The next item of business is a stage 3 debate on motion S6M-15168, in the name of Gillian Martin, on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill. I invite those members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak button, and I call Gillian Martin, Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, to speak to and move the motion.
15:29
I open the debate by thanking colleagues from across the parties who have contributed to the bill in the spirit of reaching consensus. Over the past couple of weeks, some who are in the chamber have been in my office as much as they have been in their own. That engagement has paid off, and the bill is better as a result. We have shown that, by working together, we can achieve through discussion the changes that we want to see.
We have worked together because we are all aware that it is only by working together that we can achieve our shared aim of reaching net zero. In the stage 1 debate, I said that we are tremendously lucky that every single party that is represented in the Parliament believes that climate change is a real and present danger to human safety and our environment. That is not the case in every Parliament. There are no climate deniers here, and we should be proud of that.
We need to look at how other countries have put their targets in place and reflect that perhaps the targets that the Scottish Parliament gave us in a bill put us in that position. No other United Kingdom Parliament did that; other Parliaments always gave themselves flexibility. It is a double-edged sword, because we want to show ambition, but that is not enough. We have to take the action that is associated with that ambition. We have to take into account other things that might happen, such as pandemics; we did not see that coming. We have also had inflation and the economic situation, which has had an impact. Things that happen outwith our borders, such as the illegal Russian war with Ukraine, have also had an impact.
Other Governments and Parliaments have not put themselves in that position. I hope that what is in the bill will keep our foot on the pedal with regard to the action, but the climate change plan is where the action really is. It will also not put us in a position where we break the law. We need to reflect on that as a Parliament. Some of the measures in the bill to have more information about when carbon budgets will be agreed will be very helpful in that respect.
I want to go through some of our successes and achievements in reducing our emissions. Our tree planting stats show that we planted 75 per cent of all new woodland trees in the United Kingdom over the past year. We have more than halved the emissions associated with energy in this country, and we have improved our renewable electricity capacity. We have put a raft of policies in place, but the fact is that they are not enough.
Scotland cannot be siloed. We have to work together, not just within the UK but across Europe. The best way forward is always to look at what we can do in the devolved space and what we can do in partnership with other Parliaments and Governments across the UK on the shared things that have an impact on all our ambitions.
I would like everyone in the chamber to bear in mind that we all collectively need to get behind the action that is associated with reaching net zero. That includes working with other Governments, working with our constituents and understanding the fears that they might have around some of the things that they need to do to get to net zero and having a social contract with people on what we need to do to get us there in a just and fair way.
The bill will establish a carbon budget approach to target setting, moving from linear annual targets to a set limit on the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted in Scotland over a five-year period. The expert advice of the Climate Change Committee will be taken into account when we make those decisions in secondary legislation.
That change will help us to account for in-year fluctuations such as harsher winters and support us to put in place strategic and fair long-term plans. The bill will also enable those carbon budgets to be set through secondary legislation, as I said, using the expert advice of the CCC.
If the bill is approved, it will lay the foundations for the next steps that we must take to reach net zero by 2045, and it will present five-year carbon budgets to take us to 2045.
After the bill is passed—and I hope that it will pass—we will urgently seek advice from the CCC on setting the levels of the five-year carbon budgets, and we will introduce regulations. The climate change plan has been worked on throughout the process, because we know that we will have to take decisions on the actions to follow the setting of those carbon budgets.
The cabinet secretary—I said “minister” earlier—makes an interesting point, which I reflected on when we debated the first climate legislation. At stage 3 then, we had a competition for the most ambitious amendments that people could make. Every single political party sought to make that bill stronger. There are climate deniers here, but they know that they are not allowed to say so openly, because those opinions are not given the space that they are given in other countries. That every party sought to make the bill stronger did not help us, though—did it? That fact did not keep us on track with the ambition that was set. Would the cabinet secretary like to reflect on why that did not happen?
Patrick Harvie makes a point that I am going to move on to, which is that it is not enough to set targets or to state our ambition. In the way that we have all worked together on the bill, we have to work together on the action that is required. That is a lot more difficult than what we are doing today. Today, we are looking at how we are measuring and how we are taking on advice from the Committee on Climate Change. However, we know that some of the options to reach net zero will be challenging and difficult. Anyone who voted on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill in 2019, which set the very ambitious targets that we missed, needs to reflect on why we missed them and what was not done to achieve them.
I hear the words of Roseanna Cunningham ringing in my ears: she said that it is not enough to set targets, and that we have to vote for the action. More than that, it is incumbent on everyone in the chamber to come forward with their ideas about how we can accelerate action in a way that is just. We have heard comments about where the Government’s spend is. When we make our proposals in the budget, we have to recognise that we have also set very challenging net zero targets. Every time we come to the chamber with measures that will reduce emissions, we need to bear in mind the responsibility that we have to ramp up action. That is my reflection.
I am grateful to members for providing scrutiny and advice under considerable time constraints. I record my appreciation to the committee for facilitating my accelerated timetable for the bill. It was not easy. I thank the clerks, members of the committee and colleagues in the Scottish Parliament information centre who supported members. I am grateful to the many stakeholders and individuals who reacted to that timescale and provided their views and expertise. I also thank my private office staff, who have been a major support to me. My heartfelt thanks go to my bill team—who are sitting at the back of the chamber—for their hard work, support and expertise during the progression of the bill, and for facilitating and helping other members from across the chamber to draft their amendments. I hope that everybody gets a well-deserved rest after today, but not for too long, because we have important work to do on putting our climate change plan together.
