is Human Humane Architecture here on Think Tech Hawaii. I am the co-host DeSoto Brown. I am the Bishop Museum Historian. And joining us from Germany is the host of this program, who is Martin Despang, speaking to us via Skype. Martin, good day to you. And there he is, up on the screen. So today we've got kind of a playful program, and this is called Crazy Cantilevered Canopies. And we're talking about canopies, roof canopies, overhangs, things like that, that were, in many cases, in the mid-century period, treated very interestingly. And we're going to bring it up, of course, to the modern day as well. So Martin, why don't you get us started and tell us what our first program, I'm our first image is. Good to talk to you DeSoto and the audience. So I'm tuning in from Germany again, as you said. I moved back to the south of Germany, which is climatically certainly the most coldest part here.  Right. And when I came to Hawaii, I recognized that's not the case. You can be comfortable. And I started to discover the most comfortable space and place to be is actually under a tree. And if we can get picture number one for that, this is a special tree here that was brought to the islands, wasn't native to it. This is a monkey pot tree. And just look at the geniosity of nature, how it starts on a single spot and then branches out crazy, as we call the show. I mean, this is a crazy cantilevering canopy to its most ideal, right? Absolutely, absolutely. And yet it stands up. And as you were saying to me on the phone last night, it provides shade, it provides comfort, it provides evaporative cooling from its leaves. And you really can't improve on it a great deal, except that it is not impervious to rain. And that's something that we need to do when we build canopies, is to protect ourselves from rain, or in your case in Germany, snow. That's true. So let's make this really popular, this solo, right? Let's use someone that everyone knows who's associated to our islands, and we have been working with him before, using him for getting people excited. So get number two. And there he is. And there is the very youthful Barack Obama when he was a young man in school. And the two views of the building you see are the Punahou Circle Apartments. And that was a building that was built in the late 1960s. And that's where Barack Obama grew up, and that's where he lived when he was attending Punahou School until his graduation in 1979. And the front canopy of the Punahou Circle Apartments, as we see here in this slide, is this wonderful zigzag, kooky-looking canopy that shades people as they are coming in and out of the main entrance off of King Street, or Baratangya Street, excuse me. Mm-hmm, absolutely. And we get to the next picture. Actually, one of the first when we started collecting and sharing objects and canopies, the very top left one is the one you shared with me first because you drove by it. This is the bowling alley in Kahala. And you said, look at that one, and it won't be there anymore for much longer because it will be demolished. And if I understood you correctly, by now it's demolished. So what we want to make clear and get people excited about is don't demolish these because these are really, really unique. Me as a practicing architect, as my other side, I can tell you there's probably no way with the wages and material being so expensive for why being one of the most expensive places to build in the US and in the world, you cannot spend that dedication and passion anymore. So the second part of that picture is another one that's existing. That's on King Street. And so our pletally already up front, it is keep these. That's right. And these canopies, although in different places, one on the Wiley Bowl building from 1958 and the other on the King Center building on King Street from the early 1960s, they both have this very sort of upthrust corners. They've got support legs that are canted at an angle. And then the corners of both of these go up dramatically. And they're pretty eccentric looking and that was what was popular back in those days. But as you said to me last night as well, there can be a use for this and that you can direct rainfall to go to a specific area to either drip off or go into a drain by using these forms, which as I said at the beginning of the show are playful and eccentric and something that you could not replicate today. So something we really need to pay attention to and want to preserve. And that specific one on King Street started to remind us of some exotics or non-native influence, actually like the Mandarin Pavilion of the Asian architecture. Correct, that's right. And that got us to the next picture which introduces an example of nature, which is very exotic, although we quite excessively discussed where these come from. These are palm trees, but I love the version of the coconut palm tree who is an exotic species that comes from Asia and then can populate itself by its seed being the coconut floating through the ocean for thousands and thousands of miles, making landfall where no other plant can thrive and grow roots in the sand. And ever since, there are the symbol of tropical exotic islands. So coming to the hospitality industry, which runs our industry, and this reminds me of my dear friend Suzanne who is here with me in Germany and studied that in Hawaii, in fact. And we talked about that quite a bit about that exotic appeal. Correct. And so here we have a blend, a combination of this exotic artifact and the artificial artifact of canopy and how they can marry, right? Correct. And this is in Waikiki. This is at the end of Lour Street at Kalia Road. And it today is over a Denny's restaurant. This building was built in the 1960s as well. There's a zigzag canopy, again an eccentric type of form, but it's got holes in it for palm trees to grow through. And what that meant was that at the time the canopy was constructed, there were already palm trees growing there which they built around and accommodated in their building. And as you can see in this picture, the hotel is called the Imperial Hawaii Resort. It's one of the Imperial Hawaii Resorts, but well before there was such a brand name, this building was built. And it too is one of the surviving canopies that we want to maybe make people aware of and so that they have some awareness of and appreciation of them. Mm-hmm. And it's all over the place. This was really, really popular. Next picture, number five. This is Alamoana Mall, Ryan. Correct. And this was when Alamoana Center was built in 1959. They actually brought palm trees to the site, planted them, and then constructed the mall level parking around them. So in this picture at the top is the, there's also a zigzag canopy outside the Sears store and the palm trees were planted. They were tall enough at that time to extend up through essentially two levels of the shopping center. And subsequent to this picture that we're looking at here where you can see both levels, the picture below that you can see that when the mall was completed, all you saw on the upper level, when you were parking on the mall outside Sears, were just the crowns of these palm trees standing in front of yet another zigzag canopy popular at that time, which as I said, was 1959. And this project unfortunately, as some say, me including included is that it's not existing anymore. Correct. And been replaced by something less exotic. That also applies to the next picture, which is your favorite building, which shows that in the category of zigzag, you can either apply it to, a canopy is a part of a building, or you can apply it to an entire building and which building is this one? We're looking at the center. This is the Waikiki Beach Center, which was a changing room and showering facility for both men and women. There were bathrooms and changing facilities in this structure. There were also surfboard racks connected to it. It was a very angular structure. It was on Kuhio Beach, and it's about where the Dukahonamoku statue is today. And so it existed from about 1961 up into maybe about the 1990s. And the entire roof line of this structure is zigzagged. It goes way up in this very sharp point. But as Martin likes to say, the beauty of this is it's entirely open to the weather. So it isn't closed off. It gets trade winds going through it. It gets maybe some rain sometimes. But basically it's open to the air, which is appropriate for Waikiki, where you're out enjoying the warm sunshine and the warm beach. Exactly, and staying in Waikiki and just a little over and still existing is the next picture. This is Foster Tower, and the left part of the picture is donated by our fellow Don Hibbert, who wrote about us in his fantastic book, Designing Paradise. And he says in the caption here, how can you sort of make a concrete box look appealing to a tourist?  And the wave is also a literal architectural means at the bottom of the building, which you can see on the right part of the picture here, where once again a crazy canopy and we're introducing another way of it, which is the wavy crazy candle-y ring. And if you guys walk by, which you please do, you see something strange, which is that the palm trees don't grow through the holes anymore, but the holes are still there. Correct. And that also applies to the next project, next picture number eight, where the entire building is not existing anymore. And this is a Pete Wimbledey project who is probably our exotic master, who we touched on a couple of times already in the previous shows, right? With good reason too. Let's move on to number nine, where we see another variation of that theme, having palm trees growing through roofs and sometimes not single, you know, tailored holes for the trunk, but the bigger ones that a courtyard likes. Yeah, right. Which also applies to number 10. And which project is that? So, no. Well, what we see here are two shopping centers. We see the Kalihi shopping center in the large picture from 1955, 56, and then we see Alamoana shopping center in 1959. And in both cases, we've got a hole in the roof, which not only lets in the air and lets in the light and allows people to see the sky and the clouds and so forth, but it also allows plants to grow underneath those open holes so that you don't have a entirely concrete expanse, but you've got some greenery in there as well, which is part of the experience of making things nicer for pedestrians and for shoppers. And that's like, especially Alamoana mall prides itself and sells itself as being the world's largest outdoor shopping mall, which certainly applies to the circulation, but these days, unfortunately, not so much anymore to the shops. They're all aced and then people have the doors open and blow the ac outside, which always drives me crazy talking crazy topic of the show here today. But this is, these are the good days. These are the pre-fossil era. And so embracing the outdoors, celebrating the outdoors is the theme. And in this hole, you can see that it's basically erectileinial hole, but then the corners get soft-edged. So some soft, some organic form is introduced and that gets us to number 11 where some architects have been getting excited about that one, like this project here, which is a diner, which you told me last night that when we prepped that this is not necessarily specific to Hawaii. This is actually the whole diner architecture streamline era was really popular in California. So once stayed over, it was brought to Hawaii and also seemed, you know, pretty fittingly here because once again, as you said, it provides us with a necessary shelter for rain and sun. Correct. But go to the next picture, number 12, you can also apply it to a building more, more enjoyably as this roof here is a hyper parabolic roof where, you know, you can almost look at the building and saying this, the whole building is a hat. It looks like a hat. Yeah, it does. And a hat we probably could have used as another familiar to people device has to basically provide the same for your hats. Yeah, right. And rain protection. Yeah, we've got two pictures here. We've got one small picture of the hyper paraboloid, whatever the heck it was. It's the lobby