 Gwelollach, rydyn ni. Welcome to the fifth meeting in 2017 of the Royal Economy and Connectivity Committee. Can I remind everyone to make sure that their mobile phones are on silent? No apologies have been received. Can I ask before we go round, because this is a lengthy session that we do a declaration of interest from all members on all subjects? Can we get to that item so that we can go inside that item? We will do agenda item 1 and we will bring it in on agenda item 2. So agenda item 1 is just to ask the committee whether their content to take items 5 and 6 in private. The committee has also asked whether consideration of the draft report on climate change plan and approach paper for seatbelts on school transport bills can be taken in private at a future meeting. Is the committee a content? That's agreed then. Now I'll go to the declaration of interest before we move on and ask if there are any declarations of interest relating to agriculture and transport. Starting Peter, I think you're the first. I would like to declare an interest as a partner in an agricultural business in the north-east. I would declare that I am a partner of an agricultural business as well. On the transport issue, I am an honorary vice president of Friends of the Far North line. I'll just say a little to that and I am too. I have a small registered agricultural holding. I'm president of the Scottish Association of Public Transport, vice president of the Royal Future UK and in relation to agenda items 3 and 4, I'm the holder and user of a senior citizens bus pass. No, I've got nothing to say. Our agenda is the draft climate change plan for agriculture. We're delighted to welcome the cabinet secretary for the rural economy and connectivity to this. We'd like to also record our thanks to everyone who responded to the call to evidence that the committee received 49 written submissions. These are available on the committee's website. We'll begin the discussion with the cabinet secretary who's joined by Gordon Struth, who is the head of climate change and business support. Cabinet secretary, I have been asked to remind you that we have a lot of questions, as you always know when you come to this committee, and we would like to keep the answers as brief as possible. I would ask you on the basis of that whether you'd like to make a brief opening statement before we take evidence, cabinet secretary. Well, yes, I would with your permission. Yes, of course. Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. With carbon dioxide making up only 20 per cent of agricultural emissions, agriculture is clearly not like most other sectors. As Professor Pete Smith, who is the lead author for the IPCC, and agriculture said when he was before the committee a few weeks ago, agriculture is a more difficult sector to decarbonise because greenhouse gas emissions, other than carbon dioxide, are involved. These emissions are mostly from biological processes inherent in food production, and though some foods are lower emissions than others, there is no zero emissions food, and we all, of course, have to eat. The sector requires a distinctive approach to tackle nitrous oxide, which is 298 times worse than carbon dioxide, and methane, which is 25 times worse than carbon dioxide, and there are no easy options. Most of the steps farmers can take to reduce their emissions can only be done voluntarily. For example, Government can do little to force improvements in livestock fertility, mortality or health. We can't know the amount of fertiliser a farmer has actually applied to a field, or if it was raining when they did so. Factor such as field drainage and soil compaction are only possible to enforce at the extreme, so we need farmers to want to make these changes, and for most mitigation measures we have no realistic means of making, enforcing, directing them so to do. The draft climate change plan sets out our approach across five policy outcomes, covering all of the sources of emissions in agriculture, and we are targeting every step in the process from soil to livestock to waste and by-products. Our role is to show farmers what changes they can make that will reduce emissions and improve their profitability at the same time, and to give them every support and encouragement. There is a significant risk that moving immediately to a regulatory approach, convener, achieves the opposite intended effect of alienating farmers and damaging their view of climate friendly farming. If we create an impression among farmers that climate friendly farming is something being done to them, through inspections and enforcement and penalties, they will turn against all the other steps that we want them to take. We cannot significantly reduce emissions from agriculture without the goodwill of the actual custodians of the land. The good news is that most of the actions farmers can take to reduce emissions will make or save them money. What is good for the planet is therefore good for their pockets as well. I believe that engagement and encouragement will best achieve the objectives that we have set out in the agriculture chapter of the draft climate change plan, building on the success of programmes such as Farming for a Better Climate and the soil nutrient network that we can demonstrate to farmers and crofters that every business can have better soil, healthier crops, more productive livestock and make the most of their waste products because farms just like theirs have already done it and made money at the same time. There's no question that meeting our statutory emissions reduction targets will require a big effort from agriculture. It's a challenge that with the right approach I know the sector can meet. But it won't be achieved by working against the industry though and it definitely won't happen if we harm their incomes. Becoming more sustainable often means some upfront costs and risks so you can't be green when you're in the red. I'm confident that, as more and more farmers realise the benefits of improving their soil, increasing the livestock efficiency and generating their own energy, their own renewable energy, we won't call it climate-friendly farming anymore, it will just be called farming. Cabinet Secretary, and the first question is from Stuart. Cabinet Secretary, you gave us in your opening remarks a relatively long list of unknowns. In the light of that, in particular, how did the Government come up with an emission reduction target for farming and what sector experts in particular did you consult in coming up with your target? Obviously, for precisely the reasons that Mr Stevenson, convener, has just indicated, those are difficult matters to assess. Some matters can be easily measured and some are more difficult to ascertain methodology and criteria for measurement. Given what I've said and what you've picked up from that, I hope that that general principle has agreed. This is not a particularly easy task. It's quite easy to measure emissions of CO2 in other respects and transport. It's far more difficult to conduct these measurements in farming, I would say, as a matter of principle. We have to recognise that. In response to the question, for the first times run the UK marginal abasement cost curve for agriculture was used, but this wasn't designed to be used as a model. It describes measures at a farm level which cannot be delivered through policy and some measures are undesirable for health and safety, food safety, animal welfare or environmental reasons. A revised marginal abatement cost curve was commissioned from SRUC to be used in times as capitals TIMES, but that assessed abatement potential quite conservatively. Analysis by agriculture officials in dialogue with scientists, including those who produced the MACC, concluded that 500 kilotons of CO2 would be achievable through policy intervention. In addition, by analysing trends in agriculture since 1990, the baseline was revised to produce an annual 0.63 per cent business's usual reduction in emissions. This is additional to the policy effort and if that reduction does not happen then we would consider a reversal of our plans. I hope that that is all crystal clear. It is quite long, cabinet secretary, but I will come back with a brief question in response. It seems to me, listening to your answer, cabinet secretary, that you had three bits to this. There are the outputs from farming and you indicated that it is difficult to measure the climate outputs. You also referred to the inputs, in other words, the activities that farmers can undertake. I understand that more clearly, but I would also like to know whether we understand clearly the effect of the inputs on the outputs. If we cannot measure the outputs, I wonder if we are in an area where we have fundamental difficulties to measure the outputs. We need to apply ourselves or commission others to do further work to understand whether we can have outputs. They are meaningful and cost effective to avoid farmers moving via the green into the red, which we do not want. I am not certain that my scientific knowledge base is sufficient to equip me with the ability to provide an authoritative answer to what is a perfect example of legitimate question. What I would say before passing to Gordon Struth to supplement what I will say and see if he can have another stab at it with your permission convener is just very briefly as this, that we do of course work and I should pay credit and tribute to the work of contractors of the SRUC and the James Hutton Institute and we are very fortunate to have advice of expert world leading scientists so the work that has been done and shaped by experts as well as informed stakeholders from whom I believe the committee has already heard on these matters so that is the correct approach to tackling some very difficult questions as I think we've helped to establish to Gordon. It's obviously a very complex difficult question to answer the evidence base that we have is constantly being refined and that can lead to some very big changes to the headline emissions statistics for Scottish agriculture for instance between the 2013 and 2014 statistics which were produced in last year and the year before there was a reduction of around 2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in Scottish agriculture's figures just by improving the science behind that a lot of that was a result of a project called UK greenhouse gas inventory platform it was a four year project to live in a half million pounds with institutions across the UK and this was looking at actual real farm practice and measuring inputs and outputs on farms and research farms across the country and that led to revisions to what we assess as the emissions that come from livestock from slurry from nitrogen fertiliser and so on reasonably significant revision when the statistics are for 2015 or produced in June this year because there's that constant process of improving the data it's... as the cabinet secretary said in other sectors you can fairly easily say that so much carbon dioxide comes from so much energy input but in agriculture it's... there's a lot more room for variability and we'd basically just have to live with that a final way one your question I'm going to say your question was quite long this is very small well it will need to be short I'm afraid is this going to affect the baseline are we re-basalining as we understand what's going on do you mean of re-changing the... well are we changing our view of what happened in 1990 as they'd advised it they changed the figures all the way back to 1990 so it does bump the numbers around all the way back takes us perfectly on to Ryder and your question yes on the figures since 1990 any drop in greenhouse gases appears to be because of a drop in sheep and cattle numbers and that was for financial reasons and subsidies as much as anything else and as he said in your opening statement cabinet secretary we still eat so that is not actually a reduction that is maybe a displacement from our own industry so what actual reductions that haven't been displaced elsewhere have taken place since 1990 well I'm not sure that's entirely fair to for example castle farmers who are producing the same amount of milk with substantially reduced herd and that is through improved husbandry health and other measures and I imagine you've probably heard of this evidence already before but you're right to say that the numbers have been reduced but also the efficiency the output in terms of milk production for example has I understand remained about the same for quite a long period but that's a fair point and there are I think four main drivers for reductions since in agricultural nations since 1990 the fallen livestock numbers you've referred to a reduction also on the amount of nitrogen fertiliser being applied which I think is something that we would all want to see encourage the continuance of a reduction in the amount of land being converted from grassland to arable production and improvement in efficiency but it's very hard to quantify this from the annual greenhouse gas inventory we know it's happened and we know we get about the same amount of milk from fewer cows than in 1990 but it's difficult to quantify but the development of emissions intensity figures and that's one of our policies in the draft plan will help us with this in future and you know I think these are the sorts of topics that people like Jim McLaren and QMS and others are quite rightly pursuing in you know a concerted and effective fashion I don't know if I've covered that to sufficiently comprehensively gardeners any else to? Members know what emissions intensity refers to OK This is the amount of emissions per kilo beef kilo of lamb litre of milk that you get at the end so as the question noted a lot of the reduction in emissions in the sector comes from reduction in livestock numbers which isn't necessarily a good thing it doesn't actually necessarily reduce global emissions unless people are actually eating less which isn't the case so what we want to quantify and it's one of the policies in the plan is to identify these numbers and then what we want to see is these numbers coming down and that'll tell us if we're being more efficient rather than if we're just getting a benefit from something else Perhaps I should also mention this is important and it refers back to the SRUC's role but there has been a big effort to recruit farms through climate change focus farms and also the provision of events which promote our attempts to persuade farmers to look at at different measures and we know that almost a thousand farmers a year attend these events and rate them very highly and the outcomes from these events do seem to be reasonably encouraging and that goes back to what I said in my opening remark about encouraging, cajoling, persuading rather than dictating ordering compelling, requiring and I think that that approach I would submit, I'd be interested to hear members' views about this I do feel that particularly at a time of real challenges as to the future of funding for farming for example and I'll be meeting Andrea Ledson tomorrow to press her on this that farmers have got a lot to consider at the moment and therefore I really hope that members will agree that this voluntary approach is the correct one to pursue. Just come back very briefly on that. Very briefly because I can understand the dairy sector but how do you reduce emissions by keeping the same outputs in the meat sector if you reduce the outputs the chances are you're only displacing how do you actually do that and how do you make that attractive to farmers? Assuming that we all support the provision of high quality Scotch beef and lamb then if we stop producing beef we're not going to stop people eating beef and lamb we're simply going to displace the production to elsewhere and therefore I would suggest that there is an emissions quotient in respect of all food I mentioned that at the beginning but I think that we should encourage farmers to continue to grow their herds but to have regard to the various technical measures and the advice they can get from Hutton, QMS and from various other sources to improve the emissions intensity of their production and that relates to matters which Gordon could probably talk about better than me. I understand that's a very important point and actually how to get more from less is the whole issue which is what farmers are constantly trying to achieve and not having barren cows and having less deaths in the calves and I understand that and I think that it is a huge subject that and maybe something we could look at Can we get a written response on what advice is available to farmers on how to do that? It's an enormous subject in my last job I came across the use of technology to improve the monitoring of animal health and help farmers to look after their livestock device called cow alert which enabled the measurement of the temperature of cattle and to detect those which are ill and their displaying behaviour which is symptomatic of illness without hard pressed farmers with perhaps very often only one other person employed on the farm if that having to spend all their time with visual inspection and therefore to answer Rhoda's question there are variety approaches the use of innovative technology is absolutely key to best environmental practice and I hope that the committee at AgriScrot for example of presentations from some of the companies that are involved in promoting best green practice by helping persuade farmers that by adopting use of modern technology they can be greener and also be more profitable Gordon, can I ask because it is such a big subject and I'd be delighted to sit through it but I'm frightened we're going to get short of time can I say that it would be useful to provide the committee with some of the innovative areas that you think that could help farmers reach targets just one very, very big point is that the key metric in beef production is how long the animal is alive so if you're finishing them at nearer to 20 months and 30 months you are using fewer cows to get the same amount of beef and reduce emissions at the same time okay I'm going to leave that here and Katie leads on to Gail's question which Gail Thanks, convener Good morning, cabinet secretary Good morning, Gordon You talked a lot about encouragement and trying to take the sector along with us rather than forcing them into change How do you think we manage that cultural change and what do you think are the barriers to it at the moment and what are the Scottish Government doing to show leadership and how can we get that voluntary change Well, that's an absolutely fundamental question and I do think that there's several ways to approach this First of all, one must respect the fact and recognise that farmers are the actual custodians of our landscape and they have given it the appearance the attractive appearance that it has the cultivated appearance were it not for cultivation for agricultural practice we would be looking at a very different and I think far less pleasing visually pleasing landscape and I think that farmers who are practical people are understandably skeptical about people who come along and suggest that they should suddenly depart which has been pursued for generations one must understand that and in a sense that's a good thing so the main thing is to try to persuade and encourage as I've already emphasised Secondly, I think that one shouldn't try to change things too quickly one has to fit in with