What lessons can the Scottish Government learn from what was, frankly, the timetabling crisis that happened because of the concerns about missing the previous dates that were set into statute, which would have occasioned a potential breach of the law?
I appreciate that you have been very generous in taking interventions, but please bring your remarks to a close.
We have learned a great deal about how our targets system operates and how it might work better, but we must now put that experience into practice.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill be passed.
15:39
I thank the committee and the devolved Government, which have worked together to make significant improvements to the bill. There has been true collaboration, and I give credit where credit is due. I commend the Government’s approach to the bill. It has worked with Opposition parties to improve amendments, and—importantly—it has explained and discussed why some amendments were unworkable. I guess that that is why at stage 3 we had only 15 amendments to consider and only two votes.
The bill is now at a point at which the Scottish Conservatives can support it; but, of course, this is just the start, and tough choices will have to be made in the future. More needs to be done to reach net zero, and we will continue to hold the Scottish Government’s feet to the fire on the hugely important issue of climate change and our journey to net zero, because its record in this area has not been great. The devolved Government has failed to meet its climate change targets, it has failed to address the challenges that we are facing, and it has failed to set out a clear plan on how, together, we can achieve net zero.
The stage 1 report by the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee did not pull its punches on how the bill needed to be improved, and I, along with fellow committee members, other MSPs and the cabinet secretary, have worked hard to ensure that some of the committee’s concerns have been addressed. I thank the cabinet secretary for taking on board some of those concerns and addressing them in the bill.
I said in the stage 1 debate:
“The issue is too important, too big and too vital—its significance is too great—to rush through without adequate thought or thorough examination.”—[Official Report, 10 October 2024; c 86.]
I still feel that that is the case, and I would have welcomed more time to work with colleagues on the issue. However, we are where we are, and we must move forward.
There have been welcome improvements following stage 2, and it is worth reflecting on some of them. I thank my colleagues Graham Simpson and Maurice Golden for their helpful amendments requiring the Scottish Government to share an indication of what policies and proposals might be included in the next climate change plan, including the requirement for a cost benefit analysis to be published for the period covered by a Scottish carbon budget. Importantly, a further amendment from Maurice Golden requires the Scottish Government to assess whether the carbon budget will be met.
One area where we did not manage to agree was the issue of alignment. The majority of evidence that we heard in committee supported alignment with the UK carbon budget. It was disappointing that the Scottish Government did not go down that road, but I am sure that we can make the arrangements work. I know that Northern Ireland has aligned, but Wales is not doing so, so I fully accept that there were arguments on both sides of that debate.
The amendments that have been agreed through the passage of the bill have strengthened it, particularly on accountability. That is badly needed in the Scottish National Party Government, which has failed Scotland and our green industry in past years. It has failed to achieve its key climate change targets in nine out of 13 years, it is set to fail to reach four out of its six recycling targets for 2025, and it has failed to publish its draft climate change plan.
During the stage 1 debate, I expressed concern that having the new bill
“will mean nothing if the devolved Government does not follow it up with actions.”—[Official Report, 10 October 2024; c 88.]
The energy strategy is a prime example of that.
Does Douglas Lumsden accept that part of that future success will involve having the same kind of approach to our climate change plan as we took with the bill and that all the parties in the Parliament need to come forward with their ideas and collaborate on what a climate change plan will look like?
I absolutely agree. The way in which the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill has been handled and the approach to the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, for example, have been like chalk and cheese. We have all benefited from that, and we now have a much stronger bill at the end of the process.
As I was saying, the energy strategy is a prime example. We have been told for months that it is imminent, but there is still no sign of it. During the stage 1 debate, I asked the cabinet secretary to intervene and tell us when it would be released. I repeat that invitation now. Can the cabinet secretary tell us when the strategy will be here?
It will go through Cabinet first, but it is imminent. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I said that.
I thank the cabinet secretary for that intervention, but this is the problem. We have been told that the energy strategy is imminent and ready. We were told that it was delayed because of the general election and that it requires Cabinet sign-off, but the Cabinet meets every Tuesday, so what are we still waiting for? The industry is waiting for it—it is waiting for the direction of travel and the certainty—but the strategy instead seems to be being kicked down the road while jobs in the north-east are lost.
The Scottish Conservatives welcome the bill as a step on the way, but more should and must be done. We need to see a draft climate change plan as soon as possible after the Climate Change Committee delivers its report, next spring. This party wants there to be a new independent office for net zero, which would work with and scrutinise public bodies and their progress to net zero. We would establish a national centre for green jobs that was based in the north-east, with a manager who lived in the north-east of Scotland. I thought that I would clarify that for our Labour colleagues, who think that GB energy should be based in Aberdeen but managed by someone 350 miles away, in Manchester.
The Scottish Conservatives want to continue Scotland’s role at the forefront of energy. We, of course, support a transition for our oil and gas sector, not the cliff edge that it is facing under the devolved Scottish Government and Labour at Westminster.
We support the bill as a step along the way, but more must be done to bring us to net zero. Difficult choices lie ahead.
