to that because the size of place lends itself to electric vehicles, so we have electric car share. Projects like that could be spread, as Karen referenced, that bus is difficult. There are other ways that we could be doing that, rather than people having a higher car. It's cheap, affordable, electric vehicles, and it's plentiful and accessible. There's got to be other areas of Scotland that that could be introduced into. I'm really helpful to have time to ask a further question. One more, yes. I want to squeeze out other members who wish to come in. I was struck by the keep it positive mantra that comes all the time. I suppose that there's a lesson there for politicians because I'm a back bench MSP of government. I want to make things look as positive as possible, even when they're just kind of okay. When they're just kind of okay, obviously, in politics, they want them to look as bad as possible, and we're all part of that not being positive. There's a lesson for politicians there, but in relation to keeping it positive, the climate hub was mentioned about how you can get involved, but climate hubs have to be bricks and mortar. I'm thinking about the local sports centre, the local supermarket and the local football stadium, where we could encourage those organisations if there's a climate hub co-ordinator, which is not specific to one building, to make sure that those positive stories are shared with the community and what the pathways for involvement would be. Did you look at some of that, and I'm afleshig at what the recommendations mean in practice or doesn't mean in practice? Scott, did you want to come in? I've been looking at hubs quite recently, and it's very difficult to find. It's only foreign Scotland at the moment. I just feel that it's needing more advice about setting up climate hubs, more funding, and raising how to set it up through the local government and through council bodies as well. That's very helpful. I don't have any more questions, but if anyone else has got a comment to make before I pass back to them—oh, sorry. I pass back to you, Kevin. On keeping it positive, a lot of the messaging is around the issues. You certainly hear people commenting that they're quite tired of hearing about the issue. I think that the issues are in themselves fairly widely communicated and spread. It's the positive things that are happening that's missing. As we said earlier, it's the sharing of the good news stories, so there is actually some good work going on, but not everyone is aware of it. If we could find a way to share the positive stuff more widely, the negative stuff is all over the news. You can hardly miss that, but the positive stuff Scotland has done this month, or this quarter, or this year. Be proud of it and celebrate the good things that are actually happening. To answer your question, no, it doesn't need to be a bricks and mortar building, but you've got lots of youth centres out there, and there's lots of new mums with babies who are not really getting much connection, so what you could potentially do is encourage the youth centres to open up to the new mums and dads and bring the wee ones in to them, maybe teach them about climate change, climate hubs, and do some wee projects of how to recycle, how to change things and what they can do with bringing up the wee ones, anything like that, because that way they do the meet and greet. You get to talk about the climate and you also get to share that, and then they'll be able to go away and talk about it to their other new mums and dads and then family members and bring it up that way. So you're then talking about, you're reaching a very new generation to the older generation and it feeds through everywhere. Monica. Thank you, convener, and thank you again everyone for your brilliant ideas and of course to the whole 23 members of the climate change people's panel. So I've scribbled down lots of notes, but I'm going to stick to some of the questions that I had planned. One was to come back to this issue of finance and financial support, because the panel you've called on the Scottish Government to increase financial support to enable people to take action that will help the Government and Scotland meet these really important climate targets, and that includes free bushtable, which I know has been talked about already. I'm interested to hear what evidence the people's panel heard about the need for more financial support to help individual people. Karen talked about a lot of the measures that are discussed and are not affordable for everyone, and I think that we all recognise that. I'm just interested to hear more about the evidence and what kind of financial support you think would be useful. I'm not sure. I think that Scott would like to go first. Yes, the evidence that's available at the moment is no funding available for people who own their houses for heat pumps. That's a big major issue at the moment and a lot of worry. I'm just wondering if for people who afford a heat pump in their own house, would that be funding for the Government or would it be extended as a mortgage for the local banks? I'm just wondering as well who's going to be responsible and who's going to overact or take their responsibility to make sure that it's all done professionally, and is there going to be a certain type of person that fits it and what certification have we got as well? It's got to be insulation as well for a heat pump. Is it a thing? It's got to cost a lot of money. Do you want to answer that? It's slightly within our remit but it's within the heat in buildings bill that's absolutely critical, Scott, and you're right. I hope they're listening to this. As you rightly say, heat pumps are expensive, insulation is expensive, double glazing is expensive, all of these things that need to be costed out. So it's right that you're flagging it up and it's good that it's flagged up, slightly out with the committee's rework. I'll pass you back to Monica. She