Felly, wrth gyrfa ychydig i'r 15 ym 50 yma i'r 2018 o'r ymgyrchu cyflwyngau cyllid yn y Llanreform Cymru. Mae gwyllgor i'r gyllid yw Gil Partyson, ac mae gweithio i fel Joe McAlpine i'r gynhyrchu'r cyflwngau. Felly, mae'n rydyn ni'n ddweud i'r ffordd i'r ystafell i'r gynnwys i'r agenda. Rydyn ni'n rhaid i'r cyflwyngau ddydd i'r ddawn fwy o'r ffordd o'r ddydd bobl yn cael ei ddefnyddiadau, oedd ddiddordeb wasnfodol. The first item on the agenda is for the committee to consider whether to take items five and six in private. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The second item on the agenda is for the committee to consider whether to consider evidence, draft correspondence and draft reports on its inquiry into the EU environmental and animal o'r fawr hwn cyfwysig, canllun a'r fawr hwn? Felly, wnaeth gyda'r amser eich welfawr? Hastur? Wnaeth ymddangos cyfrifol hwn yn cyfwysig y bydd o'r ond ymddangos cyfrifol mwy o agodaeth ac ymddangos fawr hwn o mas заib y cyfrifol, ac mae'r unig iawn yn gweithio i gyflwyngu yma. Dwi'n diwethaf i gael eu hunain i gyllid yn gweithio i fawr hwn, ac mae'r p citizen i gymryd i gael eu chynch cyfrifol yn cymaint mwy o gyddiannol i gael eich gweithio i Mark Ruskell, convener, and good morning to the panel. Can I ask a question to kick things off about the principle of animal sentience? I'm aware that there's the UK Bill, the Animal Welfare Sentencing and Recognition of Sentience Bill, and that there's been discussions between the UK and Scottish Governments about the provision of sentience in that bill and how that will apply to our own lords. Can you give me an update on whether the negotiations and discussions are on that, please? Yes. This isn't an issue that, at this point with the DEFRA DA meetings, it's not an issue that has been discussed at a kind of ministerial level. It has been discussed extensively at level of officials in respect of what it means. It's driven by this House of Lords committee, the original discussion. I think it's fair to say that it really came as a result of what the House of Lords were wanting to amend into the UK withdrawal bill, so it's come from a rather roundabout way. As I think the member probably knows, and as I've said before in the chamber, there is pre-existing Scottish legislation that touches on this, although it doesn't use the word sentience because I think sentience is more a modern understanding of that. There is legislation, there is existing legislation, without that explicit statement, although all Scottish animal welfare legislation continues to be based on the recognition that vertebrate animals can experience suffering. I think that it's such a fundamental part of animal science that it probably doesn't need much elaboration. What's happening with regard to the UK as opposed to the Scottish position is that I suppose what we are trying to do is make sure that we have a clear understanding of the difference between a scientific concept of sentience, which is going to be a very particular thing, although we believe that that's already recognised in Scots law and an obligation on Governments to recognise welfare requirements of those animals when we're developing policy and legislation. There's a slightly different emphasis for that, so we think that the actual understanding of sentience is already there. The issue might be the extent to which it is then imported into law explicitly or implicitly, and that is where most of this debate has landed in reality. From our position, we accept that there should be obligations on Scottish ministers to consider animal welfare needs in developing policy to that which may apply to UK Government ministers in the future, but we are not in control of that aspect of it, because that comes out of the treaty for the functioning of the European Union. That arose more specifically here because of the continuity bill and the relationship with where we are leaving the EU. A lot of those are still questions and discussions that are on-going, and we're not 100 per cent clear quite what the UK is intending to do at this point. We've adopted the principle idea and the continuity bill, and we now need to think about how that is taken forward. That's about importing the obligation to have regard to those things rather than the actual issue of sentience itself, which we feel is already embedded in Scots law. Okay, so from what I'm hearing then, the intention is to make it more explicit into law. That could be done through the Westminster Bill. Is it an intention to also bring elements of that provision into Scots law, as well as to strengthen what we already have? Well, I think if there was a Westminster bill and an LCM in effect, you wouldn't be separately doing it in Scots law. If that was a route that was chosen, you wouldn't be doing both, if you see what I mean. That one would supersede the other. We are, as I said in principle, I think that there should be the obligation following on from Brexit that currently exists under the EU setup. There are different ways to do it. Our continuity legislation would do it, a future UK bill with an LCM could do it, but if we thought that either of those routes weren't actually achieving it, we would have to consider whether more specific Scottish legislation is required. That's where it is at the moment. It's still a live, on-going discussion. Given that there are a range of different animal welfare legislative proposals coming from the Scottish Government, is it your intention to bring that together into a single bill or to continue to take piecemeal approach to dealing with? No, we have not made a commitment to try and bring it all into a single bill. That would be a fairly hefty undertaking and it would not be something that could be done easily or indeed within the lifetime of this Parliament, given that we've now got secondary legislation as well. Take it that there isn't a difference between the Scottish Government's approach to animal sentience and welfare and the UK Government's. We've seen quite a different tone in relation to animal exports, live animal exports, so are you adopting the same approach to animal welfare and sentience effectively as a Westminster Government? Well, insofar as we know what the Westminster Government is intending to do, we presume so, but at the moment I don't think we have enough actual detail. This is an amendment that came out of a House of Lords discussion. As I indicated, we're not actually having ministerial level discussions about animal welfare. There are some things happening at a UK level. There's a different programme of animal welfare stuff going on in Scotland. This is about continuing the obligations that we currently have under the EU. We would want to ensure that that did continue, so we'd have to look at anything that the UK Government did that would have to fit with that, and then decide whether or not an LCM in those circumstances is appropriate, or would we want to find a different legislative vehicle that was a specifically Scottish one? I mean, there are issues. The existence of Scots law and the body of Scots law and case law and all the rest of it does mean that one has to look quite carefully at that. Move on to environmental principles. Stuart Stevenson. Sorry, can I just ask if Andrew Volk's can now leave? Of course, can't exactly. I've got a chunky bit of stuff I want to ask, and I'll just ask it all in a one-up to simplify, which may require somebody to take notes. Basically, I'm looking to establish what role environmental principles will have in the way that we both develop policy and construct legislation. I'm really looking to see how environmental principles will be essential to maintaining Scotland's environmental achievements. Of course, I'm recognising that the continuity bill makes some reference to this. The other two things are just simply what advice the round table environment climate change has provided in that context. Will there be a report published? Finally, in practice, what difference between the EU-derived domestic legislation when it incorporates environmental principles and other bits of our environmental legislation that don't make any explicit reference? There's a fair queen there, but I just thought it would be useful, because then that allows the cabinet secretary to answer it in whatever order you choose to do so. I did see some notes being written. Very dangerous to just give such an open-ended question. I've been making it clear since the get-go, after the referendum on Brexit, that, in my view, we wanted to continue to adopt the environmental principles and make sure that that was continuing to form the basis of what we were doing in Scotland as we already had under the EU. I didn't then, and I don't now, envisage any departure from what we were already obliged to do under the EU. My concern is to ensure that that is made safe for Scotland in whatever way that might be. I've been saying that, making very explicit commitments along those lines. There was a slight nuancing of that about a year in when, after some conversations, we wanted to make more explicit that that being concerned not to depart from those environmental principles as embedded in the EU, that we would also be looking to continue to track what the EU is doing in respect of environmental issues. In terms of specifics, we wanted to continue to do that, in terms of ensuring that there were set, agreed, fundamental principles. I've been making very explicit overt commitments now for almost two years. It's culminated in the discussions around the continuity bill and what we're seeing in terms of another debate with the withdrawal bill and all the rest of it, that we should find a way of legislating those principles into Scots law. I think that it is important that we do so because I feel that. There's obviously a discussion to be had about it and I know that there will be stakeholders who will perhaps have some different ideas about the consultation. The way that we've been looking at it is legislating for something that we currently have as part of our legislative superstructure by virtue of being in the EU, but perhaps there might be a need to be more explicit about it legislatively. There are, of course, as this committee will know issues when you begin to talk about embedding something in legislation. There are complicated discussions about definitions, about how robust a definition will be if you hold it up in terms of putting it into legislation. I know that there's a discussion around whether there are other ways to do it. I'm committed to those environmental principles having a fundamental role in continuing to do so in Scotland, ensuring that they are part of what we do, ensuring that they continue to sit at the heart of our approach, regardless of our relationship with the EU in the future. It's really about the best way of taking that forward. Legislating for it is not an easy process. I've already referred to some of the challenges that there would be around some of it, so there are discussions that need to be talked about. I don't know if that deals with the role part. Can I attempt to play back to you a summary of what I've taken from that? What I've heard is that if there's a lacuna in the law, because European law ceases to apply and we haven't yet legislated, the environmental principles that are currently derived from the EU will continue to inform the way that the Government draws both acts at secondary level under existing legislation, etc. Beyond that, it is the intention to find an appropriate way to incorporate that into the law that affects Scotland. That's the two bits that I've taken from that. I think that's a reasonable summary. I don't think that that's misrepresenting anything. The issue of the timing of it is, at the moment, we don't really know, so there may require to be an earlier iteration. I'm maybe getting this wrong and sometimes when I read so much stuff, I pick up things and it's not exactly on point, but I think that there is a discussion at the UK level about a national policy framework, rather than an actual legislative vehicle. Kate's looking a bit puzzled, but I seem to have read so much stuff. That might have to be an interim position. There might be a positioning that we would have to do interim, because legislation, as everybody knows, doesn't happen overnight. Legislating for this would be quite a significant undertaking again. We would have to know how we were fixing any interim period. Can I take you back to one thing that you haven't made a direct reference to, which I put in my questions? That's the role of the round table on the environmental climate change in relation to