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I am struck by just how important electrification is going to be in all areas of our lives. Beyond the important UK Government decision on electricity market reform, decoupling gas from the electricity price and allowing CFDs—especially the new CFDs that you have outlined this morning—to reduce costs over time, what can householders do? How can they be supported to reduce their electricity costs?

At the moment, the market is providing low-cost tariffs. For example, under EV tariffs, people pay 8p or 8.5p per kilowatt at night, typically, as opposed to 25p to 30p per kilowatt during the day. What supplementary measures can the Government take to support people? Battery storage in the home would enable people to shift a great proportion of their electricity consumption to the night time and, as a result, they could benefit by signing up for those far cheaper rates.

I do not know what the picture should look like for householders and consumers, but, beyond the big question of electricity market reform, which householders are not able to influence, what measures can people take in their homes? What should the Government be doing to support them on that journey?

Do you think that those variable, far cheaper electricity prices will be a fixed feature for consumers and householders? Can consumers and businesses that supply technology such as night-time battery storage be certain that it will always be possible to buy cheaper electricity at certain times and thereby save on bills?

In essence, would you see investment in net zero policies increasing the competitiveness of sectors such as ethylene or cement, which you see as having a long-term role in Scotland, or do you think that there are risks in going too fast?

Thanks, convener. I turn to buildings—both homes and other buildings. Earlier, you put it to us that there is a real need to switch to much more efficient technologies that are lower cost for consumers but also much lower carbon. I ask you to reflect on the change that we have seen in expectation. In the 2020 climate change plan update, the Scottish Government had a very ambitious programme—well, it was not a full programme as such, but it contained an ambitious target of a 63 per cent reduction in emissions from the building sector to 2030. That clearly represented an enormous ramp-up of a range of technologies, although the programme at that time did not really specify how that would be achieved. That differs quite a lot from what you are now putting forward in the balanced pathway, which sees a much greater adoption of technologies than in the third and fourth budgets.

Can you offer a bit of narrative as to what you think has changed around the expectations on building carbon reduction in recent years and what is now the realistic pathway?

I am struggling to work out what that would be, because, as you described, the growth of the market in other places has been very slow. It is very much an S-curve, which puts all the carbon reductions and progress back to the later years. Instead of putting those regulations in place, what measures can the Government take right now to really speed up that market? I am curious to know what the plan B would be, or are we just pushing everything back?

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

I again offer apologies on behalf of Ariane Burgess, who is convening this morning’s meeting of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee.

As the cabinet secretary mentioned, amendment 286 is related to the other amendments in the group that clarify whether the improvements that are currently set out in part 4 of schedule 5 will be moved to parts 1, 2 or 3. Amendment 286 seeks to move two kinds of improvements to part 3, which will mean that a tenant will not need to seek the landlord’s consent or to notify them in order to carry out such improvements.

The improvements in question are

“creating species-rich pasture”

and

“converting the holding (or a significant part of it) to a standard of organic farming that is capable of being accredited by a recognised accreditation organisation”.

It is important that our tenant farmers are able to make such improvements to enable them to undertake more sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices. Those improvements will help to support biodiversity through increasing the amount of species-rich pasture available for insects and vertebrates, while providing more species-rich grazing for livestock. The change in approach will assist tenant farmers in their conversion to organic farming.

I note that the success of the Government’s organic action plan, the increase that we are now seeing in organic conversion across different land classes and the subsequent growth in the market for organic produce are very positive.

I encourage members to support amendment 286.

I appreciate that, given that this has been a long stage 2.

Throughout the morning, we have discussed a range of amendments from the STFA and other stakeholders. I feel that a lot of the discussion could have taken place earlier in the development of the bill. Issues often come up during the passage of bills that require further reflection, and we have the summer to do that with this bill. However, I wonder what the process of engagement with stakeholders now looks like from the Government’s point of view. I am sure that stakeholders had concerns way back when the bill was being developed, but those concerns do not seem to have been fully incorporated into the drafting of the bill. What I am looking for is a resolution to those issues and some clear examples from members and the Government of how that can be done before we sit in the chamber at stage 3 and ask, “How do we make sense of this?”

That was £127,000.

In relation to your budget request for next year, do you have certainty on the development of your properties and on potential rates?