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The policy will save young people cash and support behavioural change in order to tackle climate change and might provide sustainability for bus companies that otherwise might not have it. I know that, at the start of the pandemic, the Government moved rapidly to keep the companies afloat, but the issue of the finances involved needs a bit more detail. Given that the reimbursement rate will be a symptom of any success that we have in the first two policy elements that I highlighted, when are you expecting to review the scheme and assess its delivery against targets, and when will the committee get any report in that respect?

The minister said that the provision of bus services is a separate and distinct issue, but clearly there is an interrelationship between success in getting young people to use bus services and the availability of services. In a constituency such as mine, it is easy to travel by bus east to west but difficult to do so north to south. I go back to the point that Monica Lennon made about the sustainability of services and the fact that many people want to travel in the early evening. Is there an opportunity during the year—not waiting for the year to be over—to get in better alignment with local government and its provisions? The sweet spot is getting more young people on buses while also getting sustainability and improved services in rural and semi-rural areas, in the evening in particular.

Welcome to your Parliament and your parliamentary committee.

The Scotland’s Climate Assembly report was very clear and very direct, and it set out clear actions that are expected to be delivered. The Parliament debated it with cross-party support, as was indicated previously. You are in a very powerful position.

Will you explain the journey that people were on as part of the assembly? Some people will have come in at the start with particular views, but there was an evidence base, and there was a great deal of consideration and understanding—and then your ranking. Will you give us an indication of what issues you think shifted most during the course of the assembly’s work, so that we can get an idea of what we perhaps need to challenge most regarding people’s understanding and how we can achieve the behavioural change that the convener talked about?

I know that my colleagues will pick up on a number of the areas that Jocelyn Richard has highlighted.

My other question is about communities. The report makes the strong recommendation that we should

“Empower communities to ... develop localised solutions to tackle climate change.”

Jocelyn Richard or her assembly colleague might want to address that.

Jocelyn also talked about the importance of the process of learning and understanding for the assembly. Perhaps Liam Fowley would like to comment on progress on climate education for young people in particular.

I direct the question on communities to the assembly witnesses and the question on climate education to Liam Fowley. You can go first, Liam, as the camera is on you.

Thank you for joining us. My initial question is for Andrew Richards from Construction Scotland, but I want to ask all the witnesses about the cumulative impact of supply chain pressures and resilience planning. I am interested in not just immediate mitigations, but measures for the future.

I thank Construction Scotland for its hard work during the pandemic and for continuing to operate in the context of safety measures. I am very conscious that, as you have just set out, in many countries, including Scotland, construction can be seen as—and is—a way to drive economic recovery. I want to explore further some of what you have just said. Please feel free to set out in more detail, with examples, the impacts that you are seeing of supply chain pressures on our drive to secure more economic recovery through construction.

The construction sector is a source of resilience and transformation, but the supply chain poses challenges when it comes to delivering that. Is that your message to us?

We are getting a bit of buffering.

Charles Hammond talked about some of the practical things that are being done with HGVs. I am interested in your views on the interdependencies that exist and on resilience planning. Do you think that that is satisfactory or should we do more?

Thank you. Can I put the same question to Ewan MacDonald-Russell and Andrew Richards?

We will try to get Andrew Richards back later.

I have a couple of questions for all the panel members. What is the current cumulative impact of supply chain issues across different sectors? What can be done to mitigate that? What resilience planning are you aware of at Scottish Government or UK Government level? I have three supermarket distribution warehouses in my constituency, and I am aware of the potential cumulative impact on those of Covid, Brexit and the shortage of labour supply. Given the interrelationships that exist, what can be done to mitigate some of the immediate issues? What do we need to do to build in resilience for the future?

Andrew Richards is now back with us. We are about to hear from the rest of the panel on the cumulative impact of the current pressures and how they are affecting the interrelationships between the sectors. What can be done to build in resilience for the sectors? We will start with Martin Reid, as we have not heard from him for a while. Is there anything that the other sectors can do to help your sector? What resilience planning do you think is needed?