crop rotations one has to fit in with breeding systems one can't change farming practice in the same way that one can change productivity measures in a factory or other areas of the economy it takes time and it needs to be planned not just a year ahead but further ahead than that for many of the changes so we're building in generations of practice and the average farm has about 1.3 full time equivalents the average farmer is 58 I won't generalise about people's propensity to change as they get older but perhaps it's more difficult to persuade speaking of somebody who's 59 it might be more difficult to persuade them to new ideas than when you're of a younger age average farm income has fallen to £23,000 so that means that any change which requires farmers to spend a lot of money particularly at a time when we're working hard to get the farm support payments out through cap IT as we've discussed for a not inconsiderable length of time one must bear all these factors into account we won't change the culture we have to work with it but and this is the positive side that the information I have is that good environmental practice can lead to in a larger farms of around the order of £10,000 a year and even in hill farms of £3,000 a year evidence has been submitted to that I'm not sticking by these figures they might be a little bit arbitrary but I think they are indicative of the fact of what I said earlier that good environmental practice is good business practice if it's applied in the correct scientific way taking availing themselves of advice which in many cases is free or minimum cost I think that Gil Ross's question seems to me to get to the nub of how we get the best outcomes which I assume is what we are after here in the work we're doing to tackle climate change The next question is John Finnie sorry Peter, yeah, well I think you was starting on number six here we're talking about morning cabinet secretary the question I had planned to ask you've largely answered not just with your opening statement with subsequent comments it does relate to the draft plan and at 12% the smaller seductions of emissions in all the sectors we've heard from witnesses that the agricultural sector may have got off lightly as they've said indeed Peter Smith of Nourish Scotland said they did get off lightly can you briefly again say why agriculture has been allocated the smallest reduction in emissions and why the targets aren't more ambitious I think it's on the face of it a fair question but I think it was Mr Smith that was the gentleman from Aberdeen Nourish I think it was the witness from Pete Smith said that the emissions of carbon dioxide are far less significant in agriculture as I've said it's nitrous oxide it's other emissions and therefore one is not really looking at tackling CO2 emissions which has been the particular focus in other sectoral areas and other parts of the climate change plan the the second factor I make is that reducing emissions in how we produce our food is very hard to do and I think that that has to be we have to live in the real world if we don't we won't succeed if we advocate measures which are impracticable and undeliverable it seems to me we are only likely to fail we're also thirdly constrained by our land and our climate so it is obviously we have prime arable land I think about 8% in Scotland much of the land can only be used for rough grazing and especially in areas such as the Highlands and Islands or Shetland where I was visiting and spoke to farmers on Monday of this week so there's limitations on the land and the climate about how we can use land and indeed how we should use land you cannot grow barley or wheat in upland hill areas which are suitable only for sheep and so on and so forth these are matters not for me these are matters for farmers as the farmers in the Quitty will I'm sure I agree so the easiest way to reduce emissions from agriculture would be to reduce output but as I've explained that would simply lead and it would not reduce the emissions globally it would simply transport them elsewhere and I wouldn't have thought that is a practice that anyone would wish to support I don't know if I've covered are there other aspects of this garden that you would want to cover please I think a couple of things that are very worth them flagging up are that in a March 2014 report by the US Environmental Protection Agency they examined what's the technical potential for mitigation from agriculture globally and they concluded that from livestock you could reduce emissions by 10% and from corpland by 12% so the opportunities to reduce emissions significantly from agriculture are very limited another important factor when you're looking at the statistics and what share falls in what sector is that the agriculture sector doesn't include a lot of the things that farmers are already doing on the plus side of the balance sheet in particular peatland restoration forestry and generating renewable energy which is all major agricultural activities that aren't counted in there so it's worth noticing that as a whole land use in Scotland is about net zero emissions at the moment and with 70% of the land in Scotland being agriculture they're obviously playing a very big part on that side of the equation as well it just doesn't come through in the statistics there's five tables in agriculture in the plan they are pages 142 to 149 policy outcomes over time every table just repeats a set of unquantified statements and that's starkly contrast with for instance the transport sector where there are specific targets each year that mean something I wonder will you commit to looking at that in the draft plan and coming back with more specific and measurable policies I'm also very happy to and we will look at any matters that the committee indicate are areas of where we can make further progress so I would undertake happily to do that and if we can come up with anything that's more specific on any matters then that would be a positive step but I have found a quote that I was in the cranial area from my early morning research and it was indeed from Pete Smith and it simply said is a more difficult sector to carbonise because greenhouse gas emissions other than carbon dioxide are involved and he goes on to make many of the points that I did cover about nitrous oxide and methane are components and it's more challenging to reduce those emissions so I think I was actually making the points without necessarily locating the quotation which I've now done I'll just say that we have that quotation in our briefing paper I thought it was a very good one so it was an interesting one so maybe you could take it I've got some other ones here as well I think we've probably got both so we may thank you for not repeating those quotations if I may John, can I move on to Peter who's got a supplementary now First of all I would just say I'd certainly welcome you asked what the opinion of the committee is and I can tell you mine that the more approach rather than compulsion is absolutely the right way to go with this and it is very important that we stress that cutting down and CO2 emissions is a good way to save money on the farm as well the two things go hand in hand and we need to keep stressing that and that's a way to get buy in from farmers in my opinion my supplementary has actually been pretty well answered but what I was going to say is the 12 per cent reduction may look small but you've got to answer the thing and what about the fact that farmers plant trees and have wind farms and are doing petro restoration work why doesn't that part of the equation come into the calculation as well I fear we're being somewhat unfair if we ignore that part of the agricultural equation as far as greenhouse gases are concerned probably been answered but I just wanted to make the point Do you have a brief comment on that? Well I don't know if I've replied thus to Mr Chapman in this session of Parliament but I totally agree with what he's just said and I think the points were actually well made by Andrew Bauer I wouldn't quote him because you want me to do that but I think it is absolutely a well made point that farmers are doing a lot of other things in respect of forestry, peatland environmental works and of course renewables and places like Orkney and the north east a very substantial number of farmers have invested in renewables it's a tragedy that the UK Government have removed the support for renewables and fit tariffs and rocks because that process was really really starting to motor on what a tragedy that happened but I do agree with Mr Chapman the contribution that farmers are making to a climate change needs to factor in all these other matters and I was very pleased that Andrew Bauer of the NFU Scotland made that point and I'm sure the committee will want to reflect that and perhaps somehow we can give farmers credit for that in the agriculture section of the climate change plan if we don't already do so I don't know Gordon if you can add anything there We can do so it's just simply a case that you have the lines when you're producing statistics and that's what we do but we can certainly produce a side note that explains the contribution agriculture makes in these ways Happy to move on The next question is actually from me regarding soil and we've had a lot of evidence on the requirement for keeping the soils healthy and we're thankful for the letter that you made available to us regarding that Now there has been some talk about making soil testing compulsory sooner rather than later I actually favour the response that you've taken which is perhaps dangerous that you've agreed with Peter and I'm now agreeing with you but could you just explain to me if it was to go compulsory how you think that could be implemented if farmers don't buy in and considering the variability of monitoring soils i.e. if you put lime on today if you get bad weather tomorrow it might not have the same effect so do you see there's any way that it could be made compulsory or are you wedded to the idea of voluntary taking farmers along with you on it Well I suppose it would be possible to make this compulsory I mean that would be possible to do by regulation but my approach to this is that where we to do that I actually think that we might see the opposite consequence to that that we all wish to see we all wish to see a reduction in emissions but to do that we do need to persuade I think farmers that this is a good thing to do both for the planet and the pocket and there are signs so I actually I think we do very much agree in politics we don't need to disagree all the time about everything so that's encouraging but the second point I make is that we're not starting from a standing start a great many farmers already see the sense of soil testing a great number a cohort if you like are already adopting soil testing and they're doing so because they've discovered that it's good business practice as well as doing right by the environment I mean I don't know any farmers their farm and trash environment quite the opposite one of them put it in farm and pasture I have to wake up and look at it every day I mean I care about it more than anyone else he said and I think one must always bear that in mind that people like myself a humble lawyer from Glasgow is not particularly well placed to start to dictate to farmers and expect them to do anything other than say well thank you very much and good night so I think the voluntary approach is correct figures that 30% of farmers in grassland and 64% of farmers in other land according to the Scottish survey of farm structure methods 2016 said that they had tested soil in the last year it's unlikely that they may mean that they tested all of their improved land the British survey of fertilizer practice 215 shows that only 34.7% of tillage and 8% of grassland had any sort of PH test performed on it Roseanna Cunningham's made the very valid point that why would you apply nitrogen to soil without knowing the PH what's the point of applying lots of extra nitrogen when it's not required and if you don't know what the PH level is how do you know that you're applying the right quantity and I thought that was a very practical exposition of the case for testing and therefore that's for those reasons and others I believe that the voluntary approach is correct precisely because it's more likely to lead to a better outcome at the end of the day and it's already being taken up by farmers and my impression of this last thing I'll make for passing to Gordon to see if I've missed anything but the impression I get is that the best person to persuade a farmer to do something is perhaps another farmer on a demonstration farm, a monitor farm or all that and these developments are very very encouraging at the moment where there's lots of consideration about these kind of matters so I think it's already happening and we're encouraging further take-up of a process which has now started to be seen by many farmers as the right one Gordon Yes, I think you covered almost everything that I would say there one thing I would add and it's very important to remember is that soil testing in and of itself doesn't reduce emissions that's what the farmer then does afterwards so we do have realistic mechanisms we could force farmers to test we couldn't force them to then do anything with the result of that test nor could we force them to test well as you recognise there's variability and climactic conditions can lead to differences in the results so you know the aim of soil testing is to get farmers to know their pH and know that they may be losing money if they're applying nitrogen fertilizer but then that next stage of improving their pH is something that we would realistically never be able to make them do which is why it's important to not to alienate farmers and not to make them feel this is something being forced on them Before I pass on to Stuart I just made the observation which hasn't been made is that you can't change a soil structure and soil nutrients overnight so many farmers will do it over a period of time sorry Stuart I think this comes into the category of that's all very well but the figures that you've provided cabinet secretary to the environment committee show a 26% of arable farm meeting the pH targets and 27% on grass so clearly there is more to be done I just wonder given that we've already established under pillar 2 support that it's right to reward particular behaviours is there scope within that sort of approach to try and up the ante on this because 26% and 27% if I understand them as a non-farmer don't sound terribly encouraging I have to say and that we certainly shouldn't at this stage maybe you as minister would wish to but I suspect I wouldn't considering that in the longer term moving to penalties if things don't happen so it's a question cabinet secretary well I'm not going to commit to spending any more money on anything here so sorry about that but that's going to be the answer but I also think we have to just bear in mind that you know the overall funding support mechanism is complex enough in fact I think Scottish Agronomy yesterday speaking to the NFU recently one thing that just about every single farmer agrees on at the moment no matter what they're doing is the current system is too complex whatever else is going to happen in future I think we just must bear in mind that of course we want to be as helpful as possible in relation to enabling take up but it does seem to me that you know if it is the case as I've been and I have been persuaded that in principle perhaps not for every farm but for many many farmers it is the case that it is a profitable activity to undertake a soil test as a precursor to adopting improved practices then if it is profitable then I think one should conclude this as a as a kind of steward of public money that if it is profitable then perhaps grant finance is not something that should be necessarily dispersed to support it but I'm just talking in general terms we're not ruling anything out convener but I think at the moment we're not starting from zero we're starting from quite a large base and it seems to me that there is a very good prospect over the next few years to persuade a very substantial number of farmers to increase their uptake the last thing I would say is I've gone over this line of encouragement rather than direction quite a lot recently of various farmers audiences I am absolutely convinced that this is the best way to achieve our objectives and where we to go down a different route I think it would be likely to have a perverse result of making things much more difficult and creating a lot of resentment and perhaps even opposition or further opposition to what we're trying to achieve cabinet secretary I think in your letter you said it was 2023 that you'd review that maybe I hope I've got that correct would there be a trigger point before that if you hadn't seen sufficient change in the industry before that or are you happy to review it at that date well I'd be very happy to serve another term and review it at that date suggest that it would go to 2023 we could discuss that and I think that might not be helpful but to be serious it's a perfectly reasonable question Is there a trigger point? I do think that there shouldn't be a trigger point set at the moment I think it would be a bit silly to say let's work with the grain, let's get buying and then at the same time say but by the way if you don't buy in and if you don't do what we want we're going to hit you over the head with regulations in three years or four years I really don't think that that would do anything other than be seen as inimical to the voluntary sort of engagement approach so I don't think that and I know that the environment committee has quite fairly pursued this point as well and I will be replying to them very quickly but I really don't think we should say on the one hand we want to work with you and on the other hand say and if you don't do what we want we're going to tell you what to do I mean that just doesn't make any sense and you know for that reason I wouldn't be supporting it in 2023 okay Peter's got a few thousand Peter's got a quick follow up Just to clarify the issue of soil testing I mean we've got to recognise that this is really only applicable on arable soils and improved grassland you know the vast bulk of Scotland is severely disadvantaged hillground which doesn't receive any fertiliser at anything so there is no need to be soil testing that land it's really the better quality land and it should be done in the better quality land but that needs to be you know that needs to be recognised because there are big chunks of Scotland that doesn't apply I'm happy to have understood if you could acknowledge that statement and maybe Peter I could ask you to move on to the next question which is regarding tenant farmers I'm just conscious of time Peter tenant farmers have been particularly targeted in the plan why do you feel like this is necessary why do you feel that we need to particularly speak about tenant farmers in this context I think that you know for obvious reasons tenant farmers who don't get all the benefit of investment necessarily that they make into their farms will be less inclined to to make a capital investment of any sort because the return would then perhaps be shared between themselves and the landlord so there is that very basic factor that one must bear in mind I mean I'm absolutely determined that we do