may have a better answer than that. Rather than give a direct answer what I thought might be better if we build on the really important points that Scott has made because there's that issue about the financial investment if it's heat pumps or something else, but I think what Scott's touched on is for individual householders that there could be an element of risk not just about the money but also that really important point about how do we know the tradespeople coming into our home, that we can trust them, that the work can be properly certified. As well as that financial support maybe people can maybe add to that but hopefully government is listening today and maybe can help us as a committee and to Scott's question more directly. In terms of that financial support was it mostly around helping individuals or was it also about doing things at a neighbourhood level? I think you did some work in looking at district heating and schemes like that, Louise? We had some evidence about there being, if for instance you were in a big building that you could share a heat source pump for that whole building but the infrastructure is not there at the moment for things like that but they could be and that's where investment needs to happen to move things forward because that would be financially much cheaper than having each and everyone having their own heat pump. There's lots of new technology and things that are being developed that there needs to be investment for that. It's all money, isn't it? I mean and understand you're obviously in a difficult position where it's you know what do we do and what do we hold back on but there definitely needs to be investment and people are very worried about you know their own personal situation. I would say a lot of the people that were there of the 23 of us, most of us, were concerned about the impact of we want to do things, we want to try and tackle this climate change issue but the things that are holding us back really is the money involved. It's very expensive, a lot of people were saying the heat pump thing you can get a grant for that is about £7,000 it sounds fantastic but the evidence that we heard was that people have to first of all get their house into a zero kind of emission type thing so they have to spend a lot of money upgrading lots of things in their house before they can get the heat pump fitted and that's problematic for people because they just don't have the money. There's an investment for things like solar panels and things like that which yes if you can pay that money up front in time it will pay back for you but it's a lot of money up front that people don't really have so yeah day to day people are finding it really difficult they want to do what they can so maybe sharing resources if that can be done I don't know and it's not just the people who are on low income it's actually a lot of the people who are in that kind of middle area where you know we're all struggling to pay the mortgage and food prices everything's going up so it's becoming very very difficult. Thanks for that Louise I do want to come in and ask about bus in particular but in terms of what Louise has described it sounds like in your discussions there might have been you know an argument that maybe a bit more coordination would help so that if it's individual households feeling this is quite a big leap of faith but if you're working alongside your neighbours or others in the community that might help to pull resources before we go and talk about buses any final comment on that from anyone Kevin? Just on the where does money come from the one thing that struck me is a bit odd was that cheap renewable energy produced in Scotland has to go on to the open market and get sold back to people at gas energy prices it seems crazy. There's a clear differential there if you can produce a kilowatt for x and you're having to sell it back to the public at 3x or 4x how does that make any sense is there a way that Scotland could consume its renewable energy local to where it's generated thereby not needing to buy it from the market thereby freeing up money that could then go into other initiatives I don't know if that's an option whether it's something that's devolved or not but as a concept it would seem like a way to raise funds there's a significant gap between what we pay and what it costs. Thanks Kevin again you're making some really important points there now bus has been mentioned and I know that one of your recommendations is around bus travel you know to make bus travel free for everyone that would require a lot of investment there would be a cost to the public purse so did you hear evidence on how a policy like that and how that would work you know might achieve savings elsewhere or in the longer term and did you hear any evidence about how that could be funded what would work and what wouldn't? Just to put that into context if I may moniker I think that the committee every year looks at concessionary travel for buses which comes out just the concessionary travel alone is about 230 million pounds so making it free for every single bus across Scotland maybe substantially more than that and David's going to say it's parry all from all the power from Orkney but does anyone want to come back just I mean it's I was looking at that it's your recommendation 17 I think does anyone want to comment on that? I think before you can lay down any any financial investment or say no you can't do that you need to have a proper overview of where where you need the buses so when I was younger there used to be lots of bus services and now I'm a little older but quite a lot of the bus services have been sliced and diced and cut which then obviously means that people are needing to use other ways to get to where they want to be we're doing a climate hub and climate panel that's what we're here for we're to give you recommendations how to sort things out and help the country which would include make more