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That is when the spatial energy plans will be delivered, so I hope that the strategy will be published by then. However, we have had some curveballs recently. We have had the Finch verdict and various other Supreme Court verdicts, which we must assess so that we can come to an informed view on all those issues and what we think needs to happen. As long as there are no more major curveballs, I hope that the strategy will be published by then.

For projects under 50MW?

You mentioned Spain. At that time, I discussed the issue with someone when I was in Brussels, and actually, it was the generation of wind capacity that brought things back online. However, I take the point more generally. I agree that variety is very important and that, as long as we rely on gas to heat our homes, we need to keep supplying it.

I also think that the UK Government needs to look at the injection of hydrogen into the gas grid. We have the infrastructure, with all the gas pipelines—the gas actually goes in nearby, in my constituency—and they are ready to inject hydrogen into the pipeline as well, which would reduce the amount of associated emissions.

I have pressed the UK Government for more decision making around that. As long as we are using gas, we have to look not only at how we bring down the carbon emissions associated with that but at the various electricity-generating and storage opportunities. We have to look at everything, with one exception, as Fergus Ewing knows very well. I know that he does not agree with his former party’s policy on this, but the SNP’s party policy is that we are against new nuclear.

I also make the point that, regardless of where and how it is generated, electricity needs to fit on a grid, and the grid infrastructure is old and creaking. Until the infrastructure is upgraded throughout the UK, we will have a situation in which we are paying developers to switch off generators.

I am not here to answer for Ed Miliband. Upgrading the grid infrastructure has actually been the policy of successive UK Governments—it was the previous Government that put in place grid infrastructure upgrades. I take the point that everything like this takes a very long time, but the time to start is now.

Scottish Water has a critical role to play in that through investment in its infrastructure, and it is well apprised of the potential requirements for water in all communities—it will get that information through councils and local development plans. It will also be mindful of any particular developments that might need water. Scottish Water also knows about the Government’s hydrogen strategy and where population growth and industrial growth are predicted to take place in Scotland.

Of course, individual projects cannot be predicted. There are many different factors relevant to whether hydrogen will become a big player in the energy industry in Scotland. A lot will depend on the market and demand, and a lot will depend on the infrastructure that might be required to get the hydrogen to mainland Europe. You mentioned the fact that the Germans want to use it for making steel, and they are looking at which countries can supply them with it.

Scottish Water cannot predict what applications will come in that will require high water usage. A lot of water will be required not only to produce hydrogen—for example, data centres require coolants and water supply. However, Scottish Water works closely with the Government on its industrial strategy. I have regular meetings with Scottish Water on a range of issues.

We need to get across the message about water scarcity. Scottish Water works with the Scottish Government and the general public on our general water usage, even at household level. Water is not an infinite and cost-free resource. It costs money to get it to the required quality, and we do not want to waste it. We need to get that message across. Businesses pay directly for their water, so they are cognisant of the need not to waste it.

We do not meter water at household level, as is done in England, and we do not want to go down that route. However, in England, where water is metered, people conserve it more. I would prefer us to have a communications campaign for the Scottish public—indeed, Scottish Water does—to get people to think about how much water they use and how they use it.

We will reach out to SEPA and, as and when any information becomes available, we will pass that on to the committee.

The process that SEPA is undertaking is on-going, and I do not have the results of it. I also cannot talk about live applications, as members know, so I am not going to.

However, SEPA is taking an active look at some of the issues that were brought up in the petition and those that Fergus Ewing mentioned to do with the potential cumulative effect of multiple pump storage hydro developments. We will find out more about that from SEPA, including when it is due to do its consultation.

The change was put in train a few months ago. We have been consulting on the good practice principles associated with applications. This is the case that I made: having the responsibility for consents put me in a situation in which I felt that I needed to be able to divorce the policies associated with energy from the eventual decisions, so it was best for the planning minister to have responsibility for consents. In that way, I could be confident that there could be no perception of my having been influenced. It is important that that is understood by communities that have concerns.

I will give a hypothetical example. A community group in the Western Isles might have concerns about project X and want to speak to me as part of the community engagement associated with the project. If, at the end of the process, consent was not given to the project, the applicant could say that I was swayed by my meeting with that community group—there could be the perception that I was influenced by that group. I do not want anything like that to happen. That could be the case when something was consented to or when something was not consented to—it works both ways. I want to ensure that I can engage with every stakeholder, in line with the good practice principles on community engagement.