not leave behind tenant farmers in any way whatsoever and we must consider how we can assist them to avail themselves of the same opportunities as owners and see that they're reasonably compensated for so doing and of course that relates to other matters that we're not concerned with directly here today namely the law of agricultural holdings and the reform thereof but the measures we want are good for profitability but they do require an initial investment and then they're off in the following years and we do think that tenant farmers can be discouraged from implementing these measures because they fear their tenancy may end before you know the benefits arise and that's a perfectly understandable and indeed prudent business consideration to bear in mind before one makes any investment as a tenant farmers so we will work with the continue to work with the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association we're looking forward to at the excellent hunting tower hotel and we will explore in the course of that pleasant dinner how best we can help tenant farmers avail themselves of the manifold opportunities under the climate change Secretary because I'm sure by mentioning the name of the hotel and who's hosting you won't get you any more free drinks so I'm sure they'll be free anyway but Peter do you want to follow that upside I just wonder if the Scottish Government have any plans to deal with the long term challenge of ensuring that sole fertility is factored into the short term nature of tenant farming there is an issue there and you rightly point out but are there any plans in place to address some of that perceived imbalance we've just come up with the draft plan it really was I want to emphasise this committee this is involved a huge amount of work by all cabinet secretaries it involved almost the whole of the time for the first week back in the session and a lot of previous time and I'm absolutely determined to say that tenant farmers are not left out but it's a difficult thing I think it's inherently more difficult to see how tenant farmers would be encouraged readily to take up these measures because of the reasons that are identified I need to hear from them on how best to pursue and what options there are that would best encourage tenant farmers given the matters I've raised I think it's probably fair to leave it there that we'll see some changes in the way go evaluation which will allow tenants to claim for the work they've done for the soil or to be held accountable if they've taken nutrients out John, I think no sorry, it was Richard who was next policy outcome 3 is to work with quality meet Scotland and others to reduce submissions from the red meet and dairy sector what way do you expect working with quality meet Scotland will reduce submissions in order to east time can you also answer the other question would be quality meet Scotland doesn't cover the dairy sector what would you do have you any plans to improve emissions intensity in this area well as Mr Lyle quite rightly says we will continue to work closely with quality meet Scotland and I recently had the pleasure of attending one of their board meetings and others of course to reduce farming and their focus is resolute on improving the efficiency of production and one of Scotland's real strengths is the quality of scotch beef and scotch lab and that's something that QMS are doing a great job in promoting they are pursuing a number of initiatives for example the monitor farm initiatives are the perfect place to demonstrate best practice, best environmental practice and I was very encouraged to see that the numbers of visitors to monitor farms in around the country has been absolutely enormous the interest has been enormous as I learned at lunch yesterday at Centotel with the Scottish Agronomy a farmers a co-operative of around I think about 100 serial arable farmers they have had an equivalent measure to the monitor farms themselves I think since 1990 or thereabouts of the late 80s so in other words the best way is what I've said before it's for bodies such as QMS to work closely with different types of farmers in order to encourage the take up of best practice on policy we will this year publish emissions intensity figures now that we've were all acquainted with a concept that we may not previously have too intimate with of emissions intensity so these figures will be published for beef, lamb and milk this year and by working with QMS and livestock producers and the meat wholesale body that work closely with and to do a good job will encourage improved emissions intensity through genotyping improving fertility, reducing mortality as Gordon has already referred to and by improving farm management practices Cabinet Secretary did you give the answer on dairy that bring that in or sorry did I miss that I didn't answer that I'm very sorry but perhaps Gordon could answer that I think a lot of our policies will be a benefit to dairy farmers anyway so those on soil getting the most from your grass livestock health in particular obviously and on slurry and manure management will benefit the dairy sector however climate change focus farms are dairies at the moment but one of the things that struck us is that the dairy sector has been delivering year on year efficiency improvements for over a number of years and there's actually a lot we can learn from that sector as well to share with others I think Cabinet Secretary made it that way we actually have less cows but the farmers are producing more milk how is that The animals are simply more productive you just get more milk out of them so through selective breeding over from generation to generation generation a lot of that has to be based on milk recording so you have to record the individual milk yields of animals and then do the genetic work through the good genetic lines there on the bull side as well as on the cow side and just very carefully breeding that up also a lot of work on livestock health on tackling the big problems in dairy side like mastitis and so on they've really been able to every year basically be able to find these improvements That's interesting thank you I think you've got a supplementary Thanks Cabinet Secretary can we just touch on the beef efficiency scheme if I may there was a recent report saying that the take up has been relatively low I just wonder if you could tell us what you hope to achieve from it why do you think the take up has been relatively low what can be done to encourage farmers to participate and will it be open to applicants this year Well obviously the beef efficiency scheme is just in its in its infancy and it's an angry environment measure within the SRDP of 2014 and 2020 although the Gail Ross refers to the take up has been low although the figure is just over 2000 I think it's the case that the applicants that figure may sound low but I think the applicants cover around about half of the total Scottish herd so plainly it's the farmers with larger herds that have tended to apply perhaps more readily see the benefits of the scheme and one can understand that that's the case and it's the number of livestock that are in the scheme that counts the more animals that are in the more cows that are in the scheme the better the potential for emission reduction will be so it's early days yet we do think that in relation to its impact in climate change it will drive reductions in greenhouse gases from the livestock sector and the practices and I've got the practices all here and a note probably yourself I don't understand them better than me so I probably won't go into them and read them out but they are all designed to generate reductions in the amount of greenhouse gases as well as improve productivity and efficiency and I think that the best way to see a greater take up of the scheme is the success of the first cohort of applicants going through the scheme I think that's undoubtedly the case as to the question of whether we will be further round later I mean obviously we look at this and what I tend to do conveners is have discussions with the farming community, particularly with the NFUS the Crofty Foundation before we come to decisions rather than tell them about it after we've made them so I want to get a very clear understanding of the facts and it is early days yet the tags are all out to applicants the NFUS sent a business guide update to January it's early days yet I think it's probably sensible to get a good take on how matters are going before we make further decisions but I hope to do that fairly soon and I'm happy of course to keep the committee informed about that if it's so vicious Can I just a quick follow up on that is the Crofting Bulls scheme obviously providing bulls to Crofters is a useful scheme in the Highlands and an important one Can you just confirm to me cabinet secretary that it is actually increasing the standard of livestock on Crofts and any ways that you're measuring that to ensure that they are playing their part in greenhouse gas mission as well Over the years the Crofting Bulls scheme has been the subject of much debating consideration in this place for good reasons and it has performed a very important function obviously to a livestock cattle holders in the islands particularly the Hebrides so it's a very important scheme to understand it from this point of view but perhaps unless Gordon you've got the scheme about the emissions impact of the Crofting Bulls at your fingertips we could undertake to come back to the committee with it so perfectly reasonable question To know that the bulls are helping Crofters get the best from their cattle and therefore put the best into the environment and I'm going to leave it there and make a bright to sort of move on to Forestry Thank you convener I mean one of the pages I liked in the plan was page 139 which is wider impacts and then you've got a section on adverse side effects to be managed and one at 14.6 it says improved profitability could encourage greater intensification in farming with resultant negative impacts on biodiversity this is not expected to happen I wonder if you could comment do you think there are real risks in there or are you totally relaxed about it I'm sorry I didn't quite understand it's page 139 and it's 14.4.6 Do you want to? I should answer that because it was my analysis I mean really this was trying to consider all the wider potential benefits of which there are clearly many but also the risks as well one of the generally identified risks if you're trying to drive farmers towards greater efficiency is that they'll push their land harder and there could be there could be negative consequences from that which we would hope that are offset by our other pillar 2 arrangements and our environmental regulation and so on so it was only really identified as a potential risk rather than one something that we actually expect to happen but it's something we would keep an eye out for to give you one example of the sort of thing that can happen if in areas of more high nature value farming farmers there were to improve their grassland it would lead to a reduction in the biodiversity in the grasses so there's these are risks that are possible that can happen and it's something we'll keep an eye on but we don't assess it as being likely I think that cabinet secretary concludes the questions on agriculture so just briefly suspend the meeting and I'd ask members of the committee to say just so we can adjust the support team that the cabinet secretary has can I thank Gordon for the help and the evidence that you've given this morning at the committee briefly suspend the meeting okay right ladies and gentlemen I'd like to continue with the discussion on forestry and the cabinet secretary has been joined by Joe Ahara head of forestry commission Scotland welcome again to you and the first question is actually from you Richard I think on the secretary the weekend actually had the enjoyment of going through a boring Aberdeenshire, Mankrey, Ballater and all the lovely forests that we have in Scotland we have 1.44 million hectares of woodland accounted for 18 per cent the total land area trees absorb carbon dioxide carbon is organic matter such as the act negative emitters of greenhouse gases so it's not rocket science to know that we need to plant more in order to help why are we not doing that why are we not encouraging more planting by anyone some of these forests that I went by I saw land which could be planted on why is that not happening well I think a lot a lot is happening to achieve our targets sorry I had prepared an opening statement convener but I would have covered all that and set the context I think maybe if we would push on with the questions cabinet secretary then if there's anything that we've missed from your opening statement you could bring it up as a closing statement okay we're doing and they are stretching but targets should be stretching the targets are also stepped the target at the moment is 10,000 it's increasing to 15,000 but that's in a stepped approach I think you've got the details of the step up which we'll start to apply I think from the beginning of the next decade and there's a huge number of things we're doing to see that we achieve the targets but first of all we're not starting from a fail we've achieved an average of 6,800 hectares a year targets 10,000 so since 2013 we've achieved 6,800 that's 6 to 8% that was better than the examination marks I got and most of the subjects I did at school convener so we're not starting from a fail but we haven't done well enough and that you know it's just not beat about the bush and that's the starting point so what are we doing? We're doing a whole load of things first of all at my instigation we've increased the amount of money to be spent on grants and that's very important and that's gone up to 34 million pounds and secondly we're streamlining the approval process in the Jim McKinnon report and I think I was delighted that Jim's report got buy-in across the whole spectrum of interests no one saw this as something that was skewed in any way to one group and he was the former chief planner of course in the Scottish Government so he was coming from a position of authority and knowledge and secondly we're taking forward the delivery plan we've published the delivery plan there are work streams that are going forward to deliver this now how is this going to help sometimes particularly for a larger forestry convener it just takes a bit too long for the process in some cases horrendously long but in defence of the forestry commission the averages are quite good and Joe can cover them and the averages are good and we want to see them increase and thirdly we're and I have just announced this on Monday we have announced additional funds additional 5 million in this next year's budget to address the timber transport challenge and and therefore that will help particularly in difficult inaccessible areas in the highlands for example and it's not just roads either there's many other schemes that I can give lots of examples if you wish in relation to use of rail or marine access because some areas like Arden and Merkin it's very very difficult to use single track roads or impossible for forestry lorries you need to consider marine solution so it's not just for roads although it'll be primarily for roads I guess so we've done that in addition to that we've got specific plans we were working with for example sheet farmers we've got a concerted plan doing that a separate one for crofters we're also through the conservancies and I met one of the conservancies I think the sterling chair one Keith and he informed me about an excellent scheme and let me just share this with you it's really good to put this in evidence about the actual work on the ground being done to address Mr Lyle's absolutely apposite question that is this, that the forestry commission have secured the services of experts in land management to go and visit individual farmers to inspect their farms with a view to ascertaining giving advice about which portions of land on a given farm may be suitable for woodland creation and then after inspection with the farmer obviously going round his or her farm they have a discussion probably in the farmhouse kitchen and that has had and I don't want to give you the figure I know what the figure is but the take up of farmers from this direct approach has been a take up that any salesman would wish for in his or her dreams and you would expect that to be the case because you know how do you persuade a farmer to do something well plainly you need to show the farmer understand the facts you understand the farm go round the farm identify which areas are appropriate for silver culture if any and then have a discussion about the finances, the feasibility and the practicalities so practical schemes like that are what drives me forward as a cabinet secretary and therefore I've asked every conservancy every conservancy to consider whether they are already doing such a scheme or could wish to do so because you're absolutely right that farming and forestry used to be seen as almost opposites and in some cases with an element of antipathy our proposition is that they can be complementary and that one doesn't need to a forest the whole of a farm a proportion of a farm and that allows for certain benefits financial business benefits diversification a long term investment improved environmental performance of course and we are therefore doing all of those things we also have had two forestry summits one in the south of Scotland and one in a boat of garden in the highlands to bring people together I've also met with the trade unions representatives of the staff of the forestry commission because I want to absolutely give the assurance that we will need if anything more people to be working overall in the sector rather than fewer and I've also been working quite rightly with the NGOs the environmental bodies and Joe has been doing a great job on that as well and also in relation to the way in which the private and public sector can work together and also in respect of promotion of community ownership where appropriate that's something that we very much want to encourage the key for all of this is collaboration and I'm satisfied that we have set a tone set a new positive tone that has energised the sector and if I might pass to Joe perhaps Joe you can remind me of the statistics which have absented themselves from my cranial area about the already results Richard's actually got a follow up which may help to launch at this stage so Joe can answer that as well very briefly you know at the end of the day and you anticipated actually my next question is how much encouragement are we doing for people to look at the land that they own and the land that they can come forward to the Government so you're actively going out now to encourage people to start planting yes a massive amount and it's also to reflect Government Secretary's point it's this business about this isn't just down to Government it's not just down to my team it's not just our own woodland officers this needs to be a consensus across the piece so we're working with confor members, with agents encouraging them if we're at a show or something and we can identify opportunities that then the agents can follow up and go and speak to farmers we're listening to farmers who might be so for example last week in the Scottish Farmer Praise of the future? What role can trees play? What grants can we offer