available services so yes you might be thinking dude we cannot make that free for everyone that's just going to cost a bomb is there a way that we can do it you can make it really reduced but it should not cost me £10 on a bus to go from Trun to where and that's for a single so this is where the reality check for people who run in the bus services and the operations and without being rude a Scottish Government gives a lot of money to public transport to do what they need to do so you're talking real buses everyone is getting the cut of the money and the cut of the money without being rude it's coming from us you guys and everyone else in the country from various things so without being rude I don't think it's going to be that hard to find the money you just need to move it about and I know that you're like but that's a lot harder than you say it is but also if you look at some of the other recommendations when we're saying about other business incorporations we're giving lots of money to them and we're not getting that back we're not even seeing that trickling back it's not coming back full stop so when you start putting all the recommendations that we have put and actually put in a proper overview of how you can actually start moving things about you will need to actually physically move things about it's not just about or we'll just do this you will actually need to physically sit down and move things about and get things working and then everything's going to fall into place and it's not going to happen overnight let's not lie about it this is going to take five 10 15 years to get everything functioning flowing the way that we want it to see it flowing but there's no reality of where it's going to happen overnight so it's a long-term investment so as a community which is the country as a community it's a big one we need to put an investment in and we do expect the people who are running the country to put that investment in as well and it's a long-term goal it's not a short-term thing it's long-term thank you this is sorry monica this is where i get myself into trouble with committee members because time is marching on and it always goes quicker when it's an interesting subject so i could take one more person on this and then move to Douglas if it's all right with you i'll come back to you on the final one at the end so does anyone else want to add anything to what Karen's just said David briefly sorry if i made just very briefly for context i think a recommendation 17 came under the could come under the category of a while a bit of a wild card and a headline grabber if you like but it's also as Karen said it's there to challenge you it's quantifiable in other words it will cost a lot but you will be able to work out how much it does cost it's it's has goals and that is its objective is to take people off you know off roads off cars and reduce the country's carbon output so you know it's there just a prompt thought it's certainly out in my eyes Douglas yeah thanks thanks community i'm moving on to the theme of business now where you'd made three recommendations one of these recommendations called for the Scottish government to require businesses that receive public funding to support local communities to take climate action can you tell us a little bit more of the evidence you heard there and what you'd like to see businesses providing if i may take that one yeah i think that comes from and we're aware for example that the the scottish enterprise have just quite recently i think it's quarter two and two and twenty two twenty three scottish enterprise have introduced an approach aligning business support to to to target in their own net zero targets but those so that's so that process has started i think the feeling was that it wasn't ambitious enough the it's only the so if another in other words of a business is supported by scottish enterprise then either have to have a credible a credible plan in place to reduce carbon emissions to net zero but it's only by 2045 but i think the feeling was that's too far in the future it's not accountable enough and it's not in it's really just um it could be more appointed more shot a term and with with achievable targets because it's easy for a business to say yeah we can do that and we'll put this in place but it needs to be more accountable we feel so i think that's where that one stemmed from okay and um there was other two recommendations that um there weren't unanimous um there was majority support the first one was around government regulation of business around climate targets and not subsidising companies with negative impact of car and you mentioned slightly about that before i don't know if there's anything else you would like to add on what you heard about maybe businesses receiving subsidies but not giving back yeah we as a panel we spoke to a whole bunch of different people via climate change and then businesses and bringing in and it was really a lot reflection for us as a panel of quite a lot of the money that some companies need to do x yn z they're getting that from the scotish government but they're not putting any money back into the community now that could be small businesses or big businesses so you could say for example the Covid loans right that was to help businesses to do whatever they want to do but none of that money is coming back you're talking about money for electricity and gas and shell companies and that's helped to support them to do whatever they need but again none of that money is coming back but all our bills are going up so how is a community they can actually start putting money back into the community that they're actually working with or they are even got bases in now we were also talking about how that is and maybe not central to scotland it's maybe central to england to do with the actual british government and we do understand that but we do think where any money is coming from the scotish people going to businesses there