Seòmar agus comataidhean

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My officials will be able to instruct you on what reassurances we have had from the UK Government on this. With regard to the second amending instrument that I have spoken to, I have said that a great deal of work still needs to be done in that regard, and that is why there have been delays. Anyone who was here when we exited the EU would have had concerns, certainly when it came to this area of policy, that any transition away from the EU REACH arrangements was going to be highly complex.

Did we think that it would take this amount of time? I do not think that we would have thought that it would have taken nearly 10 years, although, given the REACH arrangements and the need for a mirroring system at UK level, we always knew that this was going to be extremely complex. That said, I am convinced that, as long as the EU arrangements are in place up to the point at which we have a UK REACH system, there will be no danger of any diminution of standards associated with the chemicals.

Yes, I am.

We have had all the information that we need. You are right that the HSE has not published the consultation responses. We have been going via DEFRA to get all our questions answered about these statutory instruments. We have said that one of the things—

That was very helpful. My biggest concern is that it might be portrayed as showing the Government having to front up all the costs associated with climate action, when, in fact, a lot of the proposals and policies in the climate change plan will create economic activity and investment that will overtake any kind of Government action and lead to a market that will drive down emissions while creating new sectors and economic growth.

An awful lot more work needs to be done on estimating the preventative spend related to climate action and emissions reduction, particularly in the area of health. For example, the cost of air pollution to people’s health, UK-wide, is estimated at £27 billion, and it accounts for 30,000 deaths a year, according to the Royal College of Physicians. There is a lot of information, analysis and data out there, but it changes. Indeed, Mr Stewart made the fundamental point that one of the inherent difficulties in arriving at a cost estimate associated with climate action is the cost of electricity. At the moment, it is very high; we are told that it will come down in the future, but we do not know when and by how much. A lot of that is estimated.

That said, I do take on board the point that you have made, Mr Doris—indeed, the point that everyone has made, including the deputy convener. Can we provide more information on the modelling that we used to show how we arrived at the figure? I think that we can. Do we have to be careful about what goes into the public domain with regard to internal Government processes, thinking about the compulsion that we have in law in that respect? I think that, if we provide that information, it will have to come with a little bit of a health warning about how accurate the figures are and how accurate they will be over a 15-year period.

Sorry—the same as what? The same one as the approach taken by the Climate Change Committee?

For each sector?

I may have missed one thing out. Phil Raines wants to come in.

If the committee would find it helpful, we can write to you with more detail about the modelling per sector. I have some details here in front of me, but they are probably not the details that you are looking for.

Give me a moment to get some details in front of me.

That has happened particularly in agriculture. When we got the advice from the Climate Change Committee, we fundamentally disagreed with the pathways associated with livestock numbers. Livestock emit some difficult and potent greenhouse gases, particularly methane, so the Climate Change Committee set out where it wanted to see reductions in livestock emissions and suggested some policies that might make that happen.

We fundamentally disagree with anything that would have an impact on agriculture or on Scotland’s rural economy because of the significance of that sector to Scotland’s economy and to our culture more generally. You and I both know how important agriculture is to the north-east, and it is important by no means just to that area.

There were also some assumptions about Scotland’s landscape and geography that were, with the greatest of respect, not quite right. For example, there was a suggestion that we could reduce the number of sheep and could plant crops instead, but planting does not work in a mountainous and difficult terrain like that in the Highlands and Islands. The convener has a great deal of background knowledge about that landscape, which is suitable for sheep grazing but not for harvesting crops. The advice made some assumptions that were not really based on Scotland’s geography. I say that with the greatest of respect to the Climate Change Committee and I know that it does get advice from independent experts, but the fundamental thing that we came back to was the just transition element.

Mairi Gougeon and Jim Fairlie are doing a great deal of work with the sector on reducing emissions without reducing livestock numbers, and Mairi Gougeon went to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee to talk about the climate change plan. We think that the policies and proposals outlined in the draft plan present a realistic pathway to delivering the required emissions reductions and meeting our first carbon budget. Agricultural emissions have already decreased by 13 per cent since 1990. They have a long way to go, but the plan is based on things such as the use of fertiliser or the types of animal feed associated with emissions reductions in livestock and there might even be the potential to capture some emissions reductions because of technological advances.

10:30

We want to work with the industry in order to roll out the support through the whole farm plan and make sure that it is supported through knowledge sharing and indeed the farm payments in order to be able to do low-emissions activities on farm. Some of that might be in the vehicle space; we have done some work on non-road vehicles and the use of biofuels.

Mairi Gougeon has been reviewing how farm payments are worked out. It will be about more than just yield, production and area. There will be a number of factors that will mean that farms get payments. In terms of a just transition, that work is much better than any policies that deliberately reduce the amount of livestock.

I am sorry, convener, I know that I am going on at length, but another thing that is not calculated in the inventory of greenhouse gases domestically is whether there is any potential for offshoring any of the policies that we put in place.

Let us say that a Government was to put in policies that reduced the number of beef herds. The country still eats beef and, in my view, it is better that it comes from local sources, inputs into our economy and has the standards that we expect in Scotland for something that is put into the food chain. Also, the air miles associated with importing food, including beef, from other countries, such as Argentina, would be substantial. You would be reducing the emissions associated with methane in Scotland, but you would be offshoring them elsewhere. I do not think that that is a responsible thing to do.