on that? We've had good feedback on that. It's a broad church of activities. The example that Hyunuc Secretary gave for Central Scotland is another example. My guys, there's not enough of us. We can't do all of that with 33,000 farmers across Scotland but it needs a wider, broadly-based approach. That's exactly what we're trying to do with NSA and the full number of others. Bring it up on that, because some farmers will look to relatively small-scale schemes. And certainly experience in the past tells me that the smaller the scheme, the bigger the consultation, the higher the costs and the more difficult it is. Are you addressing that? I don't want to take away from Peter's next question, which I think will be on the McKinnon report, but can I just have confirmation small schemes are up for grabs as well? Mae cyd tobaccois a chlesiaf interessant, bydwod maen nhw яw ddim yn gw briefing eich gael dom τη mrddadol yn rhaglen ffars, i ddyn nhw, felly schyllt invitellod y gall hissau cwmneud llawn lud y tuol. Dwi'n gwerth gwrdd blodol yn cael hyn introducedr yr ysgolach chi'n cael cofan chi 아니야ïnyd mae'r cyflawni amdano iddo i ymgyrch, ac mae'r cyflawni ar y cyflawni ar y cyd-fletyme'n gweithio. Felly mae'n ffocusing. Felly'r cyflawni ar gyfer NSA ac NSU yn ei wneud o'r 10-50 hectare oesbrydol, ac mae'n ddiddordeb o'r wgfaith o'r gwaith yn y fath o'r gweithio. Yn ei gwyllwch o'r fath o'r gweithio, mae'r gwyllwch o'r bwysig sy'n roi roi'r cyflawni ar ddwyfodol. So mae gennymser ac mae'n astud i'r amser mae'r pryd straightenad yn ddych y Gwyl i'r ffrindiantidol wedi gwneud o'n rai euxau i dweud." Peter, hefyd, mae'n ddysgu'n gwaith oherwydd. Dwi'n greu ei fod yn ysgrifennu i gyd yn ysgrifennu i ddysgu. Mae unrhyw fawr i'n mynd i ddechrau'r blokau pob yn cael ei ddechrau hyn, ac mae'n panfais byddai fwyno i ddysgu'n ddyfynol ag i gilydd i gyd. Mae'r gw hardf, mae'n gweld rhaid i gyd. gan hwyl talkedd o'r cyllid y cyfr примes â t kontol yn dug çalışeidol i gydwezghan spinio. Yr duties dim yn y 지 iawn am gygonol mawr cael y cyllid gyffrousiau mewn certh loss mawr. Rydych chi'n wych caused dad Soul Re Alert yn graf ideas opeth fel εirlobeid gan y cyfr bod yn cyfr 1983, a naûl ddau'r wychidadr hyn y cysylltiad? The Jim's review was warmly welcomed by the forestry sector. He set out 20 recommendations. We accept all of them in principle. His report was published in December last year. A delivery plan composed of a series of work streams was published on the 10th of this month and that included a timetable. A delivery group has been set up. That involves members from the forestry industry and environmental bodies. That has been set up to take forward the recommendations as I think is prudent and sensible. I, like Mr Chapman, like I suspect everybody, felt that we need to get on with this. We need to get on with this and we need to do so quickly. It is a complex issue and involves many, many factors. However, the McKinnon report identified certain causes for perhaps unnecessary delays in the process and unnecessary complications. His recommendations, which the committee will have seen as 20 recommendations, have been really warmly welcomed, as have been his presentations of the report. The last thing is that the current approval times for woodland creation are 16 weeks on average and 12 weeks for FGS applications that do not require a 28-day consultation period. That is good. It is important that I do not impliedly trash the reputation of the Conservatives and others who are working hard. Many of whom I met in an event recently at Sylvan House are doing a great job, but we think that a better job can be done. Many of the problems that I encountered were not their issue. Obviously, with any application, you need a good quality application, whether it is for a new housing development, a wind farm or a forest. It needs to be well prepared by professionals. That is not necessarily always the case. We should not just assume that it is always the public sector that is slipping up or to be criticised or found at fault in some way. Secondly, there are many other bodies, statutory bodies, SNH and so on, who have a role to play. Obviously, we need to make sure that all those bodies play their role and do their job in an effective, speedy, timeless fashion. I am absolutely determined that that is exactly what will happen. The complex cases, and you alluded to this convener, particularly over 500 hectares, which involve environmental assessments, can take much longer. They were the main focus of the review because, if we are to achieve the target plainly, we need to see large projects going ahead, as well as welcome more modest scale developments. Jim's recommendations were particularly focused on that, because that is where the delays occurred in the larger schemes, more complex, perhaps involving elements of controversy with communities and so on. Jim's report focused on that, and I think that it will make a substantial difference primarily because of the very warm reception that it appears to have received. I do not know of Jewel if you have anything to add to that. In fact, all of my Conservancy staff are at a meeting today. I could not be with them because I was here going through the delivery plan, so setting up the work streams for the delivery plan. We have the first meeting of the delivery group with the externals is on 3 March, so we are cracking on some of the recommendations that we will be able to implement very quickly. Others, we need to take a bit more working through, because we know that there have been concerns raised by the sector of the absolutely direction of travel and the outcomes. We are all behind that. Some of the details will need to work through and decide when and how is the best way to implement them. However, that is all very much—we are very focused on that at the moment across the commission. That is all very positive, of course. What comment do you have on the recent opposition to planting targets that came from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association on mountaineering Scotland? They have both said that they are against increased planting targets. Well, I did notice the publicity that stretched over two days. There was the first half and the second half. The first half was a joint statement, I think, with the two bodies. The second half was a criticism of the joint statement by members of one of the bodies at least. So it did not seem to me that there was necessarily a process of the choral singing from the same hym sheet or even the same hymnary, perhaps. However, addressing the substance of the matter, the SGA and the MCS did not oppose the targets themselves, but they were concerned about tree planting on Moorland. We have received, I think, in principle support for our plans from a wide range of stakeholders, from the private sector and environment, such as Confor representing many of the business bodies in the timber sector, such as the Scottish Wildlife Trust, such as the NFUS. We have had quite a lot of buy-in across the range from the general targets. Of course, the WWF has pointed in its report last year to the indisputable need in the UK for there to be more trees grown if we are to meet our needs. If we do not, 80 per cent of our timber needs will have to be imported by 2050. That would be a staggering indictment of failure where that to occur. I am determined that it should not occur so far as that this part of the UK is concerned. Woodland creation in conclusion needs to be taken forward in a sustainable way, observing good silvicultural practice. We are not short of Moorland. There is a lot of it. It is a matter of balance, what the right approaches, the right trees in the right place, not to take a doctrinaire generalised approach. That does not really work with forestry. The last point is that there will be no going back to the bad days of seri rancs of sickers bruised across deep peatland. That, I think, did arouse understandably strong opposition. That could not happen now, incidentally, because of the approved FCS accreditation scheme. It simply could not happen now for various reasons that Joe can explain far better than I do. However, there is sufficient room in Scotland to achieve our targets and see the interests of those who like to go to the hills and the gamekeepers, whose work I very much support continue to be carried out successfully and professionally. I think that both organisations will feel a little bit more confident that there is a balanced approach. Jamie, your next question. Good morning, cabinet secretary, and good morning, Joe. The cabinet secretary mentioned the three key areas on how to improve planting, increased budget, the approval process and the delivery plan. It seems to me that the three very much should work together in conjunction and I welcome those ambitions as I do the targets. I think that where my concern lies is around the first point, and that is the budget that has been allocated to it. I wonder if we might delve into that just a wee bit on those numbers and how we are going to achieve those targets. For example, the cabinet secretary mentioned that Confor received quite a lot of evidence from them. Their analysis of the budget leads us to believe, in any case, that to achieve the 10,000 hectares per annum target would require a budget of around £45 million, £13,000 hectare target, £59 million and their own up to the £15,000 target. Given that there was the £40 million in the £17-18 budget, I wonder how the cabinet secretary will provide where the additional funds will come from in order to be able to hit the target, because it seems to me that money seems to be hard cash, and it really is required to hit those targets. That is a very fair question, and let me answer it. First of all, in our previous outing, as a duo of witnesses has been grilled on this committee, Joe pointed out that the problem in the past has not been lack of money or insufficient budget. The problem has been lack of availability of suitable applications, and it is a chicken and egg situation. I think that that is recognised. What we have created over the past nine months is a very clear sense in the industry that the Scottish Government is in full support of a moderate balance policy supporting more forestry according to good silvicultural practice. That has really been taken up, and Joe will perhaps look out the figures that I do not have about the take-up rate and bring them in. However, I want to just address the question about the figures, because this is important. I do not think that there is actually incidentally a perfect answer of any magic number here. I do not think that it is like that, but we have to reflect the grant to the likely availability. If we have 50 per cent more grant than applications, that does not in itself achieve very much. We have increased the budget, 34 million, to reflect the forecast increased demand in grants. However, in addition to that, planting will be carried out by forest enterprise on the national forest estate. That does not claim grant. In other words, some of the plantings, which will go towards meeting the target, are plantings that will occur by the public sector without the requirement for grant. That is one factor. Today, managing the estate has involved small discrete purchases and disposals of appropriate land and forests, so that careful approach would continue. We should also consider how to make the best use of the resources that are realised from such sales. Under the last grant scheme, the average cost of woodland creation was £4,500, but that is the second substantive point that I made to answer Mr Greene's question. We would expect the average cost per hectare to reduce as the average size of schemes increase and more productive schemes, which receive lower rates of grant, come forward. Economies of scale, that is the way that things go and the way that things should go. The latest forestry commission approval round saw 1,300 hectares of new planting, and that was approved at the cost of £3,846 per acre per hectare, so that is why I have officials correct ministers to praise them. Having said that, I would also allude to the timber transport fund. Plainly, you cannot fell trees if you cannot access the trees, if they are landlocked. This is a particular problem in the highlands. If they are landlocked, you cannot actually fell them. That is worse than useless, because if you get wind blow and then it becomes impossible or very impractical or much more expensive to extract the trees. The timber transport fund increase, although it is not colossal, has already been welcomed by the industry as playing a part in the overall task that we face. However, I want to ensure that we have as much available funding as possible into planting and to make the cost of planting as efficient as possible. In the future spending reviews, I will obviously be arguing our corner there on end. That is very helpful. The understanding of knowing that the calculation was made on an estimate of £4,500 per hectare, that that cost comes down there for the equation changes, and that you get more for your money. I appreciate it. I wonder if we may receive some further written submission, happy for it to be after the committee, on the 10,000 target, and what your forecasts on that are in terms of which element of it will be grant funded planting and in which element may be some of the public funding that I was unaware of prior to today. I think that that would be really helpful at some point. I think that there was one other point, which is a bit of a technical point, but the grant that we pay is spread over a number of years. The amount that you pay out in year 1 is only a proportion of the cost. Because we have had two years of low levels of planting, the total money that we need for next year is not the full amount of the grant for the 10,000 hectares or 9,000 hectares or whatever we achieve. It is the first instalment. In terms of budgeting, it is not a straight, you pay all the money up front in the year that it is claimed. That is another factor to take into account. That would be helpful, especially. Last year, the planting was 4,500 hectares, which means that it would be less of the overall total. Joe, if you were going to supply that to the committee, which would be very helpful, there is a very tight timescale by the end of next week. I do not know if you can comply with that. I will do what I can. I would appreciate that. That is for next year, how we have come to the balance between private sector and public sector planting? It would be helpful to have a little note, because the requests are now mounting. The clerks will definitely write to you, cabinet secretary, and let you know. Just to help her not to take up too much of Joe's time. Absolutely, we will write to you. A short one, cabinet secretary. The point was made to us by one of our witnesses that everything in the plan is to do with hectares and the area of ground that we are covering. Obviously, the aim of all of that is CO2 emissions. Other factors can come into that, such as the location of the tree planting and the type of soil. Are you comfortable that those are relatively minor variations and we are right to focus on the hectares and that the soil and things are not too important? I think that Joe is probably the better expertise to answer that. I am very happy to keep it as brief as possible. Of course, I will do what I can. We write it in terms of hectares because that is easiest for everybody to understand. Everybody can get their heads around an area. The calculation makes assumptions of an average type of forest for each of those hectares. That is then converted into carbon. Equivalent tonnes of carbon dioxide are removed each year, which is seven tonnes per year per hectare of this average forest. That is how the calculation is done. There are variations. We do not have all the science yet in terms of what the carbon dynamics are on different soil types and different types of trees. We know that there are differences, but we need to remember that we do not only plant trees for carbon, plant trees for a whole range of different objectives and there will be a trade-off between what is best for carbon, what is best for other things and that is what we are constantly doing. That is why we use this average forest type approach. Thank you very much for not going into yield classes and hop and smash up, because Rhaedda has got the next question. We have seen that in the past our native hardwoods have not really been used very much. There has been a great deal of planting of native hardwoods under better conditions. What are we doing to involve that material in our construction process now that we have better quality in the ground? A lot of the native trees that have been planted were not planted for production. They were planted for other reasons, including carbon sequestration and biodiversity. Therefore, a lot of the native woodland resource that we have around Scotland, the quality of the timber for joinery or for construction is limited, but there are areas where we can grow really good quality hardwoods, but it is still quite niche and hardwoods take longer to reach maturity. All of the work that has gone on over the last 20 years, those trees are still only a quarter of the way through their lifestyles, so they are not ready to be harvested yet. However, there are other uses. I think that the one thing that is really interesting, although it is a low value end use, is local fuel use and the use of native woods as a resource for that. To go back to the point about the quality hardwood sector, we work closely with the Association of Scottish Hardwood Stormillers. We support them, which is pulling together those really talented and enthusiastic people who will take the resource that we have and try to drive more value from it. Personally, I think that there is potential for birch, but my whole career, we have been trying to get something from this fabulous tree that just grows everywhere in Scotland and trying to get some better quality from it. Research continues into that. We have not yet cracked it, but we are continuing to research on it. We work with the Association of Scottish Hardwood Stormillers, and that is something that we are continuing to do. It is quite niche, it is quite small, but it has definitely got a future. The other thing that I would say is that on the national forest estate, Forest Enterprise has had a significant programme. I do not have all the details, but I am sure that they could write and let you know on establishing more hardwood trees specifically for timber production. A number of those cases are going into quite a programme across the national forest estate, but those trees are not going to be ready for harvesting for another 50 or 60 years. It will be a while before you get the output from them. The key thing is that you need to grow them quite close together and manage them carefully in the early stages if you want to get good quality timber. I regret that I will have to cut you short there because I have promised Mike the last question. I wanted to combine my question to both agriculture and forestry. We all know that this is a draft climate change plan. Minister, you must be anticipating making changes already in the light of the responses that have come in through this whole process. I was wondering if you could enlighten us if you are anticipating making changes to the plan, but almost as important as the next part of the question is, what