 Gณig hyn Firstly on the Agenda. welcome to the 11th meeting of the 2018 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 these may effect the broadcasting system. The First item on the agenda is for the 통ed to consider whether to take items 5, 6 and 6 in private are we all agreed. We are, agreed. The second item on the agenda is to take evidence from the ond cymaint o'r anhygoel ysgolwyr anhygoel. Felly, rydyn ni'n gweithio Adrien Galt, the acting chief executive. Good morning, Mr Galt. Good morning. Good morning, and we'll move straight to questions. Over the last few years, we've seen a number of revisits of the baseline because of changes in the calculations that we've had and changes in methodologies and assumptions. What impact have those changes actually had? The first thing to say is that there have been a number, as you say, of changes to the inventory, some of which have led to increases in emissions estimates and some have led to reductions. They have had significant impact in terms of whether or not annual emission reduction targets have been met, so it is significant and it's important therefore in looking at the targets to try and take account of those inventory changes to see what impact they are having. Now, we ought to say that those changes are in a sense a good thing because they are hopefully improvements in the evidence base, improvements in the way that the measurement is taking place, so it is important to keep up with those and make those changes according to international standards. Could you summarise for us, however, there have been times when the changes have made it easier to hit the targets, there have been times that have made it more difficult. Overall, what has the change been? Well, overall, it meant that a couple of the targets were probably not met. More recently, the last two annual targets that have been met would probably have been met when we've taken account of the inventory changes. They probably would have been met even without those inventory changes, so they made it easier, but taking that out, the target would still have been met reflecting policy measures that have been taken. At least that's been our assessment. Are we at the end game in this process of what we still be making changes? No, we will most certainly still be making changes going forward in line with improvements in the methodology. It's difficult to say exactly what that means. We almost certainly will see the inclusion in the future of Upland Pete, and that could make a significant difference to the amount of emissions included in the inventory for Scotland. We don't know the exact nature of that as yet, but that is an upward change that is going to be happening in the next few years, so it's important to bear that in mind when thinking about the targets now. In terms of where we are now, to what extent has the unanticipated gottness to this position? I'm thinking of things like power station closures, fluctuations in weather, bad winters, good winters, whatever. We've tried to take account of those inventory changes and changes in the weather—the temperature—and allowed for those in our assessments. For the last couple of years, we think that the targets that have been met would have been met, even taking account of those fluctuations in weather and in the inventory. That is good news, because policy seems to be delivering emissions reduction. A lot of this, as you say—I apologise for my voice—is down to improvements in the power sector and very substantial reductions in emissions. We can expect that there will be more to come in future years, reflecting the closure of Lawn Ganet. That will have led to big reduction in emissions. There were one-off changes. Are there areas in Scottish policy and, indeed, in UK policy where the policy is ahead of the ability to measure what is going on in the policy area? An example that I might proffer for you to think about is that, in Scotland's 2009 act for which I was responsible as minister, we attempted to account for what was happening in other countries when we displaced production to other countries. Are we yet, in the right position and understanding the effect of that and incorporating it in our assessments? Are there other areas where we've yet to have sufficiently robust information to act on it? On that particular example, which is really talking about consumption emissions—different between consumption and production emissions—there has been an improved evidence base, I think, over the last few years. That has improved our understanding. There are still substantial uncertainties there in those calculations. We may have a reasonable understanding of production emissions in the UK, but when you're having to look at worldwide and country-by-country or groups of countries, what is going on, the evidence is just not so strong. Averages have to be applied to work these things through. I think our evidence in terms of what's going on in terms of the broad trends and the difference between production and consumption would probably have a pretty good feel for that, but I think there's substantial uncertainty still in the individual year figures and some fluctuation that has been observed in the past in those estimates. Other areas, I think agriculture is very difficult in terms of the estimation of emissions, but there is work going on here and in the rest of the UK to look at the smart inventory and improving those methodologies. That will improve the basis for our understanding of the sector and also for the estimation of abatement potential. I want to look at the balance of effort in the climate change plan and whether expected emissions reductions are proportionate with actual sectoral emissions and are they balanced and achievable? We feel that the balance of effort across the sectors now in the plan is more in line with the kinds of reductions that we had in our own scenarios. There has been a shift to less effort in the decarbonisation of heat for buildings and more effort in the transport side. We think that we can talk about the exact numbers where that ends up, but that's moved that balance of effort more in line with the committee's view of the cost-effective trajectories. Agriculture, I would say, there is probably less effort than we have in our ambitious scenarios. I think that there is a question mark there about the potential for further abatement in that sector. If a sector falls short in expectations and performance in the future, will it allow slack in other sectors? For example, we have agriculture where there is a voluntary approach. Do you have a contingency plan for balancing it out, one taking up the slack of another? I don't think that there is much contingency in any of those plans because we are really looking for 2030-2032. We are looking at a high-ambition trajectory to achieve that 66 per cent reduction in emissions. There is not much slack in any sector, I think. We really need to see a high level of achievement across the board. I think that there is a question mark that agriculture might be able to go a bit further, but there is also an issue about upland peat emissions coming in. When that comes in, again, there is a need to look at the abatement potential, but that could make things harder going forward. Although, at the moment, the projected spend on peatland in the current year's budget raises a question mark over the extent to which peatland will contribute. The target for peatland delivery has gone up, but the money being directed to it as things stand has gone down. There is also a question about the extent to which peatland will contribute, not what it could contribute but what it will contribute. I think that that would need to be continually reassessed as part of the plan in terms of what is achievable. However, my understanding at the moment is that, within the climate change plan, abatement from peatland is included within the estimates, though upland peat emissions are not yet within the inventory. John Scott. Thank you. Good morning. I declare an interest as a farmer and indeed an upland farmer. Where is the crossover between farming and peatland management and the responsibility for it and the credit to the farming community for the management of peatlands in terms of carbon reduction and absorption? I am not sure that I can answer that question in terms of where the responsibility lies. There is talk about peatland and the absorption. Is that a credit to farming, as it were, or is it just a credit to peatlands? It will be a credit to the land use and land use change part of the inventory currently. There is a question mark and issue about how it is incentivised in terms of policy and who gets that return, who has the responsibility. But, in terms of the inventory, it would not appear within the agriculture party inventory at the moment, I think. Soils, similarly, within the management of soils, is that in which part of the inventory is soil management? I think that would again be in terms of the carbon that is sequestered that would be within land use and land use change, but there is clearly a responsibility that it is going to be with farmers and policy for managing that. Femmilyd, Claudia Beamish. Good morning to you, Mr Gault. I will go a little further on the previous questions from my colleague Finlay Carson and ask about how you highlighted the phrase cost-effective in terms of the different sectors. I am just wondering if you could comment on is there any balance from the perspective of your committee in relation to cost-effectiveness and equity between them? We have got 9 per cent on agriculture, as has been highlighted and much more on others. It is not particularly easy, necessarily, to do it in transport than it is in agriculture, but I will just value a comment on that. So I think that we would not expect—the committee would not expect—that every sector would have to make the same percentage reductions. We would approach this in part by trying to look at where is it most cost-effective to make the reductions. That would suggest that you are going to go faster in the power sector, for example, than you are in agriculture, but there is still a question about what is it cost-effective to do in terms of agricultural abatement and the level of abatement that is within the climate change plan for agriculture is rather less than I think we have in our high-ambition scenarios, which tries to take on-board cost-effectiveness overall for the path towards 80 per cent reductions by 2050. So it would be more a cost-effectiveness situation from the position of your committee, although I would suggest that it could be in terms of any of the Governments that you give independent advice to. It could be somewhat more of a political decision in relation to the equity of it, if I keep that in mind. In the end, the Government has to make those decisions, not the committee. We are providing advice. We are providing advice where cost-effectiveness is a key part of our advice, but there are a number of other criteria in the act that we do look to, which include things such as energy security and competitiveness implications. I think that we would have a mind to some of the equity issues within that, but in the end, the Government has to make those decisions. All right, thank you. A couple of other fairly brief questions, I think—well, they are brief questions, I am not sure—it is for you to answer, of course. In terms of the six microtons of CO2 equivalent from LU-LUCF, where the land use and forestry has been treated as a windfall, to allow for reduced ambition in other sectors, in some people's view, here in Scotland. Is it your view as a committee that that should have been banked, given what is known about potential fluctuations in future emissions inventories? We think that it is appropriate to take on board that latest evidence, so I think that we would not necessarily, in that way, guide it as a windfall. We think that it is appropriate to take it on board and think about the implications for abatement in other sectors. However, there are then questions about whether there is still potential to go further in some of the other sectors, which would mean that you would not entirely bank that. Given the high ambition that the Scottish Government has, and given the intention to move towards even tighter targets for 2050 and beyond, there are questions about whether it is possible to go further in agriculture, or in buildings, or in transport, for example. Pushing on that further, the CCP, the climate change plan, has provided for firm new policies, I quote, to ensure that the reductions in Scottish emissions, seen in recent years, will continue into the 2020s. I quote from your own progress report very briefly, which shows that the climate change plan, as it stands, lacks credibility in meeting the emissions targets for 2032 and fails to prepare properly for deeper decarbonisation in the longer term. I wonder if you could comment on any concerns that you have highlighted through your committee. That was written in relation to the draft plan, not the final plan, of course, and the committee has not looked in detail and assessed the final plan. I think that it is clear that, when you look at the plan, there are some areas where there is still high ambition, but there is still a lot more to do to bring forward details of the policies and instruments that will be used to deliver on that ambition. For example, there are very good plans around energy efficiency and very high level of ambition for energy efficiency for buildings, but there is a route map that is going to be produced for the Scottish energy efficiency programme later this year that needs to provide more detail about how that ambition is going to be achieved. That is true in a number of areas where there is a lot more policy development work that still needs to happen to deliver that ambition. I will pull you up on what you just said. Is it clear that the UKCCC has not taken a view on the final plan? Has it been asked to do any work in that regard by the Scottish Government? We would expect to do more work to look at it as part of our future work plans for looking at the annual progues report. We would expect to cover it both within the UK progues report, which is due at the end of June, and then a Scottish progues report in the autumn. We will expect to say something further about it on that timeline. Would you anticipate that anything that you had to say would be taken on board? We would hope that what we would have to say would be taken on board. We have seen in the past that there have been some adjustments to the plans, partially in line with the advice that we have provided. I would expect it to be treated seriously. I am just a little bit surprised that in the period between the