15:45
I am pleased to speak on behalf of Scottish Labour. Before I turn to the bill and the amendments that we have just agreed to, which are, in large part, technical, it is important to put on record our sympathy for the hundreds of people in Spain whose lives have been devastated by the current emergency—the dead, the missing, the families left behind and the front-line workers who are risking their lives to save others. Our thoughts are with them. The scenes that we have seen in recent days have been, frankly, unbelievable and really difficult to witness.
As we conduct the debate, we should all be reminded that the climate emergency is not something that is happening far away. It is not a tomorrow problem but a right-now one. It is also a matter of life and death. I am pleased that we have the chance to discuss our shared passions for how we tackle the climate and nature emergencies, but we currently have real-time reminders that we cannot just talk about them—we need action. It is not a shortage of ideas that has brought us to where we are on the bill. Across the Parliament, members are passionate about addressing the climate and nature emergencies, but we need bold and radical action that has finance behind it.
Like other members, Scottish Labour colleagues are frustrated that we are at this point today. We would much rather be discussing the climate change plan and all the other exciting projects that we need to see. We know that not all of those will be easy or plain sailing—there will be debate about the action that needs to be taken—but that is where we need to get to. Scottish Labour has been clear that our approach to the bill would be based on being constructive and trying to find consensus. The bill was narrow in scope for good reason. We lodged amendments that were aimed at strengthening and improving it, and we managed to do that. We have worked with other colleagues on their amendments. Even when we could not support those, we always sought to find some common ground.
However, from the briefings that members received in advance of the debate, it is clear that stakeholders, including WWF Scotland, Friends of the Earth Scotland and the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland organisation share our frustration. People are a bit fed up and they really want to see progress being made.
Scottish Labour will continue to work with the Scottish Government. Without wishing to embarrass the cabinet secretary too much, I would like to say that it has been refreshing to work with Gillian Martin and her officials. I think that I am more familiar with her office’s cushions and interior than I am with my own, because we have all been in and out of there so often in recent weeks—it is as though it has had a revolving door. We are all a bit exhausted, because committee and other colleagues have worked really hard around the clock. It is important to recognise the efforts of Government officials and Parliament staff. It is not ideal to have to work at such pace; we want to have proper time to consider proposals and ideas. However, in getting to where we are today, following the stage 2 and stage 3 processes, we have arrived at a good place. I hope that we will continue to have dialogue and try to find consensus and common ground.
I hear what other members say about the issues that remain unknown—the bills, strategies and plans that we have still to see—not all of which sit with the cabinet secretary. That is a hint to the Government that those need to take absolutely top priority. That is why we need progress on a heat in buildings bill, the final energy strategy and just transition plan, and an action plan to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by the end of the decade, as well as support for our rural communities.
The opportunity is huge. If we get the action right and make progress, the gains will be not just for the environment but for our economy and our communities. The bill is an environmental, economic and social imperative. As I said at the start of my remarks, it is a matter of life and death for people and the planet.
We support the bill at stage 3, and I look forward to working with the Government and colleagues in the months ahead.
15:50
First, I pay genuine tribute to Monica Lennon for making the choice to open her speech by recognising what we mean when we use jargon phrases such as “the climate emergency”. This is here and now, and it is life and death. Monica Lennon was quite right to remind us of that.
Throughout this afternoon’s proceedings, I have been struck by—and a bit upset by—the extraordinary gulf between the atmosphere in the chamber today and the atmosphere when we debated the Scottish Parliament’s first climate change bill 15 years ago. Back then, there was a huge demonstration outside the building, showing the anger and urgency, but also the optimism and determination of a host of civil society organisations, which came together in Scotland as a climate movement that was more powerful than any political party or the Government at that time. That is what forced every political party in the Parliament into what I described earlier: a race to lodge more ambitious, more constructive and bolder amendments to strengthen the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill during its passage, which is why we ended up with ambitious climate targets—well, those original climate targets felt ambitious at the time.
The atmosphere in the chamber today—when, for the most part, we have been simply nodding through technical amendments to a piece of framework legislation—tells us something about how we really feel about the bill. I think that we are a bit embarrassed by it, and I think that we should be a bit embarrassed by the need for it.
The first two climate change acts were statements of bold ambition, but the bill is an admission of failure. We need to own up to that and own it collectively, because that failure is largely a result of political choices that have been made. Even 15 years ago, when we were debating the first bold set of targets and racing for amendments to strengthen the bill, the Government was equally happy to celebrate a road-building programme; there was legislation to block or unravel road-pricing legislation that had been set in the first session of the Scottish Parliament; and a host of other policy choices were not being made in a way that was consistent with the bold ambition on climate targets.
Shifting from one legislative framework to another, what do we have in the bill? There are the multiyear carbon budgets, which is fine. I accept that the intention behind annual targets and achieving annual accountability to make it more likely that the Government would stick to a plan did not work—so, multiyear budgets? Fine. The bill includes accountability. It is not perfect, particularly in relation to the budget issues that I raised earlier.
However, the problem is not what is in the bill but what is missing at the moment, and that is the context of urgent policy action. I do not expect a full climate change plan right now, but I expect urgency. However, the assessment of the A96 is stalled and sitting on ministers’ desks unpublished; the energy strategy and just transition plan are stalled, too; there is a 20 per cent car kilometre reduction target, but nothing is happening on that; progress on rail fares and nature restoration is in reverse; and, this week, we find out that the Government is confirming significant job cuts in the heat in buildings programme—yet, without that programme, there is no credible climate change plan, and there cannot be one.
Will the member take an intervention?