environmental principles. Has that a role here? Is that helping, and will that continue to help, presumably in advance of any legislation? Clearly, you're indicating to us that there is certainly not time table at this stage. The role of the round table is important. It's given us a reasonable amount of advice in relation to principles and to potential governance. The draft report had only just gotten into my hands the day before my last appearance before my last appearance, and they are still finalising some of that. That's an on-going piece of work, but the round table, we expect to continue in being for some considerable time to be able to give us some of this useful advice. How, cabinet secretary, will Parliament see the outcomes of the round table? We intend to publish. The report was in draft form on 19 March. The final report will be published. People will get to see that. It may be of interest to the committee for a future committee meeting to have a look at some of that. I can elaborate on the areas of advice that the round table has flagged up. It is in the process of finalising advice on monitoring, measuring and reporting of environmental data and on the implementation of environmental law. It is going to be providing advice on scrutiny of reports, preparation of independent assessments and reports, examining environmental compliance and progress. It is looking at the initiation of investigations, cross-cutting studies and reports. It is looking at mechanisms for individuals or organisations to make complaints regarding the application of environmental law. It is looking at mechanisms to seek solutions to concerns about the implementation of environmental law through interaction with government. It is looking at powers to refer a public body to some kind of court or other group for alleged failure of implementation. It is looking at powers to order interim measures to prevent irreversible damage before judgment is handed down and powers to require government to take action to bring it into compliance with the power to impose sanctions if action is taken. Those are all the areas that it is looking at. The final detail advice in all those areas will be part of what is published with the round table. There is a fact-checking process going on at the moment across the whole of government as well as the round table in terms of that draft report. I need to flag up. It is important to say that some of what the round table is looking at will very much cross over out of this portfolio responsibility and into justice portfolio responsibilities. It is not simply going to be just for one committee or one portfolio. It is quite a complex piece of work. My guess is that it will be regarded as a starting point rather than an end point, but we are actually looking very closely and we have asked them to look quite closely at that. That is all the work that they are doing. That is what they are considering giving advice on. That is what you can expect to see discussed when the final report is published. Those are not recommendations, but the more specific areas that they are looking at. It is. Do you have any indication as to when we might expect such a report to be published? The draft is already there. I do not think that it is going to be before summer. Aiming for the end of the month? It is not far. It is not going to be held off until. It will be in a sense that our commitment to consult, which I think runs out somewhere around about September, October, in terms of timescale with the indications in the continuity bill, that the round table report will in effect be part of that rather than sitting separately and appearing at the last minute. I want to go back to some of the responses that you gave a little bit earlier. In February, Michael Gove committed to putting the environmental principle in a policy statement to ensure that environmental principles continue to be set out in a single place. After our call for evidence, a number of respondents also suggested that it was important that a similar approach was taken across the UK to ensure consistency. Does the Scottish Government consider that there should be a UK-wide approach to environmental principles and law across the UK to ensure consistency? I think that, obviously, it would be helpful if we were all singing from the same hym sheet, but environmental policy is devolved, so we will be making our own decisions. It is interesting that Michael Gove gave a commitment to a national policy statement, not to legislation. We are looking at something that might be stronger than that. You could argue that the two years' worth of explicit commitments that I have given are effectively a national policy statement. We have not framed it in that way, but it could easily be done in fairly short order. From our perspective, we are not just wanting to look at a national policy statement as being the way forward, but perhaps to be even more explicit about potentially legislating. I made a fleeting reference to an interim and a longer term issue. Potentially, the national policy statement idea is a shorter term, while we look at whether legislation is a manageable thing to do in that regard. As long as the principles are seen as the least that we can do, the basic fundamentals of it all, I do not want to be held back in any way in Scotland so we would want to continue to have the freedom to make stronger environmental statements if we wanted to. There is a bit of a discussion going on initially between ourselves and Wales on agreeing principles. There is an on-going conversation with the UK Government about what that might look like. We initiated that discussion, but that is not finalised yet. I do not want to be stuck with that. As is always the case, it ends up with discussions about specific phrases and what those things mean. As the committee knows, that is often what happens. You end up in a slightly more protected conversation than perhaps was originally envisaged. Do you have any further questions? Thank you very much. I will take you back to environmental principles and international law. What would be the effect of relying on the inclusion of environmental principles in international law post-Brexit? The UK is currently signed up to a considerable number of international environmental agreements. I am not sure what the specific number is, but I know that it is over 40. They range from climate change, wildlife and habitat protection, waste, air pollution and so on. Those international environmental agreements will continue to provide a strong framework for Scotland, because they do not fly off after Brexit. They continue to provide some of the superstructure that we are talking about. I am of the view that we should continue to do what we currently do in Scotland, which is to both collaborate and demonstrate leadership on the international stage. We work quite hard at some of that international engagement at the moment. We very much want the UK to continue to remain party to all those international environmental agreements even after Brexit. One of the things that we have to do is to look at a potential gap between EU law and international law. That is where the environmental principles will have a particularly strong impact. Those environmental principles are not just coming from the EU. They are fairly well internationally understood. They are an international language that countries choose to adopt to allow that sense that we are all coming from the same place when we are talking about that. I think that they continue to be extremely important, but we continue to have to look very carefully at this bit of what might be a different gap, which is the gap between the EU and the international setup. In the marine environment, we have international obligations that are not tied through or solely come from being a member of the EU. They are bigger and broader than that. That is our look at international obligations, but we already have a fair amount of engagement directly from Scotland with those international groups and thinking about our international obligations. We want to be able to continue to do that. I am just reverting back to putting environmental principles onto a statutory footing. I dare say that you have seen the evidence and most of the evidence agreed that environmental principles should be put in a statutory footing in Scots law. The law society was slightly more circumspect about that, suggesting that, instead, the principles could be included in a Scottish Government policy statement. Do you see that evidence? I understand that. I understand where lawyers will be coming from. It is a constant discussion, debate and tension, not just in committees but in the chamber, about the minute you move to put something into legislation. There is a very big discussion and onus on you to try to ensure that the words that you use in legislation mean what they say they mean and are understood to mean that when you move away from legislation, perhaps when you end up in court or wherever. I suspect that what the law society might be concerned about, although it does not necessarily use that language and I do not want to be presuming to speak for it, but it is the difference between legislation and aspiration and legislation and actuality. So, legislating an aspiration is fine in theory. In practice, legislation is about concrete realities and actual, potentially actionable issues and things like that. An aspiration does not fit as easily into that. Again, I do not want to put words into Michael Gove's mouth, but maybe why he is opted for the national policy statement idea rather than legislation. However, I do not want to rule out legislation. Clearly, if we were going to go down that road, there would have to be some very careful discussions had with, among others, the law society. However, the committee knows very well from experience, once you begin to start to try to define things, how much harder it actually is in practice than you imagine it is going to be. I think that the law society always provides a caveat for us to ensure that we understand that going forward. You are not dismissing it at any rate. I would never dismiss what the law society had to say. As a lawyer, I have a fundamental understanding of where they are coming from. I think that that has really covered the other questions that I have already been covered in that you intend to be there. However, there has been a suggestion that it must have regard to what would perhaps be a way forward of incorporating or creating new legislation, but it must have regard to those principles and would also be another way forward. That is something that, from what you are saying, the whole thing is still in quarks. It is. To a certain extent, I do not want to prejudge a consultation. There is a pretty reasonable-sized debate to be had about some of that. There is potentially, even if you were choosing to go forward for legislation, that will not happen in the very near future. That will take a fair amount of time to bring to Parliament. You would probably want to do something in any case in the interim period. There is a lot to discuss there. You would need to be very careful that what you did was the right thing. You have concerns about enshrining one principle and perhaps not another and any apprehensions over that. Do you think that you need a hierarchy of principles? I think that we see the four principles as being pretty much as I do not think that we can start dropping one or two or three of these and enshrining one legislatively and picking up the other. I do not think that that would work. We treat them, I think, as a whole rather than as an individual. I have not seen them anywhere, and I have never viewed them as having some kind of hierarchical status, as if they were within the four or some kind of ranking. I do not see that. Forgive me, I was not meaning that, but I was meaning enshrining environmental principles as opposed to other principles that come from Europe. That would be part of a conversation that might be had because there are a great many other principles. That is back to the utility of legislation for legislating for something that was perhaps seen by many people as more aspirational. There is a big area in between those two endpoints. Those would include some solidarity and proportionality, for example. I am talking about environmental principles. If there was to be a discussion about trying to legislate or make some kind of formal reference to other EU principles that were not environmental principles, I think that you would need to be speaking to other cabinet secretaries about that. Donald Cameron. Mr Stewart Simpson