draft being weighed and the four committees of the Parliament commenting on that draft, along with stakeholders, and the final plan being produced that the UKCCC had no role in developing any change that might be made? No, I do not think that we had a role in developing it, other than the fact that we had provided advice within our assessment in the progues report of the draft plan. Finally, from my perspective, how does the CCP compare in your view and or build on the UK's clean growth strategy? Are there synergies or stark differences? In a sense, there are the same issues around the fact that a lot of the progues that has been observed across the UK and Scotland in recent years has been in the power sector. We can expect that to continue, but the need to move those progues out to other sectors of the economy and that issue is the same. I think that there is a degree of seriousness and ambition in Scotland which is to be commended, which is very high. There has been more commitment, I think, to higher targets in recent years, but many of the issues still remain that those policies to actually deliver that ambition have got to be further developed. I think that Scotland made a good start on that, but there is a lot more to do. Taking on the theme of development, Kate Forbes. Great. I would like to move on to monitoring and governance. In terms of the monitoring framework, what input has the CCC had into the development of the Scottish Government's monitoring framework and to what extent does it correspond with the CCC's own framework? I think that there are a number of similarities in the kinds of indicators that are being developed for monitoring going forward. The committee at CCC has that kind of framework dating back to 2009 when we started developing that framework of indicators that we would monitor over time. There have been discussions with the Scottish Government in terms of that framework and the kinds of indicators that we track and that the Scottish Government might track, but it has not gone beyond that in terms of helping to advise on exactly what the framework would be. Is the CCC satisfied that the framework is clear and full of the sort of smart policies? I would say not as yet, because what you have in the plan is a kind of indication of some of the indicators in the framework, but a commitment to producing more on that framework in the autumn, I think, in terms of what that will look like and greater detail about what will be tracked and monitored. Again, we would expect when that is produced that we would come back and look in more detail at that. In terms of the governance body, has the CCC had input into setting up the governance body and does it have any views on the appropriate structure and functions of that body? I do not believe that we have had feet fed into that process and development. If I am wrong on that, I would return to you and let you have further advice. Just one last point on external drivers being included as indicators, external drivers such as Brexit or unseasonal temperatures. Is there a risk when developing monitoring frameworks that external drivers will take the blame for meeting targets or feeling to meet targets? There could always be a risk of that. That does not mean that it is not appropriate to try to take account of the impact that significant external drivers are having. Within the Committee on Climate Change's own framework, we have had those kinds of indicators that we have included in our tracking framework. It is important to try and take account of those, but you would not want to make excuses for those. It is important to have an indication of what effect those are having and therefore consider what that means for the rest of the delivery. It is fair to include them. I think that it is fair to say that we are all of the view that behavioural change and public participation is fundamental to delivering emissions reductions. However, similar to RPP 1 and RPP 2, there is very little mention in the climate change plan of communities and citizens in the sectoral chapters. The ISM approach, individual, social and material, has been used for the past 10 years to inform policy design in Scotland. However, there is some concern that the ISM approach has not moved on significantly since the last plan. There is very little about how citizens were engaged in developing the policies that were mentioned in the plan. Why, in your view, has the ISM approach not evolved over the past 10 years, and would you say that it is still fit for purpose? I do not know enough about the ISM approach to say exactly whether it is fit for purpose going forward. However, I would say that the importance of those issues and understanding of the behavioural influences and how to affect behaviour increases as we move beyond emissions reductions in the power sector. As we move into a host of individual decisions that need to be made about how to heat your home or about the car or van that you are going to buy and how much you are going to travel, understanding those individual motivations and how to influence them becomes increasingly important, so there needs to be more focus on how that can be achieved. Have you had discussions with the Scottish Government on that and on behavioural change? For example, just to throw in an example here, we have information regarding a blog from Ragnar Low from Strathclyde University's Centre for Energy Policy where she highlights the need for behaviour change in transport and notes that the plan's emphasis is on technology and infrastructure with an assumed 27 per cent growth in car kilometres between 2015 and 2035. Have you had further discussions with the Scottish Government specifically on behaviour change? I am not aware of recent discussions specifically on behaviour change or very substantial discussions. There have been in the past discussions around the issues of behaviour change and the ISM framework. We have done quite a lot of work on some of those issues, so in past reports of the committee, we have looked at some of the behavioural change issues around switch towards electric vehicles and in our report on decarbonising heat towards the end of 2016, there was a lot of work within that about motivations and influencing both individuals and businesses in terms of the decisions that they need to make. Those were UK-wide reports, but they would have been equally applicable to Scottish issues. Thank you, convener. Can I refer to renewable energy in my register of interests? I would like to explore emissions and progress in cutting emissions in the energy sector. In the context of both the 2020 target and the 2030 target, how do you feel further emission reductions from the energy sector might be realised? There is still substantial scope for emissions reduction from further moving into renewables and in particular offshore wind through the contract for difference process and the money that has been set aside for that through to 2025, so there are substantial progress that is still possible there with more generation. There is potential for nuclear. Clearly, there is the one plant that has got the go ahead. There is potential for further beyond that on a slightly longer timescale, but questions there about the cost effectiveness of that. There is an issue, I think, about onshore wind, which currently there is really no mechanism to bring that forward, but in terms of our view of cost effectiveness, we would see onshore wind as potentially playing a role where local communities want it and are happy to have it. That looks to us to be a low cost route to further decarbonisation. Can I ask about gas-powered generation? Firstly, what impact does that have on the carbon intensity of the grid? That would depend to some extent on how much that gas plant is running. There may be a case for a level of gas capacity, but by 2030, we would not expect that to be running very substantially, so it may be there for backup purposes and so on. It would not be consistent to have a substantial gas plant running without carbon capture and storage and be consistent with meeting our emission reduction targets going forward. Just exploring that, I think that the climate change plan does factor in a role for gas-powered generation in 2050. I think that it says that it is a natural complement to a high renewables future. The Scottish Government, I think, continued to assume a certain amount of generation going forward. What is your view about in terms of the proportion of what it should be? Should it just be an add-on or should it be a higher proportion of generation? We would expect it to be a very low proportion of generation to be consistent with meeting the targets for 2030 and beyond. There may be some capacity there, but you would not expect it to be running very frequently to be consistent with meeting the targets. Longer term for 2050, there will be less of a role. If we need to get towards net zero emissions in the second half of the century, again, we need to be looking towards moving to even lower levels of generation from fossil fuels, potentially fossil fuels with capture and storage where it is still there. Can I just explore with you the issue around the progress that Scotland aims to make, potentially being undermined by circumstances outwith its control in this particular area? I am thinking, for example, about four major offshore wind farms being the subject of on-going legal challenge over an extended period, which delayed them. You then have the CFD issue with those offshore wind farms. We have seen solar at one point a couple of years ago, but we have seen it as a big push forward. That has been undermined by decisions taken, again, outwith the Scottish Government's control. To what extent is progress in this regard quite volatile, given that the Scottish Government does not necessarily control everything that it would want to in terms of making progress? Clearly, from year to year, there may be some volatility that it would be reasonable for those assessing that progress to try to have regards to, thinking about how that has affected performance against annual targets. If annual targets are there, then that kind of volatility could make a difference. Over time, you would expect those things to even out, become more reasonable so that the overall trend was looking more reasonable, but, for individual years, there definitely could be impact. There is always the potential of other sectors such as tidal, such as wave energy, such as hydrogen, which was discussed yesterday. From your vantage point, how optimistic are you that some of those technologies will be game changers? I kind of expect that they will be, but I am interested to hear from your view on it, as someone who probably knows a great deal more about it than I do, certainly. In those areas, it is important to think about the research that is going on and to be supportive of those new technologies and those developments, but not to bank on them succeeding in making the plans. That points towards a degree of flexibility in the plans going forward, as to what the make-up might be of generation by different technologies. However, I would not be in the business at the moment of incorporating success in those technologies into the future plans. If they are successful, then that is all well and good. I presume that they would be generating it to be successful at lower costs than the alternatives. They are worth some kind of investment, but they are not going so far as to bank on those producing success. They do look very difficult. In particular, waves are very difficult conditions for them to be working in. There are questions about how far you go in those and how far you can bank on those. When you have other alternatives, you have offshore and onshore wind, which look to be coming down in cost very substantially. There is still plenty of further potential to exploit there. A number of members want to come in. Claudia Beamish is to be followed by Stuart Stevenson, to be followed by Alex Rowley. Claudia Beamish. Can I take you back to your brief remark about the place of nuclear power in the mix? I will ask you how that relates. Obviously, you will be aware that there is a Scottish Government position on not going forward with nuclear at the moment. It is not part of our energy strategy, but could you comment on the position of nuclear in terms of cost-effectiveness in addressing those issues when you take into account the waste streams and if that has been factored in? The cost of the waste streams have been factored into the cost calculations. We would see now that, following on plants after Hinkley, they would have to come in at substantially lower costs than Hinkley for those to look to be cost-effective against the alternatives. We are in a position now where the recent auctions produced a cost for offshore wind, which is substantially lower than anyone was expecting a few years ago. It is a huge success. However, if you are making that kind of comparison, what does that mean for the cost-effectiveness of nuclear? I think that that suggests that nuclear would have to be generating at much lower costs than the plant that is being committed to. The only question about that is how would that be achieved? I know that some of the EDF and others have plans that they think that some of that cost reduction is possible. Unless you are convinced by that, it is a difficult argument that suggests that that nuclear would be cost-effective. You made some comments about annual targets. Recognising their annual targets, although we are commonly talking percentages, are in tonnes of CO2. What role is there for some algorithm to smooth, to, therefore, in effect take account of the one-off or occasional events? Given that, when your targets are in tonnes of CO2, in a sense, it is always a long-run thing rather than playing around with percentages. What scope is there for doing things slightly differently? I think that this is, in the end, going to be a political decision about how you want to do this. Clearly, for the UK carbon budgets, those are five-year periods. Those do allow, potentially, for that kind of smoothing. That is one of the attractions of that approach. Annual targets have an attraction, I think, that there will be a particular policy focus on that achievement every year. However, it is important in looking at that achievement to take account of some of the factors that contribute and produce some variation from year to year. It is important politically to have regard to those factors in making the assessment of what is being achieved in policy terms. In the end, that is not a decision for the committee, but for my committee. It is one for you and for the politicians to make. Alex Rowley. On that question about new technologies, TIDO