I was confident that the UK Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill would give us the power to mandate community engagement, but I had the sense that it would be difficult for me to carry out that engagement as fully as I wanted to. Thankfully, I reached an agreement with the planning minister that he would take on responsibility for the energy consents unit, and the First Minister agreed that I needed to be able to fully engage on all the good practice principles and the developments that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would allow us to take forward.

I thank Maurice Golden for setting out the landscape. It is important to be aware of the different roles and the many different players. There are reserved responsibilities associated with transmission in particular. The Electricity Act 1989 is the governing legislation around all the regulations associated with consenting. The Scottish Government’s energy consents unit must conform to everything in the 1989 act. NESO has responsibility for what the transmission network looks like, and must look like, in order to facilitate the getting of the electricity to all the places where it needs to go throughout the whole of the UK.

The previous UK Government worked with NESO, and it has issued its plans for upgrading the transmission infrastructure. Regarding the role of the Scottish Government, ministers have the final consents, once developments have been through the whole process, which is regulated at UK level—although we have planning powers. Any developments over 50MW currently go to the energy consents unit in the Scottish Government; anything under 50MW is decided at local authority level by councillors and the authority. We are currently consulting on changing that threshold—to see what people think about changing it to give more responsibility to councils up to a level beyond 50MW.

We have some of the most stringent environmental conditions in Scotland. A series of documents and assessments must be submitted in applications to the energy consents unit. We do not dictate and cannot dictate to an applicant what the engineering solutions are for their application. Indeed, nowhere in the UK dictates that.

The ECU assesses the application as submitted. Let us say that those in charge of project X want power transmission lines. They have set out the engineering solution that they have found, and they have determined how and where they want to site those lines. We will assess that application as written. We will not dictate in advance that things have to be done in a particular way. It is for them to make an assessment and submit all the documentation associated with environmental impact assessments. That will then go out to all the statutory consultees, which includes local councils. Even if the development is over 50MW and comes to the ECU, local authorities will still be a statutory consultee. If local authorities do not agree with the application as written, it will automatically go to a public inquiry.

If the application goes through the energy consents unit, it will assess all the documentation, assessments and plans that are supplied by the applicant, and then, in accordance with all the regulations and the Electricity Act 1989, it will advise the minister who is making the final determination, with an assessment of what all the statutory consultees have said. It is important to realise that the minister who is looking at that advice can go back to their officials and question certain things, such as, for example, “Why are you giving me this advice when this has happened?”

The minister has to be certain that, when they make a determination, they are not going against any legal advice because, if they do, it might give them an opportunity to turn something down, for example. If officials have given the minister advice to consent to something and all the reasons why, and the minister says, “Nah—I don’t like it,” they need to be certain that they are on solid ground legally, because the decision might be appealed and taken to court.

That is the process and it is very rigorous. Many developers say that we take too long to make determinations. We try our best and we have doubled the capacity of people working in the ECU to streamline the process. That is good for developers, but it is also good for communities, because they get a quicker decision, they know what they are dealing with and it does not drag on for years.

Absolutely. When—if—community engagement becomes mandatory, we are going to consult widely on the issue and the good practice that is associated with it. However, the issue that you have just described, of people not seeing community benefit, is the cause of the problem of communities not buying into these developments.

I am almost becoming like a broken record, but we are no longer in the realms of painting the scout hut or buying football strips for the school team. There has to be a substantial and meaningful community benefit that will improve that community. I believe very strongly that it should be the community that decides how the money is spent.

I will give you an example from my constituency. Vattenfall had a process in which it worked directly with all the associated communities around its Aberdeen offshore wind farm, including community councils and community groups, to see where its community benefit should go. The process was quite wide ranging, and there are communities in the west of Aberdeenshire that cannot see the sea that got community benefit from it while some coastal communities that bid for money did not get any. It is all about balance. Again, spreading the community benefit too thin is a problem.

I am not currying favour with you, convener, but I would say that it is a bit disappointing that you only got a park bench out of it. However, what a great dog walk Whitelee is. I have family in the area, and we often go up there to walk our dogs.