touched on that. I was wondering if you had any concerns about a difference opening up between EU-derived legislation that incorporates environmental principles and other Scottish environmental legislation in the past that is currently enforced that doesn't. You mean that it predates that? Yes. That would then speak to some kind of consolidation in the future, I suppose, which is a huge undertaking. We would need to perhaps look at how that might be managed. I suppose that you could find a way to try and reach out to pull that in, but we are where we are, to a certain extent, with some of that. It goes back to the question that Mark Ruskell asked about animal welfare only in an even bigger context because that kind of consolidation, if anybody has ever been involved in or had to have any relationship with trying to do a piece of consolidated legislation, would not be an easy process. That would really be quite a long-term process. It is an interesting question, though, and I think that it is one that we will need to reflect on. Before we leave the issue of principles, cabinet secretary, I hear what you say about how complex all of this is, but can I add to the complexity by asking another question? Has any thought been given as to whether a non-regression principle might be required post-Brexit? I saw a reference to what we talked about. It looked like there was another four principles lurking around that might be added to it. In fairness for dealing with the situation that we are currently in, our priority has to be to find a way to ensure that post-Brexit we have Scotland committed to the existing four principles. There may be a longer discussion, a bigger piece of work to be done that talks about other potential environmental principles, but I think that for the sake of achieving what we need to achieve in the timescale that we need to achieve it, we have not really given detailed consideration to adding other things to it. We are looking at the four environmental principles that everybody understands at present, and they are the ones that prevail. Can I turn to how the principles relate to trade and trade policy across the UK? I think that we have had some interesting evidence on that. We have had some witnesses that suggest that the incorporation of the principles into Scots law would effectively provide a backstop to any deregulation around food standards or the environment, for example. We have also had some evidence last week that suggested that the principles on their own are actually too broad and that in the negotiation of any trade deal between the US and the UK, the interpretation of the precautionary principle may be very different. I am just wondering where you see the environmental principles set in any kind of international trade deal and what discussions there have been, if any, with the UK Government on that. Well, the issues around trade have been part of live discussions for a considerable period of time, so we are not blind to some of what might be raised under that. Environmental protections are key aspects of trade policy, but they will have been so. Every EU trade deal that has been done will have had an active conversation about that, and some of the potential trade deals have been an extremely controversial aspect of those trade deals. I would be naive to assume that that will not continue to be the case. There is an issue about—I guess—where are we just now? We are going to lose the superstructure of EU law that embeds those four principles that we have been discussing. We want to try to find a way to ensure that Scotland continues to have those as part and parcel of what we do, but by doing that we are not effectively moving beyond what already is the situation in the EU, so we are continuing what we are trying to do and what I have explicitly said is that we will continue to have those as effectively—I think that you used the word backstop—but would that necessarily mean that there will not be debates? I could not possibly say that that would be the case because there have been debates all the time that the EU has negotiated trade agreements. In the original Scotland's Place in Europe publication, we set out the need for high environmental standards and robust regulations, not just for businesses but for our citizens as well. That would continue to be where we would want to be, but I think that most members here will be aware that that constitutes some of the discussion that is on-going about the now list of 153 powers where there is an argument about competency and where competency lies. It is a fairly lively political debate, the extent to which Scotland's environmental laws would, in the future, be able to be stood by in Scotland or not. That is a conversation that is happening at a number of different levels, I think, as the member is probably aware of. Do you have particular views on how a trade deal could be scrutinised in relation to environmental principles? You seem to be suggesting that there would be some considerable uncertainty and perhaps some areas of public alarm as well around the contents of trade deals. All that I am doing is pointing out that every trade deal that the EU has done has had with it partly a conversation around issues such as that some have been more controversial than others. The existence of the four principles as being fundamentally part of what you do does not somehow magically whisk away any debates around trade deals. I do not suppose for one single minute that that would not continue to be the case. Supposing Scotland does what we want to do in relation to the four environmental principles, supposing there is no effectively Westminster override, supposing that still is not going to make controversy disappear. I suppose that at the end of the day it depends on who gets the final word on it. Could a trade deal at UK level prevent the EU principles being placed into Scott's law? Could it act as a block? Is that something that you foresee or not? I would be astonished if there was any attempt to stop us putting the principles into law in every way that we decide to do it in Scotland, whether it is a national policy statement or by actual legislation. The arguments around the application of those principles would be what happened in relation to the trade deal. I am probably fairly confident in saying that I will be unlikely to be invited to sit around the table at any discussions of a negotiation of those trade deals. Are you having enough? Are you trying to be realistic about this? Mark Ruskell's last question is that is there a threat or a risk that the adoption of more stringent environmental principles and regulations into Scott's law that this could limit Scotland's ability to compete in a level playing field? I think that the point about the UK in a trade deal is that it depends on where you want to put the level playing field. If the level playing field is that we toss all our environmental regulation and principles out the window then frankly that is nowhere I want to be. We are going to have a discussion about what the level playing field means. That is a bigger question. I think that the four principles that we are talking about are pretty widely understood internationally globally. Those are not things that we have dreamed up just in the last year or two. They are things that have already been part and parcel of every negotiation that the EU has ever done. I am not blind to the fact that it is an irritation to some other countries that the EU has stuck quite tightly to these. There may be an attempt to remove some of their application but I think that that would be something that we would want to resist. The point about those environmental principles is that they are pretty fundamental, pretty widely understood, part of the international language and understanding of how we should proceed. I would very much hope that any trade deal that is struck in the future will continue to have those as part of what they are discussing. I should declare an interest at a farmer. I do not suppose that I am not concerned about the principles. It is the granular detail of it, such as GM crops and how that might work against Scotland's ability to compete in international trade deals, for example, if other countries are using GM crops and we are at naught. The last 10 years or so of Scotland's food and drink are an absolutely huge increase in exports. The thriving premium business that we do, selling on a very strong image of Scotland, suggests quite the opposite. I would like to move on to enforcement. It is obviously important that enforcement mechanisms are introduced to ensure compliance with the principles when and if they are incorporated into Scottish law. What consideration has the Government given to enforcement and dispute resolution mechanisms? I have already outlined what the round table is giving us advice on, and it is very much on point with that. That is in the main area that they have been looking quite hard at, whether they will try to give us formal recommendations or simply give us a suite of potential solutions. I cannot say that I do not know what Ian Jordan is. You are perhaps a little bit more intimately involved in that. That is very much the area in which they are working. I just need to flag up what I said earlier. Some of the proposals are likely not to be for this portfolio to decide. They may be for a different portfolio to decide. The round table report essentially sets out options for plugging any potential gaps in governance. It does not recommend what the right answer is. It is important, because we come back to the consultation that we have committed to on the principles and on governance. We try not to prejudge the outcome of that, so there will likely be a range of potential options. I understand some of them, but I am quite clear in my mind that the consultation on governance will have to include justice colleagues as well, which slightly complicates things. It is not just then for us to look at. That is why there has to be some work being done with other cabinet colleagues on the specifics of that. I think that detailed questions about some of those will have to wait until we have a final indication from the round table as to what they see as potential options and over what timescale some of those might be manageable. Alongside the round table, have you had any discussions of the UK Government regarding a UK-wide enforcement body? Environmental policy is devolved to Wales and to Scotland. We are, of course, aware and have had some conversations about the UK Government's own potential consultation. I know that they have not yet published any consultation on environmental governance, although I guess it must surely be reasonably imminent, but their proposed consultation document is for England only, not for the rest of the UK, precisely for that reason. There may be some merit in having some conversations in respect of certain things, but it comes back to the basis on which the decisions are taken and the understanding that environmental policy is devolved. There are two other legislatures who have concerns about what might be the way forward and each quite different. Although Wales and Scotland have been having discussions, the Welsh situation is quite different to ours. Some colleagues have further detailed questions. First, Claudia Beamish and then Richard Lyle. Thank you, convener, and good morning, cabinet secretary and to the panel. I appreciate the points that you have already made, cabinet secretary, and the importance of highlighting to us that the justice portfolio will be involved in discussions going forward and also the significance of the round table in terms of assessment of legal aspects of enforcement and compliance. I wonder if you could give us any sense of discussions that are taking place as appropriate with the justice, cabinet secretary, but also more widely on the possibilities of enforcement and compliance being done within Scotland, as you have highlighted already. Environment is a devolved area. If you mean more widely across Government, what independent body might relate to the Scottish Government, such as the Commission in Europe, or some form of body— In a sense, that is what the round table is. I am asking you if you could give us any enlightenment not what the round table is doing, but what the Scottish Government has thought so far. Will that help us in our deliberations? The principle piece of work has been instructed by Government via the round table, so I am waiting on that final publication. We have said that we are consulting on that. When we see the range of options that the round table indicates to us that