and whatever, is there, in your view, enough of a commitment coming through the UK Government to invest research and development, but also to invest to see some of those projects through? We have seen some projects around carbon capture, for example, where the Government has pulled the funding. Is the capacity there not just within the Scottish Government, because it is not, but at a UK level, to bring about the investment that is needed? Or does that need more joint at work? Will Brexit have an impact on that? There is a within the clean growth strategy. There is quite a high emphasis now on innovation and research, and higher spending on research and energy research going forward. I am not in a position to say to you whether that is the right level or enough for particular technologies, but it plays an important part of the narrative of the clean growth strategy. But I think it is important not to rely on that as a means of meeting the future legislated targets. When we know that we have some successful technologies, like offshore wind, it is important to focus on further deployment of that technology, because we can see that that exists. It is generating relatively low costs. That points to the importance of deployment of some of the newer technologies rather than early stage R&D. I think that deployment issue exists for carbon capture and storage as well. To some extent, the Government has to get on with carbon capture and storage and invest more in the deployment of the technology and learning from that approach rather than thinking that early stage R&D is the answer. We have seen with offshore wind that that deployment has substantially brought the costs down. Is that possible for carbon capture and storage? Mr Rowley is right to mention Brexit and its implications. One of the implications is the question mark around the ETS scheme and the UK's participation. Have you been requested by any of the Governments of the East Iowans to provide advice on the impact of the consequences around ETS? If we were to remain in it, it would be quite clear cut if that were possible. However, if we were to have some sort of associate membership or if the UK was to set up its own scheme, have you been asked to model the options? No, we have not been asked by any of the Governments to look at those implications as yet. If we could turn to buildings and carbon reduction from buildings, in the final plan we see the emissions reductions and the plans around residential and service sector buildings brought together. Is that something that you welcome? Does that help with clarity and scrutiny of those two sectors? This is not something that the committee has discussed, so this is just a personal view. A personal view would be that I would rather keep them separate or at least be very clear on the components of that overall sector. I think that some of the potential may be different. It may be able to go faster perhaps on the commercial side, so that is just a personal view. Why do you think we could go faster on the commercial side? It may be possible that there is scope for some larger scale applications of heat pumps, for example. District heating as well, with district heating linked to some kind of importance of substantial base loads. There may be potential to go a bit further faster in that sector than the host of individual decisions that potentially have to be made when you are looking at residential. This is obviously an area where we have seen quite dramatic change from the draft climate plan to the final one. With homes, for example, we started off with 75 per cent target now down to 23 per cent. In the related area around heat, we have gone from 80 per cent down to 35 per cent. What is your view about that reduction? Does that reflect the practicalities, the credibility of steep carbon reduction over a short period of time, or do you think that it has gone too far in the other direction? The energy efficiency ambition looks very high, I think, and looks very good. There are still questions about delivering that and the policy to deliver that, but the ambition looks high. For heat decarbonisation, we commented on the draft plan that we thought that the then targets for decarbonisation of heat were too stretching and unlikely to be achievable on that time scale to 2032. When we look at the emissions that the plan has for heat from buildings going forward, the numbers that they have in terms of million tonnes do not look very different to our stretching scenario, but I do not quite understand that. I think that there is further work to be done on that, because the ambition in terms of that proportion of heat that would be coming from low-carbon heat sources looks a bit lower than we suggested. Although we thought that the original ambition was too high, we suggested that maybe a stretching target would be for 50 per cent to be coming from low-carbon heat. The final plan looks to have gone lower than that. At this stage, I do not understand that and why that is the case. When we had a briefing from the Scottish Government, it indicated that it brought in embedded low-carbon heat into this new target, including biomass, so I do not know if that is something that may have had some bearing on the target. I do not know. That would be something that we would want to explore a bit further to look at the difference in definitions and what is being achieved in the plan or what is suggested in the plan compared to our scenario. At the moment, I cannot quite explain it. We just had a discussion about electricity and about innovation and about developing into meeting a more stringent target. Where do you see heat, in particular the domestic market, going here? In the initial plan, we had a very ambitious programme to 2030. There was a very steep decarbonisation from 2025, which we assumed, I think, was to do with putting hydrogen into the gas grid or making a major innovative change in the way that we supply heat to homes. Is there not a danger that, by chopping and changing the target, we are sending out mixed messages to industry? How do we plan for a big step change in carbon reduction in the way that we heat our buildings if it is not through the grid? We first have to get on with the things now that, over the next few years, look like those that are cost-effective solutions. Things that are low regret, whether it is hydrogen or whatever the long-term options might be, but there are things that we can be doing now, which are worthwhile whatever that final solution would be. That would be around things like improving the building standards, tightening the building standards for new build. It would be around improvements in energy efficiency and insulation levels in the existing stock. It would be looking to take forward some district heating schemes from low-carbon sources where those are cost-effective in particular areas. It would be starting to develop the heat pumps market and supply chain through investing in heat pumps probably off the gas grid initially. There is more of this in the climate change plan than in the draft, so there is more emphasis on some of that to build those supply chains. Then there needs to be work going on to look at what the longer-term solutions might be, and that is to consider, as an example, hydrogen and whether there is potential. There is potential, but what are the public acceptability issues? What are the costs going to be? We need more work to understand that and to pilot that as an approach, so that then Governments can make decisions in the early first half of the 2020s about what they think that long-term solution might be, whether hydrogen has a role at all or whether it is back to electrification through heat pumps and the extent to which it is district heating. There are longer-term decisions that I think we are not in place, not ready to make those decisions on now, but that does not mean that there are not things to do in the meantime, which makes sense whatever that long-term solution is. When do you expect a decision on that to be made? When do you expect there to be clarity over where we get that step change and how we get that step change? I hear what you are saying, there is more clarity now around the low-hanging fruit, the immediate measures that can be taken in the next five to ten years, but if you are sitting there as a major gas supplier, I guess you would be wanting to know when the trigger point is for a more substantial change in the way that we heat pumps. The committee has said that we need that decision, that kind of steer from Governments in the first half of the 2020s, so by 2025, earlier the better, but we cannot make that decision now. We have to have that learning phase and demonstrations to go through and understand it better and understand the costs better. Also, if we are going for hydrogen as part of the route forward, then that will need to go forward with carbon capture and storage, because we see reformulation of natural gas would be the route to production of hydrogen, and for that to be low-carbon, it will need carbon capture and storage. Again, that comes back on the table. That needs to be developed as an option going forward for that to be a part of the long-term solution. You do not see the route to hydrogen production coming from renewable energy effects? It is possible that there could be some through that route, but for the scale that we might be talking about and the level of cost, the committee's view to date has been that it is likely to be through reformulation of natural gas. We are doing more work to look at hydrogen, though, and we will produce a report on the hydrogen option in the autumn of this year, where we will look more detail at what the options are and what the potential cost is and where that hydrogen can be used. Stuart Stevenson. Just for clarity, I presume, since carbon capture is at least five different technologies, we are talking purely about pre-combustion carbon capture rather than post-combustion. In this case, I think that that is right. Again, I will come back to you if I have that wrong. Thank you. Moving on, Richard Lyle. Good morning, Mr Golt. Can I turn to the factor of emissions from transport? The draft climate change plan undertakes by 2032 to phase out the need to buy petrol, diesel, cars or vans. That is only 14 years for now. You basically say that 60 per cent of sales of cars and vans could be of ULEF, ultra-low-emission vehicles, in 2030 and close to 100 per cent by 2035. Can you tell us, if for policies to submit the Transparenation to ULEF transport, would we not need more electric cars also on the road? We need to vastly improve our additional charging points on the roads. In regards to house building, install, now ask builders to install more points in the house building. Would that be a case? To achieve those kinds of that level of ambition, there will be a continuing need to invest in the charging network going forward. That is happening and there have been, I think, some quite significant increases in the number of fast charges and other charges that have been available in Scotland in recent years. However, that will continue to need to continue to develop going forward. If there are opportunities through planning mechanisms to have charging built-in for new-build estates, that may well make sense. That would be worth doing now. Should we not be actually telling builders now? You put telephone charging points in your houses, you have put in my satellite and wi-fi, can you now install charging points for electric vehicles in new house building? Should that not be a condition? I do not think that the committee has come to that and said that as yet. It seems to me a very likely thing that would be sensible and should be required. I have a diesel motor car. If you want to encourage me to change, should a Government or anyone provide interest-free loans, how are we going to convince people to change? Will it be feasible that we will reach our target by 2032 to make people change? The Scottish Government's 2032 target goes beyond the ambition that the committee had set out, which is more stretching than the UK Government has gone for. Is it feasible? Yes, I think that it is feasible to achieve that on that timetable with policy effort to back that up. That would be partly through the charging network, not just the availability of that network but also the communication to people about that network and what is required and what that involves, so reassuring people about that capability. It will need a continuation of grants or which is available for new purchase of electric cars and vans. That will need to continue whilst those electric cars and vans are more expensive than the conventional alternative. We see in our work that by the early 2020s the costs of electric vans and cars, electric cars in particular, become absolutely cost competitive with the conventional alternative. When you look at the life cycle, you take account of the running costs. We are not in that position now. As long as they continue to be more expensive, we need to continue with that grant or similar mechanism to encourage the purchase. Last question. I know that you do not have a crystal ball. Would you agree with me that we also have to encourage either Governments or charging to ensure that the cost of charging an electric vehicle is substantially lower than putting fuel in the vehicle? We need to maintain that position, yes, where the costs are lower. The upfront cost of the vehicle is higher than the conventional alternative. To make them cost effective, you are looking at that lower fuel cost over time. We need to continue that for that to work. Alex Rowley. Can I just follow on through that and maybe ask your view in terms of what other policies we are able to come up with and to what extent it is the carrot and the stick approach. If you take, for example, the Cabinet Secretary gave evidence to this committee and she said that increases in transport demand are driven by the economy. I can see where that is true in the sense that, if you take the way that shopping patterns have completely changed and we are now looking much more at online, so let's say that vehicles are there. Should companies, for example, is there a way that the Government can start to put pressure on companies if it is the economic interests, if it is commercial transport rather than personal transport that is increasing to make that shift towards electric vehicles, etc? Secondly, another area that is talked about is low-emission zones in the cities. What should experience be in terms of London and the congestion charging? Does congestion charging have a—as it worked in London—reduced to emissions? Is there a role to play there? On the transport demand issue, it seems to be one that is