is the process for finalising the plan? Where do we go from here? We have only recently published the draft plan. Therefore, we need to give full consideration to the replies. I have not had the opportunity to study them as yet. Secondly, we work on a collegiate basis. My colleague Roseanna Cunningham is in the lead on this. Therefore, she will be the prime lead minister on this whole area of work with my playing into that role. I think that it is too early to commit to any changes. Where I have to do so, I will be prejudicing the views of people whose views I have not yet studied and have not been considered. I am not asking for a detailed response of those things. I am just asking whether it is a reasonable question. Is there anything that has jumped out at you that you thought, well, that is a really good issue that we have not perhaps examined in the draft plan? I think that the responses have been reasoned and useful and positive than that is what I have expected. I would not use the phrase jumped out at me, but the dialogue this morning has been very encouraging. That has been the case and the responses that my colleague Roseanna Cunningham has had who has dealt with more public engagement on this matter than I have. Obviously, I am not primarily dealing with my portfolio, so the responses and the engagement that I have had at various recent events have not been primarily focused on that. However, we are very keen to hear from this committee and other key stakeholders to look at the responses and to see if we can improve the draft plan. I am sure that we are entirely open minded in how we go about that process. After all, the plan is just towards the page. That is what a plan is. It is what laws are. It is how it works in practice. Therefore, I am particularly interested, I suppose, in criticism suggestions that members of this committee or the committee as a whole may have about how, in practice, we can be more likely to achieve the forestry targets, for example, more likely to persuade farmers to take up the use of soil testing. If there are positive suggestions, that is really what I am interested in above most other things. Cabinet Secretary, that is the end of the questions that we have for you. I rudely did not give you a chance to make an opening statement. If you want to make a brief closing statement, we are very happy to hear that. I would like to make one point, which I am not sure has been covered. The plan describes the contribution that forestry can make to delivering the Scottish Government's climate change commitment through increasing the creation of new woodland and the use of woods in construction. I do not think that, with respect to the limited time that we had, we covered the use of wood in construction. Therefore, I wanted to underscore the point that this is extremely important. If we are going to grow more trees and we have been harvesting a record number of trees, the harvesting levels have been high, that is why the restocking issues that have not been touched on have come into play as well. However, I just wanted to emphasise just the single point that we want to see the increased use of Scottish wood products in construction. We want to see it, and it is in our plan, to increase from 2.2 million cubic metres to 3 million cubic metres by 2030. How will we do that? We are very much working with the whole sector from the nursery through to looking after the forests as they grow through to felling, but then, of course, the sawmill sector and excellent companies such as James Jones, BSW, Gordon's in my constituency and many other sawmillers who are at the heart of rural communities. They are really committed to Scotland. They do not upsticks and leave, while they cannot, can they? However, they do not want to. They are entirely committed to communities and they need the supply of timber. I think that the point needs to be made that one of the reasons, the other reason than environmental, is that we do need to supply more timber and already some of your witnesses have pointed out probably that there's a dip forecast in the beginning of the thirties, I think, and that is not good. It is so serious that it's impaired some financing decisions, I think, or at least had a role to play. Therefore, how do we achieve that? We encourage the take-up of wood-in-house construction, for example. I think that this is something that Scotland can and is taking a lead on and perhaps looking to forage south and wean the English away from their love of the brick and look more towards timber as a sustainable material for construction for the rest of this century. I know that we haven't had time to go into that but, since you kindly invited me, I'm not someone that likes to spurn a useful invitation. Thank you. Thank you for mentioning all those firms which I know so well because they're in the region that I go and visit. I'd like to thank you and Joe Harra for the evidence that you've given this morning. It's been extremely useful. We will be writing to you Cabinet Secretary with a list of points that have been brought up. I'd now like to briefly suspend the meeting for five minutes, committee members, before we move on to our next session. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'd like to continue the evidence on the Scottish Government's draft climate change plan and welcome the Minister for Transport and Islands, Hamza Yousaf, to the meeting. The minister is joined by Donald Carmichael, director of transport policy and Jonathan Dennis, economic advisor at Transport Scotland. Minister, I'm very happy to allow you to make an opening statement, but in the spirit that there are quite a lot of questions, I would ask you to keep it as brief as possible, please, minister. I will do my best and thank you for that, convener. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the transport aspects of the climate change plan with you. I look forward to hearing what the committee has to say, some of their advice and some of their reflections. As well, it goes without saying, convener, that the policies and proposals as set out in the climate change plan are challenging, and that is the intention of course, continuing to place Scotland at the forefront of this agenda. Of course, in setting out such an ambition, we need to balance the needs to reduce emissions, primarily of course with the needs also of individuals and indeed the economy as a whole. I believe that this plan balances the sometimes competing priorities. We envisage a Scotland in which the economy grows, but transport emissions decline very significantly over the next two decades. I'm sure that we'll debate much of the detail, but I hope that you will appreciate through that that a very methodical and evidence-based approach has been taken to this transport chapter. If I just very briefly touched on some of the content of that transport chapter, convener, the overarching target is to drive down transport emissions by 35 per cent by 2032, a significant commitment and the key strength of the chapters and the articulation of the real on-the-ground changes that need to happen in order to reach that very ambitious target. I won't go into that because of the brevity and the time, the detail behind that, the modelling behind that, the times model, the element energy model, but I'm sure that members will want to ask about some of that. There has been a bit of a focus, of course, by some on the fact that the plan in the chapter on transport is very, very technology heavy and technology driven, but for me the reality is that technology is changing and changing fast and simple arithmetic tells us that we gain more carbon abatement through greening our technology than by any other means, especially if we focus on the sectors that are perhaps easier to green, which would be cars and vans. In fact, even if we sat our hands and did nothing, technology alone is projected to deliver half of the abatement asked of transport by 2032. There's no surprise that we focus on electric and other low emission vehicles. We need to work with the grain of such technology as opposed to trying to compete against it as well. Again, I'm conscious of time. I would say that doing what we've done in a value for money way is also very, very important. I don't think that we should shy away from that fact, convener, as well, where in times of financial constraint we have competing and very demanding targets, competing priorities and it's important that we get every, we can get as much out of the pound as possible. The second element, and I'll try to finish on this because I understand there'll be a lot of questions, is on behavioural change. Technology-heavy, a lot of effort on the technology is very important for us. Behavior change is also important for us as well. That's on active travel, which we take very seriously, but it's fair to say that active travel alone cannot deliver the carbon savings on a significant scale, although it can deliver other co-benefits that we know of. However, in terms of CO2 emissions, simply on enough road journeys of the right length and type to be capable to be diverted on to active travel, behaviour change is examined through other options. Again, I'll discuss them and load out with members through the transport chapter. Again, I don't think that I will go into the detail that I've got here on the modelling because I'm conscious of your time. In fact, I'll just leave it at that and just look to hear what the committee has to say, what members have to say. This is challenging, but it is intentionally so. It is meant to be challenging because of the nature of the difficulties that we all face as a planet, but, of course, as a country as well. I'll be happy to listen to reflections and take questions from members. Thank you very much, minister, and thank you for keeping it brief. I wonder if you could give the committee an update on the implementation of the transport-related policies that were in the RPP-1 and RPP-2. Can you tell us whether the emission reduction targets from transport that were in those documents have been met today so far? In terms of RPP-2, there was a lot of criticism that transport wasn't shifting its weight, other sectors and others were doing a lot more. I think that was fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of transport. There's not a quick fix or a quick win within, in fact, the cross-government, but particularly true in transport because there is a need for technology to be able to be adopted. In terms of RPP-2, we expected to be at 13 megatons in this, so, in terms of your specific question, are we where we expected to be? Yes. That's partly predicated on the fact that if you take electric vehicles, for example, as a big target, one of the main targets in our transport chapter, 40 per cent of electric vehicles will be taken up by 2032. Within technology, as it advances, it goes through different phases. You have the innovators' phase, those who are taking a chance on technology that is being tested and tried. You then go into the early adopters' phase of technology, and then you eventually get into the majority, which is where we want Scotland to be in the future. We are very much at the innovators' phase. Even in RPP-2, it was recognised that the major reductions—or significant reductions, I should say, in transport emissions—would come into the late 2020s. That's still where we're at, even with this current plan at the moment. We're not saying that you'll see immediate reductions of a significant scale, but we still expect to see them into the late 2020s, mid to late 2020s onwards. The complete decarbonisation of the surface transport by 2050 remains a realistic target? Yes. Again, we'll see how technology advances. At the moment, there's so much talk of driverless cars, technology and car ownership completely changing. The model of car ownership completely changing, of course. The plan has to allow some sort of flexibility when you're looking that far ahead into the future as 20. At 50, but the targets in the plan are realistic and I stand by them. The reason why I've got confidence in them is because of the modelling that underpins them, which we can go into in a little bit more detail, perhaps, if other members want me to, but certainly because of that methodical process that's been followed, I have confidence in the targets, yes. You mentioned modelling, and we've got the best person here to talk about it. Stuart, I'll give you a question on modelling, I think. Stevenson, fortunately, in the 50 years since graduating, I've forgotten all my maths, so don't worry about it. However, the plan does make an assumption of vehicle journeys rising by 27 per cent by 2030. Where did that come from and is that really necessary? First of all, the most important part of my answer to that question would be that that's not a target, it's a forecast of where we're likely to be. That's what the times and the element models do. They look at the demographics, patterns of households, individual needs in terms of their employment, so where will people go to work and travel back and forth. The target that the member mentions is the expected demand growth if we sit in our hands and do nothing at all. The point is that we've created a plan to try to tackle some of that, so it shouldn't be seen as a target far from that. It's simply a forecast that the model uses. The work that we're doing in the climate change plan, of course, we would look to ensure that any road mileage is done in a way that fewer emissions are involved in that. The important point is that we have balancing priorities, and they can sometimes be competing priorities, and we should be honest about that when it comes to economic growth and other such things, versus what we're trying to do in terms of carbon abatement. However, what I would like to say on that and that 27 per cent target—in fact, it's not a target at that very point—is that it is a forecast based on the modelling. That's the figure that is before us. What figure do you think is going to be the outcome in 2030? You've said that that's not the outcome that you seek. Again, at this stage, I wouldn't put a number on it because it does depend on some of the discussions that take place with, for example, local authorities on the low emission zones. As I said, that is forecast if we sit there and do nothing. It might be worth me passing to Jonathan, who's done a little bit more detail on some of the modelling that will come in on that, but my point remains that—I know that there was some criticism from ENGOs on that—who looked at that 27 per cent figure and said, well, that's not good for the Government to have that target, and I just want to reiterate that it's not a target, it is simply the forecast. Yes, thank you minister. As has been Mr Steams has asked here, if you look back the predictions that we've got here in terms of if the population growth, economic growth, car ownership, et cetera, et cetera—this is where we would end up—it's not a forecast, it's just if we do nothing more. If you look back historically, what you've seen over the last few years is lower growth for a number of reasons. Obviously, we've had the economic recession and the policies that are part of the RPP process are looking to move people into alternative modes. It would certainly be less than that, but I think until we get to the point of understanding how those measures interact, how the technologies improve over the—and they have improved since we undertook our PP2—battery costs have come down fast and anticipated. The rate of change and the rate at which people will change modes and will change vehicle types is still unknown at the moment. I'll just clarify something, just because I may have missed something that Stuart probably will pick up on. Minister, you said that the 27 cent wasn't a target, it was a forecast. Jonathan, you've just said that the 27 cent wasn't a forecast and then you went on to say something else. I'm confused. Is the 27 cent a forecast of where you think we're going to be or, having heard it, it's not a target? Essentially, what it is, is based on population growth, based on economic growth and the change in demography that we have in Scotland and the existing set of policies that we've already announced in terms of the RPP process, this is where we think we will end up if we do nothing further. It's based on the existing set of policies. Where would we end up if we did nothing else? It's a forecast of where we're going to be. I'm unclear. You're not saying forecast, you're saying it could be where we're going to be. If we did nothing. If we do know more than the existing set of policies. What we, we need to be clear what that means, is the we, the Government and public policy. The reason I'm focusing on this is it strikes me, there are a whole series of things which are really not at our hand at all that are going to happen. For example, nothing I am wearing today was bought by my my visiting a shop. Everything I am wearing today was bought online. That wouldn't have been true 10 years ago and that's pattern people are buying their weekly shop. So how much of that things that are changing is actually, go away Michael, how much of that that's changing, that is not going to do with Government policy, is incorporated in your view of the 27 per cent and how much of a contribution to it being less than what you said if we do nothing more is 27 per cent. I'm not sure who the we is. I know that there is going to be things happening. I'm just not satisfied that this 27 per cent is any sort of sound basis for looking forward to where we already in the light of what we know and what's happening. We will actually get to in 2030 and I think it's very important the committee in understanding the whole, the totality of the plan, get a sense of what you really think with what we kind of already know and there are many unknowns between here in 2030. We will end up with, because I just don't believe that 27 per cent to be blunt. A couple of things to say. The first thing I'm pretty pleased I didn't hear whatever the sedentary remark was because I feel like I've been saved from something there. In terms of the overall target, can I just remind the member that the 35 per cent reduction of emissions from transport is key? That is the key target that we're working towards in that transport chapter and that's important not to lose sight of that. He is absolutely correct to insinuate and allude to the fact that the targets of that 35 per cent reduction or, indeed, if we dampen that 27 per cent growth in transport, growth will require a collaborative effort, not just between Government, but we've been very clear in this climate change plan, including in the transport chapter that is going to include collaboration with local authorities. If we take low emission zones as an example, the private sector, undoubtedly, again, as the member alludes to his own shopping patterns as well. Consolidation centres, for example, will require the private sector by him. Although the element energy modelling is available online, and if the member wants to give a copy of that, I'm sure that we can send that across to him, what I wouldn't do is say x percentage of that 27 per cent absolutely relies on everything that the Government can do, because, frankly speaking, if we've explored, for example, or said that we will explore workplace parking levies, that will come down to whether, for example, local authorities want that enabling legislation. If, through