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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 9 August 2025
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Displaying 692 contributions

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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

Absolutely. In response to Mr Doris, I mentioned how all those aspects of an enormous piece of work are being looked at: the cost, the supply chain, the skills involved in the development of the scheme, the impact on the housing market and so on. A huge amount of work is being done on all that just now. We are moving to consultation, so that will be the point at which we will seek views on what is there and anything that the committee or anyone else thinks ought to be there.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

You made a good point about the difference in requirements between urban and rural Scotland. It is ever thus with transport. We have to understand the requirements and respond to them, and they will be different in rural and urban Scotland, as they are in Glasgow and London.

Alison Irvine might want to comment but, as you rightly pointed out, some of the funding is currently being used for scoping, planning and development, with installations expected to begin from 2024. It is about understanding the needs of different areas, and local authorities are very well placed to speak to that.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

It is my intention, with a backstop of autumn this year, to set out next steps on the dualling programme. My principal objective is the quickest and most successful procurements that I can manage, ensuring value for money. All those strands are currently occupying a lot of time across the transport team.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

I think that they were, for one key reason: just transition absolutely is oil and gas, but it is also broader than that. The climate change brief is a cross-cutting role across Government and so too is just transition, because for every decision that we make in the climate change space, which—as I have narrated today—is an enormous change agenda, it is very important that the just transition principles sit side by side with that and follow the progress on climate change throughout Government and everything that we are doing more broadly.

I think that it is the right thing to do. Just transition is not oil and gas—that is a huge part of it, but it is also agriculture, marine and transport, and everything that is encompassed in the climate change brief.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

Alison Irvine could add a spot, if that would be helpful, or we can come back to you in writing.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

I clarify that my colleague Angus Robertson leads on the Scottish Government’s approach to oversight of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill and the relations between us and the UK Government on that.

First, we had to undertake an enormous piece of work to find everything that had not been listed. Now that I know what is potentially under threat in my area, it is about senior civil servants and then me, in the case of a refusal, making the case for why things should not be in the schedule. However, I do not lead on the Scottish Government’s response to the REUL bill at large. It would be for Angus Robertson to answer your question on that.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

There is a balance. My officials and I have discussed the question, too. I say from the outset that, when I presented the 1.2 percentage point miss, I was clear that we thought that that had happened because of a rebound in transport emissions following a year of lockdown in 2020, as you said, and because we had had one of the coldest winters in a decade, which meant that emissions from heating our homes were higher.

I have been thinking about whether transport had largely settled in 2022—about whether people were not using transport because of a fear of Covid or whether a behavioural change has started to set in because people’s need to travel to work and their lifestyles have changed. The answer is that I do not know the extent to which that return to transport emissions will be seen into 2022. I think that there will be some. We might see some aviation emissions rebound in that.

However, I would also like to think that a positive that came out of the plethora of incredible negatives of the pandemic was that change in people’s lifestyles; for example, in how they travel to work. I hope that we will hold on to some of those changes in the 2022 results. All the time, we seek to introduce policies that will make changes now and will be borne out in future targets.

09:45  

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

Yes. I aim to lay a draft in Parliament in November.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

The UK Government’s position is that it has declined to remove it from the schedule. When we raised the matter at director general level, the UK Government declined the request and, as far as we understand it, it has no plan to replace the plan. It is now for me to escalate the matter to my ministerial counterparts in the UK Government and to make the case very clearly as to why we believe that it should be removed from the schedule.

I am reluctant to stray into this because, as I said, Angus Robertson is leading on it. As you mentioned, it is a joint piece of work. However, as far as I aware, we do not have any tool to change what the UK proposes in the schedule. I do not think that there is a mechanism that Scottish ministers could use to do that.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Scottish Government Priorities

Meeting date: 27 June 2023

Màiri McAllan

I do not know what agreement you are talking about. If you can give me more information, I will be glad to talk about it.