of the Wakey Key and Hotel, which opened in 1956, really extreme curvature. And then below that, the big picture is Motor Imports Company, which is located on Kapilani Boulevard and it sold imported cars. And that's a Toyo Pet car in front of it in 1959. And this lower one, the big one, looks like a Pringles potato chip. It's the same type of curvature, but it's applied on a grand scale to an entire building. And that's not something that you're gonna see anymore. I don't really think. That's a great analogy to Soda. I will use that. And let's go to the next picture. I have the same crispy feel about that canopy here. That's crunchy and just so, really good chips are thin and crunchy, right? Yes, yes. So this canopy looks like that too. It's just the minimal use of material, once again used to something to give shade to cars. So tourists came to Hawaii wanting to enjoy the exotic, the raw, the jungle, so to speak, but didn't wanna stay away, wanna go without their comfort, their American comfort, right? So you really use this excessively in different typologies. And the next picture, number 14, is such a thing as well, where you just wanna provide shade and rain protection for something you wanna display. And you come up with this, this is maybe our craziest here, right? Where you just cantilever, off-centered, asymmetrical. That's more crazy than a tree, because a tree battles itself out. There's branches on both sides, whereas this one is going only to one direction. This is crazy. And this is kind of a showroom for heavy equipment, forklifts, bulldozers, and things like that, which is located on Sand Island Access Road in the early 60s. And what we see here is this floating disc, which has this off-center support on the left, two very skinny little poles on the right, to cover up a bulldozer, which is on display for sale. And that was specifically, as you said, made so that you could see the object, in this case the bulldozer, from all sides. You didn't wanna cover it up, you wanted people to pass by and say, oh look, I wanna buy that bulldozer. Well, it's on exhibit, and that's what you can do. So, as we're onto something here, this is some research, you know, serious research topic, and when you get serious about it, then you can see there's these different ways of doing it. Another one we wanna look at is in the next picture, and this is going back to Alamoana, and it's heydays, it's original, easy breezy nice days. And when you look closer, you can see that the post, the column, once it starts to become the roof, it's actually like, looks like it's organically growing into the roof, and we call that the mushroom system. Correct. And in addition to introducing this structural methodology, you see the perforations again, punching the hole through, and this combination makes it really, really delightful and pleasurable and very creative, very sexy. Yeah, now we can keep going with this mushroom analogy of a single stalk supporting a roof, and I think in our next picture, which is Bishop Museum, which is where I work, let's go to that, and this is the Bishop Museum Planetarium when it opened in 1961, and it has a support that's very mushroom-like as well, but you pointed out that this is really copied from Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Johnson Wax Building of the late 1930s, which had a series of columns like this supporting a roof over a common office area that was like a translucent light illuminated roof open to the sun, and so here we see it some years later, used here in the Hawaiian Islands as sort of another mushroom type of thing. Absolutely. When we think about the most popular example of what we're talking about, we go to the next picture, that's probably our capital. And our capital is also using the mushroom principle, pretty much in detail, and the picture I took on the right side of that photo here is that when you move back and look at it from the distance, because so proportionally, the pose is so tiny, so thin that it basically almost gets invisible, so you end up just like with a tree. When you look at a tree from a distance, you don't see the trunk, you just see the canopy, so it starts to float, and this is rather spectacular, and once again, I cannot tell you how excited I was when it was part of the walks and the demonstrations around the last presidential election, and the dynamics and the civic power and pride of that building, which is absolutely amazing. I mean, a demonstration of democracy I hardly ever felt before, and achieved by what we're talking about, this architectural methodology, and just a very good way of just doing the most with a least, which I think we're well advised to look back into in the future when we design buildings. And then also the next picture here, which looks similar, but it's a different typology. This is a bank, and look how playful banks have been designed in the past, and once again, being so generous to provide outdoor space. So this is not the interior space when you get the money from the people, and you just, you know, and then make them go away.  And when you look at it more detailed, you can see a refinement here of that there isn't the mushroom top anymore, but there's something we call a tree top. This is literally borrowed from nature, but once again, you see like the beams, you know, becoming like branches on a tree. Yeah, they really flow in a kind of organic way. And I was gonna say in the state, in the situation of the state capital, those columns and the way they grow at the top look like a palm tree. This looks like a palm tree, or another type of tree as well, in the way it is structured. And our master, our structurally engineered master we see on number 19, and I had the chance to still meet the fabulous, fantastic Dr. Alfred Yee, who unfortunately passed away not long ago, and he is the creator of so many of these crazy cantilevers amongst them, the project on the left, and which one is that to sell it? That's the tree tops. We need to go to the next, we need to go, there it is. That's the tree tops condominium or apartment building in Waikiki, which I believe has been demolished. But it again is extremely unusual in that these horizontal elements come projecting out, and sometimes they support a balcony, and sometimes they just stick out. So sometimes they're part of a canopy, and sometimes they're just elements that stick out on their own that rest upon another horizontal member that you can see very clearly there in the photograph on the left. Let's bring this up to date. And this is so exciting for people like me coming from the cold part of the world, where especially in times of extreme energy efficiency in the built environment to save our planet, we cannot do things like that anymore. We have to firmly connect elements once they project out from the inside to the outside, while at the same time, they obviously have to be structurally connected. So firmly disconnected, structurally connected. So this is a true, this is special that we can do this in Hawaii. And I don't think in recent years we have done this enough, but we did it mid-century. So a pletally for that is to do it again. And the next two pictures is how I demonstrate how excited me and my firm is about that. So the next picture, number 20, is a community grocery store we did so many years ago where the property line is actually following the facade at the bottom on the picture of the right that we wanted to can't leave route. So here we go. And we had to go through some serious, significant effort in order to do that. In fact, here, the client has to pay some money to the city because he can't leave resolvers. So there's some real passion for can't leave route. And the next picture is a more recent project, the urban waterfall canopy for a subway in the city of Bochum. And it actually introduces another materiality because so far we have predominantly been talking about concrete or a lot. Concrete in the tropics is very attractive because it doesn't corrode versus steel. However, there's some nice examples of crazy steel canopies. And we want to take a chance here to also refer back to some shows we've done in the past for people to maybe revisit. And number 22 is one of these. And where is that the soda? Well, let me look at this. This is rainbow drive-in. Rainbow drive-in in our next picture is located in Kapahulu. And you talked to the owner of rainbow drive-in about the canopy that they use there, which not only is decorative, but it also generates electricity. Does it not? Absolutely. No, no, it is absolutely. And we want to say hi to you, point it out to Jim Gusukuma. Hi, Jim, that he's very much, you know, reconnecting to this crazy tradition of these cantilevers and canopies. And what we didn't know and he even didn't know, although it's down the road, that's number 23. And I drove by there on my daily bicycle commute to work. And I always saw this canopy. And one day I saw the owner of the building and I approached her and she said, yeah, that was my crazy dad building that. And he was a structural engineer. So this is a canopy in front of her residence. And only if you really pay close attention, which I try to share with you and having done this close up at the top left, you can actually see the roof is not touching that wall on the left. So it's in fact sitting on these toothpick spaghetti skin using analogy, you know, to food. You talked about the crispy chips, you know. This is spaghetti's. And it's just amazing. I can tell you, if I go to a structural engineer these days talking about, you know, exceeding wind loads and hurricanes and seismic loads, probably pretty impossible to do this again. So this is another keeper. Right. And it's supported entirely on the right. It is not supported on the left. So in this picture, you see those, as you said, those two V-shaped spaghetti-like supports. That's the only thing that holds up this entire roof.  So to build crazy canopies on our exotic, easy breezy islands of Hawaii is possible. Number 24, our very inaugural show of human main architectures, Les's Lanai. So this is on Maui. You guys can look back into the show and he did it. And another one of our favorite guests is number 25, is Nathan Tuthman, hi, Nathan. Nathan's elevate structure is a fine example of contemporary crazy cantilevering canopies. And he is currently in California. Probably time to do another show at the bottom left. You can see his very recent CNC and prototype version of that. And getting close to the end of the show last, but not at least looking at all merging generation. This is also a previous guest, Chris Chiqueta, who was talking about another project. But in this case here, this is a project he did with my colleague, Wendy McGuro. And now some years ago, which you can see the young generation getting excited about that thing, crazy cantilevering canopies. Right, which is fantastic because it isn't just a thing of the past. It's something that's applicable today. It's something that deserves to be brought back today. And as I said, it's not just because it provides actual use, but it's crazy, it's kooky, it's fun, and it's something that kind of excites our lives and adds a little bit of interest to things. Otherwise, just plain boxes. Well. All right, so let's do it again. Let's do it again. Well, I think that is gonna bring us to the end of yet another human, humane architecture here on Think Tech Hawaii. And we were joined by our host, Martin Despang, in speaking to us from Germany. And I am DeSoto Brown, the co-host, speaking to you from here in Honolulu. And two weeks from now, we will be back with our show and what's gonna be our show that time, Martin? Oh, that's super exciting because this is a project that's gonna transform as well. This is the Blaisdell Arena. And in many ways, it has a lot to do with what we've been talking about today. Yes, it does. So it's gonna be the past of the Blaisdell Center and the future of the Blaisdell Center. And Martin's gonna make some recommendations for that. So until our next Think Tech show, I'll say, well, Martin will say Aloha from Germany and I'll say Aloha from here in Honolulu. Goodbye, everyone.


Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You're very welcome to this event, which is co-organized by the Institute and the Irish Member Committee of the World Energy Council. For those who don't know the WEC, the World Energy Council, it's the principal impartial networks of energy leaders and practitioners working on stable environmental sensitive energy systems and has been in existence since 1923. It's UN accredited and has more than 3,000 members in 90 countries. And I should say on behalf of WEC Ireland that we're very grateful for the support of Air Grade and ESP. This talk today is very timely about hydrogen. Hydrogen has been much in the news recently. The level of discourse has increased. Those of you following the G20 in Japan will have noticed an IEA report on that. Hydrogen is a vector of energy, a feedstock. It's useful for renewable energy in terms of power to gas and in storage. And it's resurging again recently, I think, because fuel cell technology has come down in price, as well as renewable electricity, and many countries are becoming engaged with it. And to explore the hydrogen economy, we have two excellent speakers here. First of all, we have Dr. Angela Wilkinson. You're very welcome to the Institute, Angela. I'm just a senior director on business and insights at the World Energy Council. We have Alexander Florengstein from Hydrogen Europe, which is the leading trade association representing the entire value chain in hydrogen. And you're very welcome to the Institute, and each of the speakers will speak for about 20 minutes. And the sessions will be recorded. And afterwards, there's a chance for you to ask some questions. That will be, of course, under the Chatham House rules, so that the first part of the session is on the record. The latter part is off, which means that you can use the material, but you may not identify this house or either of the speakers. If you're minded to tweet, please use the hash at IIA and put your mobile phones to silent. And so with all of that, I guess Angela will ask you, is hydrogen hope or hype? Thank you very much. May I? Thank you. Hello, everybody. Thank you very much for a very warm welcome. I'm very pleased to be back in Ireland. I married a man from Tipperary nearly 30 years ago. I consider this to be a home from home. What I'm going to do, we want to be complimentary, as well as we don't mind disagreeing with each other. But what we're really here to do is to try and help introduce the situation around hydrogen. This is the first time I understand it's been presented in the Irish context. So I'm going to talk very much about the bigger global picture, and then we're going to talk about the more European specifics. So that would be one way of thinking about our different talks. So I'm going to present one study that we've recently completed around the hydrogen economy. But let me just first start.  But you've already done an excellent job of talking about 1923, who the World Energy Council is. We're all vectors, all sectors. We reach the parts of the energy system that other actors can't reach, where OECD and non-OECD. And we are a technology neutral, technology agnostic act, but not passive around global energy transition and the success of energy transition at national and regional level. What I'm going to talk about is one of our recent studies. But what we actually produce for our members is what we call a practical transition toolkit, which has five different sets of tools in it that can be used by companies, countries, cities and communities to actually make sense of where are they in energy transition, where do they want to get to, and how are they going to achieve it. And for us, energy transition is not just about decarbonisation, it's also about taking care of energy security, as well as the sustainability, as well as the affordability and the equity issues involved. And I'll touch a little bit upon our, an innovation insights brief that we're just finishing on hydrogen. We've also just completed work on existing infrastructure, where we're looking at stranded assets, decommissioning and repurposing, which touches on the hydrogen theme as well. And we also have a paper coming out on storage soon, which also touches on the hydrogen connector, as I might call it. And I'll touch upon some of these other tools. Recently the IEA published a report on hydrogen in the advance, in the run up to the G20. The World Energy Council went out first earlier this year with our own insights brief, innovation insights brief on hydrogen. And the story of course is for those of us who are old enough to remember, you know, in the 1970s we were getting a little bit excited about hydrogen in the context of all the energy oil price shocks at the time. We were getting excited about the possibilities of coal produced hydrogen. These days that's known as grey hydrogen, right? It used to be called brown. It's now called grey. And we were getting, we were thinking about all those fuel, those, all those long queues at the petrol station who would have access to transportation fuels. That was the 1970s context. Now we get very excited about hydrogen, not because of what happened in the past, but because of what we think is going to happen in the future. And all the new energy visions that are coming about, which are increasingly not about grey hydrogen, but about multiple shades of blue and green hydrogen. So hopefully by the end of the day, if nothing else, you'll walk out of this talk knowing your, your grey from your blue and your green hydrogen, if you don't know that already. And some of the things that are driving that discussion are the excitement about the falling costs of renewables, which makes it much cheaper to produce hydrogen and particularly green hydrogen. So if you're using renewables to produce hydrogen, it's called green hydrogen. If you're using gas and CCS to produce hydrogen, it's called blue hydrogen, right? We're looking at other developments around storage game changes. We're looking at other developments about how national governments are doing things called sector coupling and they're looking particularly about how do they manage deep decarbonization by not just focusing on energy, but also on the connections between energy and transport, energy and buildings, energy and industry. And we're also looking at the new geopolitics, which is shaping the energy plays around the world, which are not just about oil and gas anymore, but increasingly about information, technology and data and the resources that are required for the renewables revolution and the battery revolution, not just the clean energy revolution. So we published this new brief, why hydrogen? Because hydrogen energy transition increasingly has always required a mix of electrons and hydrogen. And the world energy council is always very interested in the dichotomy that seems to be presented in many of the debates between those who are in the electrification part of the transition dialogue and those who are in the molecular part or liquids part and the little common ground that there can be between them. So energy transition requires a mix of electrons and molecules. We can't electrify everything. There are some things that still require molecules. Hydrogen can reach the hard to abate sectors that electrification can't currently. There are new opportunities for trade in clean energy that are coming about in the world. And it costs 10 times as much to transport electron as it does to transport molecules. So somewhere we need liquids in the system. And high renewable penetration increasingly requires new types of storage, not just daily, not just hourly, but increasingly on demand and from many different places. So hydrogen matters in all of these senses. There are many shades of green and blue production pathways just to try and introduce some of them. I talked about gray hydrogen. It's intensive in terms of carbon dioxide. It's low cost, but it has very low social acceptability in many parts of the world. Blue hydrogen produces less CO2. It is more expensive because of the cost of electrolyzers or the cost of carbon capture and storage. And its social acceptance is better than gray. And then green hydrogen, which is about using renewables or net zero emissions in terms of carbon, it's more expensive, but its social acceptance is high. And what we see is even when hydrogen producers get very excited about blue hydrogen, some of the adjacent sectors like aviation don't want to use it because they think that there will be some form of lack of social acceptability of blue rather than green. What's new in the hydrogen business globally when we take a look? So we interviewed people who are actually bringing forward the new hydrogen economy, the people who are investing in it, who are actually piloting it, who are actually producing hydrogen and the different value chains in different parts of the world. What we have found is that there are now over 50 countries with mandates, policies and goals on hydrogen. Those include China, the Middle East, in the Middle East, Japan, Australia, as well as, of course, in Ireland itself. The falling costs of renewables, zero marginal cost, the falling costs of electrolyzers, we expect those to come down very quickly, and the falling costs of carbon capture and storage are all contributing to the hydrogen business case. Fuel cell costs have also dropped in terms of compared with battery electric vehicles or other types of energy applications. So we have fuel cell costs and an expectation by many that we will see cost parity between fuel cells and battery electric vehicles in the mid-2020s, that's just around the corner. And we also have found the biggest change that we have detected internationally is the amount of talk there is about China as somebody who's going to be a market shaper in this area and the amount of investment that is going on in China in terms of their hydrogen development commitments. That's not to underscore, not to detract from the increasing partnership between places like Japan and the Middle East, who are also pushing a very big hydrogen investment and business development case. It's a flexible fuel, this is why it makes it attractive, it gets used for many different things. So it gets used in power generation, gets used in mobility, gets used in industry, gets used for heat and it gets used for storage. In the economics of it, the biggest pools are around mobility at the moment. They're expected to be followed by industrial energy use and power generation in terms of where there's scalable economics. But the future of hydrogen, whether it's blue, green or even gray, is not a simple trajectory of inevitable development. We have found that although the economics of hydrogen have changed dramatically in terms of production, the economics of transporting hydrogen from where it is produced to where it gets used also require a lot more cooperation if that's really going to be the game, if it's really going to significantly grow. And that depends on policy, not just markets. And the biggest policy change is the policy around decarbonisation and whether it's maintained or not, or whether we see fragmented policies and very little international cooperation. So we have four different futures for hydrogen. We have a world where we have coordinated international action on decarbonisation and we have favorable economics not just in terms of production but whole value ecosystem and then we can get to the hydrogen society. By contrast, we could see a future for hydrogen where we see fragmented energy policies, less international cooperation around decarbonisation and we see a lot of investment around hydrogen production costs but very little value whole supply chain development. And in that case we would be down in the bottom left hand corner of niche to limited applications for hydrogen. So not a given future but a very interesting future. And I think for Ireland, you have a huge play around putting increasing amounts of variable renewables onto your grid. Hydrogen opportunities are as far as we can see many and different in Ireland even given the constraints around being an island energy community on