Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, Sarah—there is nothing like being told what to do as convener by a committee member. I might refer to those later questions that you wanted to ask. [Laughter.]

To make it clear, when I talked about a river earlier, I was not referring to the River Spey. If I had been, I would have had to declare an interest. In case anyone thinks that I was, I declare that I have an interest in the River Spey.

Let us move on to penalties. The penalties are 20 years in prison and an unlimited fine. That is massive. Is that required—yes or no?

Jamie Whittle can go first.

That is an interesting situation, because I do not think that doing something that you know is wrong is a defence for doing that act. History has proven that saying that you are following orders is not a good enough excuse for doing something wrong. I was not quite sure that I had followed the previous issue.

The deputy convener mentioned an unlimited fine and 20 years in the nick. An unlimited fine might mean nothing if you get a huge bonus, whereas a fine of £500 for somebody who has very little income, perhaps a crofter, might be massive and might be a death knell to their business, so I do not quite understand how that range works. One of the suggestions was to link fines to the turnover of the organisation. How do you feel about that? Scottish Water has a massive turnover and a massive amount of money, and it could pay a massive fine. A crofter on the west coast has very little turnover and should get only a very little fine. What do you think? Professor Parsons, do you want to refute that comment?

That is an interesting idea—because it is a public sector organisation, it does not get a fine. I am sure that that is not quite how you would put it, but that is my interpretation.

Jonnie, what are your views on that?

I call Sarah Boyack—but very briefly, please.

It might then be a matter of who in the Government you would hold accountable.

Mark Ruskell may ask a supplementary question, if it could be a really quick one, please.

That was quite a long question, but I am going to squeeze the time that you have to answer it. Please be as succinct as possible.

This morning’s two evidence sessions have raised a heap of questions on the bill that the committee will want to consider. We might want to discuss some hypothetical situations so that we understand what could happen. The evidence has been really helpful. I thank the witnesses and ask them to leave the room as quickly as possible, because we are up against the clock and about to go into private session.

Good morning, and welcome to the 27th meeting in 2025 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.

Our first item of business is a decision on taking business in private. Does the committee agree to take in private item 4, which is consideration of a draft report on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill supplementary legislative consent memorandum, and item 5, which is consideration of the evidence that we received on the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill 2009 (Scottish Carbon Budgets) Amendment Regulations 2025?

Members indicated agreement.

09:37  

Our next item of business is consideration of a statutory instrument. The order has been laid under the negative procedure, which means that it will come into force unless the Parliament agrees a motion to annul it. No such motion has been lodged, and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has made no comment on the order.

Before we go on to consider the order itself, I want to make a comment on the accompanying policy note. It seems to assume certain pre-existing technical knowledge. For example, there are references to “EU values” and “UK values” with regard to trading; there is no further explanation of the terms, and I am not entirely clear what they mean. It is very important to me as a parliamentarian that policy notes are understandable—they should be understandable to any member of the public who wants to know what an instrument does, and they should be understandable when parliamentarians are being asked to agree to instruments.

The policy note also uses greenhouse gas statistics from 2019 although, as I have been informed by the Scottish Parliament information centre, the 2023 figures have been available since June. Furthermore, the policy note refers to being “carbon neutral by 2040”. That might well be a specific policy commitment in a particular area, but a little more context to clarify that would have been helpful and welcome to me as somebody considering the instrument.

That said, do members have any comments? If not, I invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendation in relation to the instrument. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

09:39  

Our third item of business is consideration of petition PE2123, which has been submitted by Asthma and Lung UK Scotland and asks the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Air Quality Standards (Scotland) Regulations 2010. The petitioner wants new limits to be set for nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter in order to align with the World Health Organization’s 2021 air quality targets.

The committee first considered the petition in April, and we agreed to write to the Scottish Government for an update on its review of the second cleaner air for Scotland strategy. The Scottish Government responded on 22 April; and when we considered the petition again, on 13 May, we agreed to write to stakeholders who responded to our 2023 air quality report, along with a few other interested parties, highlighting the Scottish Government’s response and seeking their views.

Paper 2 sets out some options for further scrutiny, which include writing to the Government and closing the petition, if we consider that appropriate. Do members have any views on what has been suggested in the paper?