very important and one to look at further. Despite the fact that the Scottish Government's plan is now based on moving to 100 per cent electric sales by 2032, which is faster than our trajectory, despite that the level of transport emissions in 2032 in the climate change plan is above the level that we have in our scenario. At this moment, I don't understand exactly why that just happened. I would have expected it to be a bit lower than our scenario, unless it's a reflection of a higher level of transport demand, a higher level than we have in our scenario. I think that there is further work for us to be looking at that. Yes, to an extent clearly, transport demand is very dependent on income growth. There is a long-established relationship there, but I think that we have to do further work to look at how that can be affected and how you can affect that both through work on individual travel planning and with business to reduce those demands. I think that there is a role. There is a relatively small amount of that shift that is in our scenarios, and I would be quite keen to look a bit further at how much of that there is in the Scottish climate change plan, because I think that that may be an explanation of that higher level of emissions in their plan compared to our scenario. The emission zones in London—I don't have the figures, I'm sorry—but I think that the London scheme has been quite successful in reducing the level of traffic and reducing the emissions because of the incentives that it has provided to electric vehicles or low-emission vehicles. We also see similar levels of success if you look at some other countries in terms of what they have achieved. I think that Norway has the highest level of electric vehicles in their new car sales, substantially higher than the couple of per cent that the UK has currently reached, and partly that is down to tax issues and partly it is down to local incentives that have been provided to lower-cost parking or the use of bus lanes. There are those kinds of mechanisms that can be used to provide softer incentives to encourage take-up of electric vehicles. I will just raise a couple of questions on cycling. The cycling action plan seeks to deliver an 8 per cent increase in everyday journeys by 2020. Is it ambitious enough? I may say to myself, is it realistic? Where is it joined up, Government-needed in terms of that, because to increase cycling in a city like Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, where it is like an assault course to try and drive along the roads, never mind being on a bike, just seems that there is—do you need more joined up thinking around that? It is back to the question that Angus raised earlier about taking people away us. If you look at the press this last number of weeks in Scotland, cyclists, more than anybody, are talking about the state, the roads in particular in the cities and it is not safe to go on a bike. Is that realistic? Do we need more joined up thinking? Do we need to start to engage more with people in this instance cyclists to talk about what the issues are? My understanding is that the proportion of trips that are taken by cycling currently is very low, a couple of per cent. It is nowhere near the ambition of the targets. Is that target high enough? I cannot say to you whether it is high enough, but all I can say is that we are nowhere near achieving even that target at this point. That would suggest that there are a number of barriers to that achievement going forward. The nature of it would be that you would have to think about a whole host of different issues and be joined up across sectors and the different issues which include the state of the road and so on. When you look at particular cities, there are examples where substantial amount has been achieved. There is clearly some learning that ought to be able to go on as to how that has been achieved in those particular areas and what that means for Edinburgh or for wherever else. Can I just very briefly invite you to explore the sort of modal shift and the practicalities of getting people on to bikes from cars and the reality might well be that people might move to buses more readily given the state of the roads and given the ageing profile of our community, myself included. As someone who is a recipient of a bus pass, I have gone from being a point-to-point person in a car to totally enjoying travelling on buses as a new way of moving around. I think that that could be encouraged. Would you like to talk about that and how that might actually be the solution for low-emission zones in cities, particularly in Scotland and elsewhere? I want to go back on the cycling issue. Without, in any sense, downplaying the importance of trying to shift towards more cycling, the journeys that are potentially going to be shifted are probably the shortest journeys. There may be a significant proportion of journeys, but there is probably a relatively small proportion of overall carbon and transport carbon. There is potential, I think, for the greater shift in terms of carbon emissions to be made through modal shift towards buses, which can take a higher proportion of the journeys and a higher proportion of the carbon potentially could be reduced through that kind of mechanism. Mark Ruskell Just to finalise the theme around walking and cycling, we have a clear route map to achieving very high cycle rates. We need to look at Netherlands, Denmark and major cities. I wonder where the gap is. Do you see a blueprint for how you develop very high rates of walking and cycling, particularly in cities across Europe? Is there a gap between what we have in Scotland and across the UK and what they have elsewhere? Is it best to build that up from city action plans up the way, or does it require a national policy working from the top down as well as from the bottom up? I suspect that those local plans are going to be very important. That does not mean that you cannot have some kind of national ambition and guidance, but I suspect that bottom up at the local level is going to be very important because the issues are going to be different in different localities. However, I thought that there was a lot to learn from the areas and the countries and cities where there has been success in this area. However, I do come back to the point that I would not want to get too hung up on the cycling issue in terms of the carbon benefits, because I think that in the end it will be a relatively small proportion of the transport emissions that can be shifted. There may be huge benefits from this shift for other reasons as well, which are to do with health benefits and so on, but I suspect that the proportion of the carbon that can be shifted is relatively small. Is it cost-effective? Yes, it probably is cost-effective. More cost-effective than investment in EVs? No, we should invest in both to the extent that they are cost-effective compared to our assessment of what is needed to meet the future targets. However, I think that you cannot rely on it to achieve anywhere near the level of decarbonisation that the shift towards electric vehicles is going to achieve. Let me start by drawing attention to my register of interest, which shows that I have shares in a local wind farm. To give context, that gives me an income of £36 a year. Nonetheless, it is appropriate to declare it, because I want to talk about industry. How, in particular, does the proposed 21 per cent reduction in the sector to 2032 compare with the committee's scenarios? I think that it is a little below our scenarios going forward, but not hugely below. It relies on a number of mechanisms that are largely, in particular the EU, which is not within the Scottish Government's control going forward. There is some energy efficiency improvement in there as well. Longer term, there is still an issue about carbon capture and storage, and there is some necessity for that to be meeting the 2050 targets. Decarbonising industry in the longer term is going to require that kind of mechanism. Are you implying that you see carbon capture and storage applying to industry beyond the power generation? Previous contributions that you have made have suggested that, in essence, combustion as part of power generation will be all but eliminated by 2050. I am certainly seeing carbon capture and storage as necessary for industry in the long term. In a sense, you can always see decarbonisation of the power sector could happen without much contribution of carbon capture and storage, but decarbonisation of industry or substantial decarbonisation, which will be needed to meet the long term targets, is going to require carbon capture and storage. Certainly the committee's work and the work of others like the energy technologies institute, the costs of meeting the 2050 target are doubled without the overall cost across the economy, are doubled without carbon capture and storage compared to having carbon capture and storage. That is largely an industry issue. I made in my previous intervention some reference to the different technologies. Have you looked at the economics now? Of course, it is an immature technology, so I understand the difficulties in doing that. Clearly, at the moment, a lot of focus has been on retrofitting power stations, but that has gone off agenda. Building new power stations would be quite different, but the different technologies that apply to different parts of industrial processes, to what extent has the committee done any research on that and do you have any conclusions? You can share with us. We have done quite a lot of work on carbon capture and storage, and what I would do is to send you a link, if I may, to the relevant work. We have looked substantially at the issue that made suggestions to the UK Government about how this could be taken forward, which were largely consistent with the review that I think Lord Oxford conducted on capture and storage. Clearly, there is a cost to carbon capture and storage, which you cannot avoid, but for us, there is an issue that we have seen through deployment, for example, of offshore wind, but that process has brought the cost down very substantially. Our view is that that same kind of cost reduction is likely if we were to look at deployment of carbon capture and storage. Moving on to another facet, my colleague brought in the EU ETS. Let me just move on from his question a little bit. We have seen international trading, for example, between Japan and Latvia in 2009, Japan and Ukraine, and some other international trades. Does that suggest that the UK post-Brexit does not really need to be forced to be in the EU ETS, although there may be administrative advantages in doing so, that it will be able to, if it chooses to do so, to buy and sell in international markets that are beginning to develop? There may be potential to link to other schemes that are beginning to develop, and China is developing schemes, for example. However, we see, in principle, advantages of the trading mechanism through the EU ETS. Is that simply because the EU ETS is probably the biggest scheme in the world at this present time? At this time, yes. Then there are issues there that the EU ETS could link to other schemes going forward. There are advantages in being part of a bigger market. If we are not part of the EU ETS, it would be for the governments to decide about what the mechanisms might be used to maintain some kind of trading role going forward. In the long term, our view has always been that the emission reductions ought to be achieved domestically rather than relying on trading. Trading may have a role in smoothing the cost from reducing the cost of the transition, but in the end, everybody has got to get their emissions down very substantially, and we have net zero in the second half of the century. Trading is likely to be a part of getting to net zero as well. In terms of the removal technology, it is likely that some countries may have greater potential and advantages than some others, so there may be a degree of trading there. However, the UK focus for the long term should be on how we reduce our emissions without thinking that we can buy out through trading, which, at the moment, we would expect to be very expensive in the long term, given the requirements for everybody to be reducing their emissions. I am encouraged by your attitude to trading. Let me just post that. The other thing that I suppose, just to close this one off, is that there are any particular opportunities that Scotland is missing out of in the industry that is within our competencies to reduce emissions? The answer might be no. I would come back to thinking further about carbon capture and storage and the potential for grain to mouth or other clusters of industry and how that will relate to an offshore potential for storage, which I know there is a pilot that is currently being funded from the Government, but there is pretty small scale. The UK Government plans are also pretty small scale with a substantial focus on usage at the moment. For the long term, we have to get carbon capture and storage to reduce those industry emissions, so I think that that is an area that needs more focus. The little what is going on is in my constituency, so I am very interested, but I think that we have a huge advantage in that one of the depleted fields was a sour gas field, so the quality of the piping is already suitable for carbonic acid, which most piping is not. Anyway, computer. Looking briefly at opportunities, what potential does blue carbon have for Scotland in this regard? Blue carbon is an issue that the committee has not looked at in any substantial detail, so I think that it was covered very briefly in our last risk assessment report, but the evidence base, when we did look at it, was very thin. I think that it is developing, so I am sure that it is an issue that the committee will come back to at the moment. My understanding is that there is potentially a relatively high importance for Scotland compared to the rest of the UK, but I know really little more than that, so I think that it is an issue that the committee will come back to in the future. I do hope so, and I think that my colleague Claudia Beamish certainly hopes so. Anyway, she has taken a particular interest in it. Can I just briefly look at the land use sector? We considered earlier the impact of revisions to the baselines that we worked to. I am just wondering how robust the methodology is for calculating emissions from forestry and peatlands and whether we should anticipate revisions around the figures there. We should anticipate that there is the potential for such revisions going forward, absolutely, and we should think about how we plan for that and how we take that into account, but it is difficult to anticipate what the