Seòmar agus comataidhean

No. I am not going to use the same language as you or agree to that statement. We must be absolutely clear-eyed and look soberly at the actions that are required in the devolved space. It will be challenging. It will require a great deal of buy-in, a lot of transformation and a great deal of funding.

I am not going to use the phrase that you have put to me, because that sort of thing is one of the reasons why we have not been able to move further and faster. I mentioned this in my conversation with Mark Ruskell. Even small changes and policy proposals that were put forward in this Parliament early on have not had support from all parties and have not resulted in action.

We should not be saying anything like, “Tickety-boo—that is no problem.” It will be challenging, but the potential positive outcomes are worth it in that we will have a more sustainable economy, a healthier environment and more resilient communities. We will have grasped the opportunities of net zero in relation to innovation and economic growth, and I hope that, with action on electricity, we will address fuel poverty in a way that we have not been able to. We will have a Scotland that leads the way on certain technologies associated with net zero that our counterparts, such as Denmark, saw coming well before us and are now world leaders in.

Yes.

I have made my position quite clear by talking about the Peterhead station, which is the only project that is likely to go through the planning process. It would not do us any favours if I got into all that and skirted too close to breaking the ministerial code.

That area is reserved. That point is about the electricity markets that will drive the cost of wholesale electricity. However, tangentially but importantly, one area in which Scotland can play its part in reducing the electricity price is the build-out of ScotWind. We are working with the UK Government on the clean power 2030 action plan in order to develop the transmission infrastructure that will take the green energy that is being produced by ScotWind and a ramping-up of onshore wind. As a result of the efforts of the Scottish economy, particularly ScotWind, there will be a substantial contribution to the green electricity of the whole of the UK.

It should follow that, as the production of green electricity ramps up and the ability to get it on to the grid increases, we will see electricity prices go down. My point to the UK Government is that we need to see some rebalancing action now, because parts of Scotland are still fuel poor. There are policies being put in place as part of the climate change plan whose justness would be vastly improved and whose acceptance by communities and householders would be vastly increased if the price of electricity were to go down. There are industrial decarbonisation policies, but if the electricity price stays at the same level, it will be difficult for industry to decide to electrify its processes.

We need to see action now, rather than the UK Government just making assumptions that the build-out of all those developments that produce large amounts of green electricity is enough to make the price of electricity come down over time. There has to be some action to rebalance the market.

There has to be a price associated with the auction rounds for Scottish projects to make them investable. That point gets put to me by developers all the time. They also make that point to Michael Shanks, the UK energy minister.

No. If it is more likely for them to bid in auction rounds, that would mean the successful build-out of ScotWind, with all the licences reaching development.

I am not quite sure what that line of questioning adds to the carbon budget discussion.

Yes, and I agree.

Sadly not, Mr Stewart. The review of electricity market arrangements—REMA—was proposed by the former Conservative Government, and it ruled out the decoupling proposal. When the Labour Government inherited REMA, it decided not to put the decoupling proposal back in. It decided to go from a position of saying, “We are where we are,” rather than looking at some of the proposals that could have been brought back in, which I found very disappointing. My view—it was the view of countless predecessors in this portfolio—is that decoupling should have been looked at seriously. When you explain the situation to people, they do not understand why electricity and gas prices were coupled in the first place. In effect, what that means on the ground—I will not be telling Mr Stewart anything that he does not know—is that communities that do not have access to the gas grid and have electric heating are paying four times as much as they would if they had a gas boiler.

That also means that households will not opt for electric heating. Clean, green electric heating is off the table for most households. When I was putting in a new boiler a few years ago, I wanted to make my contribution and do without a gas boiler, so I phoned up to find out about the cost of electric boilers. There is no problem with the cost of the boilers—the cost of the installation and of the boilers is probably exactly the same as for gas boilers. However, when it came to the cost of running the electric boiler to heat my 1930s granite house, people were practically laughing at me on the phone. That is what we are dealing with.

If there was a rebalancing of the electricity price, we would start to see people having the option to move away from gas at the point at which their gas boiler was coming to the end of its life. Those communities that are in extreme fuel poverty, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, many of which do not have access to the gas grid, would be lifted out of fuel poverty. It does not make sense to people that they cannot utilise the green energy and electricity that we produce. We all talk about Scotland producing green energy in abundance, and yet people in the geographical areas that are producing that energy look out at the wind farm outside their window and cannot afford to put their electric heating on. There is a fundamental unjustness and unfairness around the issue.

That aside, with regard to climate change, through this false economy, we are preventing householders from making a choice that would allow them to participate in reducing their emissions and keeping their families warm.

That is a sensible point. As you would expect, Ms Hyslop, Ms Robison and I meet the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities regularly to talk about net zero, because so many of the actions will have to take place at local authority level.

Standardisation of charging points is important, because it will make it easier for the driver and they will not have to have multiple apps. The number of apps that I have on my phone for different types of charging makes it quite confusing.

You make a good point and I will take it back to our discussions with COSLA.

The cross-pavement charging pilot is also important, because that has been a real sticking point for equity of access. You should not have to have your own home or driveway to be able to access charging. People like to park their cars outside their own homes, so it is also a barrier—they do not want to have to find a charger half a mile away and leave the car overnight somewhere that they cannot keep an eye on it. There are obviously risks to the vehicle. The pilot is important, and I will certainly take your points back.

Ms Hyslop is also working on HGV decarbonisation pathways. We feel that we can do an awful lot more in the decarbonisation of transport.

The CCC might have been a bit too cautious in its assessment of the use of hydrogen. Not only is hydrogen a growth sector in Scotland, but it has the potential to be a real economic boost to Scotland in terms of how we use it domestically and also how we work with other countries to help them to decarbonise.

Even if the build-out of the grid infrastructure as part of the clean power 2030 action plan was to reach the levels that the UK Government and the National Energy System Operator have stated, it will still not have the capacity to take all the green electricity if we have a complete build-out of ScotWind and all the other developments. The most obvious thing to do with that additional surplus electricity is to make hydrogen from it.

We are already starting to see interest in the Grangemouth site. We are also seeing successful hydrogen allocation round 2 applications from developments in Scotland. However, there is a big role for hydrogen in the decarbonisation of industry as well as transport, as you point out.

This is one of the areas in which we have to reach for the stars, to be honest, because the more that we can produce and use green hydrogen, the more likely it is that we will be able to decarbonise high energy usage in food production and whisky production for example. We are already seeing whisky distilleries shifting from natural gas to hydrogen in pilot projects, which is exciting.

As the UK Government negotiates with the European Union on the arrangements about the potential hydrogen backbone, we will have the ability to have more electrolyser manufacturing in Scotland, although there is already a substantial amount of that here. There are big gains for the agriculture sector, as well. Hydrogen can and will play a big part in decarbonisation.