deliberations and consideration with local authorities, they don't want that and that isn't a route that we end up going down, then clearly we would have to think about what else we can do in order to meet our carbon abatement. Therefore, for me to be able to say that 30 per cent of that relies on Government intervention, 30 per cent relies on local authority intervention and 30 per cent plus is on the private sector and 10 per cent relies on people changing the behaviour. That is going to have to have some level of flexibility depending on what works and what doesn't work. We may come back to that soon. A very small supplementary matter for me. Minister, you made a comment about workplace parking levy. Table 7, which says, cost-effective policy options for mitigating transport emission, with regard to workplace parking level, it says that the policies and proposals are no policies or proposals. I will look at the detail of what we said about workplace parking levy. There are some good examples of where it is potentially working, but it is at very early stages in nottingham, for example. For what we have said is that we would explore further with local authorities. We haven't made a commitment about what we would absolutely commit to workplace parking levy in XYZ geography. Clearly it is going to have to happen as a result of conversations with local authorities and other partners. What we will do is to have those conversations. Therefore, if legislation, enabling legislation, is needed in, we can have that conversation. I have to say that it is not something that has come up in conversations yet that I have had with local partners, but that that absolutely could change. I appreciate that it is draft. It may be that you are going to change that to say no policies, but the proposal is to consult. That is something that is replicated through that entire table, where we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 cost-effective policy options for mitigating transport emissions. Beside it is the phrase, no policy or proposals. What I can do is take the member's point about looking at how we read draft or perhaps reword that, because the point is so much. It goes back to my previous point to Mr Stevenson, that so much of what we want to try to do, or a significant part of what we want to do, will rely on conversations with other partners, be that private sector or more in this case. Local authorities and therefore we have to wait for the outcome of those discussions, but the intention is to absolutely explore them in good faith to see if we can bring them forward in order to meet our targets. However, I take the member's general point, perhaps he can be wondered in a way that gives a little bit more confidence. Following on from the previous part, when we were looking at the actual reductions and so on, transport, if we compare it with other sectors in the economy, is one of the major, if not the largest source of emissions. We are talking about a reduction of 31 or 32 per cent being targeted. How do you argue that that is the right level compared to other sections, or are you even looking at it compared to other sectors? Yes, I think that that is a really good question. The 35 per cent figure that we have arrived to, including the sub targets that we have arrived to in terms of the 40 per cent of electric vehicles or 50 per cent of green buses, etc. All those targets are underpinned by a very methodical, very evidence-based approach, and that relies on a number of models, primarily the ones that members know about the times model plus the element energy model. Let's take one example. There has been some criticism that, for example, we haven't gone with the target, for example, the Climate Change Committee suggested in its advice to us that it was around about 60 or 65 per cent of electric vehicles by 2030. The reason for that is because what we have done applying our models, and again we can go into detail of that, but looking at the models, we have what is a realistic pathway. When the member asks, is this achievable, is it ambitious enough? Yes, it is ambitious, but it is also credible and deliverable. The emissions that we are contributing to as a transport sector and that envelope feed into the wider cross-government effort, which will reduce emissions by 66 per cent by 2032 across all emissions. We are playing our part in a very significant target and one that will not be easy to achieve but one that is credible and can be achieved. Within transport, I should have probably declared that I am a convener of the cross-party group on rail, so I am very enthusiastic about rail and I am also enthusiastic about ferries. When it comes to government investment, those two sectors contribute very low emissions in comparison to road, be that cars or freight. Is that a factor when the Government is deciding how much to invest in capital projects? Is electrification of the railway—I like the idea—a good value for money from this perspective, reducing emissions? We are putting quite a lot of money in, maybe not having a huge difference, same with ferries perhaps? I think that it is a good point that is made by the member. What we are looking at is the modal shift. If we can make rail more attractive, then hopefully we can get people off and out of their cars, where we know that the largest emissions are coming from and on to the trains. For example, taking his example of electrification, if we are able to have high-speed trains going between our cities, if we are able to have electrification that makes the journey shorter, quicker, easier, longer trains that we are investing in, then that makes the rail option a more attractive option now, of course, as well as the speed of journey. Affordability has to be a part of that, so we heavily subsidise the member's rail. Therefore, making it affordable and trying to make it as affordable as possible will help that modal shift. It is worth the investment for a number of reasons, but if we are looking at the climate change agenda so that we can shift people from their cars on to rail and freight, freight is still a significant contributor in terms of emissions. If we can get freight from road on to rail, that will also help us to reach our target. If we look at it the other way round, Perth and Furness were investing a lot on the roads but not very much on the railway, so that is going to switch people from the railway to the road? No, at the moment you can make the argument, which is a very valid one, that at peak times if you saw the number of HGVs backed in a single carriageway, the argument has been that having a dual carriageway will help freight to move quicker or not to be clogged up in single lane traffic at peak time with the engines running. What we do has to balance up, but I am not suggesting that investing in road and dual carriageways will not have a potential impact in increasing emissions over the piece. We have to be aware of that, but we have to ensure that we are balancing that off and offsetting that and other policies that we have. We have competing priorities that are true, but there is no point trying to get away from that. We have to manage those competing priorities in such a way that is deliverable and credible in order to meet our carbon abatement targets, which I think are very ambitious. You have a brief supplementary on air travel, given the reductions in APD. That seems to fly in the face of trying to cut carbon from transport, because that will increase carbon from transport. You are right. There is no way of getting around the fact that, of course, the reduction in APD would increase the level of the number of flights and therefore potentially increase emissions. I do not think that that is a correct argument, but I would go back to what the Climate Change Committee has said. I do not want to misquote or just use the correct quote, but it does say that the increase in emissions generated from an APD cut is manageable if additional measures are taken to account for that increase. Generally, it is seen that the paper estimates that a 50 per cent blanket cut across the board of APD would lead to a maximum emissions increase of around 0.06 megatons. That would be 0.1 per cent of the total Scottish emissions. Therefore, that is likely to be manageable. That is the whole quote. The reduction of APD meets some very, very good ambitions of the Government in terms of global connectivity, including increasing tourism to Scotland, which has some great benefits for business, for the economy and so on and so forth. However, we have to, and the member is right, we have to ensure that we are offsetting that. According to the Committee on Climate Change, that is manageable. I am going to stop you there on that one. I noticed that there are other members around the table that, specifically, John Finnie would like to come in, but I am afraid that we are very pushed for time. I would ask if you could keep the answers as short as possible when we move on to the next question, which is on low-emission vehicles from Jamie. Thank you, convener. In the interest of time, what I will do with this section is quite a meaty section, and I hope that other members will be inspired to perhaps come in. I am very happy for some of those questions to be answered in writing after the meeting if it is easier for you or if it gives you more time to research the responses. I would like to split it into two parts. The first part is some very specific questions, which, again, perhaps your officials can take away. The second part is more on policy. I think that you mentioned in your opening statement up front that the plan is very technology-heavy, but you mentioned behavioural changes as being a big part of that. Given that it is technology-heavy, it is important that we look at your own ideas on that. On ultra-low-emission vehicles, can I ask the first specific question on the conversations that you have had with the UK Government on vehicle exercise duty, the changes that are coming in in April, if you think that that fits in with your overall plan in Scotland? The second specific point is what funding is going to be available for charging points after August 2019, as we know that is when the current funding plans end. I am happy to park those aside so that we can come back to them later. I think that that is an overall point. What do you think of the Scottish Government? If we can have a brief answer on the charging points and the discussions, I think that it would be useful. Yes. The brief one would be that we share the concerns that many have in the E&G sector about the changes in vehicle exercise duty. I understand the logic of why the UK Government thinks that it might be a good idea and incentivises electric vehicles, but ultra-low-emission vehicles are the ones that are going to suffer from that. I can get the member a greater response and a little bit more detail about what we have done and what my officials and conversations that my officials have had with the DFT on some of that. In terms of the funding, I would simply say that we have committed to the funding, as he says, and rightly says to 2019. The RPP and RPP2 told us that we have to invest heavily in the infrastructure. We have done that. We have 600 charging points, 1200 charging bays and rapid charging points across Scotland. We will continue to invest in that. Of course, we have a fund scheme for those who want to put electric charging points at their domestic residents. We can review that coming 2019 and the progress that we have made. We have made on that, but the infrastructure is making great progress and continues to make great progress. It may be that we have to rebalance from the infrastructure. We obviously have to continue to invest in that to incentivising the vehicles even more than we are at the moment, so we would take a call on that closer to the time. That leads nicely into the next point. Given that your estimates are that you are working on the formula that 40 per cent of vehicles by 2032 will be electric, I think that the answer that the funding will stop in 2019 is one that makes me slightly nervous. I would be hoping that maybe you might give some more commitment to that strategy if the take-up is going to beat those levels in the future. In terms of getting people on to who lives, what do you think the Scottish Government can do to incentivise or indeed subsidise take-up of those types of vehicles? Have you had any thoughts of discussions amongst officials about that? First of all, I would just like to clarify that I said that we would take a call on funding in 2019 when we get closer to the time. I am not suggesting that absolutely funding will be the cliff edge at all, but I understand that the plans that are laid out in the transport chapter are as we see them now, but we should have the flexibility to review them if uptake or, for example, if infrastructure needs to be updated and incentivised. In terms of the uptake of electric vehicles, again, we are broadly where we thought that we would be in this innovator stage. I spoke about the innovators, the early adopters and the majority, so we are broadly where we thought we would be in the uptake of electric vehicles. 2.5 per cent registration of new vehicles are electric vehicles. We should say that that is a 108 per cent increase in the previous year, so we are going in the right trajectory, although starting from a relatively low baseline. We are making good progress. In terms of the funding that exists, there is quite a lot of funding that has gone into this. There is £15 million into the charge place Scotland Network, which is about £3.5 million that has been spent on the fleet of 350 public sector vehicles. He knows probably about the green bus fund as well—£15 million in terms of that. Then, of course, there is the low-carbon transport loan scheme, which is £10 million so far, which gives a loan to individuals but, importantly, businesses that want to transition from petrol and diesel cars to electric vehicles. Those funding schemes have been really well taken up, really well received and the Government is continuing with them. It is fair to say that we have to examine as time goes on if the uptake is among the trajectory that we expect it to be and if we need to do something to further incentivise that. I would go back to saying that we predicted an RPP and an RPP2 that the trajectory of the increase take-up would be in around the mid-to-late 2020s. That is still the trajectory that we see. There is a bit of trick in the egg there, in the sense that uptake may be higher if there are better incentives, including financial incentives, such as we took some evidence on some of the schemes that they have in Norway, for example, on purchasing. I was really surprised and pleasantly surprised by the take-up of electric or hybrid vehicles in Norway based on some of the subsidies that the Government can offer, so it seems to be an interesting model that we could look at. It is very brief on that point, if I can, for the member, because he is absolutely right to say that the Norwegian model does a lot of incentives, but there is also a little bit of the stick with Norway and it has tax powers to be able to do that. I mean, looking at the Norway model myself, there is a little bit in terms of VAT on the vehicles that align the internal combustion engine at 25 per cent, so there is a little bit of the stick as well as the carrot. Thank you. The next question is from Gail. Thanks, convener. Good morning, minister. We heard from Stop Climate Care Scotland and Friends of the Earth Scotland that there have been no demand measures given any serious consideration in the climate change plan. You have already discussed things like workplace, park and levees with John Finnie. Can you explain why this is the case that we are not looking at things like increased public park in charges or reductions in speed limits? What is the Scottish Government doing to manage demand? I think that the point is that we have an overall reduction commitment of emissions at 66 per cent and transport will play a part in that by reducing emissions by 35 per cent. How we get there, of course, is important. I am not taking away from that, but what we have managed to find is a model and a pathway that respects people's individual needs, the economy and our very important targets, our very important ambition to reduce carbon emissions. We have managed to do that in a way that we think is the sensible and correct balance. That does not stop a local authority, for example, if they choose to increase parking charges if they want to do that. I do not think that local authorities particularly want to go down that route, because there are other ways of meeting their emissions targets. In some of those, we have discussed in low-emission zones as an example of that. Low-emission zones, where you effectively stop a particular type of vehicle, emissions heavy vehicle, for coming into a particular location, be that a city centre or perhaps even as we have discussed in the transport plan, a wider low-emission zone in an urban area, then you are constraining demand, so you do constrain demand through things like low-emission zones. We are not considering car parking charges, we are not considering those measures and we are still achieving that or we are confident of achieving that 35 per cent reduction without those measures, so I do not see any need to do that. You mentioned low-emission zones. Have you got any plans to encourage local authorities to do pilot schemes? The discussions that we are having at the moment on low-emission zones are going very well with the four largest cities in Scotland. I think that the largest cities would be the right place to start a low-emission zone, and we said that we would have one up and running by 2018. That was in our manifesto. That is a very ambitious target, but one that we are working towards. The member may know that there have been various contributions from as we go into the run-up of a local election number of political parties saying that they would support a low-emission zone. Generally, I feel that, across the political spectrum, there is some political will around a low-emission zone, so I certainly think that we will see one by that 2018 target, which is what we are working towards. I am very hopeful of that. Given that any increase in the age limit for this would force people back into their cars, I think that one of the unintended consequences of the concessionary travel was that a lot of people reaching their 60th birthday moved on to bus travel, which was played its part in dealing with emissions. If that age limit has increased, will that impact on our emissions force people back into their cars? A couple of things. First, we are at the pre-engagement stage, as the member knows. I would not want to pre-empt any consultation that will take place, and the result of that consultation would be looking at a range of factors of how we make that scheme more accessible. However, what I would say to the member is that we have also given a commitment to extending the scheme to modern apprentices and also for young people in a jobs grant, so you could also have the flipper argument of that, which is getting young modern apprentices or even potentially those in a jobs grant instead of taking taxis or for those that are being driven around by parents or driving themselves, then getting them on to the buses would be a positive thing. She is right in the sense that