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Good morning. I always strive to be brief, convener. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today to discuss the draft Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes (Amendment) Order 2024, which seeks to extend the territorial extent of the trading schemes to include Northern Ireland.

In 2019, the Scottish Government declared a climate emergency and announced that Scotland would address the challenge by working collaboratively to decarbonise all areas of the Scottish economy in order to reach net zero emissions by 2045.

Transport is the largest contributor to Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions, making up to 31.7 per cent of all emissions in 2022, with road transport contributing to 70 per cent of those emissions. That is why, working with the UK Government and the Welsh Government, we passed the Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes Order 2023, which came into force in Scotland from January 2024. On 21 November 2023, this committee recommended to the Scottish Parliament that we approve the 2023 order.

That devolved legislation mirrored legislation introduced by the UK Government and the Welsh Government in order to create a Great Britain-wide set of mechanisms to increase the sale of zero-emission cars and vans and to reduce emissions of new non-zero-emission cars and vans. Working closely with the UK Government and the devolved Governments of Wales and Northern Ireland, we are bringing forward an order to extend the scheme to Northern Ireland. The order, which is supported by the UK Climate Change Committee, is before you for consideration.

The vehicle emissions trading schemes put legal obligations on car and van manufacturers. The zero-emission vehicle mandate sets annual targets of sales of new zero-emission vehicles, ramping up to 80 per cent of new car sales and 70 per cent of new van sales in 2030. In parallel, the CO₂ trading schemes incentivise manufacturers to continue to drive down emissions from non-zero-emission cars and vans.

The UK Government analysis estimates that, through those schemes alone, there will be a saving of 420 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions across the UK by 2050, with 40 million tonnes of CO₂ saved in Scotland.

Since the introduction of the vehicle emissions trading schemes legislation across Great Britain earlier this year, fully electric cars now account for 17.2 per cent of total sales. There are now more than 96,000 electric vehicles on Scotland’s roads, and more than 62,000 are fully electric.

Vehicle manufacturers and charge point operators have called for clarity, consistency and ambition from Government. The vehicle emissions trading schemes have provided that clarity and, as of the end of August, in part due to increasing private sector investment and public electric vehicle charging infrastructure, Scotland has more than 5,900 charge points. We will certainly meet our target of 6,000 public charging points by 2026.

Today, we are seeking the committee’s support to extend the vehicle emissions trading schemes to include Northern Ireland, and I invite the committee to recommend to the Scottish Parliament that the order be approved.

One issue that we have to bear in mind is that we think that there is an underestimate of the Scottish figures. For example, the purchasing of fleet vehicles is centred in England, and such purchases count towards the English figures. We think that the figures for Scotland are far higher. There have been recent studies to identify that, so I note there is a caveat with our figures as well.

I will bring in Matthew Eastwood, but it might be helpful—

The VET scheme would operate separately from that; there is no interdependency. The VET scheme is achieving things, which is good.

On what the new UK Government’s view is on phasing out, that is a matter for it to relay. Labour had a manifesto commitment. It will be up to ministers to relay what their position is on timing or what they intend to do with that.

On Thursday, I met two of the new UK Government ministers, including the Minister for the Future of Roads. They have to address what they might do on the matter, but we will hear from them on that; it is not my place to speak for them.

You are correct that the target does not include homes or businesses; it is about publicly accessible charge points. On the expansion, one of the first things that I did when I became the Minister for Transport was to launch our EV vision for charging. With the target, we wanted to ensure that we maximised private as well as public provision. The EV infrastructure fund that we are rolling out as we speak will ensure that there can be a combination. It is about how we leverage private funding into the provision of publicly accessible charge points. We are well on the way towards meeting our initial 2026 target.

I was struck by figures from the Scottish Futures Trust that show that, in 2023, there was roughly £25 million to £30 million from private investment, which it anticipates will be £40 million to £50 million this year. I opened the rapid charging provision in Dundee, for example, which obviously has a private sector lead.

I think that your point is about the evolution of charging. Free charging was an incentive for people, and initially there was some free charging provision. We have just talked about private investment. There is a return from charging, and there are differences in pricing in the market. If you can use cheaper energy at home, particularly at the times when energy is cheaper, that is ideal. However, how can you charge your EV when you do not have access to a charging point in your driveway because you do not have a driveway? That is why I am particularly interested in what we can do for on-street charging.

There are some innovations in on-street charging that do not necessarily use domestic pricing. I give the example of Haddington, where the first conversion of Openreach’s green furniture into accessible charging points was developed. That helps people in a housing scheme in Haddington that is near the edge of the town, as they do not have to drive into town to charge.

We can get a sea change if we can support on-street charging. Funding has already been made available to enable factors to provide charge points at tenements, so they can be provided on a collective basis. We have already looked at how we can support people in that regard.

Hydrogen is considered to be more appropriate for heavy goods vehicles. We recently published one of the outcomes from the zero-emission truck task force, and we are the first in the UK to plot where EV charging points and hydrogen stations need to be for HGV fleets. It is a mixture of both. We asked where that infrastructure should be, logistically, if we had it. That required information to be shared, which is quite a challenge given the competitive HGV market. However, we worked well with the sector. There is speculation about the use of hydrogen elsewhere, but that is less the case with cars and vans, and the instrument is about cars and vans.

Before I became responsible for this area, my understanding was that the schemes were always meant to be technology neutral, and instrument ensures that they are. As you point out, the original order would have precluded hydrogen, but the order that is before the committee includes it.

I think that we have some way to go before we see the development of hydrogen in cars and vans, which are the subject of the scheme.

Clearly, that is a UK responsibility. We do not manufacture cars in Scotland any more. Indeed, the former British Leyland site is in my constituency—it was a manufacturing outlet and is now a massive housing scheme. This is about sales by manufacturers. It is primarily targeted at England, and enforcement, penalties and so on will be the responsibility of the UK Government.

I think that there is. However, as I pointed out, EV regulation is the responsibility of the UK Government.

No—you have a very full agenda, convener.