the edge of the European continent. We have the possibility for linking energy transition to industrial policy in Ireland, how will hydrogen play not just as you think about decarbonisation but also about new industrial development and what will happen in the future of the jobs and industry market around how can we manage an affordable not just a faster and deeper decarbonisation and how hydrogen pathways contribute to social justice and affordability of clean energy transition. About an opportunity to use existing infrastructure if it's coming from gas and CCS or if it's coming just from electrolysis or if it's from the possibility to develop long range you could think about yourself as the Atlantic wind frontier export market for the new hydrogen economy and many different opportunities depending of course on not just how we produce it but also what value chain gets developed in Ireland but also between Ireland and other countries in terms of import and export opportunities. So that's my total big picture look on hydrogen it's got a very big bright future it's being invested in in many parts of the world the biggest surprise has been China's move very quickly into this space and the amount of investment that's going into this space in the Middle East and Japanese partnerships the Asia Pacific is moving much faster than Europe the US is not not out of the picture but the plays for hydrogen are very different in different parts of the world and I shall leave it there. Well thank you very much for that Angela and straight away Alexandra I invite you to give us the European perspective thank you. Thank you first of all thank you very much for the invitation thank you very much for the Institute for organizing such a well-attended event and thank you for all the participants to to actually be here and take their time to to see where hydrogen is is going. My name is Alexander Frustan I'm from Hydrogen Europe the leading association of the hydrogen industry when I say hydrogen I only say renewable hydrogen and and low carbon hydrogen so that's what we stand for that's what we we we represent I wanted to get that out there from the from the very beginning. Is my presentation on all right here we are. So I want to to give an idea about the scale of the problem here about why it's absolutely crucial that we need to act and why hydrogen is essential to to reaching the the Paris Agreement goals. Here we have the amount of CO2 reductions that that needs to take place in order to stick to the to the two degree scenario and already we're seeing that a two degree scenario is not enough so we have a gap of more than 1000 metric tons of CO2 every year in Europe that cannot be met in the in the reference technology scenario and that part that that massive part needs to be covered partially or completely through the use of low carbon and green and green hydrogen that is what what what people say hard to abate sectors that that's what it means it it's a huge chunk of the need of to to decarbonize and these are the figures just for for Europe so the way we see it and you you presented it very well is of course that the purpose is to enable as many renewables into into the system to distribute that energy as an energy vector through hydrogen to store it to act as a buffer to use it when when we need it and of course to then consume it where where where it is needed in the transport sector but we must not forget the heavy industry sectors as well when it comes to as a as a feed stock or as a primary energy energy source of course the challenge of of heating as well both in terms of commercial heating personal heating and and industrial heating is also an essential part of where hydrogen can be can be used that way the way we see hydrogen and the way everybody should see hydrogen is as part of a system I think you made a very good point in saying that it's not the only technology that is going to be out there it's going to function in a world where electricity is produced through renewables it is then taken to consumers through that electricity grid at the same time excess electricity is is is is transferred into into hydrogen it is then transported through a dedicated hydrogen grid to consumers of hydrogen and there are many that that need hydrogen at 100 you may need to to to import it or Ireland may want to export it as well if it has the potential to do so and it will for the foreseeable future function alongside alongside the natural gas infrastructure as well so we must see it as a part of an energy system an integrated an energy system between production transport and consumption I'm not going to stay too much on the figures it's just to say that there's a role for hydrogen in all the different areas that I mentioned earlier transportation plays an important part but the other sectors should not be forgotten as well because it it meets certain needs that cannot be met with with other energy vectors just to to tell you about this report you can look it up for yourself this is what I wanted to present today but I want to decide it in the last minute to focus on more concrete things so you will be able to research this on our on our website if you if you want to it tries to quantify the market for hydrogen in 2030 and 2050 to in the different sectors to really understand where it's going in Europe just the basic conclusions we think it's going to go to 24 percent of total final energy demand is going to be consumed as hydrogen in terms of the economic importance of it just in Europe it's going to be quite massive a sector that is estimated around 820 billion annual revenue and 5.4 million direct jobs not counting the indirect jobs created by the by the subsequent services it has to be admitted and has to be said from the very beginning that the different applications that that hydrogen will reach maturity at different times you cannot compare the technology maturity of the aviation and maritime to those of passenger cars or the introduction of hydrogen into into steel production for example to some of the other applications so this is something that we understand this is something that we're also working with with our members and with the FCHU I will tell you something about that a little bit later but to understand that it is a transition that is going on it is expected and certain application will reach maturity later on in in the following decades the political push in Europe for hydrogen is impressive just last year the energy ministers of most of you country signed the hydrogen declarations committing themselves to to the sustainable development of of hydrogen technology just a few days ago the leaders in Brussels could not agree on EU leaders but they could agree to mandate the commission the next commission whoever it will be as leader to to undertake concrete action to to enable sector coupling with the use of hydrogen so the the next commission already has a mandate given by the European Council a few days ago to to act and deploy efficient regulation effective regulation to support the hydrogen industry so the political inspector at least at European level is is is definitely present now I decided last minute also in consultation with the organizers to focus about what's going on in practice and to show you that hydrogen is not something that we're looking for in the future or we're hoping it's going to happen and crossing our fingers but it's something being developed right now with concrete plans on on the ground before I I start just wanted to to to say that we need hydrogen as an energy vector in order to reach those sectors that cannot be reached by by electricity they're complementary they complement each other as technologies but on the left you see a pipeline and on the right you see cables carrying exactly the same amount of of energy it's just to say why it is unreasonable to think that everything can be electrified and hydrogen needs to exist especially in a world with significantly much more renewable renewable energy so that is why Germany and the Netherlands have very concrete plans to develop a a system of production and distribution through through through dedicated pipelines there's a lot of a lot of things going on on this slide so I will just explain to the right is Hassunis the Dutch TSOs plan for the Netherlands that includes a backbone around the Netherlands with production capacities in in in just north of Rotterdam through wind with production capacity in in the north of the Netherlands through both CCS as well as solar as well as wind and for that to be stored in salt caverns there in the north of Netherlands transported all around the different industrial areas of of the Netherlands so this is extremely concrete with a clear timeline the different projects being green green lit and one of the pipelines is it's a pipeline that exists now it's a redundant pipeline they will stop using a natural gas within that pipeline and simply convert it to a dedicated hydrogen pipeline Germany has been producing hydrogen through through through electrolysis for for quite the number of years in the in in in in mines they have been injecting it into into the grid for that long now get H2 wants to develop a hydrogen backbone going through all the industrial clusters of Germany and of course connecting it to the to the Dutch to the Dutch pipeline when it comes to the Irish case obviously we're talking about a high target for renewable integration in your power sector I think these are very conservative but these are estimations and modeling of how much of the energy produced with variable renewable sources need to be converted in hydrogen in order to stabilize your your your grid and as you can see from around 60 to 70 percent renewable integration your your the need for hydrogen production it increases well quite quite exponentially and this is already an a conservative estimation so that is already a need for for Ireland when it comes to storage I understand that it's more difficult in Ireland due to the topography of of the earth and the lack of salt caverns although storage will be will be something that's that needed in a source in a form of the other the Netherlands is clearly ahead of of this and there are already existing salt caverns that are being converted to to hold hydrogen uh Nourian is involved in in in in in that so again something that takes place today on the on the ground when it comes to transport when it comes to transport it is infinitely easier to deploy a hundred the battery electric vehicles than to deploy a hundred hydrogen vehicles to due to the infrastructure that you need around it when you're talking about scale it becomes infinitely easier to deploy an entire fleet of hydrogen vehicles as it is opposed to deploy an entire fleet of battery electric vehicles this is again due to the to the adjacent infrastructure that is needed not just for refilling but also in terms of the power power need the need for to power all those vehicles in terms of size you can see it takes 15 times more space to to charge as many as many hydrogen vehicles with with only one hydrogen refueling stations in in France Belgium in in the Netherlands and in the UK the best business case now for transport in terms of passenger cars is the deployment of fleet and if you are looking to deploy and start off a a micro system in terms of transport I would look at the at fleet first and captive fleets that can refuel at a at a base taxis in in in Paris London and in well in Brussels they haven't arrived yet but in Paris and in London they're already present they make the business case be commercially viable from the very beginning both in terms of the refueling infrastructure which is highly profitable as well as the the the taxi operator which can function almost full time without the need to to to to recharge and lose precious precious time so that is an experience in the passenger car sector when it comes to buses there are more than I don't remember the number you have to add the total the total there but being being deployed in in in Europe mostly in in in western Europe unfortunately none in in Ireland at at the moment but these are these are buses whose prices have fallen from