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I was just looking at the detail of your amendment 291 on red squirrels—I apologise for taking you back again. It is great that you want to look into protecting red squirrels, as do many of us. Paragraph (3) of the amendment says:

“The Scottish Ministers may delegate their duty to conduct a review to—

(a) local authorities”.

I also note that paragraph (4) of the amendment would require the allocation of

“additional resource to local authorities”,

which is great. You have considered that it will cost more to do that work, and I am aware that local authorities are extraordinarily challenged in many ways in relation to biodiversity issues.

Can you provide me with information about where the people to do that work would come from across the 32 local authority areas? Local authorities are quite challenging places in which to operate these days, and people would be needed on the ground to do that type of work.

Those are great questions, which I will go on to address.

The Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework 2022 calls for species recovery and reintroduction to restore ecosystem function. The reintroduction of lynx could boost Scotland’s contribution to those global goals. Modelling shows that the Scottish Highlands have sufficient well-connected habitats to support a reintroduced population of lynx. During 2024, the lynx to Scotland project completed a national lynx discussion, bringing together representatives from a wide range of key stakeholder groups including farmer and landowner organisations, gamekeepers, foresters, tourism operators and conservationists. The process resulted in a shared agreement between all participants to continue to explore the possibility of reintroducing lynx in future. I encourage members to support amendment 168.

As we have heard from other colleagues in the room, the marine environment needs to be included more explicitly in the bill, which a range of my amendments propose to do. Amendment 45 makes that explicit, as it would require ministers to

“set targets for at least 10 marine habitats.”

Amendment 46 is explicit that there should be

“separate targets for inshore marine habitats and offshore marine habitats”.

I urge members to support those amendments to ensure that the marine environment has parity with the terrestrial habitats when targets are being set.

Amendments 169 and 170 provide targets for the restoration of seagrass and kelp beds, as well as for increasing whale populations in Scottish waters. Seagrass and kelp are vital habitats that support many species and a great deal of work is taking place in our coastal waters to take forward the restoration process, so a target would be welcome. Healthy whale populations can indicate flourishing marine ecosystems. Given their place at the top of the food chain, they can survive only if the overall ecosystem is in a good state. There is now scientific evidence that they will help us with our climate change emissions by storing carbon.

Amendments 173 and 175 would require a target to be set to limit bottom-towed fishing gear in at least 30 per cent of Scotland’s inshore waters. We need to reverse chronic economic decline in our inshore fisheries by rebalancing fishing away from the use of damaging bottom-towed gear towards more sustainable forms of fishing through a just transition. Better regulation of bottom-towed fishing should be one strand of that work, as it would result in greater protection of Scotland’s seas and the recovery of nature and sustainable livelihoods. An inshore limit that covers at least 30 per cent of Scotland’s inshore zone would have the best economic and environmental outcomes and mean that we have more protection, more fish and more jobs.

At the moment, there is no definition of demersal mobile fishing gear in Scottish law. My amendment 175 includes a definition as proposed by the Our Seas coalition. The definition would provide enough specificity while allowing a certain degree of flexibility for future proofing. My thanks go to Open Seas, the Scottish Rewilding Alliance and the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation for their support on those amendments.

Convener, should I also speak to Ross Greer’s amendment?

It is pointed out in my notes that quite a lot of work has been done on lynx introduction. The idea is to explore that possibility. I invite the member to have a look at the work that is being done by the lynx to Scotland partnership and perhaps to engage with the national lynx discussion, which has brought farmers and land managers together.

Does anybody else want to say anything about the LHEES? No? Just for clarification, Neil, when you say that it is not a delivery mechanism and that we need to unlock the funding, are you saying that that is what would make delivery happen?

Certainly. You said that, with the LHEES, you were looking at heat networks. Does that mean that, in Highland, you are looking at heat network zones in, say, Inverness?

I want to dig a bit deeper into the point about continuous grant and loan support. It is my sense—somebody said this already this morning; I think that it was Cornelia—that there is quite a strong focus on air-source heat pumps. Do we need the Government to have the grant and loan support system but with a more technology-neutral approach? Io, I will come back to you briefly and then go to Jocelyne, who has indicated that she wants to come in, and then to Cornelia.

Thanks very much. We will focus a bit more on skills after we get into the area of policy, but they are absolutely connected. After all, you cannot deliver the policy without the skills.

Cornelia, come on in.

That is something to investigate. I wonder what your thoughts are about that pivot. It came up earlier that we tend to build three and four-bedroom homes, and the committee has certainly heard that there are a lot of single people who also desperately need a home. Do we need to be talking a bit more about that?

The convening role of local authorities and councils is very important and it has definitely come up in other areas when we have been doing work on this.

Specifically on the draft climate change plan, which is what we are trying to scrutinise, you are saying that you want more indication of the funding mechanisms. You would like funding to be available for a period, which might then make people move towards addressing some of the issues with delivery and action.