Meeting of the Parliament 20 December 2017
I will point out a few things to Mr Burnett. First, the strategy is not at all delayed. We published the draft strategy in January for consultation until the end of May. We committed to publish the strategy by the end of this year and we have delivered on our commitment to do so, so it is wrong for Mr Burnett to claim that it has been delayed. I can understand the industry’s excitement about the strategy being published, as it strongly supports the direction of travel in which the Scottish Government is going, and the industry is obviously eager to see the final document.
I challenge what Mr Burnett said about the detail, in that the process has involved considerable consultation with the Scottish energy advisory board and the industry, and they are strongly supportive of the list of actions that we have published. The strategy is to be seen in concert with the climate change plan, which will be published early in the new year, and it has been developed using the TIMES model. It is a very thorough document, which has been warmly welcomed by the industry.
We understand that the UK Government is looking very closely at taking a similar line to the Scottish Government’s whole-system approach. As with many other decisions that we have taken ahead of UK ministers, such as on underground coal gasification or—in due course, I believe—on fracking, Mr Burnett will find that the UK Government has plans to take a similar approach to the Scottish Government in this respect.