Is there time in hand, Presiding Officer?
The member can come in briefly.
I need to clarify that there will not be cuts to Home Energy Scotland; that programme is continuing.
We will certainly explore that, as the Government’s quote in response to The Scotsman article seemed to suggest otherwise.
The fundamental question is this: how are we to have any confidence in a new framework? It is not enough simply to pass the framework, just as it was not enough to pass the original framework and the original climate targets. We need to have confidence that we will not wait for Climate Change Committee advice, the carbon budgets or the climate change plan, but will take action now on the issues that are already stalled. It is only by doing that that we will have confidence that the new framework will be effective. If it is not effective, I fear that we will be in a repeating cycle, and we simply do not have time to waste.
15:55
I apologise to Patrick Harvie for having to briefly step out at the very start of his speech.
Like others, I commend members of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, witnesses, clerks and others for the work that they carried out in a truncated timeframe. Since the stage 1 debate, we have seen an impressive and fairly intensive amount of work carried out in a collaborative way, and I include the collaborative tenor and tone of the debate on the amendments this afternoon. I welcome that and I, too, acknowledge the part that the cabinet secretary has played. I would not suggest that I have spent more time in her office than I have in mine, but during our last meeting, she gave me the wrong office number, so she was clearly trying to divert me to one of her colleagues. Nevertheless, that collaborative approach is very much to be welcomed.
As Monica Lennon said, we are dealing with an issue in the here and now, so where do we go from here? A bit of context is necessary. To my mind, there has been a bit of historical revisionism. That has been less the case in today’s debate, and I exclude the cabinet secretary from my comment, as her candour on the matter has been pretty exemplary.
However, there has been a suggestion that Parliament set up the Government to fail. Yes, the targets that were set in the previous legislation were challenging, but the UKCCC made it clear that they were achievable. Indeed, former First Ministers and ministers were very quick to talk about the world-leading climate change legislation that had been passed by the Scottish Parliament and pioneered by the Scottish Government. There were no caveats; no one was saying that we had no idea how we were going to achieve the targets.
Patrick Harvie and the cabinet secretary were right: target setting has always been the easy bit. I think that it was Chris Stark who referred to it as the “sugar rush” phase. Chris Stark headed a UKCCC that was clear that the targets were stretching but achievable, subject to appropriate actions being taken by the Scottish and UK Governments and others. However, the UKCCC repeatedly and consistently warned about the lack of action plans. It was not that Parliament rejected those action plans but that the UKCCC never saw the action plans as credible. The blame invariably lay elsewhere, and we have to move away from that approach. Again, I acknowledge the way in which the cabinet secretary has gone about piloting this important legislation through Parliament.
I turn to the bill. The carbon budgeting framework is an appropriate way forward. I am more relaxed about the lack of alignment with the UK budget, recognising that, as most members did, there are pros and cons in different approaches. The flexibility that is provided is one that we can take advantage of, but it requires us to have a laser-like focus on the climate change plan and on the other actions that will lead to the delivery of those ambitions.
My final point is about transparency and scrutiny. The detail is absolutely integral to any chance that we have of hitting the targets, and that has been the weakness up until now. The detail will be vital not only for Parliament’s scrutiny role, but for stakeholders outwith this building, who have a role and involvement in that process. Mark Ruskell made important points about consensus when speaking to his amendments earlier.
However, that we have the bill is a reflection of failure, and we cannot afford to find ourselves in that position. The handling of the bill gives cause for optimism, but all the speakers in the debate so far have acknowledged that the hard work and tough decisions are yet to come. Scottish Liberal Democrats are committed to playing our part in that process, and we look forward to voting in support of the bill at decision time this evening.
We move to the open debate with speeches of around four minutes. I call Michael Matheson.
16:00
Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Like a number of speakers in the debate so far, I would prefer that this piece of legislation was not required—I suspect that that is also the cabinet secretary’s view. However, we have reached a point where, as the Climate Change Committee said, our 2030 target is no longer achievable within the existing timeframe and with the policy options that are available to us.
This legislation gives us a good opportunity to reset the framework that will drive us forward to achieving our net zero target by 2045. The carbon budgeting method that has been set out has been enhanced by the scrutiny of Parliament and is in a stronger place now than it was when it was introduced. It gives us a better and stronger framework to ensure that there is greater stability with regard to how we manage the process of achieving our net zero targets.
One of the problems with the target levels that we had set in bill was that they did not give much scope for flexibility or some of the variations that will inevitably occur over a particular timeframe. However, I agree with Patrick Harvie that the key issue in that regard will be not so much the framework itself but the policy options that we pursue to ensure that we deliver on the framework that is set out in the bill. As I said in the stage 1 debate, the low-hanging fruit is well and truly gone. We are now in a position where we will have to make very significant and challenging decisions to ensure that we can deliver what the legislation is intended to achieve.
I believe that, across the chamber, there is a consensus on the need for us to achieve net zero. Certainly, the majority of members agree that it is imperative that we achieve net zero, given the impact that climate change is now having on our environment. We can see that impact in some parts of the world just now, including in Spain, which Monica Lennon referred to. Therefore, it is critical that we continue to move at pace in those areas.
