Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am aware of that issue and the international movement on it. The reality is that any criminalisation is a justice matter, rather than being for my portfolio. I am not aware whether justice colleagues are pursuing the issue, but I can get back to the committee to say whether they are considering it. I am certainly aware of the issue and the international campaign on it.

Sure. We had a period when we had some water scarcity issues on a number of watercourses in Fife and in the south of Scotland. Presently, we have a single watercourse with a scarcity warning—the River Enrick is at a lower level. The others are no longer at levels that are of concern. If I recall correctly, people who have abstractors on the Enrick route already have in place a process to manage abstraction levels, so no orders have been made to tackle that issue at this stage.

I have found in my notes the other rivers that were affected. The Eden, the Tyne and the Tweed reached levels of significant scarcity due to the dry conditions, which resulted in the national water scarcity plan being activated. That meant that, for the first time in Scotland, abstraction licences had to be suspended, given the seriousness of the situation. As I said, only the River Enrick catchment area has a level of significant scarcity and arrangements are in place to manage that. The rest of the rivers are at levels of moderate scarcity or better.

Could you explain what you mean by that and how that links together?

Part of that goes back to a question I was answering earlier about helping to develop the capacity of local authority employees and council officers to take forward net zero proposals.

An organisation that works closely with local authorities on the circular economy is Zero Waste Scotland, which can provide additional support and advice to local authorities. I am not entirely sure whether it can provide training, but it can certainly provide assistance and expertise to local authorities on aspects of the circular economy.

We are also looking, through national planning framework 4, to make some changes to the way building use is considered as part of the planning process to help to encourage and develop the circular economy. The principal way to try to help local authorities, however, is through the skills that local authority or council officers need and making sure that we utilise the expertise that we have in Zero Waste Scotland, which already works closely with local authorities on aspects of the circular economy.

We are trying to take that forward through NPF4, which is due to be published in the next couple of months. Demolition should not be the default. It should be the last option to pursue. Whether a facility can be repurposed or redeveloped should be looked at first. Part of how we address that is through the guidance that we offer to local authorities through NPF4 so that they can make sure that that is embedded in their policy thinking and development as they go forward. NPF4 will be laid before the Parliament for the Parliament to make its views known on that as well, of course.

Our intention in the strategy is to give certainty and a very clear sense of direction and to show how we are moving forward. That is why we are taking a whole-system approach. The strategy will look at our need for oil and gas in the future, too, as that will continue to be the case for many years to come. However, although the oil and gas sector will play an important part in our energy mix, that does not mean that we should not be looking to decarbonise our energy systems. The two things go hand in hand. In that sense, and from my perspective as I move forward in this policy area, they are not in competition.

The key question is how Scotland gets the economic benefits. One thing that we cannot be—and which we cannot allow ourselves to be—is purely a production basin. We cannot be a place where energy is produced and then literally flows by our door, and we see no economic and social benefits from it. Therefore, we need to take an approach that helps secure the manufacturing and expertise that goes alongside the energy transition, whether it be in offshore or onshore wind. We lost a big opportunity in onshore wind through changes made back in the 1980s and 1990s—way before I was involved directly in politics—that countries such as Denmark were able to capitalise on. Of course, those countries are now world leaders in the development of onshore—and, to some degree, offshore—wind technologies.

That said, given the scale of the opportunity that we have in Scotland, we need to be able to create a pathway that gives industry confidence that there will be projects not just this year, next year or the year after but for many years to come and that it is worth investing in the manufacturing capability here in Scotland, because it can not only meet demand in Scotland and the UK but potentially export to other parts of the world.

More than half—actually, about two-thirds—of ScotWind projects use floating wind technology, but the sector itself has not yet settled on what the floating wind technology of the future will be. Many countries—for example, Norway and the USA—will have to look at floating wind technology, but with ScotWind, we have the advantage of being ahead. We have lease agreements in place so that we can be at the forefront not just in developing that technology but potentially in manufacturing it here for export to other countries. That is one of the advantages that we have with ScotWind and where we are in comparison with other countries. As I have said, we are ahead of Norway and the USA in this technology, and we need to capitalise on that.

As a result, our manufacturing capability and the pipeline of opportunity for developments in Scotland alone are critical to ensuring that we do not simply become a production basin and that we get the benefit of delivering these things. A key part of facilitating that will be the creation of the skills reservoir, which will be necessary in all this. Again, our oil and gas sector is a strength to us in that respect, because a lot of the sector’s technical skills and knowledge can be used in renewables, too.

I see the convener indicating that I should hurry up, but I just want to say that, later this month or next month, I will be hosting an event on the whole issue of skills transfer. There are certain issues with transferring some skill qualifications from the oil and gas sector into the renewables sector as well as other regulatory issues to consider, and we will be looking at some of those matters to ensure that those who want to transfer can do so and know what skills will be needed, too.

It is part of the emergency budget review that the cabinet secretary with responsibility for finance is taking forward at the moment and in which all portfolios are engaged. We are looking at whether further provision can be made for bus services through the support grant.

A last, last question.

Carbon capture and storage and negative emission technologies will be mission critical to delivering our climate change targets. That is not just my view—it is the view of the Committee on Climate Change, who are expert independent advisers on these matters. Indeed, such approaches will be critical not just to Scotland but to the whole of the UK. For the whole of the UK to achieve the UK Government’s target of net zero by 2050, it will need negative emission technologies such as carbon capture, utilisation and storage.

The Scottish cluster lost out on track 1 status, and we have continued to make representations to the UK Government on reversing that decision, simply because the UK Government’s own net zero strategy and carbon capture targets cannot be achieved without the Scottish cluster in the mix. We need to move forward with carbon capture, because it represents an important opportunity for us here to meet not just our climate targets but our energy transition, too.

As I have said, we continue to engage with the UK Government on this matter. It had been planning a track 2 process possibly this year, but perhaps into next; however, there have been ministerial changes and I do not know whether that timeline has changed.

Just last month, I met Scottish cluster representatives at St Fergus. What we need to understand is that not only is this approach mission critical, it is costing a lot of money to keep the partners together, and unless there is a very clear indication that this work will materialise soon, it will become increasingly difficult to make that happen. That is what worries me the most, and it is why we have offered £80 million of financial support. However, we need to get the regulatory agreement for it to move forward. The danger is that we lose the opportunity and the time slot to keep the partners together and ensure that we deliver on the Scottish cluster.

There is unanimous agreement on this matter across the Scottish Parliament; indeed, I know that Liam Kerr is a supporter of the Scottish cluster. We all want to see it happen but it needs to happen sooner rather than later, because it is costing money. The longer the process takes, the more difficult it will be to hold the partners together in order to make this a success.

I am happy to do that.