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Mr Hughes, in response to Mark Ruskell’s questions, you talked about the Gresham House fund making “good strides”. You also mentioned job creation. How many jobs have been created in rural Scotland as a result of Gresham House funds’ forestry activities in Scotland?

Thank you. The committee would welcome more information on that.

I will go back to my earlier question about native tree planting. I think that the figure that you gave for native broadleaf was 20 per cent. I have dug out some correspondence that the bank gave to the committee previously. It expected that 46 per cent of the planting would be native broadleaf, which would exclude the open-ground figure of 20 per cent that you gave. Are you on track to meet that expectation? I am not sure whether that is a target or an expectation, but is that going as well as it should be going?

Okay. Thank you, Mr Hughes. I would certainly welcome further correspondence to clarify some of the figures. I do not know whether it is just me, convener, but I did not fully follow all of that.

I have a couple more brief questions for the rest of the panel. I want to turn back to carbon credits and to get an understanding of how carbon buyers use them. Are carbon credits being used as part of corporate offsetting strategies or are they being traded or retained as commodities? What standards are being applied to ensure that offsets are being used responsibly—for example, to offset genuinely unavoidable emissions?

I am not sure who would like to go first on that.

Thank you, Mr Wilson. That was helpful. I am encouraged to hear that there has been perhaps not formal consultation but wide engagement. You also mentioned a number of key stakeholders including unions, whose involvement is important.

Given what you have said, I have a wider question. Obviously, there are the provisions in this bill—which is not a Scottish Government bill—but, more generally, concerns have been raised about the impact of automated vehicles on workers. Jim Wilson gave the good example of self-scanning checkouts in supermarkets. I am sure that we have all had our ups and downs with those.

I believe that, in Scotland, there was a trial involving self-driving buses in 2023, and concerns were raised about what such a move might mean for workers not just from a safety perspective but for future workforce planning. Cabinet secretary, could you speak to the issue of workforce planning? We know that there is a shortage of bus drivers, but have you picked up on any other particular issues? On Mr Wilson’s point about the importance of collaboration and discussion with the Department for Transport, are you satisfied that there is good dialogue with the UK Government on these matters?

Good morning to our panel. On the back of Mark Ruskell’s question, I was reading a media comment by Mike Robinson, who is the chair of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, on the issue of value and affordability. On behalf of the coalition, he said:

“Reverting to expensive tickets would be a hugely retrograde decision and would be bad news for workers, passengers and the climate.”

When you are taking the temperature of the travelling public, are you picking up on that desire to do the right thing by the climate and the environment in addition to having more affordable train travel?

I want to pick up on the issue of accessibility before I move on to a question about the safety of women and girls, in particular. Bob Doris asked about accessibility, and Robert Samson talked about rolling stock procurement and future opportunities. I remind the committee that I am a patron of Disability Equality Scotland.

Even at this quite early stage, is there positive engagement with disability organisations and disabled people about their experiences? You have talked not just about reliability but about perceptions about reliability. Obviously, the point about passenger assistance is key. I would like a brief answer to that question before I move on to other matters.

Good morning to the panel. First, congratulations to Alex Hynes on his new appointment as director general of rail services at the Department for Transport, moving from Scotland’s Railway to Britain’s railways, in four weeks’ time. Can you advise the committee who will take over from you on 15 April?

Your role is MD of both Network Rail Scotland and ScotRail. Will that arrangement continue?

I think that it is just for two years, so you might be back in front of us.

I want to speak about the impact of weather events. You mentioned earlier that, even during the pilot scheme for the abolition of peak fares, there have been 10 named storms. I will not ask you to name them all, but extreme weather events are having an increasing impact on Scottish rail services. How is that issue being addressed in the short term and how will it be addressed in the coming years? Maybe Liam Sumpter could add to the answer. What impact might the challenges around control period 7 cuts to investment have on any of the actions that we are about to hear about from Alex Hynes?

Thank you. Yes, I am keen to hear from Liam Sumpter. Alex Hynes mentioned resilience. Some routes will be more challenging than others because of drainage issues and other factors. Liam, could you expand on that briefly?