Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have just read out a list of specific ideas that will help Scotland to reduce its climate emissions.

If Mr Simpson wants to go for a full dualling of the A96, I suspect that that will result in enormous amounts of carbon emissions that will be locked in for decades ahead. I say to Mr Simpson and to other members in the chamber—if this Parliament wants to make such decisions, we have to live with the consequences; if we go for high-carbon infrastructure, it has a consequence, so we need to measure it and understand it. If members want to trade that off against emission reductions somewhere else in the economy, they can make that decision, but we have to operate within our carbon budget. I think that that is implicit within this bill.

The bill does not alter climate ambition, which will come through the setting of a carbon budget next year. However, it does offer the opportunity to learn lessons from the past five years, especially through the need to link action plans with financial budgets and the new carbon budgets. Aligning a five-year carbon budget with a clear and costed plan will, I hope, deliver honest and transparent consideration of what is actually needed on the ground to get to net zero. The evidence that was presented on that by the Scottish Fiscal Commission was important and I hope that the Government will consider giving it a formal role in the process.

In closing the debate, I offer an apology to all the people in Scotland who, having fled persecution and war, are languishing in the asylum system, because the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament made a promise to them that they would receive a small but very important freedom—a free bus pass—which, in the words of Kaukab Stewart, would make a “huge difference” to their lives. That apology needs to be made.

I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government appears to be recommitting to the policy, but caveats are already starting to be introduced. The policy is apparently dependent, in part, on the budget, and the Government has said that, if we want to go down the route of a national entitlement card, there will be timescale issues. Frankly, those of us who have been working on the issue and the asylum seeker community more generally have heard those excuses over many years, and we are fed up with them.

We want to see practical progress and a timescale for implementation. We want Transport Scotland to implement the policy, not to continually workshop it, talk about it and push things out to pilot projects. A lot of work needs to be done to restore faith within the asylum seeker community in Scotland that the policy will actually be introduced.

Let us be clear: we are talking about people who are living in state-enforced destitution. As many members have pointed out, they simply cannot work—they are not allowed to work. I am thinking about the 180 people in Perthshire, in my region, who are living in hotels on £8.86 a week. That forces them to make unimaginable choices. If they wanted to get a day pass to get around Perthshire, they would have to spend half their weekly allowance on one day pass to get the bus. If they wanted to get the bus to see their friends and family or even their immigration lawyer in Glasgow, that would cost £13. They would have to spend weeks and weeks saving money just to make that essential trip. Those choices are impossible.

Patrick Harvie has already spoken about GP appointments, and I am seeing evidence of asylum seekers being unable to access out-patient appointments. These are people who have gone through mental and physical trauma. Some of these people have come from war zones. They absolutely need the medical care that they deserve. They are having to make impossible choices. Do they top up their mobile phone with extra credit or do they buy food for their kids? Can they afford to see their immigration lawyer? Those are the real-life choices that are being made.

I will turn to some of the comments that were made by Sue Webber. I am so disappointed in those comments, which I feel were frankly disgraceful and bring this chamber into disrepute. Pitching asylum seekers—

No. I have heard enough, frankly.

Pitching asylum seekers against pensioners—we should always call that out in this chamber, and I call it out now. I am grateful for Alex Cole-Hamilton’s very passionate speech, which underlined the values of our nation. Emma Harper made similar comments. These issues should be beyond party politics. As Richard Leonard said, we are the Scotland of Kenmure Street. Those values are embedded in this Parliament. It is beyond party politics.

Bob Doris reminded us that we have had Conservative colleagues in the past, such as Jackson Carlaw, who have taken a humanitarian approach to the question. They left their party politics at the door. They understood this from the perspective of people in the asylum system who are desperate. I commend the work of Paul Sweeney, Bob Doris, Jackson Carlaw and many other members who have championed the needs of people in the asylum system.

Douglas Ross commented on the investment in bus services in Moray. Of course, that is important, but this debate is not about a choice. If he had cared to notice, investment in concessionary travel leads to a reimbursement rate, and many services across rural Scotland have been saved as a result of that. This debate is not about a choice or about pitching rural bus services against asylum seekers; it is about human rights.

