Seòmar agus comataidhean

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?

Let me see if I can summarise all of that, if I may.

I think that we are suggesting that we write a letter to the Government, drawing its attention to the evidence that we have received on this matter as well as the recommendations from various organisations that the Government consider alignment with the World Health Organization’s strategy. We will also ask the Government for its views on where we are and make sure that it is logged that, when the cleaner air for Scotland 2 strategy comes up for review, our successor committee is kept informed.

That is the basis on which we are agreeing to close the petition. If we are happy with that—and as I do not see anyone violently shaking their head, I guess that we are sort of happy—I ask the committee to delegate power to me to sign off the letter to the Government on the petition and to write to the petitioner on the committee’s behalf, thanking them for bringing this matter to our attention so that we could work on it. Is the committee happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

I think that that concludes all the things that we are doing in public this morning.

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.

That would be helpful for the committee.

I am asking whether you have highlighted all the problems that are reserved issues and that require the UK Government to act to allow us to reach our target by 2045. You have not identified any other problems, apart from the challenging targets that have been set.

We drifted away from where I was trying to get to. I was trying to get to the letter that you said you have written to Ed Miliband that highlighted all the reserved problems that you feel the UK Government has to move on to help Scotland meet net zero by 2045. That is my question, and it is a simple yes-or-no answer.

The next questions will come from Douglas Lumsden.

There are some follow-up questions. I will flag this up before I have to start being a little bit more forceful: we are less than halfway through the questions, yet we are more than halfway through the time. Cabinet secretary and members of the committee, I ask that you bear in mind that short questions and answers are obviously best. There is a short question from Douglas Lumsden followed by a short question from the deputy convener.