one million and a half euros the first hydrogen bus was a million and a half to three hundred and seventy five thousand this is the type of price reduction that that you've mentioned that the sector is is is experiencing and continues in to to experience so when it comes to what is different in in hydrogen that is the the amazing cost rejection not just in fuel cells but along the entire supply chain also why this focus on on heavy duty this is a comparison of the of the weight that is needed for battery electric vehicles on the right and the weight of the same system carrying the same amount of energy in in in a fuel cell this is why for buses and heavy duty transport this sector requires hydrogen hydrogen mobility in practice there are trucks being placed on the on the market collaroid in in in belgium has already ordered trucks from vdl 44 ton trucks and 28 ton trucks to be to be deployed by the retailer in belgium they have they're already their infrastructure for refueling they're just waiting for the the truck so it's not something in in in the future they're expecting to to to arrive later this this year in in switzerland the main retailers in switzerland also pushed by a quite a heavy taxation on fossil fuel transport there i have also committed to to to to to to re remodernize their their their logistic fleet to to hydrogen and have ordered the 1,600 trucks from from hyundae in the us you all know about about nicola and and their plans to the to deploy hydrogen trucks well there's also to say more about all the different application that already exists and these are real applications in terms of garbage trucks and other utility utility vehicles when it comes to refineries as you know the renewable energy directive requires that fuel suppliers ensure 14 percent of their their fuel release for consumption is from renewable sources one of the ways to achieve that is to ensure that the hydrogen that they used in the refining process is of renewable origin well there are already projects in in in in in in in Germany shell has has developed an electrolysis on its on its refinery to to switch its gray hydrogen to to to renewable hydrogen i know this is less relevant for for ireland but i want to talk about this case because when we do talk about hydrogen we talk about decarbonizing all the different sectors that are difficult to abate steel uses coal burns coal to reduce oxygen in in the iron ore and it could switch easily to renewable hydrogen replacing coal to do exactly the same job well that's already being done in two places in europe one in vestal pin at those alpine in austria and another one in in in sweden what do we do to support this from happen to to make sure that this actually takes place and it takes place as quickly as as as possible well obviously we want to to to enable this vision of a zero emission society we have teamed up with more than 120 companies from the entire value chain with research organizations and with national associations throughout throughout europe to create hydrogen europe we represent the entire sector from from the different parts and no single part of the value chain dominates us we welcome tso's both from from the gas sector and from the power sector that will more and more need to to use hydrogen to to balance their own infrastructure i won't stay too much on these slides but i do want to say that together with the european commission hydrogen europe has partnered to create a public private partnership it's called the fuel cells and hydrogen joint undertaking it's a different organization but 50 percent is hydrogen europe and 50 percent is the european commission what the joint undertaking does as a public private partnership and has been doing for the past 10 years was make sure that this energy revolution takes place in europe as has funded the the research needed and the demonstration projects needed to prove that the technology is is is ready to to to function on the market the past 10 years more than 244 projects were were funded over one almost a billion and now of of euros have been have been provided to research and demonstration projects and have allowed the industry to prove itself as as market as market ready it's everything i wanted to to say about that thank you


Hi everyone, Joe for jaskiescasebreaks.com. We did it. We knocked out random number block for sterling pick your team Two featuring the same four teams that were left over from pick your team one And if you buy a full spot, you got a chance to win a full spot Big thanks to this group for making it happen Scott Kirk Eugene Cody appreciate you Here's our first of two dice rolls top two after five will get extra spots one two three four and Once more fifth and final time. Good luck It's gonna be Eugene and Kirk after five Extra spots going your way We'll buy one get one opportunity there now. Let's gather all of your names and we'll randomize you a number Those numbers represent a block of numbers. Let's roll it randomize it five into four nine times for names and numbers one two three four five Six seven eight and ninth and final time Got Eugene down to a few scots Five and a four nine times for the numbers one two three four five six seven eight and Ninth and final time Got one down to two So Eugene with one Cody with six Kirk with nine Eugene with seven Scott with four Kirk with five Eugene with zero Zero gets any and all redemptions there. You probably won't be redemption here, but Get any on all redemptions there and Scott you got the rest eight three and two Good spread of numbers there. Let's sort this By a number and we'll see you in the next video for the break to ask these case rates.com


We're going to pronounce today Bullying Awareness Day and we're going to do it in the hope that we never need another one But we should remember the way that we get there is to make sure that we stand up in numbers sufficient to fight bullying bullies only exist because they get the oxygen of an audience and if all of us stand up and Stand against it and tell bullies that it's not okay It will stop that one simple act of kindness one choice one decision That we as kids and youth can make to make somebody's life better That was the decision and at the time it was a hard one and it was But as I look back now and I reflect on my life and where I've come from in the bullying that I experienced as a kid I realized that that decision was so so easy You know leaders are so important But at times you need a first follower to carry that movement on to give it that extra push momentum To make it the movement that it is today to be a hundred percent truthful I do not know where pink shirt day would be today without the support of our now Premier Christy Clark, you know She took this initiative on she put it on her back and she said I want to make this something special as well And with her support we've been able to reach all these different countries We are supporting a generation of young people in being different than generations before in being better And if we can do one thing as a society that could be one of the most important things that we do so happy pink shirt day everybody Thank you


I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place and that face covering should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. The first item of business is portfolio questions and the first portfolio questions is justice and veterans. I remind members that questions 4 and 8 are grouped together and that I will take any supplementaries on these questions after both have been answered. If a member wishes to request a supplementary question, they should press the request to speak button or indicate so in the chat function by entering the letter R during the relevant question. Question 1, Emma Harper. To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting Police Scotland to implement and enforce legislation on the control of dogs. Minister Ashwigand. I'm aware that Emma Harper's protection of livestock Scotland act came into force that we can and I pay tribute to the member and all those involved in making that important legislation a reality. The Scottish Government worked with Police Scotland and others to help arrange for the commencement of that legislation and more generally Police Scotland are valued members of the Scottish Government-led dog control and dangerous dogs working group. Work carried out by this group includes a review of the control of dogs joint protocol agreement between Police Scotland and local authorities, as well as establishing a national dog control database that will assist enforcement of dog control measures. Emma Harper. I thank the minister for that response. The minister will be aware that my Dogs Protection and Livestock amendment, as she has agreed, came into force last Thursday. The act strengthens the penalties available for those who allow out-of-control dogs to worry or attack livestock and extends the powers of police and the Crown Office to investigate those offences. Can the minister outline whether any guidance has been produced for police and vets on the investigation and enforcement of the offence? Yes. I'm pleased to confirm that officials have worked closely with stakeholders to assist with the development of guidance that's being prepared for private vets on what should happen if a live dog is seized by the police and presented to a private vet for examination. I should stress that we think that this is unlikely to be a frequent occurrence. The guidance has been discussed in detail with Police Scotland, with veterinary organisations including the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the British Veterinary Association and with the Scottish SPCA. It's close to agreements and it will be published on the Scottish Government website by the end of November. 2. Colin Beattie To ask the Scottish Government in light of reported Crown Office findings that there's been a 9% increase in reported charges with a domestic abuse identifier during the Covid-19 pandemic. What action is it taking to support victims of domestic violence? Cabinet Secretary, Keith Brown. We all recognise that during the coronavirus pandemic for some people, their home has not been a place of safety and sadly that, as a member mentioned, that's been reflected a 9% increase in the number of domestic abuse charges reported to the Crown Office and Fiscal Service in the last year. That's why, in the first 100 days of this Government, we directed £5 million of new funding to domestic abuse services and rape crisis centres to help cut waiting lists for special support services. That was in addition to the £5.75 million allocated last year to support front-line organisations, Covid response and recovery, so that they could respond to an increase in demand from victims of abuse. Colin Beattie I thank the cabinet secretary for his response. Can I ask what steps the Scottish Government is taking to ensure more people are aware of the support that you outlined in your answer and what support will be given to local organisations to help deliver their services? I'm sure that another member will be aware of the many advertisements on TV and in the media around the issue, but we, for our part, remain committed to raising awareness of domestic abuse and we support Scotland's domestic abuse and forced marriage helpline, which is available 24-7, to support anybody with experience of domestic abuse. Later this month, we will launch a campaign to reach those most at risk and ensure that survivors are aware of the support that continues to be available. We continue to invest significant levels of funding in specialist front-line services. Our new Delivering Equally Safe Fund recently confirmed allocations to 121 projects from 112 organisations working to provide key services and to prevent gender-based violence. Four in five victims of domestic abuse are women. That truly is a shocking statistic, we all agree, but it remains true that over 10,000 incidents involve male victims of abuse. Can I ask if any of the funds that were mentioned in the previous answer by the cabinet secretary will be allocated towards charities such as Abuse Men in Scotland and other organisations who support male victims of abuse so that they get their fair and proportionate share of government support as well? The member raises an important point, and we are absolutely clear that there is no excuse for domestic abuse, regardless of the gender of the victim or the perpetrator. The victims in over 80 per cent of cases are female, but we recognise that men can be victims of domestic abuse too, perpetrated either by women or in same-sex relationships. We are funding a range of services to support male victims, and that includes providing nearly £190,000 over 2017-23 to run the respect helpline, which signposts male survivors of domestic abuse to support services. Over the same period, we are providing £5.6 million to assist, who as part of their work provide advocacy support to male survivors of domestic abuse in the west of Scotland in the Lothians. We also fund the Scottish domestic abuse and forced marriage helpline, as I mentioned, to support both male and female victims and survivors. Does the domestic abuse identifier include any evidence of increasing abuse to pets, usually dogs, which are used by perpetrators to coerce and control their partners? I cannot say that it does, and if it does, I haven't seen it, so I'm happy to go and look into that. If I have more information, I can provide to the member to write to the member with that information. 