size of those revisions might be going forward. We were asked by the Scottish Government to advise on how targets might be amended or reconsidered in the light of inventory changes that have occurred, and we wrote to the Scottish Government in December setting out the committee's views on that. That suggested that rather than that the important thing was to maintain policy efforts because it is important to have stability and understanding from those who are taking the mitigation forward and understanding what is required. Changes in the inventory could mean that, to meet the existing target, that could make meeting that existing target easier or it could make it more difficult—a very late notice. The committee's view was that policy efforts should not be increased or reduced because of that, but it would rather be better to assess progress against a adjusted emissions inventory that was consistent with the emissions inventory at the time that the target was set. Then, after a five-year period, reconsider the accumulation of those inventory changes over that entire period and think about whether that meant that the targets should be revised or amended. In the long run, the targets need to be consistent with the science, but we should not expect year-to-year variations in policy efforts as a result of the variations in inventory, but we should have a mechanism that allows for those targets to be amended in the longer term. Although Scotland has planted 70 per cent of the trees that have been planted in the UK over the period of RPP2, the average was still only 6,000 hectares per year. We now need to move to an average over the next 10-year period between 2012 and 2022 of 10,000 hectares an average every year. I am just wondering how the committee views the measures that are in place to try to deliver on that. Things like the forestry grants scheme that has been introduced in other measures, is it viable that we are going to hit these targets? I think that the target goes up beyond that 10,000 hectares. It goes to 15,000 in the longer term. That is consistent with the committee's view about what is necessary going forward. Yes, we do think that it is viable to achieve that. I do not have an exact answer. I am sorry for you as to whether the plans that have been set out will be sufficient to achieve that, but it will clearly need a substantial policy effort and support for that afforestation going forward. We think that it is an appropriate level of ambition. You are not yet sure that it is achievable? We think that it is achievable, but we have not done that full assessment with the current policy. Turning to agriculture, John Scott. Thank you very much for finishing off on that question. I would be fair to say that there is a deal of antipathy within ag cultural circles towards planting. I am not certain if the measures that are in place sufficiently will encourage that. How do we balance that need for more forestry, for more timber and the sequestration that provides against the need for food production, if you like? We are doing a bit of further work at the committee currently on land use change and what might be required going forward. That would be trying to look at how we would include within it balancing that need for afforestation and the need for food production and the need potentially for bioenergy crops. There are significant issues there about that balance. We need to do that thinking about the cost-effective potential in different areas. Also, if we need to get to net zero emissions, and that is a committed target, then we are going to need these kinds of technologies, the negative emission technologies. There has got to be a substantial role going forward for appropriate afforestation and, for example, for use of wood in construction. I am not sure that that probably does not answer entirely your question. No, I think that it is probably one of those imponderables. Can I ask you in terms of agriculture directly why you think that there has been so little progress in that sector to date? Do you think that it is to do with profitability or a lack of knowledge or other things? I suspect that it is an issue that is connected with profitability and lack of knowledge. It is connected with a voluntary approach, which is encouraging those who have the greatest commitment to be, who are the ones who are likely to take it up, but we have not seen a reduction in agricultural emissions in Scotland, as I understand it, for about the last six, seven years. They are pretty flat. It would appear that that voluntary approach is not working to date. I think that is a question mark for my committee, about whether thoughts should be given to moving towards a more regulated approach. That would still retain elements of information that it has got to. It would retain elements about information exchange and availability, but whether there is a requirement to move towards something that is not a voluntary approach, which is either compulsory or is incentivised in other ways. Would you accept or not with standing that the sophistication of food production is now quite a refined process? When you start interfering with the maximised food production systems simply to try to maximise profitability, there is a huge difficulty in moving towards carbon reduction. I honestly think that there is a need for much more knowledge transfer on the committee. In fact, representatives of this committee have, in recent times, suggested that, while the knowledge is there, the livestock and the agricultural and cropping industries are not entirely aware of what is expected of them and how to achieve that, that is a fair comment. That may well be a fair comment, but there have been schemes in Scotland about provision of information, so I think that you have a question about what, if that is a fair comment, why are those schemes not working? Why are they not working at scale? Those schemes need to be evaluated, and if they are not producing the results, then we have to consider what are the alternatives and how do we go beyond that? An information provision will still be a part of the answer, but maybe it needs incentivisation through other routes. We are talking about farmers maximising their profitability, but if we are not taking account of the social costs within that profitability decision, then they are not coming to the decisions or judgments that are overall appropriate for society as a whole. We need to bring those more into line, and that suggests moving towards other mechanisms to incentivise those abatement measures, and not just to rely on a voluntary approach. I sense the answer to the question, given the tone of what you have just said, do you think that the Scottish Government is incorrect in reducing the targets from a culture sector from 12 per cent down to 9 per cent? I think that this is an area where the Government should be looking at the potential to increase those targets, and not to reduce those reduction targets. That may well need other incentive mechanisms to produce the results, but our culture mission is Scotland at 20 per cent, I think, of the overall total, maybe slightly higher than that. This is an area that really needs to be examined about what the potential is to be contributing towards the long-term reductions. 17 per cent, I think, is the figure for the culture. 20 per cent in my head, but there you are. Would you like to speculate on what alternatives the Government should consider to help to deliver the bigger reduction? I think that previously, for example, the Scottish Government had said that it was going to introduce compulsory testing of the soils at the pH and potentially for other nutrients, and I think that it has moved away from that. That is, again, an issue to come back to. If there was compulsory testing, then that would then provide greater information for nutrient management that farmers could use. There are then questions about whether payments to two farmers can be reformed to encourage the uptake of mitigation measures. We have that opportunity through Brexit. This is one of the areas where there may be an opportunity to reform the payment system to encourage greater level of mitigation effort by farmers. Are there any stand-out things that are cut to you that might be worth doing, particularly? What would be worth doing is looking at fertiliser use and the most effective and efficient use of fertilisers. That might be good for the farmer as well, but looking at mechanisms to incentivise the appropriate use of fertilisers, I do not have an exact policy recommendation for you, but there is potential things there for that to be potentially reasonable and good for the farmers in the long term, but also good for reduction of emissions. For my part, I prefer to see the voluntary approach continue, but I have to speak from a position of self-interest there. Would you agree that a voluntary approach in the longer term is still better than a regulatory approach? If it delivered the emissions savings, it would be excellent. It is important to evaluate the current voluntary approach. I am not aware that there is a substantial evaluation as yet. I think that there has been work going on with the Scottish Government to look at what has been achieved. You could say that the next step would be to have a serious look at what that approach has delivered. If we look simply at the level of agricultural emissions, it does not appear to have delivered very much, but there may be things that we can learn from that voluntary approach that you still want to retain. Thank you so much. Over this issue of voluntary approach, in particular to soil testing, has there been active discussion about the policy here? There has been discussion. I do not know what discussion there has been within the teams, but clearly it is there within our past recommendations and our past advice to Scottish Government in terms of our approach report and in terms of past UK approach reports. There has been advice on the need to move beyond the voluntary approach. Were you given reasons why it was rejected to take a statutory approach? I do not think that we are not aware that we have been given reasons as to why that was rejected, but we can see the climate change plan and see what reasons have been given for that approach going forward. Just to wrap this up, let us look to the future and the climate change bill that is coming down the track. Stuart Stevenson. Thank you, convener. During your earlier contributions, you have identified a number of areas where Scotland could do bigger things than perhaps the UK. The most recent one that you mentioned was the distant prospect of blue carbon. Are there other areas where the 2050 targets that we would expect to be incorporated in the new climate change bill could be more ambitious than the rest of the UK? Why, if so? Scotland can go further in terms of the contribution of Afroostation. It can look at the contribution of wood construction, where it already has substantially higher level of wood construction than I think the rest of the UK. It is more ambitious on moving towards electric vehicles and potentially it could look at how to go further than its current plan on decarbonisation of heat. Scotland, I think, has a slightly higher proportion of buildings off the gas grid than the UK. Those are areas that may be appropriate to go relatively earlier and faster in terms of decarbonisation, for example, through move towards heat pumps. There is potential to go further and faster on energy efficiency improvement, and Scotland has ambitious plans in that area. I speak as someone who is off grid and who has researched heat pumps and wanted to go there, but having established that the nearest servicing engineer was two and a half hours drive away has decided not to proceed on that basis. That is one of the big issues in getting off-grid people the lack of support, whereas the nearest servicing engineer is six miles away and can be summoned very readily. There are broader policy issues, but that is just an observation and really should not particularly form that. Can I move on to net emissions accounting? How will that help us in future in dealing with inventory revisions in particular? Do you mean the move towards measuring just the gross emissions? Yes. I think it helps in the sense of clarity of what is being aimed at. It is very difficult, I think, to explain the concept of the net emissions accounting. In terms of clarity of targets going forward, I think it helps in terms of explaining what those targets are and the measures that need to be in place to achieve that. It is consistent with the need in the long term to get emissions down domestically rather than using trading. It introduces some complexities in the sense that, by moving away from that approach, there might be more pressure on industry to reduce emissions. Rather than trading out at lower costs, potentially. In moving towards gross emissions accounting, we need to be careful that the measures that are expected of industry are not going to be at excessive cost or that there are compensation mechanisms available to deal with those industry costs. You do not want to be imposing higher costs than countries with which we are internationally trading. Nonetheless, given your previous remarks about the undesirability of depending to a significant degree on trading, it would be appropriate for industry to be focusing on its actual emissions rather than netting it off by other mechanisms. We came to a conclusion that it was appropriate and that it was a sensible way forward to switch towards that gross accounting basis. However, that does not rule out the use of trading as a mechanism, but it does not mean that we just need to be alive to those competitiveness implications, so we think that there are ways of dealing with that. Okay. My last contribution before my colleagues, just have you talked about the interim targets for 2030 and 2040 with the Government? Yes. As much as we have advised on the level of the 66 per cent reduction target for 2030, we have suggested an interim target for 2040 that would be consistent with a 90 per cent reduction target for 2050, where 90 per cent was at the limits of what we currently have in our scenarios about what can be achieved. Thank you very much. I think that that concludes our questioning for today. Mr Gault, thank you very much for your time. I think that it was a useful session. I am going to suspend briefly to change to the next witness panel. Welcome back to this meeting of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. The third item on the agenda is to take evidence on the Scottish Crown Estate Bill at stage 1. This morning, we will focus on stakeholders who are directly affected by management of Crown Estate assets. Therefore, I welcome Patricia Hothon from Scottish Renewables, David Sanderson from the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation, Mark Simmons from the British Ports Authority and Dr Alan Wells of the Fisheries Management Scotland. Good morning to you all, and we will move straight to questions. John Scott. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning and thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen. I note the diverse range of backgrounds from which you come. What are your experiences of the Crown Estate and the Crown Estate Scotland, and what, in your view, makes for good estate management? From our perspective, we have quite a wide-ranging set of discussions with the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate owns about 140 salmon fisheries across Scotland. It sits on several district salmon fishery boards who are our members. We have a close relationship with them in terms of the management of wild fisheries, but we also work with the Crown Estate in relation to salmon farming, marine renewables and other developments in the marine environment. For example, we are working with the Crown Estate at the moment on identifying and assessing methods of monitoring potential impacts on wild fish with regard to the Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification for fish farms and environmental management plans that are coming through the planning process for salmon farming. We also work with the Crown Estate on marine renewable leases, and we have done quite a lot of work on looking at the impacts, potentially, of marine renewables and offshore wind farms on migratory salmon and sea trout. Good morning. Perhaps you could just say at the start that I am here in my capacity as the director of Scottish Renewables, but I am also a partner in law from Shepard and Wettaburn, and we do that for a number of offshore developers, both tidal and offshore wind. I am happy to answer questions from both perspectives, but primarily I am speaking for Scottish Renewables this morning. The engagement that we have with Crown Estate is largely as landlord in the offshore sector, offshore wind and marine wave and tidal projects. I have, in anticipation of the day, spoken with a number of members. I think the description that the Crown Estate offered up for themselves in relation to their involvement with renewables, which is, as a landlord, a catalyst and a supportive partner, would broadly be echoed by the industry, by most of our members. The relationship is triggered by the lease process, but the Crown Estate has been, obviously, influential in bringing forward licensing rounds for development of projects and in also participating in helping to deliver the project. That supportive role has been quite important. That has ranged everything from participating in consultations but also helping to fund and manage enabling works in the early stages of the projects. Broadly speaking, our engagement is through that landlord intent context, but the relationship is probably a bit wider than that in actual fact. The positive relationship that you have had in the past, you would expect to see continuing into the future? Broadly speaking, it has been a positive relationship, but it has been a reasonably effective and efficient management process. David Sanderson Hello. Likewise, our relationship with the Crown Estate is mainly as our landlord. We have a significant number of sea bed leases around the coastline of Scotland. That has developed over rapidly over many years in terms of our needs, in terms of the scale of sites that we require for our industry to move forward. That has been a productive relationship between the landlords and tenants over that time. That is the fundamental relationship. Clearly, we look upon the Crown Estate as a body that has supported our plans for development over the years. Mark Finlay We represent the overwhelming majority of ports in Scotland. Most of our members' engagement with the Crown Estate is, as the Crown Estate owns most of the sea bed. Our members, in carrying out their statutory duties, have to work with the Crown Estate on leases and licences for things like dredging and maintaining navigable channels in fulfilment of their statutory duties. I would say that not all of our members have always found that to be the easiest process, has sometimes been difficult or time-consuming and has, at times, added to development costs or taken added delays to that process. It has not always been the easiest. To answer your question, what would be good in terms of the management process, responsiveness, working with the users of the assets and making sure that it remains affordable? As our members cannot move elsewhere, they have to work with the manager of that asset. Mark Finlay Can I speak clearly? Are you reflecting the view across the UK of dealings with the Crown Estate or is that specific to Scotland and is there a difference? Mark Finlay That was across the UK. It is quite a similar experience that we have found, but I am here speaking on behalf of our Scottish members. Mark Finlay I just ask because I am interested in whether, as we move to Crown Estate Scotland, you are identifying an opportunity or, from your point of view, where things could be done better. Mark Finlay There is definitely an opportunity to do things better, yes. It remains to be seen whether that will be taken. Mark Finlay The type of the ways that your members are confronted with, are they because of environmental concerns, local concerns, what does it tend to be, or is it just the process that comes from? Mark Finlay Quite often, it is just the process in extending leases or getting licenses for activities that, as I say, are statutory responsibilities of our members. Mark Finlay Okay, thank you. Claudia Beamish Thank you, convener. Good morning to you all. Can I just go back to you, Alan Wells, briefly, to ask you about your perception of good management in relation to your interface with the Crown Estates? Whether you see that as positive in the past or positive going forward or whatever, do you have any comment, please? Mark Finlay I think that, generally speaking, it has been positive, but because we are dealing with the Crown Estate across a range of issues, probably the experience is different in those different issues. With regard to the salmon fishing, we have had a very positive relationship with the Crown Estate. Generally speaking, the Crown Estate leased those fishing to angling clubs, occasionally to private owners, but very often it is to angling clubs. As I mentioned earlier on, they participate on the district salmon fishery boards. We are in favour of the management of those fisheries being devolved further. I think that we could potentially see a lot of benefit in that, not so much from an economic perspective but from a wider environmental and social perspective in terms of encouraging access to those fishings and getting more people fishing, which is an issue for our sector. With regard to salmon farming, I think that the Crown Estate probably takes much more of a landlord type approach, as was discussed earlier on. There are a number of elements of the regulatory system, and the committees obviously looked at that previously. I think that there is all sorts of scope for bringing that system together and having a much more coherent system of regulation. The Crown Estate role has a role to play there, but from an interaction perspective, we have been involved in several projects with the Crown Estate on that, and they have all been very positive from our perspective. Again, with marine renewables, we were involved in a project up on the north coast in relation to the major end development. The Crown Estate put some support into helping to get people around the table on that project. Again, it was positive, but one of the things that we would quite like to see through the bill is perhaps a greater emphasis on sustainable development rather than necessarily on economic development, as has been the case in the past. Let me reassure the general public and everybody that this was not a planned question leading on from Alan Wells to turn to environmental protection very specifically in relation to the bill, which is something that our committee and the previous committee have taken a strong interest in in terms of mission statements. Perhaps the bill is an opportunity to clarify some of those issues. As you will know, the bill sets out that managers of assets must maintain and seek to enhance the value of assets and the income arising, but may, and I stress the word may, do so in a way that contributes to the wider objectives including environmental wellbeing. We had a submission from Professor Ross and Professor Reed, and that suggests that the bill could be amended to require managers to take considerations into account in clause 7, so we are clear subsection 2. They also point out that sustainable development encompasses, as we all know, environmental, social and economic wellbeing. I wonder whether any of the panel can comment on whether it would be valuable to change the may to require and any other comments in relation to environmental protection in the bill. I am not entirely sure that that would be necessary because any activity that you undertake that has an impact on the environment or any development, you already need to prove that in the licensing process, so I am not sure that that would add an awful lot other than replicating what developers already do. Just to clarify, the point is perhaps that, within the current estate, the value of the assets and the income arising is the important, more generic issue. Whether sustainable development should be an obligation to take that into account while moving forward with the business plan or whatever from the bill. I think that it is a bit difficult. That is a fair enough comment in terms of actual applications, but it is more the broader issue. I think that that would be a useful addition. I think that Professor Ross and Professor Reid mentioned a similar duty in the Climate Change Bill. There is also a similar duty in the Marine Scotland Bill from 2010, which basically says that, in exercising any function that affects the Scottish marine area, Scottish ministers and public authorities must act in the best way calculated to further the achievement of sustainable development. I think that it is consistent with the approach that we take in other legislation. It would be good to see that in there. I do not think that we would have any fundamental objection to sustainability being part of any decision making process certainly in the renewables context. I have to say that looking at the bill, I do not think that that was the intention of putting that clause in. I think that it did have another purpose. It was about weighing the balance and whether you were able to move away from that value judgment. That is how I read it anyway in conjunction with clause 11. However, I would have to agree with Mark that there are other regulatory controls that are focused specifically on sustainability and environmental protection. It is about getting all the forms of regulation to sit comfortably with one another to respect one another, but not all to be looking at the same thing. I do not think that we would be fundamentally opposed to it, but I am not convinced that it is necessary. We would hold a similar view on whether there is a necessity for such a clause. We would like to see as many opportunities as possible for good alignment with other regulatory regimes. Clearly, there are a number of regulatory regimes that apply in the marine context, alignment with national planning and marine planning, and the fact that there is already significant environmental protection regulation out there applying to our activities. What we would like to see is bringing together of the planning functions and the Crown Estate leasing functions in a cohesive way as possible to make that beneficial to all. From that point of view, I do not think that we would have any particularly strong views about whether or not that is a requirement or not. I do not think that I am making clear what the question is perhaps, because the point is about the actual assets of the Crown Estate and whether, as managers of the assets, they obviously have a very serious responsibility to maintain and seek to enhance the value of those assets and the income arising. Would it in that context of that requirement, which is there in reserved issues and will no doubt transfer at the point of devolution, be an obligation as well for the Crown Estate to look at that in relation to its decisions on assets, rather than regulation? I am now being clearer, I hope. Do you throw in them? How and what else? Maybe just give an example that might help with that. One of the examples that we raised was the salmon fishing. The salmon fishing are largely in the central belt. They tend to be on rivers that are not necessarily of high value in comparison with some of the rivers that we have in Scotland, and therefore trying to get a huge amount of economic value from those fisheries is maybe not necessarily the best way. There is another route that is looking at getting a great deal more social and environmental benefit from those fisheries, so getting people using them, getting people out in the outdoors and all the rest of it, and maybe putting less emphasis on getting an economic benefit from those fisheries. Any other comments on that? David Sanderson, I think that I am getting where you are going with this one, and that is quite interesting. I tend to feel that you might be pushing it slightly open door. I tend to agree with Alan that there is more than just the economic value that can be accrued from the county state. We should be looking at the wider socioeconomics of that relationship, so I think that there is an opening there for things to be widened out, perhaps. The committee has previously expressed a view in the context of its salmon inquiry on the regulatory approach around aquaculture, so let us not revisit that. How might the Crown Estate's role in aquaculture consenting change be heard from the SSPO of view that it holds? However, what advantages might such a change provide for the industry, for the local communities and, perhaps most importantly, for all the marine environment? David Sanderson, I think that we have said that we can see an opportunity here for better alignment from the process of getting to a point of having a lease and the various permissions that you need to carry out your activity. I think that there needs to be good alignment. I am not saying that that has not been the case, but there is an opportunity when we bring things into a purely Scottish context and certainly