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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 24 June 2025
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Displaying 2042 contributions

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Public Audit Committee

Scottish Government Strategic Commercial Assets Division

Meeting date: 30 May 2024

Graham Simpson

Okay. We look forward to seeing that.

Mr Cook, you and I were at the recent summit, as it was described, on Ferguson Marine, which was held in Greenock. It was a useful meeting, but it was private, so I will not reveal what went on. Afterwards, however, the Deputy First Minister made comments on the generalities of what was discussed, and one of the issues that came up was future investment in the yard. I will not ask you to reveal any figures, but we know that the Government turned down a proposal from the previous chief executive and that there is a new set of proposals from the current management. Has a decision been made yet on whether the Government will invest further money in the yard?

Public Audit Committee

Scottish Government Strategic Commercial Assets Division

Meeting date: 30 May 2024

Graham Simpson

Mr Cook, are you able to give us any idea of how long that will take? Is it going to happen within days? Weeks ago, I thought that it would be happening within days.

Public Audit Committee

Scottish Government Strategic Commercial Assets Division

Meeting date: 30 May 2024

Graham Simpson

Okay. I think that it is two but, whatever the number, one of those expressions of interest is headed, shall we say, by the former chairman of the board. Is that correct?

Public Audit Committee

Scottish Government Strategic Commercial Assets Division

Meeting date: 30 May 2024

Graham Simpson

You are clear that you want Prestwick to stay as an airport, but its business model at the moment relies a lot on freight and military flights. Do you expect someone to retain that current business model, or would you accept interest from someone who said, “We don’t want to do it that way—we’ve got other ideas”?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Climate Change and Environmental Governance

Meeting date: 28 May 2024

Graham Simpson

The timescale is that the bill would have to be done and dusted by November?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Climate Change and Environmental Governance

Meeting date: 28 May 2024

Graham Simpson

That is useful.

The Scottish Government still likes to keep pace with European regulations, so I wanted to ask about one that I have been following for a while now, which is regulation EU 2023/1804 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure. I am not expecting you to be all over the detail of that, but it is now in place and it does a number of things. You have already been asked about EV charging. By the end of December 2025, there should be one recharging pool at least every 60 kilometres, or 37 miles, on the main road network in the EU.

The regulation also does a number of other things—I am sure that you can look it up afterwards—such as in relation to hydrogen infrastructure for road vehicles, liquefied methane for road transport, electricity supply in ports, electricity for aircraft, railway infrastructure to include hydrogen and battery power, and easy payment for EV charging.

As I say, I am not expecting you to know all this. I do not expect you to have the regulation in front of you, but do you have the ambition to mirror that regulation here in Scotland?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Climate Change and Environmental Governance

Meeting date: 28 May 2024

Graham Simpson

It is a regulation.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 28 May 2024

Graham Simpson

I am with you, convener. I think that we can accept the principle, but it is not really good enough for the minister to come with an amendment that she does not know the cost of. First, she said that she did not know the cost of it, and then she said that it was zero cost. It is a bit confusing. Every bill has a financial memorandum, so you need to know the cost of things. I think that you need to know the cost of the amendment. That is pretty basic stuff when we come to legislating. I imagine that the committee will probably vote for the amendment if it comes to a vote, but process-wise, that is not the way it should be done.

If any other member had lodged an uncosted amendment, the minister would be criticising them—rightly so—for bringing forward uncosted amendments. She would probably have said, “I cannot support the amendment at this stage because we do not know the cost.” I will throw that back at the minister. She has come here with something that is uncosted, and then, when a piece of paper was passed to her by an official, she suddenly says that there is no cost. Which is it, and where is the evidence?

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 28 May 2024

Graham Simpson

I, too, have been listening very carefully to what you have been saying, convener, and it must strike a chord with probably every single member here. I have already mentioned litter picking during the course of stage 2. I am sure that most of us will have picked litter, and I recall how, when I was doing so in a wooded area next to the East Kilbride expressway, which is a dual carriageway, I saw litter everywhere. It had to have been thrown from vehicles. Of course, some of it had not been—there were sofas deep in the woods, for example—but a lot of it must have been from vehicles and it was inaccessible to the council. You have said, convener, that somebody has got to come and clear the rubbish up; sometimes that somebody is just a volunteer, not the council, and sometimes the litter, particularly bottles, can be left for years, unless somebody comes along and picks it up.

I do not have a vote on this, but if I had, I would be strongly supporting the amendments for the reasons outlined.

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Climate Change and Environmental Governance

Meeting date: 28 May 2024

Graham Simpson

It is a transport issue, but it is also an energy one—it involves the kind of energy that we use. I would like to see this provision apply across the UK, because if we are going to encourage people to use electric vehicles, we need more EV charging stations, which this regulation will make happen.

An example of where we are failing, which I think that the convener is well aware of, is the fact that, on the A9, we have not even designed in a service station, let alone an EV charging station. It seems to me that, if we want to mirror the EU, we need to be looking at exactly this kind of thing.