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And the level 4s.

I whole-heartedly agree. I had the pleasure of attending the Scottish Renewables offshore wind dinner last week, which accompanied its conference, at which the First Minister spoke. What Mr Macpherson has narrated was reflected in the conversations that I had with developers and supply chain representatives. There was definitely a feeling that we must speed up and refine the processes but, equally, there was acknowledgement that that is because we are pioneering, in this respect. ScotWind is the largest floating offshore wind leasing round in the world, and some of what we are doing is among the first times such things are being done. However, that does not take away from the fact that we must refine and speed up the process.

That question is one that has certainly dominated my thoughts a lot as we have been developing the budget.

I will come back to the point about context that I made earlier. We are still dealing with annualised budgets that are self-contained within one year. However, as you rightly point out, the interim target is 2030 and the mid-century target is 2045. Therefore, on the one hand, I am planning policy over a generation and, on the other hand, I am having to think very carefully about the implications of one year’s budget on that.

Despite the exceptionally difficult circumstances that we have faced, I am comfortable that the budget has gone as far as possible to support climate change objectives. I set out at the start, I think, that my three principal objectives were to meet my legal and contractual obligations, to have a safe and reliable transport network and to ensure that we were responding to the climate emergency.

The work that we have done with the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on the joint budget review has allowed clarity on the extent to which the budget supports climate objectives. Of course, we know that, in the whole budget, £4.7 billion is the figure that has been identified as funding positive actions that support climate change. I would draw out key examples from that—heat in buildings, active travel, flooding as a key adaptation move, public transport, concessionary travel and so on—but I will let you come back in.

I did not quite catch the first part of your question, but I absolutely understand what you are asking.

Yes, there are examples. Two come to mind, the first of which is SEPA. Fifty per cent of SEPA’s revenue is raised from charging regimes for those that it regulates, which is an example of making polluters pay for the public service that SEPA provides. That has been very successful and has seen SEPA’s overall revenue increase of late. A proportion of its revenue is public spend, and some of it is raised from those that it regulates.

I can also point to the work within my portfolio on extended producer responsibility, which is being taken forward by Ms Slater. I know that the committee is looking at that with respect to the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill and the waste route map. The sums that could be raised from polluters through that work would be another example.

In what regard?

We are already working towards very ambitious targets, which is absolutely the right thing to do. I said earlier that the scale and pace of climate change mean that we need action now, across the economy and society: it is an enormous task that none of us should seek to minimise and I am not going to do that.

I cannot pretend that an almost 10 per cent cut in what is available to me for capital spending will not have an impact on expensive projects such as the decarbonisation of transport or our work on heat in buildings. I have done my very best with what has been made available to me and I will seek to fill the gaps where that is necessary by leveraging funding from individuals and institutions in the private sector and by using public money in the very best way that it can be used to stretch it as far as it can go.

I am aware of some of last week’s discussion with the DFM and Mr Gray.

First, ScotWind is supporting my budget because it is supporting Scotland’s budget as a whole in the most difficult circumstances that we have faced since devolution.

Secondly, the value of ScotWind is far greater than the sum of its parts, because we are talking about option fees, rental income and the real prize of unlocking supply chain opportunities that will be worth 10s and 20s of billions of pounds. Realising that is an objective for the whole Government, not just for me or for Mr Gray as part of his responsibility for energy. Some of that money is supporting net zero interventions. For example, Mr Gray has been able to make money available to support the development of the supply chain.

Would I like to see a ring-fenced sovereign fund in future that would support the purposes of my portfolio? Absolutely. However, I am absolutely confident that the whole Government is committed to realising the opportunities from ScotWind and other strategic net zero investments and that ScotWind is already supporting that work.

That would be dependent on discussions at the time—it would not be helpful for me to speculate about that. However, as I say, my view is that ScotWind is already supporting the Government’s budget, a key theme of which is realising net zero.

From what I have seen of the Deputy First Minister’s conversation with you last week, she was clear that she is still working through the implications of ScotWind, both for the current financial year and the coming one. Once she has clarity on that, I am sure that she will be happy to update the committee.

I do wish to agree with Mr Doris—whole-heartedly. He is absolutely right. I think that the Deputy First Minister is best placed to give that view, which she did. Our budget as a whole increases front-line national health service investment, uprates benefits by more than £1 billion and allows us to increase the already increased Scottish child payment, invest in blue-light services and more. The small portion of ScotWind that we have realised to date is helping to support all that, as well as key interventions relating to net zero.