looking at how that might be devolved further, that those things could be even better aligned than they are at the moment. That would be a great benefit at a time when we are looking overall at the regulatory environment and finding that sometimes regulation does have to change and does have to be reviewed and brought into something that is a better fit for what the modern industries that are using the Crown Estate assets would like to see. I get why that would be helpful for the industry absolutely and one could argue for local communities perhaps, but what about the marine environment? How would it benefit that? I think that it is definitely the case that at a regional or community level we need to have a view about what the benefits to the wider community in terms of environmental protection can be across the wide range of different uses of that environment. In terms of enhancing marine spatial planning, regional planning and bringing in the environmental scrutiny required for that process and aligning it to the Crown Estate at least in process, we can achieve that. Alan Wells might give again a couple of specific examples, but I would preface that by saying that I think that it probably should be looked at in the round with the other elements. For example, through the strategic fish health strategy that is taking place at the moment, one of the things that has been looked at or will be looked at going forward are the areas, the management areas in which salmon farming takes place. If you change those areas, you could see an advantage in having fire breaks for one of a better way of putting it between different areas so that you do not get read across. You could use the lease instead. We are not going to lease in those areas in order to create those fire breaks and to keep them in place. Another example might be, for example, if a farm was not located in the right place in the future, you might take the decision not to renew the lease in that area. Obviously, you need to look at those things within the wider regulatory regime. Turning now to transfer or delegated management, it was interesting in the consultation that there were clearly some different views on the ability of sectors to be involved with communities or by themselves in managing or having transferred responsibilities. I am just wondering how the environment gets safeguarded in that situation. Perhaps, if I could start with Mark Simmons, because you represent ports and harbours, there are issues around harbours regulatory functions, but there are also commercial interests. How do you, in terms of governance, square those responsibilities? If you were to take more control of the seabed and add that to the functions of harbour authorities, how would those issues play out? How does the environment stay as a key concern, a key issue within that, if you were to get delegated functions or transfers? Well, as I said in my previous answer, I imagine that all activities that have an impact on the environment would still be licensable by Marine Scotland or whoever else, so I don't see that that would have a huge impact on the way things are done. Not all harbours are looking to take on or will be able to take on asset management. It is not going to be a particular issue for everyone, but, as I said, there is separately a licensing process for activities that have an impact on the environment, so that will still be there and that is still quite a comprehensive process. I am understanding that harbour authorities have some responsibilities in relation to the environment, their appropriate authorities and responsible authorities when it comes to assessments on the habitats regulations, so there is a role there. How do harbour authorities deal with that in terms of governance? If they have designations within their statutory harbour area, then, again, they already deal with those in the set way they have to, and that will depend on the management measures that are set out for them, and that will be dependent on various designations, but I don't see that fundamentally changing. Would you see harbour authorities as being fit bodies to take on delegated management or transfers without any reform of the current governance arrangements? Absolutely. Harbour authorities have, as I said, statutory responsibilities and assets that they do not own, which makes that quite tricky sometimes to carry those out in an efficient way. I think that harbour authorities are generally good stewards of the environment. Development is usually carried out in a sustainable way. As I said, it is all licensible. Owning the asset does not mean that development or activity is going to be just going ahead without permissions from the various licensing bodies if asset management was devolved to an authority. Other sectors? Does the agriculture industry have an interest in owning Seabed or having delegated management of Seabed? That would be a simple answer. However, we do not really see any particular difficulty in the devolution of management arrangements. In fact, I can probably see quite a lot of enhancement from the point of view of cohesive community planning from being part of the community planning and local planning process. I think that Crownry State should certainly have a role, or whoever manages Crownry State assets should certainly have a role in that whole process, because that will get down to the wider relationships and needs that a community has and how best to align to that from the aquaculture point of view. That is entirely what would be most appropriate. Richard Lyle Good morning. Can you give me your view on the case for national or local management? Who should manage the assets? Does a geographical approach to asset management present any risk to strategic decision-making across Scotland, or might it take great account of more locally specific considerations? From an offshore renewables perspective, particularly large offshore wind, it is critically important that it is done at a national level. I think that there is an important function for one body to look at all the opportunities for development around our shores and to try and work out where the best combination of developments may be. That process has to be done with an overview of Scotland and Scottish waters as a whole. All the developers who have indicated an interest in developing and all the opportunities for development may be there. Our experience thus far has been that a centralised process is best, and we would be very keen to make sure that that prevails. There is another licensing round imminent at the start of next year, and it is very important in terms of remaining competitive in the offshore sector, in the UK overall, that we have that centralised, streamlined process that is able to look at all the opportunities and select from that the best combination for optimising renewable energy and the best combination for Scotland. What about the interaction between the role of the Crown Estate and Marine Scotland for offshore renewables? Does that work sufficiently effectively? It does. In my view, it performs quite different roles. Marine Scotland is the chief consenting, licensing authority and is very much involved in the marine planning process. Crown Estate operates primarily as the landlord and the lestor of the seabed, but they are engaging very closely with Marine Scotland in that process. I think that it is critically important that the marine planning sits alongside the leasing process, so that is a very important dynamic. I think that it works well with Marine Scotland and the Crown Estate. Certainly in terms of the salmon fishing, some of our members have expressed interest in managing those fisheries. Fisheries management works best when it is undertaken at the catchment scale and the district salmon fishery boards and the fisheries trust operate on that scale rather than at a smaller scale. That is a useful element. In terms of management, district salmon fishery boards, since the 2013 legislation that went through have operated under a legal duty to comply with various good governance requirements, so they have to hold public meetings, publish annual accounts and annual reports. I think that they are a pretty good fit for that. One of the questions that we have is to be clear that they fit under the community organisation element of that, or if they do not, whether they are not section 6.1b allows Scottish ministers to designate the district salmon fishery boards or the trusts as part of that process, because they are not a clear fit into any of the other categories. Is anybody else going to come in on this before Mr Lyle comes back? Mark Simmons and then David Sanderson. Yes, our view was for a mix of management options. Our slight concern is that there are some ports. What we do not want to see is bodies taking on the management of assets and taking over the management of assets within a statutory harbour area without ports being consulted. There are some cases where you can see where that might cause competition issues, because the body taking over that management may also own harbors that compete with the harbouring questions. In those cases, there are some questions that we have, but our main view is that whatever happens we would like ports and harbors. As I said at the beginning, we cannot move away. There is no choice there. They have to deal with whoever they have, so we would like to see or ensure that ports are consulted and in a meaningful way. David Sanderson. We feel that there is definitely a case for very strong national policy settings for what the Crown Estate does in Scotland. However, in that regard, we do not really have any fundamental objection to whatever level of devolution might be appropriate in terms of different management arrangements. However, we would like to see however a degree of consistency in terms of how that actually is implemented in some checks and balances. We certainly need to see that the national policy context is the umbrella, if you like, that covers that and checks that from time to time. Patricia Hawthorne, do you want to come on? I want to come back and say that one of the challenges that we have as Scottish Unibles is that we represent a wide range of interests, and we have among our members island councils and wave and tidal developers. It is probably correct that I add to my previous comments that I can see the benefit in considering almost unique opportunities such as they are offered up in the islands for that type of development. I understand that a number of pilot projects are being considered. I think that that seems like a very sensible approach to look at it on a pilot basis first. Can I welcome Patricia Hawthorne? Seemingly changing slightly in midstream, but Mark Simmons must have been reading my second question as I wrote it down. Shouldn't we have a different policy in different areas in order to innovate and allow people like yourself, Patricia, to expand? We have two Governments, 32 councils that do 32 different things in their local areas. Shouldn't we be able to diversify and do different things in different areas in order to innovate and allow people like yourself to explore the potential of Scotland? I added my additional comments, because I think that we always have to remember that we have a range of interests within our membership. I can see quite clearly that there is a need and a wish within the island councils to get involved on a community level. For the rest of the industry, we have very large-scale infrastructure developments to deliver. It is a national priority, and we have to try to find the very best developments around Scottish waters. I think that we are supportive of the position that this is looked at on a case-by-case basis, on a functional basis, rather than on a geographic basis. For me, offshore large-scale commercial wind farms are a game changer for Scotland, and we have to look at that at a national level. I am going to be really controversial. I am sure that I will get people coming back to me when I say that. Do you think that planning applications for the likes of you guys should be decided by national government rather than local government? Our offshore developers value very highly the relationships that they have with the local councils, because all of the offshore developments come onshore somewhere, and the communities that are most directly affected are the ones that are looking at the applications for substations, cables and other infrastructure that might be required. Yes, the consent at the offshore part of the generating station and the cable are taken at a national level, and I think that that is correct. One party has the overview of where we provide our major generation assets going forward, but there is always that local connection because those sites have to come onshore somewhere, and it is a very important relationship because the economic development will be based around that substation and cable. Thank you, that is a question that I always want to ask. That actually moves into question, Angus MacDonald wants to ask, but before that, Stuart Stevenson briefly. Just a very small question. I take it, given the powers that ministers have to exercise under sections 36 and 37 of the electricity act that relate to generation consents and transmission consents, that there is a framework within which ministers are applying national policy and considering the overall picture, rather than being decided, except in pretty small offshore wind. I doubt that windfarm would be less than 50 megawatts. Angus MacDonald, you are expanding on the management theme. In the written submission from Scottish Renewables, it was suggested that the Crown Estate has specialist legal GIS, consenting and commercial expertise, which it is not thought to exist currently in local authorities. In addition, the Royal Yachting Association in its submission has also warned of a potential dilution of expertise. In your respective areas, what expertise, skills and capacity is required by a manager in the case of the Scottish Crown Estate? I am a great believer that you can acquire skills in any context if you have a function to carry out. Skills can be amassed elsewhere, but what is incredibly important for our offshore sector at the moment is the experience that has built up within the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate Scotland and the Crown Estate in London are still engaging a lot in detail about how they carry out the licensing function for offshore wind. To me, it is not necessarily about the skills, it is about the knowledge, experience and expertise and the ability to compare and contrast opportunities. I would agree with that as well. Although, to add that, something that has been suggested is that there could be a retained