3. Michelle Thomson, who is joining us remotely. To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure that the consumer voice is adequately heard in the legal services regulation reform consultation. Public consultation, based on Esther Robertson's recommendations from her independent review of legal services regulation, was published on 1 October, and it will run until 24 December 2021. We have published a summary consultation as well, and that is designed to allow participants, without detailed knowledge of the current framework of regulation, to share their views and their priorities on legal services regulation reform. In parallel, we are undertaking a series of consultation focus groups to increase the opportunity for the public to respond to the consultation either in part or on whole. Details of the consultation have been shared on the Scottish Government's Twitter page, and we continue to engage with stakeholder networks such as Citizens Advice Scotland, Scottish Women's Aid and the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to amplify and to promote the consultation to ensure that we reach a wide audience as possible. The consultation is available on the Scottish Government website if anyone is interested and wants to respond to it. I thank the minister for her response and declare that I am an interested party as I have a current complaint. Section A on potential regulatory models requires strong responses from consumers, and particularly from those such as myself who have direct and recent experience of the current system, at present I believe that it is heavily biased against the consumer's interest. Firstly, will the minister meet me to hear about my experience, and secondly, will the Government issue an urgent call to ensure that consumer voices are heard and not just to lawyers and their representative bodies? I agree. A strong response from consumers, those with lived experience, is very important as ministers consider the reform. I am clear that the future framework should place consumer interests at its heart. I offer assurance to the member that the Scottish Government is actively encouraging consumers to participate in the consultation. We engaged early with the SLCC consumer panel to seek their advice on doing that. I would call on all consumers with an interest to participate in the consultation that I mentioned in my previous answer, and I would be very happy to meet the member to discuss the matter in more detail. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure the dignity, security and wellbeing of Scotland's veteran community. Last year, my predecessor presented to Parliament a response to the UK-wide veteran strategy that set out the commitments that we have made to the veterans community right through to 2028 to improve service delivery and mainstream support. Progress against that is supported through our annual update to Parliament, which I will deliver tomorrow. In addition, Scotland was first within the UK to establish an independent veterans commissioner whose recommendations have assisted and occasionally challenged our work over the last several years and ensured that our wider policies have been developed with views of the veteran sector firmly represented. I thank the cabinet secretary for that response. I welcome that we have doubled the funding for the veterans fund this year. I would like to ask the Scottish Government to elaborate on how interested parties can apply for support from the veterans fund. The application period for next year's Scottish veterans fund is currently open and it closes on Friday 12 November. Interested parties are able to apply for the fund via the Veterans Scotland website. This year, we are particularly welcoming bids that promote collaboration and partnership for amongst and outwith the veterans charitable sector, as well as projects with a focus on early service leavers. I would just mention that we continue to have financial support in this from the company previously known as Aberdeen Asset Management. I am not entirely sure how to pronounce their new name, but that is who they were then. To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to assist veterans in re-adjusting to civilian life. Our response to the veteran strategy sets out our ambition to make Scotland a destination of choice for service leavers and their families. We have made several commitments on how we will support veterans' transition into civilian life. That includes inputting to the MOD's holistic transition policy and working with the defence transition services. The Scottish Veterans Commissioner has also published reports on employability, skills and learning and housing, both focused on transition from military to civilian life. We accepted all of the recommendations in those reports and I have outlined to the Commissioner how we intend to take those forward. I thank the cabinet secretary for his response. I have recently been contacted by a national charity Veterans First, who have highlighted that some veterans struggle to engage with support services, specifically housing services, where there are no veterans or serving officers involved and engaging in their case. What engagement is the Scottish Government having with veterans charities to ensure that the support that we are providing is accessible and fit for purpose for all our veterans? I should say that we fund Housing Options Scotland to provide housing advice and advocacy services to older and to disabled people and that includes support for the military matters project aimed specifically at helping veterans. We also commissioned the Veterans Scotland housing group to develop a pathway to prevent homelessness for veterans. They, of course, as Veterans Scotland, have regular and wide-ranging dialogue and engagement with veterans. That initiative looks at transition from the armed forces and reasons why veterans become homeless many years sometimes after leaving service. The report with its recommendations is due to be published later this year and, furthermore, we continue to fund Veterans Scotland to support their capacity to deliver leadership, communication and co-ordination across the veterans charitable sector. To ask the Scottish Government what impact its revised rules on the use of fireworks have had on anti-social behaviour complaints related to bonfire night. Can I start by paying tribute to the police officers and the firefighters who have responded to incidents of anti-social behaviour around bonfire night this year and to condemn those individuals who chose this occasion to launch attacks on them. The contribution of our emergency services at this time, their planning, their preparation alongside the work of local authorities as well and community safety partners has helped to promote safety and wellbeing in our communities. Initial data from Police Scotland suggests that complaints this year were down on previous years. Over the fourth and fifth of November, calls about fireworks were down by 20 per cent on last year, while calls about fires were down nearly a third. Data from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service reflects a broadly similar experience. That is encouraging. It is likely due to the preventative activity to which I alluded and to several other factors, including the new legislation, which deals with the sale as well as the use of fireworks. I have to say, however, that the level of anti-social behaviour and disruption to our communities remains unacceptable around the time of bonfire night. I am committed to making further progress with the bill that we promised in our programme for government and which we hope to introduce to Parliament shortly. I reiterate the tribute paid by the minister to our emergency services personnel who are responding to complaints over the weekend. I am pleased that the Scottish Government has taken action to restrict the sale and use of fireworks. Bonfire night is normally great fun for families, but for some people, including veterans and people with autism or sensory issues, it can be frightening for them and for animals. I would appreciate if the minister could elaborate more on what the Scottish Government will do now to review those new restrictions and whether more needs to be done alongside the UK Government, who also has responsibility in this area. I share the member's concerns about the vulnerable groups, and that was prominent in our publicity campaigns around bonfire night this year. We are following up with our partner organisations to review the impact of the new restrictions. Initial indications on that are positive, but we understand that more is required and we have a commitment to introduce the bill to implement the firework review group's remaining recommendations. That will be coming forward shortly. As far as the UK Government is concerned, I have to say to the member that I am not that hopeful. When the issue was raised by Patricia Gibson MP, the leader of the House of Commons responded to her by quoting a nursery rhyme and telling us all to stop being killjoys. I do not think that that demonstrates quite what we are looking for. We will use all the powers that are available to us in our bid to change Scotland's culture around fireworks. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on community justice. It is worth saying that sentencing decisions are a matter for the independent courts. However, evidence shows that community sentences are more effective than short custodial sentences, and action continues to be taken to encourage a shift towards more widespread use of community sentences and other interventions where they are appropriate. Our most recent criminal proceedings stats show that 22 per cent of all convictions in 2019-20 resulted in a main penalty of community service. That is the highest proportion over the past 10 years, up from 14 per cent in 2010-11 and from 19 per cent in the previous year's statistics. Of course, there are challenges, not least the impact of the pandemic on capacity to deliver community services, and we welcome recent reports and scrutiny from Audit Scotland, the Scottish Sentencing Council and the Public Audit Committee. In addition to on-going consultation and engagement with stakeholders, those will inform the development of a revised community justice strategy next year and consideration around how best to build on progress over recent years to build further capacity and confidence in effective community-based interventions. I thank the minister for that answer. Research commissioned by the Scottish Sentencing Council found that 77 per cent of the public, believe a first-time offender, caught within decent images of a child should serve a prison sentence. In reality, such offenders are most likely to receive a community payback order, a sentence supported by only 2 per cent of the public, in a system undermined by a Government that let criminals go scot-free by cancelling a quarter of a million hours of community sentences earlier this year.  