There are a couple of really important areas that we need to focus on as we move forward. In order to achieve net zero here in Scotland—and within the timeframe that we have set—the areas of investment that will be necessary to make that happen will require fiscal stability. That will require the UK Government to continue to invest in net zero in order to allow capital investment to be made here in Scotland in the areas that will help us to achieve net zero. For example, one of our big emitters is energy in housing. We require public and private capital to address that, and the UK Government’s approach will be critically important to achieving that. We will need joint working between Governments and fiscal stability to allow long-term planning to be implemented and taken forward effectively.
Another big area of change is behaviour change. Monica Lennon referred to a 20 per cent reduction in car journeys, and behaviour change will be needed to achieve that target. That will require a change in how we use things such as road tax. Will we shift away from fuel duty and road tax, which are based on carbon emissions, to a system that is based on road tolls? Some would argue that that is the approach that we should take, because that will have an impact on people’s behaviour. However, agreement across the UK would be required to make that work effectively. Although we might say that that is the right thing to do in Scotland, it might be difficult to achieve that because the UK Government is not prepared to pursue that.
On the point about behaviour change, which is always an important and interesting issue, does the member recognise that it is very difficult for people in Scotland to shift away from cars and to use public transport when there are big areas in our country where there are no buses to get on or where buses do not come when people need them? The situation has been really deteriorating, and we have discussed it a lot in committee. Bus deserts are emerging in Scotland, even though people have a bus pass if they are under 22 or over 60. Does the member agree that we need to get serious about that?
I do not disagree with that. However, I am saying that we will require political leadership across the UK to achieve some of the targets. It will require us to make decisions that, at times, prove not to be popular. Right across the Scottish Parliament chamber, at local authority level and at UK level, we will require the right political leadership to ensure that the policies that will deliver the outcomes that we need can be delivered. That will require us all to work collectively.
I believe that the bill is in a stronger position now than it was when it entered Parliament, and that the framework that the Government has set out in the bill will deliver net zero by 2045, with the right policies alongside it to achieve that.
I call Graham Simpson, who joins us remotely.
16:06
I hope to make a brief contribution—which, I know, will be popular with members.
Today, we are being asked to pass a bill that would not have been necessary if the Government had done its job. Patrick Harvie called it an embarrassment and “an admission of failure”, and he was right about that. We are being asked to dig the Government out of a legislative hole. As WWF has said,
“The need for this Bill is frustrating but it makes the best of a bad situation—we need to see action from government that will put our climate and nature ambitions back on track.”
We have the bill because the Government failed to meet legally binding climate change targets or to produce a draft climate change plan by the end of this month, despite having promised to have it ready more than a year ago. That is why the bill has been rushed through. The Government was unable to abide by the law, so it has had to change the law.
Members are well aware of the background, so I do not need to go over it, but we have had a series of missed targets. Friends of the Earth Scotland said in its briefing:
“The 2030 target set by the 2019 Climate Change Act was ambitious but completely achievable.”
It went on to say:
“The need to amend the targets now is solely down to Scottish Government inaction”,
and it is right about that. The briefing went on to call for
“urgent and radical action taken now or the 2045 target will not be met.”
Like others, I welcome the constructive approach that the cabinet secretary has taken in working with us and others at stages 2 and 3. I suspect that Douglas Lumsden and I have not been in her office quite as often as Monica Lennon has, but we are superefficient. I have to say that I agree with Douglas Lumsden that the approach was in marked contrast to our experience during the passage of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill. This bill is better for that collaboration.
We have had a number of amendments at stages 2 and 3, which I think have improved the bill, but the test will be whether it makes any difference at all to people’s lives. We do not know, because that requires plans and policies that are missing. We need to see the heat in buildings bill and, as others have said, a plan to cut car miles, if that is still the Government’s ambition—if it is not, the Government should just stop pretending that it is. None of this will be easy. Let us hope that there is more collaboration when it comes to doing the hard stuff.
I am happy to support the bill.
16:09
I welcome the opportunity to speak in the stage 3 debate. I welcome the work of the committee and the amendments to the bill, which I believe have strengthened it. However, it is more than disappointing that we are having this debate today and that the targets that were previously set in law will not be achieved. The cabinet secretary made her case very reasonably, but we have to accept that we will all suffer as a result of the failures to take action not just here in Scotland but across the UK and, indeed, the world.
As Monica Lennon said, we need only look at the dreadful scenes in Valencia this week to see the potential consequences of our failure to act. Although it might be hard to draw direct links between climate change and individual events, extreme weather events will become more common and more disruptive to our daily lives. As they do so, as we are already seeing, it will become clear that it is not just about isolated weather events that cause so much damage but about the on-going effect of a new climate on our interconnected world.
Climate change is not just a shocking event elsewhere but a global process that will affect us all, from disasters to everyday increases in the price of food and disruption to supply chains. It is therefore very difficult to put a financial cost on what climate change means.
We need to take action in many areas, including by reducing our reliance on oil and gas, which requires serious work. Therefore, it is very disappointing that the Government has missed nine out of its 13 targets, including eight in the past 12 years. We need to recognise that many environmental activists are angry and shocked by the decision to move away from the targets that were set. However, as politicians, we need to accept that those targets were simply not going to be met and that there has been a lack of ambition across our political institutions and a failure to grapple with the magnitude of the crisis that we face. As Patrick Harvie said, we are going backwards in many policy areas, and we are simply not taking many of the actions that are required to meet the targets that we discuss in the chamber.
