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Good afternoon, Philip. Thank you for supporting our evidence sessions. As a former committee convener, I feel your pain about getting Government ministers to attend committees. I struggled persistently to get UK ministers to attend Scottish committees.

I was interested to hear about a draft climate change delivery plan being published at the same time as the five-year carbon budget. Are there any health warnings in relation to that? How detailed could it be, given the year-to-year budgets that the Scottish Parliament gets? Would there be an understanding that a draft budget might have to change to a degree because of the uncertainties with the fiscal framework, which we heard about from Professor Ulph earlier?

How much of what you are talking about is related to the five-year carbon budgets, and how much of it is related to the climate change plan that will follow? The high-level stuff might be in the five-year carbon budgets, but the plan needs to contain the day-to-day brass tacks of delivery. Should the committee have as much data on both those things before we consider the five-year carbon budgets?

Is all that doable? I am conscious that projecting what capital expenditure will be required to tackle climate change in Scotland for the next 15 to 20 years is challenging in the first place, given how the Parliament’s finances work. In your earlier remarks, you mentioned the interaction between reserved and devolved spending. Will you say a little more about that?

Is it your underlying point that it is important to demonstrate what the impacts are likely to look like ahead of setting the five-year budget? We are scrutinising the bill rather than that bigger picture. You think that it is about the data that the Parliament should have ahead of those five-year budgets being set. That was a general comment, but is there anything specific that you want to say on that?

I will move to my third question. I will bring in Dr Nurse to mop up on any of those previous points but also to answer my third question, which is on the affirmative procedure. It is a very dry parliamentary point about whether the Government consults on its proposals and then seeks parliamentary approval or whether it lays drafts of secondary legislation, consults on those and then potentially changes that draft legislation based on the views of Parliament and wider society. That would be a super-affirmative, rather than an affirmative, procedure. That is what I was trying to draw you on, Professor Roy.

I see nodding heads among the other witnesses. I apologise to David Hawkey, but I will leave it at that, convener.

I will be incredibly brief. I do not think that, in a framework bill, we can legislate for a cultural change in how Governments liaise with one another, but my colleague Monica Lennon is absolutely right that partnership working will be absolutely crucial.

In relation to that, when the committee comes to scrutinise the five-year carbon budgets, would it be more helpful to have a longer line of sight and more certainty over Scotland’s capital budget? I am conscious that we set annual budgets in the Scottish Parliament, but I am talking about capital budgets over a 15-year period.

There is some helpful overlap in some of this. When Parliament comes to scrutinise the five-year carbon budgets, we want to make sure that they are ambitious but also that they are realistic—I think that Dr Nurse is quite clear about being realistic.

We have spoken a bit about the pounds and pence requirements, and Professor Ulph talked about the fiscal constraints and what the costs will be, but, more generally, what information does Parliament need to have at its disposal? I am talking about information not about the bill but about the five-year carbon budgets that the bill enables. What data or information does Parliament need in order to effectively scrutinise whether any carbon budget that comes to this place for consideration is ambitious and realistic? I ask Dr Nurse to respond first.

That is helpful. It is about the art of the achievable—about whether we have enough data and can ensure that sectors will have capacity to deliver the stuff that you mentioned about heat in buildings.

Professor Ulph, you mentioned the data that would be required to ensure that the policy is fiscally achievable. Will you say a little more about that? What data should the Parliament have ahead of considering not only the climate change plan but the five-year carbon budgets?

Dr Nurse, on the level of scrutiny, any comments on the use of the affirmative procedure or otherwise would be helpful. This is my final question because, obviously, we are under time constraints, which is actually part of my question. The bill appears pretty narrowly drawn and maybe limited in scope, but it could be narrowly drawn and limited in scope but have a big impact. We all understand the issues about the time that we have now to scrutinise the provisions in the bill in what is an expedited process. Scrutiny may have to come further down the line—hence why I mentioned super-affirmative instruments.

Dr Nurse, what should the level of parliamentary scrutiny be? Can we do it within the very challenging timescale that has been set for us by the Scottish Government or will some scrutiny come further down the line when the five-year carbon budget has been set, in line with my mention of the super-affirmative procedure?