First of all, just to say that I do not pass sentences, the Government does not do that. The sentences are delivered by the courts in this country, the independent courts in this country. I have just mentioned the fact that community sentences are more effective than the short sentences that he mentions. It is worth mentioning, as I have said to the committee this morning, that more people in the prison sector are spending more time in prison than they have done in recent years. On the subtext of the soft justice approach, to be accused of soft justice, we have 40 per cent more police officers than we do in England and Wales, that we pay them a pay rise that they do not do in England and Wales, that we have the lowest-recorded crime and living memory, that we have the lowest-recorded number of homicides, every one of which was solved, is anything but soft justice in this country. 7. Willie Rennie To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to incorporate the recent HMICS findings in relation to Police Scotland into the on-going response to the independent review into police complaints handling investigations and misconduct issues conducted by Dame Ellish Angelini. Police Scotland's response to the HMICS report is a matter for the chief constable, with a clear role also for the SPA in overseeing the implementation of the recommendations. I am aware, however, that Police Scotland intends to consider those recommendations alongside the work already under way in relation to Dame Ellish's review. The governance and reporting framework that is established by the Scottish Government plays a vital role in overseeing and providing assurance to ministers and ultimately to Parliament on progress towards implementation of Dame Ellish's recommendations across all partners. The Scottish Government published its first thematic progress report on 24 June 2021, which showcased the progress made and work is currently under way to develop the next thematic progress report, which is due for publication by the end of this year. Willie Rennie I am concerned that, a year on from the Angelini report, there are few signs of improvement. There have been more reports of sexism and we have a high proportion of ethnic minority officers leaving way more than other groups. Our research has found that only 1 per cent of top policing jobs are held by people from BAME backgrounds. Officers have little confidence in the leadership of Police Scotland to change. Does the cabinet secretary have more confidence? I have confidence in the senior police officers within Police Scotland to affect change. That is based on quite a number of conversations, meetings and reports that I have had in relation to the area, especially at the very senior level, Deputy Chief Constable level. I am absolutely convinced of the earnest intent of the senior officers. Willie Rennie is right to say that. Neither here nor there, if it does not permeate its way right down through the service, and there are very serious initiatives under way to do that. In relation to the initiatives that I mentioned in Dame Ellish's report, a number of those recommendations have already been implemented. There are some that will require legislation, which will take some more time. For example, barred an advisory list so that we do not employ people in Police Scotland that have come from other police forces, where they have conducted themselves inappropriately. The practice whereby a police officer can behave very badly and then retire their way out of an investigation, we have to legislate for that. I reassure Willie Rennie that I believe that Police Scotland is very serious about that and that the recommendations made by Dame Ellish and the points made by the inspector's report are being taken forward very seriously. In the interests of transparency, will the cabinet secretary reconsider our party's suggestion of an online action tracker so that the public can see exactly what is happening in respect of each of Dame Ellish Angelini's 111 recommendations or not happening as the case may be? In the interests of consensus, I will undertake to look at that suggestion. I am certainly more than happy to give a full account of where we are in relation to all the recommendations, some of which have been taken forward by the SPA, some of which will be taken forward by Police Scotland and some of which rest with the Government. I am happy to give a full account for that, and it may be that the member wants to publish that himself. However, if it is possible to do what he has suggested, then I would undertake to look at that and come back to the member on due course. To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to ensure that both policing by consent and a rights-based approach to policing continue to form the core of policing practice ethos? That is an absolutely fundamental question. I think that the traditions and approach to which the member refers continue to lie at the heart of policing practice and ethos in Scotland. When trust goes, consent can go afterwards as well, so we have to be very keen to make sure that we maintain that trust and consent. The SPA has a responsibility to hold the chief constable's account for policing in Scotland, and, through its board and committee meetings, a series of checks and balances is implemented to ensure that major decisions about the policing of Scotland are made transparently and appropriately. That helps to ensure that Scottish policing is based on public consent in a way that commands respect and builds public trust and confidence. In addition, Her Majesty's inspectorate of Constability in Scotland has wide-ranging statutory powers in its inefficency of Police Scotland and the SPA. If a member wishes to request a supplementary question, he should press the request-to-speak button or indicate so in the chat function by entering the letter R during the relevant question. To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to allocate additional funding in its forthcoming budget to provide pay increase for front-line public sector workers. The Government is currently in the process of developing its budget for next year, and, as agreed with the Finance and Public Administration Committee, I will bring proposals to Parliament on 9 December. We have offered our progressive pay policy over recent years balancing reward and affordability, protecting the most vulnerable and supporting our front-line staffs. I recognise the achievements of our public sector workforce and, accordingly, we will look to retain our fair approach to pay going forward. I thank the cabinet secretary for the reply that true value of social care, despite the low pay that is endemic throughout the sector, has been at the forefront of caring for and protecting our loved ones who have been most vulnerable to Covid-19. Will the Government show that they are serious about investing in social care by delivering an immediate uplift to £12 per hour? The member will know that supporting our front-line workers in the social care sector was a key part of the Cabinet Secretary for Health's announcement just a few weeks ago with financial support. However, I quite agree with the member that we need to continue to recognise their efforts, including with the pay policy. That is why this year's pay policy prioritised support for those who are earning the least and also ensured that all workers in the social care sector are paid at least the living wage. We did all of that despite no consequential funding coming from the UK Government, because of course there was a pay freeze south of the border. To ask the Scottish Government when it will produce consolidated accounts for the whole public sector in Scotland. We are committed to producing additional consolidated public sector accounts covering the devolved public bodies in Scotland. I hope that the member recognises that the pandemic has impacted timescales for the production and the audit of accounts across all sectors. That affects the availability and the timeliness of information for further consolidation. However, an outline plan is being developed with Audit Scotland for a staged approach to produce additional accounts for the 2020-21 financial year. I thank the cabinet secretary for that response, but will she accept that this was promised to Parliament and the people back in 2016? It was then promised during 2018, then by March 2019, then in November 2019 it was promised in due course. By February this year, we were told that it was no longer possible to set out a timetable at all. Will the cabinet secretary accept that this is about public transparency and trust? It is about good government, open government, good democracy, open democracy. Why can't the cabinet secretary set out a timetable? When will the cabinet secretary finally address this breach of promise to Parliament and to the people and publish these whole government accounts? We already comply with all financial reporting and auditing requirements, and we are committed to developing the financial reporting to support the transparency that the member tops of. However, it is recognised by the Auditor General and by Audit Scotland that this is a complex task and that work has been done to make progress to date. The member asks for a timetable, so the first stage will be a draft account covering the Scottish Administration and reflecting the wider composition of the Scottish budget as authorised by Parliament. The aim is for that to be audited and finalised by spring 2022, and that will be followed by further work in summer 2022 to develop the wider output, including local authorities. We want to minimise the burden on public bodies. The member will know the pressures that have been on all public bodies during the pandemic. Most people understand that this is a complex issue, requiring time and capacity from all members of the Scottish public sector. Thank you, Presiding Officer, to ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting the economy of the north-east in terms of a just transition from workers away from oil and gas. This question is being responded to by Richard Lochhead, who is joining us remotely. The Scottish Government is committed to producing sectorial and regional just transition plans, and this year's programme for government includes a commitment to develop our first just transition plan for the energy sector alongside a refreshed energy strategy. We will work with communities and with those who are most impacted across Scotland, including our very highly skilled oil and gas workforce, to co-design that plan. We will also support our planning process by taking forward a 10-year, £500 million just transition fund to the north-east and Murray. Gillian Martin, I thank the minister for that answer. He will know that many of the routes to certification and accreditation for oil and gas workers over the decades have been through private companies. In the past, employers have largely picked up the tab for this training, but many workers are looking to transition into other low-emission energy sectors. Tell me that they are having to find the money themselves to retrain, and for many of these sums are simply not affordable. I would like to ask the minister what routes have been investigated using publicly funded institutions like North East Scotland College to deliver training using the expertise that they have and how the Government could support them to quickly develop courses that are accessible to people who cannot be available during the working day and need a flexibility of offer. I thank Gillian Martin for highlighting what is a crucial issue about the just transition. We are working with north-east Scotland organisations who, in turn, are working with local further and higher education institutions to make sure that the right skills are available for people who are moving out of fossil fuel sectors and into decarbonised industries. Gillian Martin will be aware that the Tribune Skills Minister is also working up proposals for a skills guarantee. We are also working with the Energy Skills Alliance, which is a newly created and cross-energy collaboration group that has been established to develop an integrated skills strategy for a net zero energy sector. One of its work streams is focusing on the development of all-energy training and standards, which will assess the fairability of skills to ensure that the workforce skills that we require are there and that people can move easily across. We are working with a number of publicly funded organisations and the further and higher education sector on this important issue. As part of the fair and managed transition to renewable energy, does the minister welcome the North Sea transitions deals? The joint government and oil and gas sector investment have up to £16 billion to reduce carbon emissions by 2030. Of course, the Scottish Government is taking action and the UK Government is as well, which we welcome. The Scottish Government has also announced, as I mentioned in response to Gillian Martin, a £500 million transition fund for the north-east and Murray over the next 10 years, and we have asked the UK Government to match that. I hope that the member will support our appeal to the UK Government to match that as well, because it is a very important issue to make sure that there are good green jobs available for people in fossil fuels as we go through the transition in the coming decades. Question number four, not lodged. Question number five, Martin Whitfield. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle the employment gap for disabled people in light of the reported findings from the annual population survey 2020-21 that the employment rate for disabled people was 47.4 per cent, which was lower than that for non-disabled people. Minister Richard Lochhead. In a fairer Scotland for disabled people employment action plan published back in 2018, we committed to half the employment gap between disabled people and the rest of the working population by 2038. We are making early progress towards that. Support for disabled workers is a key element of our employability programme, such as no one left behind, and young persons guarantee and also fair staff Scotland. Working with disabled people's organisations and others, we are undertaking a refresh of the action plan due to be published in spring 2022. I am grateful to the minister for that response, yet the scheme's third annual report revealed that the FSS did not reach as many people with disabilities and health conditions as he set out that it would. It is simply not good enough. So why are the Scottish Government failing to support so many disabled people into employment through the fair start Scotland, as was intended? First start Scotland is delivering for people with a variety of circumstances and backgrounds, and there was recently an evaluation report of that. In terms of support for disabled people, clearly disabled people like many other people in our society have been impacted by Covid over the past year or two, and we are still trying to analyse exactly the scale of that impact. However, as I said to the member, this is a really important issue. Disabled people have got a lot to contribute to their economy and should be given the opportunity to work. As we refresh our action plan, we will take into account all our experience of this issue and lessons learned in the last couple of years, particularly given the impact of Covid. It is vital that we press ahead with work to remove and reduce barriers that prevent disabled people from benefiting from our economic recovery. Can the minister provide an update on the Scottish Government's latest assessment of the disability pay gap, and can he provide any further information as to what further action can be taken by the Scottish Government to help to reduce the gap? In terms of the pay gap, on average, rates of pay are lower for disabled people than non-disabled people across the whole of the UK. In 2019, the median hour will pay for disabled people in Scotland was 16.5 per cent lower than for non-disabled people. As I said, we are refreshing our fairer Scotland for disabled people employment action plan to be published in 2022. Later this year, we will also consult on proposals to expand the existing duties on public authorities to publish information on their gender pay gaps to include reporting on disability and ethnicity pay gaps to a review of the operation of the public sector equality duty in Scotland. We are taking a number of measures to tackle the barriers that many people in our society, particularly disabled people, face. Question 6. Maggie Chapman, who is joining us remotely. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress with the support available for co-operatives for the transition to a new economy. Minister Richard Lochhead. Co-operative business models can play a critical role in economic recovery, supporting the Scottish Government's aim to be a fairer, stronger and more democratic country and economy, and we will continue to work through co-operative development Scotland and the enterprise agencies to support growth of co-operative and other alternative business models. We will set out how we will provide tailored support for businesses with alternative ownership models, including co-operatives and social enterprises, with a view to increasing the representation in the Scottish economy. That includes considering how support for such models can be brought into mainstream activity to ensure more values-led outcomes. Maggie Chapman. I thank the minister for that response. Across many sectors from agriculture to energy, there is a recognition that inclusive and efficient co-operatives and producer organisations can play a key role in supporting small businesses and marginalised groups, including women and young people. They empower their members economically and socially and to create sustainable employment through business models that are resilient to economic and environmental shocks. There are significant opportunities here, especially in rural and periurban areas for such models, in short food supply chains, housing, energy production, tourism and others. Can the minister provide a little more detail specifically on the funding and financing options, including tax releases for co-operatives across different sectors, and what timescale we might be looking at for those? Thank you. As Maggie Chapman just outlined, that is an issue that is very aligned with the Scottish Government's fair work agenda, but it is important to say that, since its inception, co-operative development Scotland services have been delivered by Scottish Enterprise, support business growth across Scotland and assisting the creation of more co-ops and employee-owned businesses. That work includes the promotion of the co-operative model, the direct provision of business advice, particularly the start-up co-ops, and the provision of training in co-operative business skills as well. In terms of the financial incentives and tax incentives, clearly we have very limited opportunities for that in Scotland. However, if the member wishes to write to me, I will certainly speak to finance colleagues and explore what is in places now, what more might be possible. To ask the Scottish Government how the enterprise agencies support economic growth in Ershire. Will our economic recovery implementation plan committed Scottish Enterprise to work intensively with partners in Ershire to support economic recovery across the region? Last year, Scottish Enterprise spent just over £16 million in Ershire, taking into account Covid support grants. It is also contributing to projects being delivered under the Ershire growth deal and working with local authorities and business gateway to produce regional business support plans and to support regional company growth pilots. The agency continues to offer expertise and investment in strategic sites such as the Halo Enterprise and the Innovation Centre in Kilmarnock. I could go on, but in the interests of time, I will draw my comments to our close there. As she knows, Ershire still trails behind the rest of Scotland when it comes to employment figures and is one of three areas identified by the Scottish Government requiring the most support for economic recovery. Could the cabinet secretary outline what progress has been made towards identifying and supporting the important regional company growth pilots? It is a hugely important question. Just for context, it is worth noting that, over the last decade alone, Scottish Enterprise has supported 37 inward investment projects in Ershire, creating 2,330 jobs. A joint operational team involving the three Ershire councils and Scottish Enterprise has been established to develop an integrated and consistent company support landscape. It has a number of priority areas that would include community wealth building to promote local procurement, fair work and climate action, support to local businesses to implement digital transformation projects, which I know is an interest close to Willie Coffey's heart, and targeted grant funding through the Ershire Food and Drink Productivity Fund to support Ershire companies to deliver productivity improvements that result in automation and reduce carbon emissions. Understandably, all key players involved in the development of the growth pilots and regional business support plans have, over the past year, focused their efforts on delivering Covid support, but we now know that businesses and organisations are increasingly focused on economic recovery. To ask the Scottish Government what recent changes it has made to its public procurement policies, including as a result of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee report on its inquiry into construction and procurement of ferry vessels in Scotland. Will any changes to procurement policy over the last year have focused largely around Covid and driving more social, economic outcomes and best practice? Any changes to Scottish procurement policy notes and construction policy notes are published on our website. Those policy changes bear no correlation to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee report on its inquiry into construction and procurement of ferry vessels in Scotland, so there have been no recent changes to procurement legislation. Jamie Halcro Johnston I normally thank the cabinet secretary for that answer, but I'm slightly disappointed to hear that. The cabinet secretary will know well that these issues just aren't about the waste of millions of pounds of public money. They are examples of communities losing out on vital lifeline services. The problems at Ferguson Marine are on-going, but we know too that Scotland has an aging ferry fleet, one that will need not only maintenance but also serious investment in replacement vessels in the coming years. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that lessons will be learned and that the failures that we have seen most notably in relation to the ferry still lying unfinished at Ferguson Marine cannot and will not happen again? I do understand the sentiment behind Jamie Halcro Johnston's question. CMAW, which is the procuring authority for new vessels, operates under the Utilities Contract Scotland Regulations 2016, which serves the same purpose as Public Contract Scotland Regulations 2015, and it also complies with the statutory and legislative requirements that are derived from the Procurement Reform Scotland Act 2014. However, in a direct answer to Jamie Halcro Johnston's question, CMAW continues to employ more robust processes following lessons learned in previous projects and output from the Wreck Committee, including employing a ship broker early in the process to provide greater understanding of the market, enhancing the level of evidence required from bidders around finance, refunds and technical abilities, and undertaking site visits at ITT stage. I hope that that gives the member some reassurance that lessons have been learned and are being learned. Thank you, cabinet secretary. That concludes portfolio questions. There will be a very short pause before we move on to the next item of business.