should be some sort of reward back to the scotish people not just to the businesses to become rich and not put anything back and as we have been made very aware is there other places that need funding so if you as a scotish government cannot fund that because there's no money there then there are companies that you're given money to because you think that's more important then that money should then trickle back maybe into for example the climate hubs and any education or any projects that would be useful that you don't have money for but those companies do have money to then plough it back and so the money then recycles round and it is going back into the community where it needs to be but not all the panellists agreed on that once what was the other reason why they didn't all agree is simply because one did we feel that did that meet the questions that were asked to were you able to actually do it that's with some of the recommendations and people not being able to physically say is would that be able to happen I personally think it should be able to happen and I think it's quite easy for you to put that in writing as one of the part of the agreements if they're taking money from you then they should be able to put x amount of money back or a small percentage back then that's my personal reflection everyone else will have their own different views on that as you've noted yourself but it's about could you make that happen and that was where we're looking at we were trying to get everything unanimous of where you could actually achieve everything that we've asked you to achieve and that was where it was okay and I'll move on to it so the last recommendation you had was around there needs to be a change the way national capital projects like installation of heat pumps and home insulation are administered can someone tell us a little bit more of you know what you the examples you'd heard there and once again why some panellists couldn't agree with with that recommendation without being rude it's just way too expensive if you're looking at someone who I've got seven jobs all part time okay so I also look after my parents as well so I've got quite a lot of things that I'm juggling and I'm paying all my bills I'm not on benefits rents and like that so I'm doing quite alright and financing along quite nicely but then you as a government have not done a financial impact statement which is something that you should have done but you've not done before you put out this climate target stuff and then you're asking people everyday people including yourselves I understand to then spend lots of money thousand pounds of money up to 10 grand even more to change aspects of their living accommodation whatever building that they're living in or if they're not owning a place then obviously the rents going up or the community charges are going up and you're not really looking down at the people the little work abeas and that's the problem so yes you've got things out there that can maybe help people but it's not helping everyone and I understand that's a bit of a challenge but also every council is operating that differently and that was brought to the attention of where some people in the panel actually had heat pumps and electric cars and they and solar panels and they got their funding slightly differently and everything worked very differently and as a panel we didn't really understand why everything was working really differently if it's a national incentive that was going out then it should be a basic here here's everything that we can offer this is what is available to you and it shouldn't be chopped in change depending on where you live in so that's where some of that's coming in okay that's that's very Douglas I'm going to bring David in and then I'm going to have to move to the last question because I'm just my the clock is ticking away if I may walk back just to the the question you asked there it was specifically about we there was an issue regarding the administration of some of the national schemes now as you know I live in Otney and I this this was bred through conversations with and and also I can give you anecdotal direct evidence from from our experience on the ground of these things I spoke to the the char builder in Otney who's the chairman of the national builders federation and they are continually him and his colleagues are continually frustrated by what are effectively central belt companies who are who are coming to the more remote areas to install the insulation to install insulation we learn from the start insulation housing is one of the the key things that we have to do in especially old housing stock but these contracts appear to be awarded on a on a national level where we feel it would be much much more effective to administer that to local government to local sources and to it actually the benefits are numerous and that you would actually be benefit and not only again getting back to trusted sources trusted builders you'd also be keeping the money local and you'd get them I think you'd get a much higher engagement from people who want to introduce these things and like insulation etc the house if I can give you one specific piece of information my partner and I are involved in property let in Otney I know I'm going to give you a quick one you can't wiggle it I'm wiggling it I'm going to wiggle it I'm going to I'm going to wiggle it back to you you have given a contractor company called ever warm who administer your insulation now ever warm actually booked a house with us in Otney for two days they sent two people up in a van to come across on the water to stay in our house they actually went to one of the smaller islands of Otney so it's more expensive and all that they were doing was to install at one door one door that's all they had to finish a job that they had they took their own door size to expend it to me so they came they had two two days accommodation all that travel from the central