I will support the bill, as it recognises where we are, but I hope that it will be a starting point in taking more of the real action that is needed and in seeing the depth of the climate crisis for what it is: a process that requires us to change how we organise our society. From how we transport goods and produce energy to which food we eat and how we travel, there is a need for fundamental change to how we manage emissions and the economy more broadly if we are to have a liveable planet. Climate change is not just happening in other countries; it affects us all. In the Parliament, we need to work collectively, across the parties, to show leadership and to match the warm words of politicians and the Government with action.
We move to closing speeches.
16:12
I join other members in thanking the clerks, SPICe and the witnesses, who helped us to deal with what has been an incredibly rushed parliamentary process for the bill. I also thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for their constructive engagement, over the past couple of weeks in particular, as we tried to make sense of the amendments that we could lodge in the time that we had available.
We are five years on from the Parliament’s declaration of a climate emergency and 15 years on from the setting of those first important targets. However, there has been a failure to take early action to meet those targets. The cabinet secretary is right to say that there is consensus in the Parliament on the importance of tackling climate change and on the targets, but there has not been consensus on the importance of taking immediate action to tackle the crisis. That is what we need to build as we go forward. In this debate, there has been the beginning of an understanding of our failure in not taking action, but we need to move forward in that regard.
Will Mark Ruskell give way on that point?
Unfortunately, I am really stuck for time.
Importantly, the bill does not erase the 2045 net zero target, which remains the north star and what we are aiming for. However, by removing the 2030 and 2040 targets, the bill makes the pathway to net zero a lot steeper. There has been a failure to take the early action that could have ensured that we were on a smoother pathway to 2045. That action has not been taken, so we will not meet the target of a 75 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030. I agree with Katy Clark that the fact that the opportunity to take early action was not taken has left many people shocked and angry. It is going to get a lot harder, and action is going to have to ramp up.
This is a narrow technical bill that, in effect, provides Parliament with a stronger role. With carbon budgets, we will get a better opportunity to scrutinise, and we will get better sight of what policies the Government will bring forward to back up its budget early on. There will be a climate change plan that will, finally, follow the budget pretty quickly, and there will be more public engagement on the back of that. If the Government fails to meet targets, there will be better catch-up reports, with more detail. There will also be a stronger link to CCC advice.
All of those are good things in relation to the Parliament’s job of scrutinising the Scottish Government, but there are still elements missing. It is disappointing that Patrick Harvie’s amendments on financial budgets were not agreed to, because we heard great evidence on that from the Scottish Fiscal Commission, and it is clear that there is a critical role for independent scrutiny.
As Michael Matheson said, we need to get into a position of fiscal stability between the Governments. There needs to be a serious, central commitment to delivering on climate change ambition, which needs to be funded by all Governments. What we have—what the cabinet secretary talked about—is a commitment to a net zero test. That is important for the Government’s own internal thinking about financial budgets, but we need to see independent scrutiny.
Many members have reflected on the failure of policy. We have continually seen one step forward and then two steps backward on climate policy. We are looking for the energy strategy just transition plan to come out soon and for it to deal with some of the contradictions, such as the fact that carbon capture and storage is still an uncertain technology, and that Peterhead power station will lock us in to using gas for decades to come. We need certainty on the A96. We need an ambitious heat in buildings strategy. We need road traffic demand management, which—I agree with Michael Matheson—needs to include road tolling and pricing: we need an honest conversation about that.
I am sure that the bill will pass at decision time, and members may be tempted to applaud that. The Greens will not be applauding—we will be abstaining on the motion to pass the bill, because it is an admission of failure. The only way forward is to double down on the action that is desperately needed to tackle the emergency, and we all have a responsibility to do that in the years ahead.
16:17
It is a pleasure to close on behalf of Scottish Labour at the end of interesting stage 3 proceedings and an interesting stage 3 debate.
I thank the committee, clerks and all those who have supported the advocates and politicians with regard to timetabling of the bill. I also thank my colleague Sarah Boyack, who apologises for being unable to be here due to a commitment that could not be moved.
I will spend the short time that I have looking at how we got here, not over the long term—the past decade or so—but at the timetabling of the legislation and, in particular, the expectations that were placed on this Parliament and the net zero committee by the Scottish Government.
I thank the cabinet secretary for her response to my intervention at the beginning of the debate. It gives an insight into the challenge of perception by the Scottish Government and the Parliament. Before I deal with that, however, I put on record my thanks to the cabinet secretary for the sea change in approach to members of this Parliament—both members of the Scottish Government’s own party and members of other parties across the chamber—and for the open-door approach that was taken.
A cynical person might have said that that was in part due to the timetabling, but I would like to think that the experience has shown that, with an openness to the cross-party ideas, solutions and strategies that exist in this Parliament, we can, if not necessarily reach consensus, improve legislation by taking both sides’ points of view into account and seeing the challenges. There is a way through.
In this case, the bill has had to be expedited because of the timetabling. Nonetheless, to echo the view of most members around the chamber, we now have a much better bill than we began with, and while it is clear that some members are unable to fully support the bill, they will not object to it.
I think that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament can learn, from the experience of the past six or seven weeks, that there is a different way of doing policy. To echo contributions from members around the chamber, this narrow bill is just the start. It is, to a certain degree, a measure of the failure of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. Nonetheless, it shows what we can do by opening up the issues and having the discussions. In considering the climate plan that needs to be brought forward, there will be opportunities to reach consensus across the chamber.