they think is appropriate, we will consider whether or not we think that some of them are more manageable than others, but that is where most of the work has gone. I have had discussions with others. I have had discussions with some of the ENGOs in London about that. One of the difficulties that we have to overcome is that notwithstanding the Parliament being nearly 20 years old, it is still not entirely understanding the implications of devolved environment policy. The potential for any UK wide, if in a sense that is what you are thinking about, is the potential for a UK wide, some kind of UK wide body. At the moment, there are not specific things under discussion and, as I indicated, the UK Westminster consultation will be for England only. I am specifically wondering whether, as part of the discussions that are going forward, that has not been highlighted in relation to the round table, whether a Scottish enforcement body is being considered. The round table's report to us will cover that. I know that, simply if they are being considered, because we do not want to find, as a committee, that we get a report back and those things have not been considered. I would ask you, please, to bear those things in mind and also the issue of whether ordinary courts can be made to work effectively in an environmental context and the view of Scottish Government on the establishment of an environmental court or extension remit. I am not going to prejudge any of that. I am not asking you to answer the questions. There will be a range of options. The round table report will be published soon and well before summer. The committee will be able to look at that and, in terms of informing a potential consultation, the committee will have plenty of time to consider whether it can or thinks that there is something else that has been missed. I am trying to make the point, cabinet secretary, and I am not really making it very well that surely those issues, if they are not being considered now, it is going to be very late in the day. I am simply asking for reassurance that they are being considered. The round table report was tasked with the job of looking at gaps and coming up with solutions. It is fair to say that their consideration ranges across a huge number of different options. I would be astonished if anybody managed to come up with yet another one that has not been looked at by the round table. To be clear, cabinet secretary, you talked earlier about the consultation and the date of September. Would that be the beginning of the consultation or the end of it? No, we were asked. I think that the commitment that was made was to consult within six months of the bill. We did a rough calculation and said that that would be the absolute end point for launching the consultation. The consultation itself would potentially take, I do not know how long we will give it, analysis and all the rest of it. To get a consultation up and running, you have to have a bit of space. Richard Lyle, then I want to come in with a question. Good morning, cabinet secretary. I have got two questions and I will not lump them together in order to ensure clarity. What is the view of the Scottish Government on the appointment of an environmental ombudsman or commissioner under roll and dispute resolution? I am sorry, I am not going to prejudge any of these. That is the kind of thing that will be included in the range of options. I suspect that the round table will come forward with and we will have to see what they have to say. These are all potential solutions. They may not all be potential solutions on their own. There may require to be more than one kind of way to do this. There may require to be interim processes before we can go to full blown simply to make sure that there isn't an interim gap. There are a lot of different ways to do this. I do not want to prejudge the consultation. How does the Scottish Government consider third party interests could be effectively taken into account in the framework and mechanisms for enforcement and dispute resolution? That will be very much something that would have to be dealt with throughout the consultation, because that would be an increasingly part of how that worked. In a sense, what I have already been saying about the huge range of options that there is likely to be, that would need to be one of the things that people looked at, which ones gave greater comfort in terms of access than others, and all of them will have their access issues. We are talking here about enforcement and about solutions, but can I touch on the issue of perhaps an opportunity to increase transparency around some of that? For example, there is a suggestion kicking around out there that there should be a duty on Scottish ministers, and perhaps extending that to other agencies, including those local authorities, for example, who are not in the control of the Scottish Government, to have a duty to report on the extent to which the environmental principles have been considered in arriving at a decision-safe, for example, the precautionary principle. I wonder what your thoughts are around that. On every decision? On every significant decision, so to speak. My immediate reaction to that is interesting, but it is like the statements that go with a bill introduction, when you have the various indications and memorandum that show that certain things have been looked at and taken into consideration. I define a significant decision, which I think is where you would get into the issue there. Perhaps any decision that had an impact on the environment, for example, one might, some people might look for a local authority to be required to indicate the extent to which it deployed the precautionary principle in reaching a decision on consent, to get a major fish farm, for example, just one example. There has been a conversation in the background about whether the whole process presents an opportunity to provide that kind of transparency and that kind of confidence in decisions that have been arrived at. One of the dangers that we are going to get into here is, if I may say so, we are where we are because we have a looming deadline in terms of Brexit and the need to ensure that we can manage without major disruption. There is another discussion clearly going on that says, oh, here is an opportunity to come up with a whole load of other things to add to this. I am just cautioning that the more we add, the longer this is going to take, the more complicated it is going to be. While I would not necessarily rule out conversations on some of those things, it may slow down the whole process if we have them. Let us just have a think about timescales here. I think that if we were talking about potential for going to legislation, that is probably a discussion that would be very germane to that. We are back to the question of definitions. How do we designate something as of significant enough importance to trigger that? Is there a possibility in any way, cabinet secretary, that the round table and the consultation process may in the end produce some recommendations for the here and now, but then recommendations for at some future date? I think that we would probably find it quite helpful if people looking at this both in Parliament and externally did think about those timescales, about the more immediate challenge that we face and the potential medium and longer-term opportunities that might arise out of some of those potential solutions. It is just a case of not seeing what we choose to do in necessarily the shorter term is necessarily to be all and end all, but we still need to do it. Alex Rowley? Finally, on that, given your last statement, cabinet secretary, are you confident that we have the capacity that you have the capacity within government to ensure that you are able to achieve what we have now, the minimum if you like, in the timescales that is available? Specifically, do you have the capacity, the resources to be able to make that happen? It is a good question. Brexit has put a huge extra amount of work on to civil servants that, two years ago, we could hardly have anticipated. There will be a huge amount of work getting subordinate legislation into shape, and I think that there has already been some discussions about how some of that is going to have to be managed through committees. It is not just about our capacity, it is also about parliamentary capacity to manage all of this. It is why I have been careful in most of my conversations to talk about the shorter term, the more immediate challenge that is faced to ensure that we are into a manageable state and then the potential for longer term fixes. My guess is that we will be dealing with the consequences of Brexit for many, many years to come. I am looking around the table and I think that all the members have covered what they want to do. Cabinet secretary, can I thank you and your officials for this morning? That has been quite useful. I am going to suspend for five minutes and we will resume with yourself again and a different support of officials. Welcome back to this meeting in the environment committee. The fourth item on our agenda this morning is to take evidence on the advice of the committee on climate change. It has been a long warning already. On the Scottish Government's forthcoming climate change bill, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform wrote to the committee offering to discuss this advice, and we are pleased to welcome her today, along with a number of officials, namely Dr Sarah Grainger and Dr Tom Rusyn. Cabinet secretary, do you want to say a few words to kick things off? Yes, convener. I wanted to say a few words about a very specific aspect of the forthcoming climate change targets bill. That is the advice of the committee on climate change on the design of the target framework. Every year, when the emissions stats are published, indicating whether the latest year's target has been met or missed, there is always some debate about whether that has been because of action taken or because of technical changes to the way that the emissions inventory is compiled. It is vital that statutory climate targets allow Governments to be held to account for actions taken. It is also vital that we use the best evidence available at any time and that creates a problem. Improvements to the science of emissions measurement lead to changes in our best estimates of Scotland's emissions. It is not just recent year's estimates that get updated, but the estimates of emission levels right back to 1990. The baseline for our targets are constantly being revised as well. Those data revisions, when large, pose challenges to the transparency with which Governments can be held to account, put bluntly, targets can be either met or missed solely due to the data revisions. When we consulted on the proposals for the new bill in summer last year, we proposed that all targets should be in the form of percentage reductions from the baseline. Under the 2009 act, some targets are set as percentages and some as fixed amounts of emissions. One of the reasons for the proposed change is that percentage targets are less liable to be met or missed solely as a result of data revisions. However, it has subsequently become apparent that such a simple solution may not be sufficient. If the data revisions are very large or uneven between the baseline and the present day, then even percentage-based targets could be met or missed simply as a result of those revisions. When I was made aware of that in autumn last year, I felt that it was prudent to ask the committee on climate change to update its advice on the target framework aspects of the bill. I wrote to Lord Debbon to request his advice in October, and that was received late December, just before Christmas. The CCC has used this opportunity to recommend further steps beyond those that had set out in its initial advice to stabilise Scotland's statutory target framework to future data revisions. It has provided an objective and relatively simple approach to managing the challenges posed by the volatility of emissions estimates, while also ensuring that we keep pace with the best available science. Its proposal is to freeze the measurement methods for up to five years at a time and assess whether the targets in those years are hit or missed using those frozen methods. In other words, whether a target is hit or missed will be assessed against the methods that were in place when the target was set. Every five years, there will be a reset of the measurement methods and, potentially, the targets too, so we never get too far behind the evolving measurement science. We intend to implement the CCC's recommendations in full of the bill, which will allow Parliament and stakeholders to hold Governments more clearly to account, as the goalposts will not move between the time that a target is set and the time when it is reported against. It is a fairly complicated issue, but I would hope that it is an area where we can establish some early consensus. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary. I am declaring an interest as a farmer, and I am reminded from what you have just said of what used to be said about the WTO negotiations that, if you are not confused, you have not been listening. I thank you very much for that statement. I will take you back to the conclusions that you have come to. My questions are probably before you have reached the conclusions that you have come to. The Climate Change Committee essentially set out two options to maintain the same level of ambition as in the 2009 act with subsequent reviews to increase targets by setting the viewpoints that you have talked about and option 2, to set a stretch target for a reduction in the CHD emissions of 90 per cent by 2050. It also noted that setting more ambitious targets now to align to the aims of the Paris Agreement and require actions that are currently at the very limit of feasibility, as well as saying that it is the limit of the pathways that are currently defined to reduce Scottish emissions. The committee has not, at this time, been able to calculate a total cost associated with a scenario that achieves that target. In the light of those statements, what are the benefits and risks of each of those two options that I spoke of? First of all, I need to say that we are now embarked on the parliamentary process. I cannot pre-announce the final decisions before the introduction of the bill, so I just need to caveat what I am going to say with that. We were confronted with the initial advice from the Committee on Climate Change, which, I suppose, arguably gave us the option of continuing on the current track, which is the longer term 80 per cent, or stretching to the 90 per cent. At the moment, 80 per cent is where Westminster and Cardiff are at as well, and they gave us the two options. The decision about what to do in that sense is really about one in which we have to take into account how ambitious Scotland wants to be. In a sense, a lot of our decision making in this area is dictated by that desire to be ambitious. The benefits, if you like, of taking a view that a stretched target is the appropriate one, is that it is consistent with the ambition that we set out with on this climate change trajectory right from the start. What I cannot know is what Westminster will choose to do in terms of its targets or what Cardiff will choose to do in terms of its targets. There was some discussion in the previous session about the benefit of maintaining some form of UK-wide scenario. I can see that there will be people who will argue that, effectively, that is what should happen. Otherwise, there are issues that arise. We have to be very live to the potential for carbon leakage if, not very far away, there is a more arguably relaxed regime. Those are things that we have to take into account when we are making a decision about how we will move forward. We have to make a decision not quite knowing what the rest of the UK is going to do, and what the implications of their decisions might be in terms of what we do, but in the context of our desire to continue to be ambitious. I thought that the committee on climate change was very fair and straightforward in the way that they put it. From their perspective, 80 per cent was a reasonable thing to continue with. 90 per cent was a very stretched ambition. They were not saying one or the other and they put it into our laps to make a decision about what we would choose to do. You will see what we have chosen to do when the bill was published. I am notwithstanding that.  Of course, we all round this table applaud ambition, but we are also aware of the risks that you have not spoken about in the risk of the economy. Perhaps you have a more strident environmental regime. Do you have any thoughts on those risks? I think that people need to understand the implications of what it is that they call for. I am not 100 per cent certain that everybody necessarily does understand that. I hope that, when the bill is introduced, I anticipate that there will be a hefty debate about some of the practicalities around it. We will very much want to be crystal clear about what some of the implications are of the targets and what they mean in terms of real life, as opposed to the idea of ambition for ambition's sake. We have regard to what some other countries are doing and how they are doing it. We are looking carefully at other examples when we make those considerations. I noted that, and I can be corrected by officials if I picked it up wrongly, that Norway has set a very short-term target for itself in 2030, but only if other countries around it do the same. I think that most countries are in the same space here. I guess that we are all hoping to try and progress at much the same speed so that nobody is hoovering up because they have decided just to be a little bit more easy going on these things. That is a very significant issue that has to be dealt with and talked through when we make our decisions about the headline climate change targets. I suppose that it would be dispillating to think that you make progress at the pace of the slowest, which would be something that I would understand a sense of frustration developing. Carbon leakage is a real problem. I do not think that we can simply wish it away as a potential complication if everybody is in a different place. It is a tricky balance. You spoke of Norway. Do you have any other international examples of going beyond a 90 per cent target? There are perhaps companies that can get there by other means. Nobody is doing what we are doing. There is not another country that is effectively doing it the way we are doing it, with annual targets and very stringent rules around it. I suppose that the one that you are going to hear about most often is Sweden. Sweden has said that it will go to net zero by 2050, but Sweden's measurements do not, for example, include a share of aviation emissions. Sweden's measurements do not include a share of shipping emissions. Sweden's measurements do not, as I understand it, include the land use change emissions, and they reserve the right to meet their target by buying up to 15 per cent international credits. My estimation of that is that they anticipate to achieve this by a domestic effort, which is considerably lower than our domestic effort, because we are committed to making our targets by a domestic effort. It is not, in my view, a realistic comparison. We are not ever going to be in a place unless there are people, potentially, around this table or in the Parliament who intend to bring amendments along the Swedish model to amend any climate change bill that we have to do what Sweden does, but I am going to take a wild guess and say that that would necessarily be a very popular set of amendments, which by itself gives the game away. I see. It does not exactly sound like a ringing endorsement. Notwithstanding, I suppose that the convener's question still stands, are there other better examples, or perhaps not, or are we out in front in terms of ambition, which is fine? Depends on how you define it. I guess that we have just spoken about one country that will be seen as being out in front, but when you actually look at what they are doing, I am afraid that it does not just quite stack up in quite the same way. New Zealand has made a commitment to net zero, but there is no indication at the moment what New Zealand intends, how they intend to do that. I cannot say. There is not another legislature who has done anything analogous to what we are doing in terms of how tightly bound we are and how strict our set-up is and the extent to which we measure things that others simply will not measure. Tourism was in the news yesterday for having an 8 per cent carbon footprint, which was news, apparently, to everybody and not understood previously to have such a high impact. Have you any comments to make on that? I suppose that there is much of a surprise to you, as it appeared to be to everyone else. I missed the news emerging yesterday. I heard some discussion on a news programme this morning about the differential environmental impact of tourists, so it is not simply across the board. It probably will surprise nobody that tourists from wealthier countries have a bigger environmental impact because they are more likely to use cars and less likely to use public transport. There is probably a lot more work to be done there about what that impact might be. Equally, there may very well be some work to be done on how, on our side, as a host country, we might think about reducing the necessity for tourists to choose or really not have much choice except for high environmental impact decisions that they have to make. Other than hearing a discussion this morning on the radio, I am afraid that I am not copied into all of that and that it is something that, undoubtedly, climate change officials will probably want to have a look at to see whether or not there is something there that we need to be reflecting on. From what I heard this morning, we just need to be a little cautious that there is a differential environmental impact depending on the kind of tourism and the countries that people come from. Alex Rowley, then, Mark Ruskell. You mentioned, cabinet secretary, about other countries. In looking, trying to look ahead to 2050, is co-operation between countries key? What we do not know is the scale of the advancement of technologies. What we do know is that if we have to achieve those targets, then we will have to see technology play a greater and greater role, so carbon capture, offshore technologies and wind power, et cetera. It seems that, on our own, for the levels of investment that is needed to achieve what is needed to be achieved, we are not going to do that. To what extent do you look in terms of projecting ahead to 2050 at the advancement of new technology? What extent is Scotland working with the UK Government and other Governments around the world in terms of technology in particular? I think that it is fair to say that there is probably a continuing vigorous conversation about those things. I do not want to rehash the carbon capture issue or the support for renewables, but we have a situation just within the UK where there is some decision making that was not really thinking about climate change when the decisions were made and they were not our decisions to make in those circumstances. It is probably important for a lot of the reasons that we have discussed already that there is a sense in which countries are moving forward at something like the same pace. I would not want to characterise that as moving at the speed of the slowest, because a lot of countries understand very well the challenge that we all face here and the potential negative impact if we do not do something about climate change. There is also something that needs to be remembered, and that is particularly important for us in terms of how we do what we do. We do not anticipate moving away from that, which is that this is not just about 2050. I am afraid that I can get the sense out there. There is a little bit of a, what is 2050? That is 32 years away, but that is not how we do it. We do it by setting targets all the way along, so we would have to be able to answer some of those same questions for like 2025, 2030, 2040, because it does not all just magically happen in 2050. It has actually got to be measured and there has got to be a trajectory that takes you there over the intervening period. If we go back to Sweden, they do not set those interim targets, so they have no actual way of measuring whether they are on that trajectory. We choose to do it differently. We choose to be much more strict about how we measure that and we set ourselves targets. I do not want everybody to think that, just because we are talking about 2050, we do not also have to talk about how we get to 2050, and that means how we manage the intervening period. There is an official, but they are probably going to tell me that I am wrong about something. Sweden do not have annual targets, but they do have some interim targets. Sweden have some interim targets, but they do not have annual targets. Yes, it is about 2050, but the important thing, and I guess this is back to the Committee for Climate Change Evidence, is being