The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 1659 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Daniel Johnson
I understand. There are lots of different ways in which one can understand the consumer experience.
That brings me to my final question. Part of my reason for asking this is that I completely recognise that Citizens Advice Scotland does a great job, but its funding is under severe pressure. Because of those funding pressures, it is not the organisation that it might once have been or might hope to be.
Just reflecting on my constituency casework, I note that I am getting an increasing number of people approaching me because they are struggling to get good consumer advice to understand what their contractual obligations are with providers of goods or services, when procuring things or buying products directly from shops or online and, in particular, with the building trade. My view is that the availability of direct consumer advice is much weaker than it was perhaps a decade or two ago. What is your view of that and of your role in helping to rebuild the advice ecosystem or landscape?
10:15Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Daniel Johnson
We have all been looking at Grangemouth in a renewed level of detail. It occurs to me that some quite broad-brush assumptions are made, not all of which are correct. We think, “The oil comes out of the North Sea, it all goes to Grangemouth and we get our petrol—job done.” I read that, although the Forties pipeline terminates at Grangemouth, only 40 per cent of your feedstock comes from the North Sea. Our briefing notes also indicate that you are the main supplier of aviation fuel to Scottish airports and that you supply some 70 per cent of Scotland’s petrol stations.
Will you provide a bit of detail as to what proportion of your feedstock is coming from the North Sea? Critically, as refining stops, will that introduce additional costs to customers who are downstream? In other words, will aviation fuel cost more or less than previously? Will there be any consequences for consumers at the fuel pumps in Scotland as refining at Grangemouth ceases?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Daniel Johnson
No. I like to make sure that my questions are energy dense.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Daniel Johnson
Thank you for that very warm welcome. I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, where I declare that I am a director of a company with retail interests in Edinburgh.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Daniel Johnson
This is possibly a similarly energy-dense question. One thing that I am always struck by when we talk about refining and oil is that the products are not all energy. I understand that, globally, around 30 per cent of every barrel of oil is used for non-energy products such as pharmaceuticals, dyes, plastics and so on. I understand that, for North Sea oil, that percentage is higher, although I stand to be corrected. Given that position, we will have an on-going need for hydrocarbons, which is presumably where biorefining comes in. That is what project willow seeks to address.
We are at the nascent, early stages, but what is the potential size of the requirement for that global biorefining capacity? What share of that market could and should Scotland and the wider UK be seeking to target?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Daniel Johnson
Let me ask what is, I hope, a simpler question, albeit that it is still about a complicated issue. I recognise your point in relation to the nascent opportunities. It is the state’s role to de-risk and to look at the macro-level risks, particularly around energy security, but there are also much lower-level policy decisions that enable those things. Refining is not just about the pure investment or the product input and output. There is also the supporting infrastructure of roads, electricity networks and so on. We are talking about developing complex supply chains in and out of a biorefinery.
What policy areas need to be looked at to, at the very least, make that possible? In particular, what should we be looking at and thinking about in the Scottish Parliament, in devolved areas, so that we at least make biorefining opportunities possible, if not seek to drive towards them?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Daniel Johnson
Yes—and what policy decisions could we make now, either proactively or unwittingly, that might make biorefining easier or harder, whether they are about refuse collection, road infrastructure or other supporting policies?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 1 October 2024
Daniel Johnson
The Scottish Law Commission has been looking at other legislation, including the proposed reform of legislation around tenement maintenance, in which I take a great deal of interest. Does the Government have a view on when it might look to introduce a bill in that area?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 1 October 2024
Daniel Johnson
Thank you for unmuting me, convener. The minister will be relieved to hear that the committee requires me to ask my questions from a cupboard in an undisclosed location.
My first question relates to reports from the Scottish Law Commission, to which the minister referred in his opening remarks with regard to the introduction of the Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill. As he will be aware, the Government set out in the programme for government its intention to introduce a new leases (automatic continuation etc) (Scotland) bill. What is the timescale for the introduction of that bill? What was the basis for choosing to bring forward that bill from among those issues covered in the SLC’s reports?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 1 October 2024
Daniel Johnson
I thank the minister for that answer; we have all the more reason to look forward to Christmas now.
Can the minister elaborate on the degree to which the proposed bill meets the criteria and objectives that are set out in the relevant Scottish Law Commission report?