we should take into account as part of the consultation discussion any unintended consequences. From my own anecdotally speaking, from those that are aged 60 to the pension age, for example, and I am not saying that this is a route that we are going down, but if that, since her question alluded to that, I am not sure that there are many 60 to 65-year-olds who just give up their car because they get the bus pass, but that is from my experience and not to say that that is the case. I will certainly look as part of the discussions and deliberations that we have in terms of the consultation on the concessionary travel scheme. That is something that she is right to highlight and something that we should look at. Would you do an assessment of that before you changed the scheme? Many changes to the scheme will be based on the consultation, but it has to go through various impact assessments, including that we should give a commitment that I will absolutely look at any of the unintended consequences for our climate change plan, but I suspect that it would be very, very small if it was negative at all. I think that she is right that we should absolutely be looking at that element. Okay, the next question is from Mike, and I will bring in. Buses, I am a bit along and have to say that you seem to be under the impression in response to Roder's question that to be successful people have got to give up their cars rather than just using buses more often than they would ever do before with this scheme. I think that it is a very good scheme. Minister, there are 1.3 million bus car holders. Passenger journeys have risen by less than expected in the last two years. Should we be aiming for 50% of the bus fleet to be electric by 2030 rather than simply low emission, as is in the draft plan, because if we do that and get more people to move from the car, it is not abandoning the car, but more move from the car to more bus use, that will decrease, hesitate to say it, the forecast of using that word forecast of 27% increase in car travel. That would be a really effective way of reducing that forecast of 27%, getting people to use electric buses, and it is a win-win situation for everybody, for the environment and for health and for active travel as well, you know, by getting people out of their car. To first clarify, I mean, I do not think I said and certainly did not mean to suggest at all that people going from car to bus is an issuer and successor in that at all. We just simply made the point about behaviour patterns and behaviour changes just from my anecdotal evidence, but also agreeing with the member previously that we should be looking at any unintended consequences on emissions. In terms of, could I just ask about that, because I got the impression from your response, and I'm glad that it's not the case, but I got the impression from your response to Rhoda that the success of this card scheme was, like you said, not many people have given up their cars, but that's not the point of the card scheme. No, not the point. It simply wasn't suggested or certainly wasn't meaning to be suggested, so I'm happy to clarify that. In terms of the member's wider point, again, the point of having this discussion around the table, of course, is to take members' ideas and we should reflect on what the member says in terms of electric buses. It should be said that the element model, in particular, did have a degree of stakeholder engagement. The bus operators were part of the conversation when it came to the bus chapter, so what we've come up with is a consultation with the bus sector and what it thinks is achievable. I have to say that I've been incredibly impressed recently. I've been to Lothian Buses stagecoach and first, and all three bus companies have got really ambitious plans for Lothian Buses. Transitioning our fast-forwarding that to electric vehicles, which are available in being an electric bus myself in Orkney, is part of what I was there visiting recently. It's something that we'd have to take back to the bus sector to see if they're comfortable with that pace of change. What I would say to the member is just the final point from my perspective that he's absolutely correct to say that bus patronage, of course, has been declining for decades and we need to find a way of reversing that, and that's a real challenge. Yes, the bus passengers experience is really, really important on that. Tackling things like congestion is really, really important, and that's not just an urban issue, but making fares more accessible, smart ticketing. There's a lot of challenges around reversing the decline in patronage, but the member is absolutely right. If we tackle that and we succeed in that, then it's a win-win. Mike, before you say anything else, John, you were trying to catch my eye on buses. Did you want to come in on that? If I may, and it's on that very point. Minister, thanks for that information. It may be that I'm not very technical or maybe a bit confused about it, but the plan at page 70 states a switch to bus users in the code likely to be limited by capacity of the sector to preserve significant use traffic. Now, you've said very commendable things about the fleet on that, and I'm quite sure that we had the bus operators in here and asked them if your target was to double their patronage by 2032. I think they would all eat a ram off for that. So why are the Government turning away from even considering an increase in bus patronage? Again, I'll look at the drafting and I'll take that back that the member suggested, but no, I mean, I want to see an increase in bus patronage. I think transport ministers for decades have wanted that. The reality is that it's not an easy issue to tackle. We should, and it's not one that necessarily overnight can be reversed, but we are committed as a Government through the bus stakeholder group and I just had a meeting with them yesterday. In fact, on how we look to reverse some of that decline in bus patronage, that it will take more than one measure to do that. So we have the transport bill, of which there will be a bus element, that will be part of it. Discussions with local authorities will be a part of that as well. Tackling congestion and looking at the roadworks issue will be a part of it. So there's a number of things and so I will go back and reflect on the wording as the member suggests, but certainly my ambition is to start to put in place what we need to put in place in order to see a reversal in that decline of bus patronage, which won't happen overnight or necessarily in 12 months, but it's something that we should be aiming for in the long term. John, can I just ask you, you wanted to ask also about cycling. Can I ask you just to push, but for very brief questions? Yes, indeed. Minister, the transport emission reduction set out in the draft climate change plan are based on cycling having a 10% share of everyday trips by 2020. Cycling accounts for less than 2% of trips today. What's Scottish Government going to do to move that target? If I may, can I say that the times modelling assumes that funding for active travel is to be frozen at 2016-17 cash values until 2021? So how does a real terms reduction funding of active travel equate to a policy that supports more active travel? I would go back to just putting some context around some of those figures and some of those numbers, if I may. Active travel is at record levels at 39.2 per annum, plus the fact that we've spent, well, that equates, in fact, to £175 million in active travel since 2011. That's far and above what previous Governments have spent. I accept his point that he and other stakeholders will be pushing us to do more, but I would make the point also that, in a time when we've had our budget cut, to be able to at least provide that certainty of funding at record level investment provides some element of comfort to our partners. Again, I'll come to that point. There's some in the sector who push us, for example, and I think that it's a policy of his political party that 10 per cent of the transport budget should be on active travel. Simply for me, that's not a realistic prospect, because our budgets are committed to various contractual obligations that we have during the 1998-96 real franchises and so on and so forth. Of course, the member, Phoebus, in my position, would say that there may be projects that he would tell us not to push ahead with, but that is not the view of this Government. What I would say to give him some comfort, if I may. I recently chaired the active travel task force for me. There still seems to be too many barriers, particularly at a local level, if I may say that, to cycling infrastructure. I'm a big believer in segregated psychopaths and the importance that they have in terms of increasing cycling, giving confidence to cycling and to road users alike. I've been disappointed in some of the decisions that have been made recently. Therefore, the active travel task force brings together local partners, as well as the Government and others, to look to see how we can tackle some of those local barriers that exist. That's what we hope to do. In terms of the climate change plan, that's the final point that I'll make on this on the transport chapter. The reason why we've been criticised by some in the cycling and lobbying active travel lobby for perhaps not having enough of an emphasis, I would say that, because the transport chapter is so focused on carbon abatement understandably, because of the length of journeys where emissions are the highest, although cycling will have many benefits, health benefits, so on and so forth. In terms of carbon abatement, it would have been very small in terms of the active travel piece, so that's why perhaps it doesn't have as much. That's not to say that we don't find it important or we don't support it enthusiastically, but there's a big focus on carbon abatement in this transport chapter. Minister, I'm going to have to stop you there anyway. It was a logical break, but your answers are drifting slightly on the long side, and we have a few more questions, so if I could urge everyone to brevity. The next question is from Richard. Basically, you covered it yourself, he said, on the roads, bigger and bigger lorries, sitting behind a lorry, how do we get these loads off the road? We really need to switch to rail, try and get them onto rail. I live next to the Glasgow main line, Edinburgh main line, and watch freight trains going by occasionally when I was out, used to be out walking the dog. So what are you doing to support the development of infrastructure to allow longer freight trains to participate in order to take all those loads off the road? Yeah, again, to try to be brief on that. We do have the Modeshift revenue support grant, so 2.5 million tonnes have been moved from road on to rail, 100,000 HGV journeys removed from the car, and £7 million of environmental benefits have been realised on that, so there are funds that exist. There are funds that exist for the same purpose that haven't quite been utilised to the extent that I would have liked them to be, so there must be an issue around that, so I have task officials to look at facilities freight grant and other such things in order to see how we can improve them. Right, also the other, and I have to identify that there's actually an application in my area for this, which I'm going to ask you about. We've basically heard the evidence that, despite a key plank in freight transport… We try and keep it on a Scotland-wide basis. Key plank in freight transport emission reduction policy is a Scotland thing. Development of freight transport in rail centres has been opposed by quite a number of sectors, so what's the Scottish Government doing to encourage their development and use to reduce transport emissions? Is that on consolidation centres? Again, it's mentioned in the transport chapter that we would be exploring. He is right to say that there's resistance, and a lot of that resistance comes in from the private sector operators, and so the conversations will continue. All I can do is give him a commitment that we'll explore the data because consolidation centres are used, including across the UK. I think that it's important that we examine the evidence base for them to see whether or not they would have the impact that we would want them to have and therefore put the investment in, so all I can do is give them a commitment that it is something that we're exploring. To explain the reason why I said that was because, in case someone comes back and says that I hadn't identified that that was happening in my area. Thank you very much, Richard. I have the next question, which is just really a question of, as far as planning goes, and we've been told and it's identified that it's a problem of trip length between houses and places of work. I wondered how the Government was working with local government to try and make best use of land in development to ensure that trip lengths were kept as brief as possible. A couple of answers to that and just keep them brief if I can, that working with local government is essential across the transport chapter and what we do in collaboration with them. The local elections are coming up regardless of what the results are across the country. It will give us a renewed impetus to do that, either if it's new regimes that come in on the current regimes that are there. There generally is a renewed focus, so that gives us an opportunity. The second thing that I would say is that I'm working very closely with my colleague Kevin Stewart, who is leading the planning review. He and I have regular discussions around a number of issues. I think that this is one that we should certainly be able, officials are having a conversation on, but I should certainly be having a conversation with Kevin on and we can see how we can reflect that perhaps in the plan, if appropriate. The next question is, I think, Richard again. In line with what the convener said to me earlier, I'll make it Scotland-wide. It's often said, build it and they will come. How do you reconcile the Scottish Government's transport emission reduction ambitions with the road's focus capital investment that you've carried out and basically you're talking about quite a number of roads throughout Scotland? Have you been upgraded or improved, etc? I think that I may be touched upon the answer to that in previous answers. We have to balance the priorities that we have in terms of economic growth, as well as what we're trying to do on carbon abatement. What we've done is taken account of the drilling of the A96, other road projects that he knows about in going through his constituency, for example. He knows about those, but what we've done is taken those into account and yet got to deliverable pathway that reduces emissions by 35 per cent by 2032. Yes, well, you've now opened the Wraith Entertainment Underpass under the M74, which has now stopped the car parking on a certain road, which I have degree with. Thank you very much. I'm glad you got that in, Richard. Jamie, did you have a supplementary? Can I bring in Mr Carmichael? Can I ask him how much involvement you have in influencing or discussing with the Minister on transport policy, strategy and subsequent investment? Well, it's the core part of my job. And did you feed into the infrastructure investment plan 2015 that we've looked at in this committee? Not directly. It's not my lead role. So the reason I ask is, in the last evidence session we had, and this is specific to the climate change plan and how the transport policy feeds into it, and I can open that up to anyone that's interested in answering. We asked each of the witnesses a very specific question, and that's whether the capital investment plans and policies of the Scottish Government supported the emission reduction ambitions of the Government. And the answer was a resounding no from the witnesses. I just wondered if you had any comments on that. I think the minister has just answered the question in that what we're discussing today is a plan that is built on current policies, including the current investment decisions that ministers have taken. Has the member seen the energy modelling? Pardon me? Has the member seen the energy modeling? No, I'll have to look at it. We'll definitely send that across to you, because I think it makes good reading, because it takes into account the realities on the ground of how to achieve what we're trying to achieve. You've got to balance up priorities in Government, and there's no shag away from certain actions that Rhoda Grant had mentioned about the APD cut that might will increase emissions and aviation, balancing that off with what we do in terms of carbon abatement. I think that we've managed to get something that's deliverable, and I think that's a really key point. I totally appreciate it. I think that the problem is that there's a perception perhaps that the strategy and the investment, capital investment and transport, isn't going to help you meet the emission reduction targets of the Government. I think that's something that we found, came across very strongly from all witnesses. Jamie, I'm happy to leave it there. Before we move on to the next gender item, would you like to make a very brief closing statement, or are you happy that you've addressed the items? Yes. The only thing that I would say is that I would like to thank members for it. There's a few things that I think we should certainly take back and reflect on and see how we can perhaps better word, and the offer is always an open one if members want to talk on a one-to-one about any particular issues that they haven't had the time to do so, then my door is certainly open, and we have a window of excuse me a few weeks to have that conversation in relation to the climate change plan, but no, I thank members for what I thought were eminently sensible suggestions. Okay, thank you minister. I'd like to briefly suspend the meeting to allow witnesses to change. Could I ask the committee members to stay seated so we can move on to the next session as quickly as possible? Ladies and gentlemen, the agenda item three on our agenda is the taking evidence on the national bus travel concession scheme for older and disabled persons. The minister and Mr Carmichael are joined by Tom Davies, the head of the bus and local transport policy unit at Transport Scotland. The instruments laid under an affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before the provisions can come into force. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited to the next agenda item to consider the motion to approve the instrument. Can I invite the minister to make a short opening statement? Thank you for inviting me to discuss the draft national bus travel concessionary scheme for older and disabled persons Scotland amendment order 2017. The order sets the reimbursement rate and cap level of funding for the national concessionary travel scheme in 2017-18, and it gives effect to an agreement that we reached in January with the confederation of passenger transport, which represents the Scottish bus industry. The agreement was based on a reimbursement economic model that was developed in 2013 on the basis of independent research commissioned at that time by the Scottish Government. The research was discussed extensively at that time with the CPT and its advisers. The model and recent discussions on updating the various inputs to it, including forecasts based on national trends and agreed indices, have given us a good basis for informed decisions to provide stability and clarity for all partners. Using the updated model on the basis of agreed forecasts, we have concluded that the appropriate rate of reimbursement in 2017-18 should be 56.9 per cent of the adult single fare. We believe that this rate will most closely deliver the aim, which is set out in the legislation and established the scheme, that bus operators should be no better or no worse off as a result of participating in the scheme. As this is the same rate as last year, it also provides welcome stability and continuity for the bus industry. On the basis of that reimbursement rate and our expectations for future changes in journey numbers and fares, we forecast that the claims for reimbursement of bus operators be capped at £196.16 million over the next year. The figure is reflected in the draft order as the budgetary cap. The order is limited to the coming year. We have agreed with CPT that the reimbursement model will be reviewed during this year to ensure that it continues to provide a fair deal for all parties and remains an appropriate mechanism for determining future payments. The committee will also be aware that we will be consulting in the coming months and ways in which to ensure the longer-term sustainability of the national concessionary travel scheme and on the implementation of our commitment to extend free bus travel to young modern apprentices and young people in a jobs grant. We know that older disabled people greatly value the free bus travel that the scheme provides, which enables them to access local services, visit friends and relatives and gain health benefits of a more active lifestyle. The order provides for those benefits to continue for a further year on a basis that is fair to operators and that is affordable to taxpayers. I commend the order to the committee and, of course, I am happy to now take any questions on the scheme. Thank you, minister. Can I just remind the committee that this is on the provision that is in front of us, not any future provisions? John is first. Thank you. Minister, I am going to ask a question about the business and regulatory impact assessment, and it is important to tell you the source because, in the previous set of questionings, I alluded to the plan when I talked about a table. Actually, it was from the spy briefing, so I apologise. It was not my intention to confuse in that. However, it is simply a question about the rationale for government intervention. Just for the purpose of the records, if I read the first sentence, it says that the national bus concessionary travel scheme for older disabled persons provides an entitlement to free bus travel for people over 60 or meeting certain disability criteria. The second sentence then says that it is believed to deliver social and health benefits by enabling people more easily to access services and visit friends and relatives. Were a number of years into the scheme, I would have thought that evidence had been garnered entirely around the social and health benefits that this would bring. I have alluded to it in my opening remarks, as well, that we believe there to be those social and health benefits. If the member won't mind, I will maybe write to him with detail on what evidence we have for that, but it is generally believed that there are many many benefits to the scheme, otherwise we would not continue to pursue with it. We do recognise the benefits. Members will know that from their constituents that they speak to on a regular basis, but in terms of the evidential basis, if the member does not mind, perhaps it would be more suitable for me to write to him with some more detail on that. I will write to the committee. I suggest that you write to the committee and we will ensure that it is passed on to the member just for practical reason. Is it on that particular point, because I have a whole heap of people queuing up? If I may, it says in the policy note that this has been shown to deliver social and health benefits, and I was going to ask about why there was a difference between the two. John Finnie has picked up the other one, so maybe we could just cover that in the letter. In the letter? Yes, sure. I will be happy to do that. The rate is staying at 56.9 per cent, and that is 56.9 per cent of the standard single fair. I just wondered, and there may be commercial sensitivities around that, so I phrased my question as, are officials in you aware, rather than inviting you to share information that we may not properly have, to what extent the standard single fair has, since the introduction of the scheme, diverged from the overall basis of fairs? There has always been a little underlying worry that there is a little bit of gaming going on in that there is not much incentive to reduce the standard single fair, which beyond the bus pass scheme is probably little used. I wonder whether you are confident that the fair is not diverging from the fairs that are otherwise charged to people who are paying money when they turn up for the bus. That is a very good point, and it is fair to say that we are very aware of. Within the first few months of this job, I was approached by a former MSP who used to be involved in the bus industry to suggest that I look at that as well. To say that we are aware of it, yes, what I would say to the member is that the reimbursement rate that we come to is a negotiated position, which involves compromise on both sides, from the Government on the behalf of the Scottish Taxpayer and the bus operator as a private company. I am certainly aware of what the member says. I do not think that there is any games being played in terms of the adult single fair, but it is fair to say that we are aware of the possibility that it could be happening. It would be fair, minister, to say that yes, the rates negotiate, but the fairs are unilaterally set. I will be notified to the commission. I have no more. Is a test applied to fair tables when they are submitted by operators, we do look at the fairs to see whether they are genuine commercial fairs, the sort of fairs that people are paying, and so on. That does not catch fairs that may be creeping up under less competitive pressure, but it does catch serious cases of gaming, or it would catch serious cases of gaming. We are due to review the reimbursement model over the course of the coming year anyway, and this question of whether the way in which we deal with the relationship between adult single fairs and the fairs that people would actually have paid if it was not a scheme, we are due to look at whether that are the figures that we use for that whole good. I will remind everyone gently if I can say that we are looking at the scheme that is coming right down the line, rather than the future might you are next. Some of the evidence that you gave this morning and the evidence that is provided in the policy note that you have given to us. In paragraph 7 of the policy note, in the third sentence, it says, Bus fairs and concessionary passenger journey numbers have risen by less than expected in the last two years since the cap was set. In the evidence this morning, you answered my question, you said that bus journeys are going down. What I would like to know is what is the facts here? Are bus journeys rising to a less extent than you thought, or are they falling? No, I think that there is, and I will ask Tom to come in slightly on this. First of all, overall patronage on buses is declining. What we are simply saying is on the cap, which is the figure that we arrive to in negotiation with CPT, which we do not expect. What we certainly will not pay out any more in terms of the scheme is based on what we think the forecast number of journeys will be and the forecast number of journeys and the actual number of journeys that have come in over the years—not all of the years, of course, but over the years, if I look at the last 10-year figures, they have generally come in at a lower than what the budget cap is. I understand that, but my question is focused on the policy note that you have provided. We did it again. Bus fairs and concessionary passenger journey numbers have risen by less than expected, which means that they have risen. Is that the case? It is the case that fares have risen by less than expected. I am looking at the passenger numbers. We expected passenger numbers to rise. They have not risen. They rose by less. In fact, they fell, if you are right to say that. I apologise if that is a confusion. We are anticipating a rise. We have had a flat to a small fall. We are modelling on basis of a rise into next year—that is the basis of the budget cap. I understand you. The concessionary—this is what we are focusing on—the concessionary passenger journey numbers have flat lined. Is that what you are saying? They have flat lined or stonk on slightly down. We anticipate a slight increase. Are you anticipating a slight increase? We are anticipating into next year a slight increase. This is on the basis of economic modelling done by CPT. My next question follows. You have cut, in this order, the level of cap by £16 million. Going back to our discussion with the minister just now on trying to cut emissions, my question was based on encouraging concessionary bus use in particular. It was striking that, rather than the answer that was given to me this morning that the answer would be a good thing, we would encourage it. What you are actually doing in the actual policy note is not anticipating that rise, as you have just said. You are reducing it, and you are cutting the cap figure. If there was a reality to the policy that the Government is pursuing—I am not commenting on the policy, but I am doing the reality to it—if you would expect that, if the reality of the evidence that we got this morning was that this is to be encouraged, then why are you reducing the cap? I will make a point and I will pass over to Tom. The cap is the ceiling of payments that you look to pay. The actual scheme payments, if I look from 2006 or 2007 to the current year, so if I take the 10 years, the current cap—the £196 million—is higher than what we have had to pay out every single year in the last 10 years, minus one year, the 2012-2013. It still has that leeway to allow an increase, even compared to last year, which was the actual payments for £189 million. Your figures here—192 million in paragraph 7 again—the actual claim, reimbursement claim is £192 million, and your cap is £196 million. Your cap is only £4 million more than what they paid out last year. I am going back to my point, and I would like you to focus on this, when you said that you wanted to encourage this, but your policy is only increasing it by a maximum of £4 million from £192 million. If we are looking at emission cuts, that is not very much, is it? That is an increase. That is the point, and not only is it an increase, but we are looking at this scheme that we are focusing on—a bit of long-term sustainability of it. If the cap had been lower than the payments, I would understand his point. You do not understand my point. No, I do, and it is saying that it is an increase. I know that it is an increase. The point that I am making is that it is a tiny increase when you are saying that you want to increase this use dramatically to change emission targets. What we are saying is that the bus element of the transport chapter—I know that we are talking about the previous discussion—was about reversing bus patronage, not just the national concessionary travel scheme, although that is an important part of it, but about reversing the decline in bus patronage across the board. There will be a number of measures, not just the national concessionary travel scheme, but a number of measures such as tackling congestion that will help with that and making the passenger experience a better one, etc. That certainly feeds as a part of that. That might be something that the committee will have to come back to in the sense that we will not know whether the caps have been breached to laugh at this, but I think that your point is well made. If I can move on to Richard, I think that you will— Questions. Do we know how many people in Scotland actually have this card? Yes, I do not have the number right on me, but yes, we do know how many I don't have. I thought I asked the minister. At 1.3 million. 1.3 million, okay. Am I correct in thinking that people who are entitled to use this card may not have used it? I am entitled to use this card and I have to declare that I have it, but I have already said that they have used it. That is correct, but I do not have a figure in front of me, but quite a few people who have the card do not use it. That is correct. Last question. I must believe that a scheme does not entitle the barrier. We are in Edinburgh. It does not entitle the barrier to free tram travel in Edinburgh, but Edinburgh residents get a reduced tram fare with another card. You may want to come back. No, I can ask Tom to come in, if I am giving you the correct answer. We fund the national concessionary travel scheme for buses. Any local scheme is the responsibility of the local authority, so if Edinburgh local authority wishes to allow those who reside in Edinburgh a concessionary travel for trams but nobody outside of Edinburgh because they would have to fund that, then that is their right to do that. It is not a Government scheme, it would be a local authority's responsibility. You cannot entitle you to go on a bus. It is not just entitle you to go on a bus. It entitles you to go on a bus, travel for free, travel anywhere across Scotland for free. That is a pretty good concessionary that costs us £196 million. It does not just allow you to go on a bus. Can I suggest that we move on right? We have got quite a few questions here. Have you looked at how that will impact on ordinary fares for buses? Will that lead to an increase or should it have no impact at all? No, it certainly should not have an impact on that. That is part of the discussion with CPT and the whole point of the fundamental basis of the discussion with the bus industry, is that there is no better or no worse off. If there is no better or no worse off, there should be no reason that the concessionary travel scheme should be the basis for which the increase or decrease fares necessarily. Any increase in fares would not be as a result of the concessionary travel scheme. Jamie, I have got you down next. It is a small technical question on the cap. In the scenario that Mike Rumbles mentioned, theoretical situation where patronage rises perhaps higher than we expect or the forecasts dictate, what happens if we reach the cap? What is the financial consequence, A, on the bus operators or B, on the public purse if the cap is reached? The cap is reached by a negotiated process and if the cap was breached. There has been years where the payments have been higher. Contractually speaking, it would be for the bus industry to be their responsibility, but realistically speaking, you would have to see what the reasons were for the cap being breached. We know in previous years that there has been a late surge towards the end of the year in terms of take-up and travel on the national concessionary travel scheme. If I look at the last 10 years where it was breached, we would come to discussion with the bus industry and see what is not fair and whether we would have to absorb it as a budgetary pressure or whether the bus industry would take that up. If we got to that stage and it looked like we were getting towards that stage, we would look at the level where the cap was potentially being breached and then come to a negotiated position. In some years, for example, the breach has been in around the million pound mark, so there has been a discussion about who should absorb that. I think that that is the same approach that I would look to take. I appreciate the answer on that. I think that that demonstrates an element of flexibility in the system, which is, in my view, welcomed. However, from signing off the maximum liability to the public purse, that is an issue in the sense that it is very difficult to sign off a maximum cap if there is, in your own words, quite a loose setup whereby it may be breached and therefore the public finances may be liable. It is not very clear in terms of the contractual liability there. The legal obligation to pay is limited to the cap, so if the cap is arrived at during the course of the year and we try at the beginning of the year to set the cap at a level that we think that will not happen and that is why we have programmed a misincrease. If we reach the cap, then the liability for government is to stop, is ceasers. Any journeys, free journeys undertaken after that point, are in legal terms for bus operators to provide and they have to absorb the costs. They understand that we do not like that and it is awkward when it happens and we try to avoid that happening by setting the cap. We have on a couple of occasions in the past permitted to accept the claims beyond the cap. As the Minister has said for various reasons, one was a very late emerging small overshoot, which came up very late in forecasting and we met that in full. On another occasion additional payments were made equivalent to actual claims above the cap as part of a transition when we moved to a new economic model, which basically had quite a depressing effect on payment rates. It was a transitional relief, if you like, in one year. The final question is from John. It has been argued that, maybe, more people are going to start using the bus. Sadly, that has not been the case and certainly in Glasgow there has been fewer people using the bus. There is an argument to say that £196 million is really too high and why should we increase it at all if we are expecting fewer people to use the bus? Although there has been an argument on one side, there is an argument on the other side if we are trying to be careful with public money. Do you really think that we need to increase the £192 million to £196 million? A number of reasons. Our desire, our ambition as a Government, is to reverse the decline in bus patronage as a whole. As I have said to previous members, the national concessionary travel scheme can play a part in that. It is important that we continue to invest in bus because it is also that there is an element. People will know that the demographics of those who use the bus, the buses can be incredibly vital in terms of health benefits, educational benefits and employment benefits, so it is important that we continue to invest. We are now going to move on to agenda item 4, which is the subordinate legislation. That is for formal consideration of the motion calling for the committee to recommend approval of the draft national bus travel concession scheme for older and disabled person amendment order 2017. I invite the ministers to speak and to move to motion S5M-03819. Minister, would you like to move the motion? Motion to recommend the draft order to be approved. Are there any further questions by members of the committee? The question is that motion S5M-03819 in the name of Humzae Yousaf be approved. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That concludes the consideration of the affirmative instrument and we will report the outcome of the consideration to Parliament. I thank the minister and your officials for your evidence this morning, and I would now like to conclude that part of the meeting. Suspend it while we move into private session.