That is important, because—to echo almost every speaker today—now is the time for action, as we cannot wait any longer. We have strengths in the system in this Parliament, and we should use those to bring forward policy and make plans and decisions that people outside the Parliament can see, contribute to and help to build. When the matter comes back to the Parliament, therefore, we can, while perhaps not quite speaking with one voice, speak with a substantial majority to say that there are very hard decisions that have to be taken but those decisions can be made, and there is strong agreement on what follows.
However, that approach has to come first and foremost from the Scottish Government in its leadership. We have heard examples of where there have been failings over the past decade or so; I could go into that, but there is no value in doing so. There is an opportunity here. Having backed ourselves out of a cul-de-sac, let us look at the roundabout of opportunity that sits in front of us. We can draw on that, and make the future brighter for—as Patrick Harvie said—those many hundreds, nay thousands, of people who turned up a decade and a half ago to celebrate the passage of the 2009 act. Let us re-establish that enthusiasm, not because people are despairing, but because they see an opportunity for a different future.
I call Edward Mountain to close on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. I advise Mr Mountain that I can continue to be generous, as we still have some time in hand.
16:22
Thank you, Presiding Officer—I fear that you might not need to be so, but your generosity is always gratefully received.
In closing, I note that we need to remind ourselves why we are here today: to discuss a climate change bill that was introduced because we failed to reach our targets. Those targets might have been challenging, but they were achievable, and it is wrong to blame anyone but the Government for failing to meet them.
We came here to discuss a bill that was talked about in May but not released to the committee until September. While I understand that the committee and the clerks, and everyone else, worked very hard to get the bill through the various stages, I say to the cabinet secretary that it would have been helpful if the bill had been released when it was first talked about. That would have meant that further evidence could have been gathered between May and now, which would have allowed the committee to form a more informed opinion.
I, personally, am disappointed that, despite the number of times that the committee asked the Government for information on the bill, it was rebuffed at every turn, but that is where we are. As a committee, we were given a very tight and pressured timescale in which to look at the bill, with stage 2 being discussed only on the Tuesday shortly after recess. Stage 2 amendments were lodged during recess, and stage 3 amendments had to be lodged by last Friday lunchtime. That is hardly an acceptable way to do legislation, and we could have done it in a much more considered way.
At this stage, I find myself perhaps agreeing—well, not perhaps; I agree—with Patrick Harvie. It is a sad day, because we have now accepted that the targets that we as a Parliament have set ourselves will not be achieved. That is sad news, but I believe that there are some benefits. For example, carbon budgeting will give us a better way by which to achieve our net zero targets.
Another reason for sadness is that this Parliament has decided that it is not appropriate to align with the UK on carbon budgets. In my life, experience has taught me that if you try to rush ahead of what everyone else is doing, it invariably means that it will cost you more, as you will be using newer technology, which probably will not last the pace as you require it to do.
In conclusion, I congratulate everyone on working together, which we all have, but we had to do so because this Government was in danger of breaking a law that had been passed by the Scottish Parliament.
We are where we are. I look forward to receiving the climate change plan and the carbon budget when they arrive and hope that the Government will expedite those as soon as it has had advice from the Climate Change Committee and as soon as the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee—if I am still on it—has had time to give further thoughtful consideration to the targets.
I call the cabinet secretary, Gillian Martin, to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Government. I can continue to be generous with time.
16:25
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I will talk until you tell me to stop, because a lot of points have been made in the debate, and I want to address most of them.
I will not go over what the bill does, because I did that in my opening speech and because we are familiar with what it achieves. It changes the mechanism for setting our carbon budgets and for looking at and assessing the information that is required by the whole Parliament before we make decisions on what goes into our climate change plan and the ambitions that we set.
I have reflected a lot on what we did in 2019, when we set an interim target of a 75 per cent reduction in emissions. That was always the most challenging target. No one likes to fail: I do not like to fail and no one here likes to fail. We wanted to be in a position to reach that 75 per cent target, but a lot of people told us how difficult that would be.
Monica Lennon has just been to Iceland for the Arctic Circle conference, which I went to just after we set those 2019 targets. I was having a bilateral meeting with the then environment minister, who was a climate specialist, and he genuinely nearly fell off his chair when I mentioned our target of achieving a 75 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. He used some quite fruity language, which I will not put on the record, as he asked, “How are you going to do that?”
I have never forgotten that, but I do not feel that setting a target that people criticise and say that we cannot meet is, in itself, a bad thing. That target accelerated action, even though we have not met it. That is a source of great regret to everyone—would that we had met it. It was always extremely challenging.
Patrick Harvie made a great point that I have heard made by many others: the fact that we have set targets is not enough to allow us to pat ourselves on the back or to go round the world telling people how great we are for doing so. Big deal. We must work collaboratively, within Parliament, on the ways in which we are going to get there. More than that, we must be able to articulate those ways to the people we represent, because none of this is going to be easy or cheap.
Michael Matheson made a point about fiscal sustainability. We talk about decarbonising heat in buildings. Why does the country that produces the most green energy of any of the four nations in the UK—and a great deal more than any country in the European Union—still have most of its homes being heated by gas? That is the case because it is cheaper to heat your home with gas. As someone who is the cabinet secretary for net zero and was the minister for climate action, on being confronted with a situation in which I need to replace my boiler—my house is not suitable for a heat pump—I am told at every turn, when I phone round, that putting in electric heating would be the most ridiculously stupid thing that I could do.