able to measure how you get there, how you set out a trajectory to achieve that. That is where some of the discussions about the very specific things that you need to do and, indeed, the technologies that will be able to be brought to bear, and when we think that might be appropriate for them to be brought to bear. The Committee for Climate Change has basically said that 80 per cent would be reasonable. We would continue doing what we are doing, the trajectory that we are currently on. 90 per cent is at the limit of feasibility, but what they mean by that is that they are able to measure that. Beyond that, they cannot see a pathway or a trajectory that will take us with confidence to that. Those are the kind of things that we have to think about when we are actually setting out, but it is not going to be enough for people in and out of this chamber to just say, well, it is 2050, let 2050 take care of itself, because very soon after the legislation is passed, we would have to be coming up with a climate change plan that showed you how we are going to get there. Thanks, convener. It has been put to us that the UK Committee on Climate Change has been quite conservative about the potential for technological change. I hear what you say, cabinet secretary, about the approach of having a clear pathway and annual targets. If you look back 25 years ago when the internet was becoming a thing, I do not think that any of us would have predicted the kind of huge societal change that we had as a result 25 years later. How do we deal with the aspiration and technological change within the scope of the target? You said something interesting in relation to the fundamental principles in the previous agenda item, where you said that we legislate for actualities, not aspiration, but clearly there is going to have to be a good degree of aspiration in terms of where we are going. We cannot map out this pathway now. We will probably not be able to map out this pathway in the next five years. How do you get the aspiration bit in there? There is a feeling that we are not reflecting the technological changes that could take place in the advice. It is an interesting phrase that you used about we are not going to be able to map out for the next five years. I am willing to bet that the first climate change plan post that legislation is precisely what you are going to be asking. That is the basis on which the climate change plan will be assessed as to how accurately it is actually working towards that. I think that the point that I am making is that we can only do that if we have some understanding of a trajectory going forward. We have looked very closely at how to arguably square the circle, which in a sense is what you are looking for. People can make a decision about the bill when the bill is introduced. However, those things are not going to be simple and straightforward. Neither can the first climate change plan effectively do the written-down equivalent of shrugging shoulders and saying, oh well, it will all be right on the night. We cannot know that. Yes, there have been astonishing technological changes in the past 25 years, but they were not necessarily where we thought they were going to be. That is one of the challenges. You do not know where things are going to come from, you do not know what the impacts will be and trying to work out how you are going to proceed on that basis is challenging. It is challenging at 80, never mind beyond 80. However, those things do not go away and they will become exacerbated if we try to set ourselves targets where we cannot show any reasonably objectively assessed trajectory. I think that that is the issue that I am concerned about. Can I explore that a little bit further, cabinet secretary, just briefly? My understanding is that with the bill in 2009, that was without certainly a pathway to 2050. In my view and that of a number of others, there was even some vagueness, about 42 per cent by 2020 at that point. There was not a clear trajectory for that, correct me if I am wrong, but that is what I have understood. Surely, if we are going to be as aspirational but also realistic as we can be, if they are interim targets, surely we should be even bolder possibly for 2050? I have no problem with that, if that is where people want to go, but they have to be honest as to what it means in practice. I think that that is a conversation that will need to be had throughout the course of this bill. It cannot just be had in terms of, well, that is a good thing to do. I do not mean honest in terms of the timescales. I mean honest in terms of what it actually will mean and when it will mean it. I am not sure that that is a conversation that is being had at the moment, but it is one that needs to be had so that people understand when they are passing legislation or calling for legislation that they understand that in five years' time or 10 years' time there is no purpose in being outraged at something then happening, which was pretty obviously going to happen because of what you have made a decision about previously. That discussion will have to be had in quite blunt terms so that everybody understands precisely what it means. I will bring in John Scott, but I can remind people to make sure that their mobile phones etc are turned off. Can I just say how much I welcome the cabinet secretary's ambition but also her caution about pragmatism too and how the two must go hand in hand today? I think that that is absolutely vital. Of course, we applaud ambition but we have to be pragmatic about the realities too. Therefore, in that regard, if Scotland adopts a more ambitious target, which sectors would be required to further reduce emissions in your view? Arguably, all sectors will require to do that. There has been considerable discussion about some of the unevenness about different sectors. We have clearly made enormous strides in the energy sector not quite so spectacular in some of the other sectors and most people flag up things like transport and agriculture as well. Significantly increased ambition will mean significantly increased expectations across all sectors, including those that have felt not to be perhaps achieving as much as they should have been achieving up until now. Those are some of the blunt discussions that need to be had. There will be an interesting conversation with a variety of different stakeholders about what they understand their calls to mean. For example, the livestock sector and agriculture would be facing very significant changes. The more ambitious the targets are, the more challenging it will be to persuade people about dietary change and the impact of dietary change on the current livestock sector is pretty well directly connected and potentially significant. However, I do not think that people necessarily draw lines between those dots and that is where I think folk have to be a little bit more honest about those things. Thank you very much. What influence does the Scottish Government have over policies and actions in those areas? Or how do you intend to use the influence that you have? In climate change or in which areas? About the targets, essentially. I suppose that you have answered the question by saying that you are going to have the discussions with both stakeholders and those in charge of delivering the targets. Yes. That cannot just be down to government. Government can set the parameters, it can legislate in certain areas, it can use a variety of different governmental mechanisms, but it is not just about government, it is about all public organisations, whether they are in the private sector or by public organisations. There are a lot of stakeholder groups who are in the public space discussing this, so the conversations will have to be had with them.  We can only go so far, this is a democracy, so we still have to operate within that setup. We can only go so far as a Government, we cannot do it all on our own. That is why we need to have this wider conversation and it needs to be an honest conversation. Would you accept that one of the roles of Government in that regard may be to illustrate to industries that you have spoken of in the transport and agriculture sector as to the route map, as it were, how to get there and what the knowledge dissemination on what best practice will be or should be? That is a true way process because some of what we know and understand will in turn have come from what they are informing us about. A dialogue requires more than one partner in it, so it will be a constant dialogue. However, I go back to some of the things that we just have to be a little bit cautious about is what the negative impacts might be in some areas, in some sectors, if there is a feeling that this is all going too far. What we do not want to see is people drifting out of Scotland as a result of that. That is a very good point. It is well made. Thank you very much. I applaud you. Thank you convener. Cabinet Secretary, climate change is already having catastrophic effects on the lives and environments of those who did least to cause it. To tackle climate change in a just way, many stakeholders and others argue that there is a need to recognise the fair share of responsibility in a global and historic context. That was put in stark reality for me when I chaired a UN House climate justice conference the week before last. Although today we, of course, may not feel directly responsible in Scotland for this historic inequality, we should perhaps acknowledge that it is in the past. It is a past that we still reap the benefits of. Just to highlight one stakeholder view, Friends of the Earth Scotland has extrapolated the fair share carbon budget data to find that Scotland should reach net zero emissions by 2040, and the stock climate crisis has highlighted 2050 as its proposal. I wonder whether you could comment on the consideration of stakeholder engagement and what conclusions you have drawn from those. I can make a number of comments. First of all, at every opportunity where it has been appropriate, I have made the point that Scotland was one of the cradles of the industrial revolution. The phrase that I have used is that our sticky fingers are all over climate change, because right from the get-go we were beneficiaries of it, although arguably the vast majority of the population did not benefit massively from the industrial revolution. Some small, fairly wealthy people benefited fairly massively. We have been very conscious of the climate justice side of things. We were, I think, the first country in the world to actually identify climate justice as a specific funding stream and a specific issue that we should be pushing. We have done so at every level. We were, I think, one of the first sub-state contributors to the UN climate justice fund, and I know that the UN was very grateful for that, because it was able to use Scotland as an example, precisely for the reasons that you have laid out. As you are well aware, we have also got a commitment to setting up a just transition commission, so we are conscious of some of the inequalities and issues around that that can emerge from any big change that might take place as we move to a low-carbon economy. I am very well aware of the various calls put forward by different organisations, but it is incumbent on all organisations when they make those calls to be explicit about what they think will be required in order to get there. Sometimes that is the bit that is missing. The high-level call is there. The actual practical likelihood of what we would have to do to achieve that is not there. I am very much up for us having that as a very upfront debate, because if the decision is that is what people want to do, they need to understand the implications of it. I recognise the observations that you have made. However, I think that it was WWF last year that produced a well-thought-through document that looked at what the bill could do. In a very practical sense, it is not necessarily the high-level targets, but some other things in there. It argued through what would need to be done to achieve that. You may well have wondered whether there would be things like that. I would need to go back and have a look at that to see whether that would be helpful in this current conversation. A lot of what I see tends to be at the level of we should not have free workplace parking and things like that, which is a really good level of the debate, but it does not even begin to scratch the surface when we are talking about some of the ambition that we are discussing now over the period between now and 2050, or indeed, in some cases, the call is for 2040. Mark Ruskell. Hear what you