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Now I am feeling my age.

Perfect. The next questions are from the deputy convener, Fiona Hyslop.

The second item on the agenda is an evidence session with Scotland’s statutory environmental regulators. I refer members to the papers from the clerk and the Scottish Parliament information centre.???

Earlier this year, the committee agreed to hold a one-off evidence session with environmental regulators to take stock of environmental law and regulation post-Brexit as well as other recent developments.

I welcome our witnesses. Jo Green, acting chief executive, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and John Kerr, operations manager of protected areas, innovation and data, NatureScot, both join us remotely. Mark Roberts, chief executive, Environmental Standards Scotland, joins us in the committee room. I thank you all for accepting our invitation to attend.

Members will ask questions in turn. It would help broadcasting staff if members could direct their question to a specific person on the panel or set out a running order for answers.

I will ask the first question, which I direct to Jo Green. At the beginning of last year, and in the course of this year, SEPA struggled with data breaches that led to immense problems with its computer systems. Could you bring us up to speed on how you have resolved that situation and whether you are now working online and are back to your previous form?

That is fine. Thank you—I will take that.

There are some questions on changing weather and extreme weather conditions. How are SEPA and NatureScot monitoring and reacting to extreme weather conditions? We seem to get massive downfalls of rain, which overload every system and watercourse, and then periods of drought, as we had this summer. My understanding is that a lot of the restrictions on water abstraction were in place because, in some cases, waters were being transferred from one catchment to another, based on legislation from 1953. Will you very briefly explain to the committee whether the system of abstraction from watercourses is operating effectively, given the extreme weather conditions? Should we review the system to take into account extreme droughts? I will bring in John Kerr and then Jo Green.

I will call Mark Ruskell to ask a specific question in a minute and I will then call other members to ask about finance, but first I want to make abundantly clear what is clearly set out in my entry in the register of members’ interests: I farm in Speyside and have an interest in a fishery in the River Spey. My questions were more general rather than being specifically about the Spey, but I want to ensure that there is no dubiety or question about this and to make it clear that that is where my knowledge comes from.

Thank you, Jo, for volunteering to provide that extra information. There have been one or two offers to provide further information to the committee and we look forward to receiving that in due course.

I thank all the witnesses for taking part and sharing their expertise with us. The committee will go on to discuss the evidence that they have given us later in the meeting. We will write to the Scottish Government on the common frameworks in the near future and the clerks will ensure that members see that letter before it goes.

We are all getting used to Zoom meetings, but when the technology does not work at quite the speed that we hope it to, it sometimes lets us down. I thank everyone for working through it.

I will suspend the meeting briefly to allow a change of witnesses.

We will now take evidence on Environmental Standards Scotland’s strategic plan. ESS has a statutory duty to lay its strategic plan before the Parliament, after which the Parliament must consider whether to approve it. The plan was laid on 30 September. The Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee has been designated as the lead committee to scrutinise the plan, with a view to making a short report to the whole Parliament afterwards.

I welcome back Mark Roberts, the chief executive of ESS. He is joined by Jim Martin, who is the chair, and Neil Langhorn, who is the head of strategy and analysis.

I will start the questioning with a gentle opener. I would imagine that my question is for Jim Martin and that Mark Roberts will probably provide support. Has setting up ESS been an easy process? Will you provide a brief update on how that has gone and the current position?

Good morning and welcome to the 27th meeting in 2022 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.

I am not seeing any feed on the screens. Can we rectify that, please, before we go any further?

The first item on the agenda is consideration of whether to take in private agenda items 4 and 5, on consideration of the evidence that we will hear. Do we agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I think that Liam Kerr has supplementary questions on the first part of that.

I will bring in Mark Roberts, because he partially answered that question before.