national administrative body that could help local or regional bodies with such skill shortages if they arise. There are skills within the Crown Estate in terms of the salmon fishing, but, as I said earlier on, a lot of the fishing are leased to angling clubs and all the rest of it, and there are a lot of expertise within our sector as well. I think that there is some acknowledgement that there are skills at the national level that are very helpful from a range of different aspects. However, I do not think that, from our point of view, that is a problem. We are effectively looking at a leasing arrangement and a landlord arrangement. As long as the body that is carrying that out is competent in those kinds of functions, that is perfectly acceptable. Still in the context that the Smith commission recommended, there would be further devolution to local authorities. Your comments on the pros and cons of that have been very helpful. However, in the instance that powers were devolved, how can we assess if a manager has the necessary expertise and capacity to manage those assets that would fulfil the objectives of the Crown Estate? I think that that is where we probably would welcome a pilot scheme approach. I think that, before we know that, we have to test the water. I do not think for one minute that there cannot be further devolution arrangements. However, I think that it is sensible to think about it from a pilot scheme point of view as it moves forward. It is not new territory entirely. The Crown Estate already has different arrangements with the agents who do their work in different parts of Scotland. Therefore, I do not think that we should take too strong a view on that until we have done a pilot scheme. On the implications for the practice of cross subsidies in the financial support that Crown Estate Scotland provides for different types of assets, if management were to be decentralised, I am thinking in a specific way when the offshore renewables is a considerable earlar for the Crown Estate and will be substantially so in the future, but agricultural tenancies, for example, benefit from the current approach. I recognise that, for many of you, it is probably not really an issue, but do you have a view on that, about the pros and cons of the two approaches, Alan Wells? To say that that cross subsidy element is an important element, it would be very useful to retain it. We are aware that our sector is effectively a cash generator for the Crown and, therefore, we support a number of different aspects of Crown Estate business throughout the country. We have no strong view that that sort of balance should not continue. We see great value in having at least some input to what is happening at national level in terms of projects that have got national significance. However, we, as a sector, would like to see whatever the new arrangement is, some sort of scheme whereby the receipts, if you like, the income from our activities goes back into supporting the sustainable development of our activities for the future and for generating potential for growth. Can I refer to my register of interests as a landowner in the Highlands? Can I ask you about section six of the bill, which, as you will know, will intend to confer on ministers the power to restrict the disposal of certain assets, such as the seabed, and it is that that I am interested in asking you about. During the consultation, a question went out that asked should the existing policy namely the general presumption against selling the seabed be maintained. I think it's fair to say that the significant majority of respondents asked for that to be the case, albeit there were some respondents who didn't. Can I ask you your views on whether the sale of a portion of the seabed should be subject to ministerial consent as plus section six of the bill, and whether you think that the bill should be amended to explicitly prevent the sale of the seabed? No, I don't think that the bill should be amended to prevent the sale of portions of the seabed. I'm just speaking in terms of reference to ports and harbours. Our view is that it's fairly straightforward that, if you have a statutory duty to maintain those assets or work with those assets, it's not unreasonable that you should be able to purchase them or own them. One or two ports have been able to do that, but most obviously haven't. In the experience of our members, it just adds to the cost and time that it takes to do their jobs, so no, we wouldn't agree with that. Can I have any point to what the advantage would be in selling bits of the seabed? Not having to deal with the Crown Estate for licensing or renewing leases and things like that. What would the public benefit be? A more efficient ports and harbours sector, and ports and harbours obviously bring benefits to the coastal communities that they're based in. They provide direct jobs, they support industries, fishing, manufacturing, all sorts of things. If development is stunted in ports and harbours and that harms their communities, they're much based. Think of the issue of dredging where there are environmental consents required, leaving that to one side. Would it nonetheless make it easier for ports to not have to interact with the Crown Estate if they own the ground that they have to dredge, which is a common activity in many ports? Are there other examples, besides the one that I bring forward, that would help us to understand the sades of the arglin? Yes, absolutely. I agree with that. There are plenty of other things that they do, fixing aids navigation or other things to the seabed. There's quite a few ways that ports interact with the seabed within their harbour area, and there's also general development of the harbour in terms of adding new keys or pontoons or whatever else it might be. I just wonder if anyone else has comments on owning the seabed. No, that's fine. Okay, thank you. Kate Forbes? Thank you very much. There are a number of Scottish Government strategies and whether that's over national and regional marine plans, local development plans, community planning processes, Scottish energy strategy, tourism strategy and food and drink strategies. Obviously, each of you will have members with an interest in each of those strategies. What do you consider to be the key opportunities for the public management of the coastal and marine assets to contribute to those and other strategies? That's a huge question, but particularly in light of the interests of your own members and specific strategies. Thank you. That leads me in nicely to a couple of points. I completely see the need for whatever arrangements that we've got in Scotland to be very well aligned to arrange those strategies that may or may not touch on different aspects of life. On the arrangements that might be most appropriate, I think that the focus on community planning is a really appropriate one and what falls out of community planning and getting community planning to work really well for everybody, whether it be the individual in the community, a business or an organisation. That's where I'd like to see as much alignment as possible between how you deliver those things and how the national policy context is taken into consideration when you go about your business. I think that this is where, throughout Scotland, we can certainly improve our lot by doing well and doing better at community planning. From a sort of migratory fish perspective, we've got a number of issues. The number of fish surviving at sea has gone from about 20 per cent of fish that leave the rivers coming back to about 5 per cent, so there's something going on at sea that we really need to look after. On the overall sustainability and what we do in the marine environment and how that's assessed and all the rest of it, I think that there's an important role there. However, one element that I think would be really important from our member's perspective is to have more resource to be able to deal with some of those issues. Our members deal with huge offshore wind farms, they deal with aquaculture, they deal with harbour developments and all the rest of it. In terms of that wider social and environmental benefit, a bit more resource coming into helping that process work through to make sure that the decisions that take place are in the right places and for the right reasons would be very helpful from that perspective. I don't know if that's specifically in relation to your question, but I think that it's an important element in terms of what we would like to see going forward. Point, because if you consider that two or three years ago there was a theory, and it may still be relevant, that one of the impacts of migratory fish was the electromagnetic currents being generated by the cables from offshore activity in a variety of ways. There was a piece of work done by Marine Scotland that was quite inconclusive, so we still have that question mark and here's two major contributors to the Crown Estate coming together in that regard. Is that an area that you would think was worth the Crown Estate taking a role in exploring? To be fair, I think that the Crown Estate has taken a role in that thing. I don't know whether the Crown Estate put money into that Marine Scotland researcher or not, but it certainly took place up at the lab in Aberdeen. It looked at one particular sort of, I can't remember whether it was AC or DC, but it looked at one form of cabling, but not the other. I think that question is still there to some way, shape or form, but having said that through the process, we have been successful in not just ourselves, but the licensing arrangements have required cables to be buried or to have rock shielding put on them to deal with those issues. There is an awful lot involved in going through those processes. When you get the paperwork that comes in for an offshore wind farm, it gets delivered in boxes. My members are relatively small organisations having to deal with those things, so some more resource, whether it is top sliced or however it works in question, would be very helpful to get good decisions coming through in the process. Just one final question and it may be a yes or no answer, but in terms of the definition of community when it comes to the management of the seabed, would you support the extension of that definition to community of interests to be able to include your own respective interests? What I said earlier on, I think that we are seeking clarity in terms of that definition. I would hope that a district salmon fishery board or indeed a fishery trust would fall under that, but I am not 100 per cent clear on that at the moment. Some heads nodding around the table. David Sanderson, do you want to come back on that? I would say that we, as an industry, would have no desire to be recognised in that way in terms of the functional approach, so I do not think that there is any ambiguity about that. I think that the definition of community can get very complicated from time to time, so I have been inclined to agree with David on that. I think that we have covered all the topics that we had for you today. I thank you very much for your time. I will suspend for a couple of minutes until we move to the next element of our work today. Welcome back to this meeting of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. The fourth item on the agenda is to initially consider the petition PE1646 by Caroline Hayes on drinking water supplies in Scotland. The petition is calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the role of the drinking water quality regulator and to commission independent research into the safety of chloramination of drinking water. That has been referred to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee following scrutiny by the Public Petitions Committee, which has taken evidence from stakeholders. Paper 5 outlines the previous scrutiny of the petitions committee and suggests some possible options available to this committee. Members may, of course, wish to suggest alternative actions in relation to the petition and I invite comments. Kate Forbes. Thank you very much just to confirm that having spoken previously to the petitioners as the MSP for the area and the strength of feeling that there is locally about the issue and my strong support for considering this issue. I think that there are still outstanding questions, not just around the chloramination but also in terms of being a long-standing process since about 2012 when Scottish Water changed the source of the water and chloramination was a subsequent treatment for issues that had been raised about the water. Richard Lyle? I certainly agree with my colleague and I think that it is the concern that people have at the end of the day for what you drink, what you drink and what you drink. We should know what we are drinking and to put stuff into it that I do not want I think that people should be advised or consulted first. I agree with the proposal. John Scott. I agree with the proposal and as suggested it has been raised by my constituents as well. Quite a few of them are in the chloramination process, so I would be interested to hear the justification for it. Finlay Carson? Cern is raised over exactly what the difference between chloramination and chloramination is. I think that there is some scientific or chemical analysis that needs to be understood. I do not think that Scottish Water has answered those questions that certainly have been raised over quite a number of years, so I absolutely agree with the... I thank you for teaching me how to pronounce that as well. Angus MacDonald? Serving on the Petitions Committee, I was present when the petitioners gave evidence a number of a few months ago now, I think, and they presented a very strong case. So I would be keen to certainly raise the issue when we have Scottish Water in front of us just after recess. So, to be clear and for the record, what we would be agreeing to from what I hear from colleagues is that we will raise concerns stemming from the petition with Scottish Water at our next meeting on Tuesday, 17 April, and thereafter formally consider the petition at the earliest available opportunity, subject to work programme considerations. Are we agreed? Can we make sure that Scottish Water knows that we are going to ask them so that they do not come in and say, oh, we do not know about that? That matter will be dealt with, I can give you that assurance. So we are agreed, are we? We are agreed. Thank you. At its next meeting on 17 April, the committee will take oral evidence from stakeholders on the Scottish Crownry State Bill, and as we've just heard, from Scottish Water on its latest annual report and, of course, on this petition. I therefore close this meeting of the committee and move into private.