say, cabinet secretary, about being explicit about actions that need to be taken, where we can predict it. Are we being explicit about the impacts of different targets? I think about the UK climate change committee. They are using an overshoot model, which effectively means that temperatures can increase beyond one and a half degrees centigrade, with the hopeful expectation that they will then slip back again to one and a half degrees. Now, there is an impact there, is not there, in terms of extinctions, deaths in this country and around the world? I am just wondering when you are looking at different scenarios and targets, what target are you pegging that to in terms of temperature increase? Is there an analysis of what the impact of that is, in terms of disruption to the army, deaths, extinctions and all of that? We are constantly having to look at both sides of that, because people will often ask what is the cost of what you are doing in terms of climate change, but of course there is a cost to not doing it. The cost of not doing it is not always easy to assess, but it can be expressed not just in a monetary sense but also in the cost of the kinds of things that, by diversity loss and the kinds of things that we are already talking about. I think that that is absolutely part of what the discussion should encompass. Do you think that it is overshooting then beyond one and a half degrees? I am not a climate scientist. I rely on the Committee for Climate Change to give the best advice that they can give us as to how for us to move forward. I think that if there was to be a detailed discussion about what the climate science is behind that, I would be moving slightly out of my comfort zone. The advice from the Committee on Climate Change is in line with the Paris agreement. Those are discussions that primarily happen at that level. The detailed climate science behind the agreement of the Paris agreement is not something that we have got into detail within the Scottish Government, which is just a bit more detailed, backing up your point, cabinet secretary. Is that something that you will be looking to get, given that the IPCC reports come out again in October? Clearly, there will be an impact of increasing global temperatures and then struggling to bring them back. We are, like everybody else, waiting with interest to see what the IPCC does say, and I expect that that will inform some of the discussions around the bill. However, from what Sarah Smith is saying, the CCC is already plugged into some of that conversation and are effectively feeding back via its advice its assessment of what we can and cannot do now. I know that we are coming on to more technical parts of this, but I think that I would welcome the statement that you made that we have to have a very upfront, open and transparent discussion around the implications of setting targets moving forward. Is it not the case that you therefore also, to what extent climate change will drive Government policy? I saw at the weekend, for example, that the GMB trade union was saying that, really, we have not had a great advantage in Scotland in terms of jobs from renewables and they would argue that things like fracking will bring jobs and that balance in having that discussion. I think that it is part of that. Would you encourage that discussion and look at how Government can make sure that, in moving towards those targets, there are real jobs and how those jobs come about and how the economy succeeds? To an extent, that is what the Just Transition Commission is expected to be able to do. I would very much welcome that level of engagement across the board. I have not seen the specific statements from the GMB. I will no doubt get them from officials, but what you talked about there was extremely controversial. All of that kicks off a huge debate. There are issues around that. The point about the Just Transition Commission is to try and get us into a place where we can navigate through the transition to a low-carbon economy without leaving people behind. Some of us around this table are old enough to remember when there were job titles that are now history because technology changed so rapidly that certain jobs just disappeared off the face of the earth. If you talk to somebody now about some of those job titles, they will look blankly at you. That is a tricky thing to manage because you cannot know exactly what that will be. However, if I go back to the bit of the conversation that was about—in fact, I think that it was you talking about the discussions with other countries about technology and all the rest of it, that is really important because that will help to give us a better understanding of where we can maximise the potential benefits out of some of that. That is a bit that we need to think about. There are some opportunities here and benefits as well, but all of that is harnessed in a way that means that it ends up with jobs and perhaps better working environments. Some job titles may disappear, some jobs may disappear, but they become replaced by other jobs, and that is really how we got wide. I sometimes reflect on what it might have been like had there been a just transition commission around about 1805, what that might have looked like in terms of getting us into and out of the industrial revolution, but that is a parallel timeline in which it did not happen. I want to start to explore more the interaction between the Government and the Climate Change Committee and perhaps take us back to the 2009 act, which I took through the Parliament, which we were sitting there with the Climate Change Committee recommendations for 2020 of 34 per cent or 42 per cent. We ended up amending at stage 3 to make it 42 per cent, putting the 42 per cent on the face of the bill. There was nothing vague about that target whatsoever, but the principle adopted then, and I want to ask if this is one that you are minded to continue with, is that we should not have politicians deciding the numbers. We should rely on the Climate Change Committee, who are looking at the totality of scientific advice that is available and explaining the conclusions and recommendations that it comes to. Therefore, rather than politicians making decisions, we should primarily be looking at the climate change committee's recommendations, particularly in relation to interim targets. I cannot bind other members of Parliament. I do not think that there is a rule around that, but the Committee for Climate Change is our best advice. That is the source of our best advice that channels the international understanding and does not forget that that is the committee that advises all of the Governments within the UK. It is interesting that I was not involved in that particular piece of legislation, but it is interesting that they presented us with two options then, and they have done the same thing again. It is clearly a way that the Committee for Climate Change works, which is that they offer an option that is doable and will achieve an end, but they will also offer a stretched option for an alternative discussion. In a sense, that is what they have done this time. They have offered two options. What has been interesting is that nobody has much been interested in one of the options that they offered, and the debate has taken place between one of their options effectively, and an option that they gave us advice about was not at this point in their view something that they could see a pathway to. Yes. Of course, the Climate Change Committee requires unanimity of all the jurisdictions in these islands on all appointments to it, so that, if it properly reflects the interests of all, that is just an observation. Are we on track for the 2020 target? Yes. Right. That is fine. Just to return to the subject of percentages as distinct for targets, percentage reductions, and the complicated issue of baselining, is it something that the Government is thinking about in terms of making sure that we can see percentages against the baseline that relates to when the target was set, rather than a revised target where we would then reset the clock? Yes. We think that that is a more straightforward, more transparent way of presenting it. You may be in a better position to recall some of the discussions that would have been about the fact that we have a mixed system at the moment. We want to move to this more simple, straightforward thing that is adopting the CCC's recommendation. All targets set as percentage reductions from baseline levels. We are still looking at two baselines, 1990 and 1995, for different gases. For different gases, yes. Right. I think that I have covered mine a bit. Thank you, Mr Simpson. Donald Cameron. Thank you, convener, and I think that the cabinet secretary's statements at the start have slightly preempted those questions, but there is reference in the climate change committee's recommendations to the greenhouse gas account. Is that the same as the five-year freeze that you referred to? Yes. It is the same thing. It was not a phrase that officials were using. It seems to have been a phrase that the Committee for Climate Change used, but that is essentially what it is. I was going to ask her—obviously, that advice was directed to you as the Scottish Government. Do you have any indication as to whether that will be adopted across the UK, or is it Scotland-specific? I cannot answer that. I am presuming that, if they are advising us along those lines, they must be giving similar advice elsewhere, but it is not for me to—I do not know. I do not know quite where Westminster and Cardiff are in the process, either, so I am not quite sure. I do not know, sir, if you know where they are in their processes. In Cardiff, Tom, I think that he is quite keen to speak. Right, thank you. So, the Welsh Government are in the process of setting their interim and five-year carbon budgets, having just passed their primary legislation. The UK Government obviously has its primary legislation and its carbon budgets out to 2032. I think one very relevant factor here is that of those jurisdictions, Scotland is unique in having annual targets, and a substantial part of the reason why we understand the CCCF to recommend this freeze approach relates to the fact that annual targets means you are more exposed to volatility in the measurement science that underpins it all, whereas both the UK and Wales have five-year budgets as they are on-the-way targets, and within those budgets there is inevitably a bit of averaging out of the volatility. So, the same issue is applied, but Scotland is probably more exposed to those issues than either UK or Wales. Thank you. Whenever measurements are changed, the charge can be made that the goalposts are being shifted. I am not saying that I share that, not at least because the CCC has recommended it, but can you reassure this committee that we will not see as a result of this new modelling or new system or any diminution in our efforts? One of the problems is that the goalposts have been changing constantly because we have not thought about this or had a long look at this before. There have been years when we missed targets because of science, because of data revisions, not because of anything we had done or not done. In a sense, the goalposts have constantly been changing anyway. What we are trying to do is to put this now on an even keel. We have spoken quite widely with groups. I think that we are not just clutching a solution and just applying it without there being some considerable discussion. As members can understand, it is quite technical and it takes some explaining, but I think that those people who understand what is going on here are unlikely to regard it as some get-out-of-jail free card. It is not because the reality of the data changes will always be acknowledged, that we will always have the reality of what the science has done even on that kind of annual basis. It is just that when it comes to the greenhouse gas stats, we have got a way now of managing it slightly better. Some of the principal issues are around the Llu Llu CF sector, the land use land use change forestry sector. Notably, that is a sector of which, as far as I can see, most countries do not count at all. You could argue that we have put goalposts in that other countries have not dodged because of the difficulties that they could see it was going to cause. We are now confronting some of those difficulties. Briefly, Stuart Stevenson, followed by John Scott. I just wanted to, in relation to advice from climate change committee being different to different jurisdictions. Is that in part because of course the climate change committee is responsible for what