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:I will turn to the issue of electric vehicles, because there is heavy dependence on those vehicles in the climate change plan.

As Emily Nurse said, using an electric vehicle is one of the biggest changes that an individual can make to reduce their carbon emissions via technological approaches. The Climate Change Committee has stated that the CCP includes “credible plans” for electric vehicles, but you also note that there is not a lot of detail about specific Scottish Government incentives and programmes to support EV uptake. Why are you confident that the assumptions about EVs in the climate change plan are solid and credible?

:It certainly looks positive, and the cost of purchasing a vehicle is definitely coming down. However, I am interested in the cost of electricity and charging. I remember that, five or six years ago, charging at a public charge point was free. Now, if people are lucky enough to have a driveway at home, they can get on an EV tariff and pay about 8p per kilowatt hour, which is a very low cost. However, the cost at some public chargers is up to 60p per kilowatt hour.

I am interested in hearing your reflections on the charging regime, because it seems that, in effect, some companies are now profiteering. The cost of electricity on a basic tariff at home is 28p per kilowatt hour. How can people justify charging 60p per kilowatt hour? People consider real-world factors such as the accessibility of cheaper charging when they decide whether they could switch to an EV.

To what extent are you factoring that in? Is there a role for the Competition and Markets Authority to look at the price of electricity or other aspects?

:It is clear that cheap electricity is available, but only at night, and that is the problem with EV charging. If people do not have access to that personal EV tariff, they are really stuck using public chargers. Do you think that there should be a cap on the price of EV charging at public chargers?

:Thanks, convener. First, I thank Nigel Topping and his team for the meeting that we had last week.

I will go back to buildings and ask particularly about the point‑of‑sale regulations that the Scottish Government proposed and has now dropped. Does the CCC still support that approach, or, given the current price of electricity, do you consider that an approach in which there is in effect a trigger point for introducing those regulations that is linked to the electricity price could be another way forward?

:Your expectation is that the CEO will take over the role of the COO on the board in relation to staffing. However, the evidence that we have had—which we can forward to your team—is that WICS believes that there is a need for oversight at board level when it comes to previous COO responsibilities, particularly in relation to staffing. That is why I am asking the question. I have had the evidence from WICS.

:I am asking the question based on evidence that has been given to the committee. I am relaying that.

:I want to turn to the climate change plan itself. You will probably have had a chance to glance at the report that we published last week, in which we highlight a number of concerns about the absence of specific delivery plans. We question whether there is enough detail in the CCP to map out the policies, timelines and responsibilities so that certainty can be provided in relation to delivery, particularly for the first carbon budget period.

You have made similar points, and I want to give you the opportunity to expand on what you think should be described in a delivery plan to build certainty and show leadership on meeting objectives. Are there particular sectors that you want to highlight?

:There are certainly a lot of hockey-stick-shaped graphs in the plan, by which I mean periods of slow growth followed by sudden shoot-ups in future carbon budget periods.

I am interested in how you tailor your advice and in how this committee and our successor committee can engage with the plan, in the next carbon budget period in particular, so that if there comes a point at which we do not have certainty about how delivery rates will suddenly shoot up in future carbon budget periods, we will know what the early warning signs look like. If there are still contingencies and dependencies that have to be worked out, and if programmes have to change and evolve over time, that cannot be done at the end of the next parliamentary session. We cannot all look at the climate change plan again at that point and say, “We’re not sure how we’re going to deliver that.” There needs to be a process for evolving the delivery plans over time.

What advice would you give us on that? At what point in the next carbon budget period would you give that advice, so that plans and delivery plans can be revisited if we do not have certainty about what the trajectory for the next 10 years looks like?

:I move on to the subject of negative emissions technologies. The assumption in the draft climate change plan is that there will be about 12 megatonnes of emissions reduction in the third or fourth carbon budget. That is double what the Climate Change Committee has recommended. What are your thoughts on that? Is it really credible to double down on that emissions reduction? What are the key risks and contingencies, particularly given that some of the main sources of carbon that were going to be fed into Acorn at Grangemouth and Mossmorran are no longer going to be feeding in and that there are questions about delivery in relation to Acorn?

:Can I just intervene? You are giving useful context, but there is only one negative emissions technology proposal on the table at the moment, and that is project Acorn, which is on track 2. There are concerns about the deliverability of and risks to that. I am interested in your thoughts about that, particularly in relation to the climate change plan. The cabinet secretary was in front of the committee a few weeks ago and she said:

“If CCUS did not develop at the level that the Climate Change Committee has modelled in its calculations, that committee would have to go back to its assumptions and provide additional advice”.—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 10 February 2026; c 45.]

So, on the point about the Scottish Government having a plan B if project Acorn does not materialise, it is clearly saying that it is for the Climate Change Committee to think that one through. If project Acorn does not happen, what do you see as the contingency plan? What would that plan B look like?