Seòmar agus comataidhean

Maybe it is because I have not quite got used to my new hearing aids. I am working on it.

If you are refuting my previous comment, I want to try to work out the cost to each household in Scotland of reaching net zero in every year between now and 2045. What is your estimated cost?

I will come back to you later, Monica, for a further question.

In this evidence session, I have been trying to get an idea of the costs for individual households. The estimate—if I have got it right—is that this will cost the Scottish Government 0.4 per cent of GDP per annum for the next 25 years. Is that right? I suppose that it will be front loaded at the beginning.

In your submission, you suggest that that would amount to about £750 million a year. On top of that, there will be additional costs for every household if we are going to reach the target for installing heat pumps, and households might have to use their cars less or even replace them. Is it unreasonable to say that, based on the figures that you have produced and some of the figures that we have heard today, the average cost per annum per household in Scotland to reach the target of net zero by 2045 might be £1,000 per household per year, every year, for the next 25 years?

I am sure that we will come to agriculture later, but I make the observation in relation to moving from livestock to trees that I have yet to find a tree that is edible and worth eating—but we can have that conversation in a minute.

I am trying to drill down to whether you think that, when the Scottish Government produces its climate change plan, it will be in a position to allow the people of Scotland to understand what the cost is. You suggested moving to electric cars, but there is a huge cost to doing that. A lot of people who are using a fossil fuel car cannot find the additional money to move to an electric car—making that choice might be different for those who are paid as much as MSPs are, for example, but it is not for people who are on the minimum wage.

My question is whether people are going to understand the benefit to them. If they have to cough up £25,000 to £35,000 to put an air-source heat pump in their house—that is, by the time they have insulated it—and if they have to buy an electric car, which will probably add another £20,000 to that, are they going to understand that it might cost them £60,000 today but that in 20 years’ time they might get the money back? Surely that is the sort of information that people want to know when you are doing a budget.

Good morning, and welcome to the 25th meeting in 2025 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. We have received apologies from Michael Matheson, and both Douglas Lumsden and Kevin Stewart are joining us online.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking items 3 and 4 in private. Item 3 is consideration of the evidence that the committee will have heard on the draft Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (Scottish Carbon Budgets) Amendment Regulations 2025—I am sure that the titles of these things get longer every time I am given them to read. Item 4 is consideration of the committee’s work programme. Does the committee agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. I am going to move on to questions from Kevin Stewart.

I am still slightly concerned. I am not sure that I will get the exact date right, but it was something like 22 May when you gave your advice—or perhaps that was when we were expecting the budgets. There was then a delay of about three weeks in getting the Scottish Government’s response to your advice and the draft budgets. That suggests that there had not been much liaison before you produced your advice to the Scottish Government, because it was thrown into disarray by it. Is that an unfair characterisation of what happened?

Moving on slightly, I think, James, that you will understand the process that has been gone through: emergency legislation was passed last year to change the original legislation and bring in carbon budgets. We were expecting carbon budgets in May and, based on your advice, there was a delay. There was some talk within the Scottish Government and, having received your advice, it decided to reject some of it.

I would say that, for the committee, the whole process has been fairly torturously slow, and as convener, I am absolutely concerned that we will be dealing with the final part of the climate change plan in the rump of the parliamentary session, probably in the last month and the last weeks before the Parliament goes into recess in the run-up to the election. I am concerned about that, and I have to wonder whether a climate change plan will be approved by the Parliament and put in place.

Can you explain to me what interactions you have had with the Scottish Government and whether those interactions have justifiably led to the delays that the committee has faced in considering the carbon budget and, eventually, the climate change plan, when we get it?

The subject is interesting. At the moment, I do not think that I understand enough about carbon budgets and the proposals that the Scottish Government has made to give me confidence about what I am being asked to invest in, which is what we are asking every single person in Scotland to invest in to reach net zero, or about what the basic costs are to those individuals.

I heard what you said about reducing the price of electricity; well, we have not seen a reduction in its price, which seems to be going up continually. As far as cars are concerned, I look forward to having a car that can get me home without my needing to stop to charge it, which delays me in the process of getting there.

To turn to some of the generalities, there is a complex mix of what is devolved and what is not devolved with climate policy responsibilities, is there not? Which devolved responsibilities are the really important ones that the Scottish Government should focus on first in the climate change plan? What does the Scottish Government have responsibility for now and what should be its focus of attention? I do not know who wants to answer that.

Item 2 is an evidence-taking session on the draft Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (Scottish Carbon Budgets) Amendment Regulations 2025. I will provide some context by saying that, last year, the Parliament agreed to adopt through the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2024 a new system of carbon budgets to set limits on the total amount of greenhouse gases that Scotland can emit over a specific period. The Government must now, through regulations, establish four five-year carbon budgets to cover the period from 2026 to 2045—the year by which Scotland has committed to reach net zero.

The new system replaces the previous approach of interim and annual targets. As part of it, the four proposed budgets are set out in the draft regulations that are before us, which propose budget levels that are in line with the advice of the Climate Change Committee, the United Kingdom’s independent advisory body on climate issues. In its advice, which was published in May, that committee set out what it described as a “balanced pathway” to meet both the carbon budgets and net zero targets by 2045. Alongside the regulations, the Scottish Government has published a policy statement that sets out in broad terms the policies and proposals that we can expect to see in the forthcoming draft climate change plan.

Today’s evidence session is the first on the draft regulations, and we will begin by hearing from the Climate Change Committee. Next week, we will take evidence from a panel of academics, and we will finish with evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy, before considering the motion on the regulations.

Before we go any further, I will make a declaration of interests. As members know, and as I have constantly made clear, I have an interest in a family farm in Moray. I am saying that because I believe that agriculture might come up this morning.

I welcome our witnesses from the Climate Change Committee: Dr James Richardson, chief analyst, and Dr Eoin Devane, head of carbon budgets. Thank you both for attending the meeting. We will move to questions, if we may.

The first questions will come from me, and I will leave it to James Richardson and Eoin Devane to decide who wants to answer. I usually say to people who are giving evidence that, if everyone looks away, I will nominate somebody; however, you are both online, so don’t you dare look away. If you want to answer, raise your hand and I will bring you in.

First, we talk about carbon budgets, but are they budgets that people will understand? Are they like normal budgets, which are estimates of income and expenditure? In other words, do they show what we will save in carbon and what that will cost? Is that how the people of Scotland should view them? Who would like to start?

People out there are facing a cost of living crisis, the prices of food and suchlike are rising exponentially and we are asking people to make fundamental changes to their lives, such as moving from using fossil fuels and oil boilers to air-source heat pumps and so on. There is a cost to all that, in the same way as there is if we follow the recommendation that we eat less meat, because that means that we can reduce the size of the herd, which means that the price of meat increases. To make people buy into that, which is what you and the Governments are encouraging people to do, surely they will have to know what they have to invest financially. Just saying that it is better for the world is too abstract if they do not know how many pounds they are going to have to take out of their pockets to pay for it.