it says in terms of advice, but that advice is often against questions that jurisdictions will have set to the climate change committee, and therefore the advice will relate in part at least to the different questions that different jurisdictions will have. Indeed, and the updated advice that we got from climate change. We had early advice last year, and then we went back with updated and updated requests because of the Llu Llu CF issue. They were responding in detail to a very specific question that we were asking. The reason that we were asking it is because any changes to Llu Llu CF signs obviously have significantly, by a very large margin, significantly greater implications for Scotland because of forest cover, peatland, et cetera, than they do for the rest of the UK. The rest of the UK jurisdictions might not feel that they need to really look very closely at this, but we were under no doubt that we had to. That is why we asked for the updated advice from the climate change committee. We were responding to very specific requests from us about a very specific issue that we could see was going to create a real problem. Cabinet Secretary, targets are constantly changing, but the science on which they are based is changing and improving. Can you undertake around the edges of the bill, as it were, to provide the maximum transparency about the changes in the science that lead to those changing positions? Oh, about the actual science changes, right? Indeed. As Donald Cameron suggested, moving goalposts and transparency, I mean I am not suggesting for a moment that the Government would move goalposts to suit its own ends, but the greater the transparency, the less the opportunity would arise for that accusation to be made. No, I think that that is fair enough. I think that we can probably maybe write to the committee just with perhaps an explanation, don't look so horrified. I can run through in broad terms what the four main reasons for the revisions are, and that begins to set out what some of the issues are. First of all, there are changes to international scientific guidelines. That happens elsewhere. It maybe takes a while to filter through, but that is really basically that we are using methods to compile the UK inventory that are consistent with international guidance from the UN, and that guidance is periodically reviewed and updated. That is a big international level, so you can get changes at that level. You can get improvements to UK-level methodologies. The UK inventory regularly gets peer-reviewed by the UN, which makes recommendations for improvement, and again, continuous improvement happens at that level. Then there are revisions to UK-wide data sources. Sometimes revisions to statistical publications, for example fuel consumption stats, might change, and that can lead to revisions in the UK inventory. That tends to be a minor thing, but it can happen. Finally, improvements to the methods used to disaggregate the UK inventory. Sometimes there are improvements in Scotland-specific data that can allow for improvements in how the UK inventory is disaggregated. Again, they tend to be minor. Most of the changes are really at the international scientific level, and they filter through to us. It is not Scottish scientists or it might be Scottish scientists who are involved in it, but it is internationally understood scientific measurement of, for example, carbon emissions from degraded peat. That changes in people's understanding and they get better at measuring that, and the science gets better. That has to come through to our science. What we can do is perhaps outline some of the things that have happened over the past couple of years. Last year, we benefited from some changes in forestry science that were down to an ability to capture a wider range of smaller forestry units and add them into the total amount. There was a better measurement there, which gave us a bit of an advantage, but there were some things on the waste side that were a negative impact. We can give some examples of some of those science changes. We do not necessarily have control over most of it. UK Government decisions. We have to deal with the hand where dealt effectively. Indeed, and improve on it as best you can. What I am saying is that the greater the transparency, the more, as it were, the Government shows Parliament politicians that they are working, the more likely there is for a collegiate approach between all parties to achieve the transparency if the workings are being shown and peer-reviewed internationally. I think that the statistics that are published will still cover all of it. The science changes and the stats change. They will change because the science changed and all the rest of it. This is particularly how it is reflected in the greenhouse gas emissions stats as against how we set our targets. It is really about a mechanism for making sure that we do not run into a risk and we have not really spoken about it. However, if people feel that the goalposts have been moved not because of anything that we have done but because a group of scientists have completely changed the way they measure something, then you run the risk of people saying, what is the point then? What is the point of all the work that we try to do? There are two sides to that discussion about the need for people to understand. We do not want people walking away thinking, well, if nobody knows, if you cannot tell from one year to the next, what is the point? We do not want that to be a response, which is what this is effectively a way to deal with. However, what we will do is we will set out in a bit more detail those four potential ways that the data can change, the revisions that come about, and give some examples of some of what has happened in the past, including flagging up the years where we missed annual targets because of science changes. Sometimes we gain and sometimes we lose, sometimes it might net off neutrally because you have had a benefit from one sector and then a negative impact from another sector. We will lay out some of the examples. I want to be absolutely clear about the reasons that we have responded. We have lived with it up until now. When everybody is kind and knows that there are things that affect from year to year, of course there are. We have lived with it up until now, but we know that the current incoming science revision is going to have an incredibly big impact on all those countries that are, where land use and land use change is a significant part and is measured, which might only be Scotland. Cabinet Secretary, on the subject of vision, the Committee on Climate Change recommended that the overall accounting framework should shift to one based on actual emissions, rather than a just-in-factivity and EU emissions trading scheme. It stated that a shift to using actual emissions would be more transparent than the existing framework would encourage decarbonisation in all sectors of the economy. What is your view on the actual accounting rather than net accounting and do you accept the Committee on Climate Change recommendations in relation to moving to actual accounting rather than net accounting? We intend to measure progress to targets based on actual emissions by removing the current accounting adjustment to reflect the operation of the EU ETS. Apart from anything else, we have no indication in any case of what is going to happen with the EU ETS, if anything. That will improve transparency. The 2009 act adjustment was quite complicated, so I think that this is a much more straightforward way of managing it. Most people would not know what the ETS is, much less what the calculation for adjustment means. However, I do not want that to imply any change to the operation of international emissions trading schemes in Scotland. It is just about an accounting mechanism. It is not about our view towards international trading schemes, because I think that we are going to need something to replace the ETS. I do not know quite what it is going to look like. Ideally, I would argue that we can try and stay in it, but if we are not going to stay in it, we need to have something that works across boundaries. There is an example of a framework that I have been asking for for about two years and getting nowhere with that. What are the relative risks and merits on this move? Is it likely that overall targets will become easier or harder to achieve? I do not think that it really changes the achievement. It just makes more transparent what we are actually doing. It is not really about the achievement of the targets. It is about the actual transparency of what we are doing. However, it is back, I guess, to basing it on Scotland's actual emissions, which I think is, for any country, a more accurate reflection of what is happening, what they are doing. We talk a lot about counting emissions in a variety of sectors, without very often getting into how those are counted and how accurate the counting is. In relation to industrial emissions, what the methodology is, is it internationally recognised as a best practice? How accurate is it in broad terms compared perhaps to other calculation methodologies that we use? How often is it reviewed, updated and improved upon? Well, I think that we have talked quite at length about how science and revisions come about, and that applies virtually across the board. That will apply in all sectors. For the last part of your question, in a sense, that is the answer. It is a constant process. The actual specific weights are calculated. I am going to be looking at... I suspect that you may be, yes. ...to perhaps be able to answer that in a more coherent way than I would. I will start off by saying that we are very happy to provide a more detailed written explanation of how the emissions from all the different sectors are measured, if that will be helpful. In general terms, emissions from the industrial sector along with the built environment are probably the best understood sectors of the wider inventory. Many of those emissions can be measured directly. If you think of an example of a large industrial complex where there are specific big chimneys, you can actually measure the emissions coming from those chimneys, and that has to be reported for compliance with the EU emissions trading scheme at the moment. Those emissions are known really quite well, and in general, with a very few exceptions, they tend not to be revised due to scientific improvements. In contrast to that, I appreciate this outwith the immediate scope of the question, but really the contrast to that is more the land use sectors where you are relying upon bottom-up modelling of complex biological processes. You cannot measure the emissions directly. As I said, we are very happy to write back with a really detailed explanation. On two sides of A4, do you think? I will do my best. You have outlined some of the challenges in using annual targets as opposed to multi-year budgeting. Will you be sticking with annual targets? We are not intending to move away from that. It is challenging. I think that we are the only country that do it, but, nevertheless, we have become accustomed to it, and I think that it is probably the casino reason to move away from it. I consistently make the point internationally that we are the only country doing annual targets, so it is an important aspect of how we manage what we do. I guess that the whole discussion is that we should not allow annual targets to become the only thing that we talk about here, because annual targets can be swayed by—we have just been through a winter that went on a lot longer than anybody was anticipating. One can expect that that will have implications for what we are in 2018 for the 2020 figures, because we will have to look back and remember that winter went on into the first week of April, therefore everybody's heating was on, everybody's—I know that kind of thing. Annual targets are subject to that kind of impact, but, nevertheless, from our perspective, I think that the experience of it has been in the main positive and helpful, so we are not moving away from them. I thank you very much for your time. I think that it goes without saying that this is a subject that we will be returning to in considerable detail in the remainder of the year, so I thank you and your officials for your time this morning. At its next meeting on 15 May, the committee will meet in private to discuss a draft of its report on the Scottish Crown United States Bill at stage 1. As agreed earlier, the committee will now move into private session and I request that the public gallery be cleared, as the public part of the meeting is now closed.