5. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made any assessment of the potential impact of its budget on its net zero ambitions. (S6O-02978)

The budget includes a climate change assessment, which highlights that, in 2024-25, we are committing £4.7 billion in capital and resource funding for activities that will have a positive impact on the delivery of our climate change goals. Alongside the budget, we also published a taxonomy assessment of the impact of each budget line.

One of the shared priorities in the Verity house agreement is a commitment to net zero, but in the recent budget announcement, the regeneration capital grant fund has been cut by 27 per cent. Given that 82 per cent of all emissions are within the scope of influence of Scottish local authorities, it is extremely concerning that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities is now casting doubt over Scotland’s ambitions. Does the cabinet secretary share COSLA’s concerns? What discussions have been had about allocating additional capital resources to allow Scotland’s local authorities to make further investment in reaching net zero?

The views of COSLA and our local authorities on our pursuit of our climate targets are very important to me, because we need a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach. Regeneration capital grants are an important part of that, but the clue is in the title—they are capital grants. It is a little ironic to be questioned by Pam Gosal on capital funding when her colleagues in the United Kingdom Government have dealt Scotland one of the most difficult budgetary challenges that we have had, certainly during the devolution era, on account of its financial mismanagement and, in particular, its failure to inflation proof the capital budget. It has therefore slashed what is available to Scotland and left us with the worst of all worlds, but the Scottish Government will do its very best to protect Scotland from that.

What initial assessment has the Government made of the potential impact of the UK Government’s oil and gas bill on Scotland’s net zero ambitions, given that it appears that no level of funding will be able to prevent Scotland’s actions from being undermined by Westminster mandating annual North Sea licensing rounds?

My clear view is that, instead of annually licensing ever more new fossil fuel extraction, as the bill that the member referred to proposes, the UK Government should be supporting a just transition. Alongside other recent commitments from the UK Government, the bill demonstrates that the Tories are not serious about tackling climate change or about supporting Scotland to realise our enormous renewable energy potential. That is yet another situation that makes clear the perversity of the fact that Scotland has the energy while Westminster has the power—a situation that cannot be tolerated for a moment longer.