belt it's it's senseless now I'm sure that's an exceptional case but but it is a case just the same so for these contracts again if we can put a lot of more of the money local it's not it shouldn't all be central belt based and I've got the pen wiggle so I'll stop you're almost going to get launched so we've got one more question we've got one more question and it's going to come from Monica and whoever puts their hand up first can answer the question so Monica Roffica thank you computer well speaking of positive news you got a lot of media coverage last week and just looking at some of the headlines lessons on climate jumps out so your first recommendation which was unanimous is about making climate change a compulsory part of the curriculum because in schools right now it's optional as you Kevin's got his hand up already so you've told us in the report why you think it's important we'd like to hear more about that and you know are there examples where young people in school are not getting any you know climate change information so Kevin perhaps you can enlighten us well it would appear that some some schools have already embedded climate change and and what again positive things that can be done about it into this current curriculum so without the need to spending too much money it would seem that some schools have taken the approach okay we'll add some worksheets in each subject area so at primary school for example writing then what you're writing about is something on the the topic maths if you're going to do a sum why not make it theme related and so it's about rather than again having to come up with a new subject area it's about how do you embed the topic into the existing curriculum in the first place there could be some really quick wins there and given that some schools are already doing that it's simply a case of sharing that to make sure everybody's included so growing on that best practice and then mainstreaming that work David had his hand up next yeah again briefly I think I think this maybe comes under the category of we were all really surprised that it wasn't already there and this Kevin says we don't have to reinvent the wheel with us and it's not for us to to try and understand the national curriculum but it wouldn't seem that difficult it at least seems a very natural thing to do to introduce that as early as possible so that it becomes second nature because that then gets transferred back into the home and it you know it as I said seems a very normal and natural thing approach to take um well I got ambushed then David by you I said one and you made it two but I was also warned before the this session by the partition participation and communities team that I wasn't going to get away without being asked a question myself so I'm not going to give you the chance to answer me the question politicians never let other people ask questions they they work out the question they want to answer themselves and then give you the answer so so the I guess the question that you would have wanted to ask me is what we're going to do with this report now that we've got it well we've got to decide as a committee after this what we're going to do but some of the things that we will be doing is for example we have got the climate change committee in next week into the committee and I'm sure your report will and some of the questions that you've raised in the report will help us inform our views and questions to them we've got the circular economy bill which we're about to do stage two from which I'm sure will prompt some of the discussions that go on in there we constantly have ministers in here from different portfolios and I guess we'll be asking them questions and there's a process going on in the parliament at the moment where there's a review being undertaken to see where government policies are reaching targets of net zero and and as conveners and as committees we're looking at ways to try and make sure that when a bill is published and when policies are published that we understand where we go and whether it's achieving not only the net zero goal but it's also getting the right messages out and there's the correct funding within the bills so I think that will help us with that and the deputy convener ambushed me when you were planning your ambush David and said of course we could write to the minister subject to the committee's approval because I can't do anything as a convener of a committee without committee's approval and I asked the minister to respond to your recommendations in writing to us which we could then share with you and say I'm not seeing any dissent from round the table from committee members so hopefully that's something that we can agree afterwards what I would say as as convener of the committee and I stress that this has been a committee thing that we have driven it is not being driven by the government I think Karen you were suggesting as a government we could well if if if I was a convener of the government this was a government we get a lot done I'm sure but we're going to have to go back to the government with the points that you've made because we are just a committee of it but I'd like to thank you uh congratulate you for all the work that you put in because there was a lot of work and it's uh you know it is your parliament and and we are here uh to make sure that uh what what the people want is delivered by the parliament so as a committee we're extremely grateful for all that you've done and uh fed into us so I can't reiterate my thanks enough we are now going to have to go into private session to see if we can agree some of the things that I've just talked about and to review the evidence that we've heard but thank you very much and I'm sure we will be in touch and keep you updated and point out things that have come over come about as a result of your participation in this deliberative democracy so thank you very much and we're going to move into private session