Absolutely. I look at the bus services in Perthshire and I see community organisations running bus services that would welcome asylum seekers, who would help to improve their viability.

In the time that I have left, I will focus on some of the comments on the budget. The £2 million that was committed is a tiny amount of money in the context of the overall Scottish budget. As Paul Sweeney said, it is effectively a rounding error in the context of the wider budget for concessionary travel, which runs to hundreds of millions of pounds. It is 0.2 per cent of that budget.

The cabinet secretary said that we need to find a way forward in the budget process, but that does not fill me with confidence. There needs to be better financial management. Claire Baker pointed out that there has been a failure in allocating that £2 million to particular budget portfolios. That should not be the case. We have to see commitment following budget and delivery coming on the back of that.

A number of comments have been made about the amazing voluntary organisations that are supporting people who are languishing in the asylum system across Scotland. Patrick Harvie mentioned Refuweegee and Bikes for Refugees. There are many informal groups of people who are supporting asylum seekers across rural and urban Scotland, but the important point was made that that help cannot be an alternative to state support. We absolutely need state support to give asylum seekers that basic right.

In the words of Maggie Chapman, we need to turn warm words of welcome into acts of justice. We need to do that. We need to commit to that policy. People in the asylum system need free bus travel and they need it now.

Would Mr Cole-Hamilton like to reflect on Sue Webber’s comments, which were inherently divisive and pitted the needs of pensioners in this country against people who are fleeing persecution and war? Is he prepared to condemn those comments, as most of us in the chamber do?

Yes, but do you see a difference between a public contract where public money goes into, say, a catering service in a school and what happens next door in McDonald’s? What happens next door at McDonald’s is wrapped up in area-based reporting, which is about what happens within the general council area, but there is a direct link to public spend. Our taxpayers’ money goes into supporting public services. Should there be more climate carbon accounting for that? I am trying to understand why it is fine to push that off-limits a bit and say, “It’s a bit too hard. There are difficult decisions to make and it’s all captured by the general carbon reduction within a council area.” That does not feel quite right to me.

Finally, what does that reporting back to Parliament look like? Parliament is being asked to approve or to not stand in the way of your improvement plan that has come in on the back of an improvement notice from ESS—we have to say, “Yes, that is good”, or, “No, we think you need to think again”. If we are broadly saying, “Yes, this is moving absolutely in the right direction”, as I think that it is, what will the reporting back to Parliament look like? There is this unanswered question around scope 3 emissions, and I certainly want to see what progress is being made not in 2027—if we are still here—but in the interim period between, in 2025 and 2026.

Yes. I was having a look at the different areas of scope 3 emissions. The Government has categorised some of those as being really hard to bottom out and, if I understand it correctly, further work has been scheduled for that.

One of the groups is operation of franchises. How hard is it to work out the emissions from a franchise? This committee has discussed bus franchises. Surely it would be relatively easy for a council to work out how the operation of a bus service over time and the vehicles that would be used would contribute towards climate change, through the amount of fuel that would be used and the number of services that would be run. I want your reflection on that, because it did not strike me as an area where it would be particularly challenging to understand what the climate impact would be. If councils are making decisions on franchises without really understanding the climate impact, that is a bit concerning. I will take everybody who wants to answer that, starting with Clare Wharmby.

I presume that there is a conversation about local procurement. We quite often see in the press councils being challenged about why they are air-freighting chicken from Thailand or wherever and there is an active conversation about local procurement of ingredients. I understand the challenge of going down to the n^th degree, but my point is that surely carbon is not being prioritised in procurement.

Okay, that is fine.

The other issue is about local councils and the ability of householders and businesses to connect to an EV charge point at their home or business the car or van that is sitting outside on a public highway. There are planning issues around cables crossing footways, but I know of a number of local authorities that have effectively provided a derogation to enable certain types of guttering to be put on to the footway to enable homeowners and businesses to charge at home using a more attractive, cheaper tariff. Is there any progress with councils on adopting more enlightened planning rules to enable people to use those more attractive tariffs?