Therefore, we need market reform that recognises that we are a green electricity-producing country, and I am pleased to say that I am having collaborative discussions on that area with the new UK Government. Under our four-nations approach, I regularly meet Huw Irranca-Davies of the Welsh Government, Andrew Muir of the Northern Ireland Assembly and my counterparts in the UK Government. We need to recognise that there has to be fundamental market change and systems change in order to do the big stuff, but the big stuff is expensive stuff, and we must recognise that we are going to have to communicate that to our constituents and get their buy-in for what is necessary.
I do not want to get into any finger pointing. Enough of that goes on in the climate change debate. We are all responsible for the action that is required to deliver on climate change. It is not the responsibility of any one Government or only of local authorities; it is the responsibility of all of us individually and collectively.
It is important that we do not leave Parliament today having given the impression that this is just too difficult. It was not the targets that were the problem; it was the lack of action. The cabinet secretary has had a lot of compliments today on her approach, as she has been very open to colleagues.
However, what lessons has the Scottish Government learned? If we are to make the progress that we need to make, we need to see leadership and collective action across Government. I note that the First Minister is now in his seat. Can we get a few words of comfort that the Government has learned lessons? The fact that we are here today has to be a wake-up call.
The First Minister has four priorities, and net zero is one of them. It is obviously something that his Government has decided to prioritise.
I was about to go on to say that, at the moment, things are happening to decarbonise the whole of the UK—there are ambitions around that. However, I sense that, when we go out and speak to our constituents, some of the things that are happening can look unpalatable, such as transmission infrastructure developments. We must have a situation in which communities feel that they will get something out of such developments. That is another area in which I am working with the other Governments in the UK to make sure that the communities that are hosting developments and infrastructure for energy in particular feel the benefit of that. That needs fixed.
I will move on to another thing that needs fixed. There can be no one-size-fits-all interventions in this space. In the debate, I heard a lot about car use. I work closely with the transport minister in everything that she does. Indeed, I work closely with a lot of Government ministers, because action on climate change does not sit only in my portfolio. There is no one-size-fits-all approach; what works in Glasgow will not work in New Pitsligo. If I was to drop somebody there and tell them that they could get to their work in Aberdeen by public transport, they would laugh me out of town. There are different approaches. We must recognise that, in some areas, it is not feasible not to use a car, so we need to look at the systems that are available for people to use cars with lower emissions and so on.
I will mention some of the contributions to the debate. I associate myself with Monica Lennon’s comments about Valencia. What happened there could have happened anywhere. It could have been us. It could have happened in any city. Flash floods are a real and present danger, and they are a result of climate change. My heart goes out to the people who are suffering there. We have had forest fires in the Arctic and extreme weather events in this country.
Douglas Lumsden rightly pointed out that a lot of the amendments were about sharing more information so that we all have everything at our fingertips and we can make the necessary decisions.
I understand Patrick Harvie’s frustration, but I again point to the fact that Scotland comprises very different geographical areas and not every intervention will work in Glasgow, Shetland and the northern isles. We need to look at the just transition element that is associated with that.
Michael Matheson said that the policy options that we are pursuing are significant and challenging and that we need to recognise that many of them will need an enormous amount of funding, which cannot come only from Government. We must put more pressure on the people in the private sector who operate in our country, as they have a massive role to play as well.
I will say one thing in response to Graham Simpson. I have enjoyed working with him on the bill, due to his pragmatic approach, but I am not so keen on the finger pointing. I hold my hands up: we have not met the 75 per cent target. However, we cannot keep looking back and apportioning blame, because meeting net zero is the responsibility of each and every member. It is about what we do in our own lives, what we say to our constituents and what we vote for in the chamber. That is the message that I want to leave people with.
When we bring forward our climate change plan and give all the information to people about the potential routes that we can take, some stuff will make members hold their breath and say, “Wow! We can’t do that. How’s that going to go down in my constituency? How’re we going to afford the cost associated with that?”
We will all have to look at the art of the possible. That is the most important thing that comes next. Next time something is brought forward in the chamber, we will all have to remember what was said here today about the ambition being only the ritual, signalling part of the process. The difficult action is what we all need to get behind.
I thank members for their work on the bill.
Martin Whitfield rose—
I am just about to wind up, but I will take an intervention if the Presiding Officer lets me do so.
I call Martin Whitfield.
I am grateful to you, Presiding Officer, and to the cabinet secretary.
If the cabinet secretary plans to seek agreement across parties, the work needs to happen in the weeks before she comes to the chamber to make her announcement.
That was pretty much where I was going to end. I have an open-door approach. I appreciate the comments about the lovely cushions in my office; more members can come and see those cushions and spend time in my office to talk about what, collectively, we need to do as a Parliament to get us to net zero in 2045. I look forward to those conversations and suggestions, and to our all taking responsibility for getting to net zero.
I thank all members for their work on the bill. We have done a job of work and have ruined quite a lot of people’s October recess, but we have got there. I thank everyone for their co-operation with me and my team.
That concludes the stage 3 debate on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill.
I am minded to accept a motion without notice that, under rule 11.2.4 of standing orders, decision time be brought forward to now. I invite the Minister for Parliamentary Business to move such a motion.
Motion moved,
That, under Rule 11.2.4, Decision Time be brought forward to 4.37 pm.—[Jamie Hepburn]
Motion agreed to.
Air adhart
Decision Time