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It should be, and it is. The heat in buildings strategy will lay out how we can bring together energy efficiency with heat decarbonisation. However, it will take time to build up a supply chain that was decimated by the policies of the Tory Government 10 years ago. When David Cameron talked about cutting the “green crap”, he stripped out the investment from that industry. People moved out of it completely and the supply chain was shut down. It is this Government that is now trying to build it back up to the point at which budgets can be spent and real change can start to happen.

Perhaps Rishi Sunak was thinking about the costs to private landlords of improving the efficiency of properties that they own but do not pay energy bills on. Housing is a human right and locking people into energy-inefficient, cold and unhealthy housing is a violation of those rights. His comments about the cost of heat pumps were alarmist. Householders will see cheaper costs as the supply chain develops, but many houses are ready for heat pumps today and Scottish Government grants are the most generous in the UK.

Does Alex Rowley agree that it is important that councils, including Fife Council, use the new powers that are coming in relation to municipal ownership of bus companies and franchising in order to bring public transport into public ownership and under public control, and that the Government’s recently announced community bus fund provides a mechanism for councils to develop that vision and move towards that goal?

To go back to Edward Mountain’s point about the climate change plan, we are less than three months away from Christmas. Does he really expect the UK Climate Change Committee to provide its in-depth analysis for the Scottish Government to work with in order to come up with a plan by December? Does he recognise the impossibility of that and the difficulty that we will have in the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee to scrutinise that as well as the UK Climate Change Committee’s assessment of the Prime Minister’s announcement last week?

I thank our witnesses for their evidence—it has been useful to get an updated picture for this year. I have a couple of questions. I want to go back to Liam Sinclair’s point on what a strategic transformative approach to embedding culture would look like. I saw a lot of colleagues round the table nodding their heads when Liam was talking, and others have explained what that might look like in terms of services. I was particularly struck by some of the work that Artlink is doing with links to education, mental health and other services.

Can you point to an area in the UK where councils, devolved Administrations and other bodies have taken that leap and said, “Yes, we will do the full Christie—we will tackle preventative spend and invest in culture for all the transformation that we know that it can achieve”? If there is an example that you could point to, that would be useful.

I will rattle on with my second question, which is on other sources of funding. We have had evidence from the Music Venue Trust about not just cultural tax relief, which we have mentioned, but relief for small venues and a potential for a levy on stadium and arena shows. I am struck by the fact that culture makes a lot of money and there is a lot of wealth involved, but I would make a distinction between big culture and the cultural organisations and practices that you are involved with. How can we transfer wealth from big culture to community culture?

Linked to that, do you have any thoughts on a transient visitor levy and other sources of income that could come into the sector during these difficult times? I am struck by that figure of 1 per cent or £18.5 million. That could come from Government, but it could come from a variety of other sources as well.

The Prime Minister’s climbdown on climate shows that he is a politician who is interested only in the next election, rather than in the next generation. What impact will his announcement have on Scotland’s plans to reach net zero by 2045?

We have all paid the price of Liz Truss’s extremist economic agenda and now we will all pay the price of Sunak’s extremist anti-climate agenda. Businesses have invested and households have begun to prepare, but we have all been let down. The Prime Minister has, incredibly, managed to unite the Ford motor company and Greenpeace in condemnation of his climate climbdown. Will the cabinet secretary now request urgent advice from the UK Climate Change Committee, ahead of the drafting of Scotland’s next climate change plan, so that we can deliver the policies with, in the words of Ford, the “ambition, commitment and consistency” that we all need?

I thank Jackie Dunbar for securing the debate.

Having had the privilege of living on the banks of the River Teith for 15 years, I learned very quickly that rivers help to change our whole perception of the natural world and the environment around us. We become far more aware of the changing seasons, of storm surges and droughts, and of their impacts on the river. We get to know the wonderful creatures that live in and around the river, too, so it is an amazing experience.

I enjoyed hearing from Evelyn Tweed about how the beavers that have been reintroduced at Argaty are now thriving. I have been proud to support the Bowsers, over many years, in getting their licence, and I congratulate the minister for finally getting that over the line. That has been a success, and there is no conflict with surrounding landowners. We are now left with the sight of the beavers at the ponds and the amazing benefits that they bring to the natural environment. That is a great success.

In recent years, we have all become increasingly aware of our rivers, as there is a growing movement of wild swimmers, swimming in our lochs, rivers and seas. Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of meeting a group of wild swimmers from Fife. When the group held a wild swim in the River Tay earlier this year, unfortunately, many of the people who were swimming became ill, which was potentially due to a sewage spill from a combined sewage outflow at Stanley. Their main ask of Scottish Water is to provide monitoring and accessible public information, which Mercedes Villalba spoke about, so that they know when there is an increased risk of pollution.

At present, less than 4 per cent of the combined sewer overflows in Scotland are monitored and reported. I know from the Marine Conservation Society that only 11 out of the 496 outflow sites in my region are monitored, with more than 1,300 spillages recorded in 2022.

The water quality in a number of the freshwater habitats in Scotland is deteriorating because of sewage outflows and phosphorus from agricultural run-off or new developments. Monitoring is therefore important if we are to find out what is going on, but we also need to get at the root cause of the problem and invest in solutions. One effective way of doing that is to expand the network of designated bathing water sites to encourage investment between SEPA and Scottish Water. Bathing water designations are not just for coastal beaches; some freshwater sites have been designated, but the numbers in Scotland are still quite low.

The joint work between SEPA, Scottish Water and other stakeholders to monitor and improve water quality has resulted in some pretty dramatic improvements in many designated areas. For those that fall short of the required standard, it also drives targeted investment. However, the guidelines for designating sites in Scotland require that each site receives at least 150 daily visitors, and that deters applications. According to SEPA, that is one reason why only six bathing water applications were received in the past five years in Scotland. England has no threshold for visitors, so the application process is clearly easier.

I want to briefly highlight the Leven programme, which brings together landowners, restoration specialists, the local community and others to restore the River Leven in Fife for the benefit of local people and wildlife. Historically, the Leven played an important role in powering industry. Through the Leven programme, there are plans to restore habitats by planting river woodlands along and within the river, modifying dams to make it easier for fish to migrate, creating ponded areas for wildlife, and, critically, improving public access. All that work connects with the programme to reopen the Levenmouth rail route. It is a great example of joined-up thinking and investment.

I hope that all rivers in Scotland will, in time, have the opportunity for restoration that the Leven has been given. Once again, I thank Jackie Dunbar for giving me the chance to highlight a few of the issues that are at stake here.

That is an excellent point. The way in which the concessionary travel scheme has been established is that there is an evidence test for extensions of the scheme, with certain conditions that have to be met and certain qualities of evidence that need to be submitted. That would get into the guts of the reasons why why the scheme has not been extended up to now.

The Government is currently engaged in a fair fares review that is looking at concessionary travel and fares across all public transport. I understand from the transport minister, who gave evidence to the Net Zero, Environment and Transport Committee this week, that that will be concluding next year.

Clearly, there are demands for the extension of concessionary travel—for example from people in island communities and from people who need companions to join them if they have a sight issue—but it would be useful to understand the context of how Government is looking at the extension of concessionary travel. In particular, zeroing in on why it has taken so long for the Government to come to a considered view and how this fits with a fair fares review would be a good place to go in terms of questioning and scrutiny.

Thanks very much for giving me the opportunity to speak to PE2028. It is on an issue that I have been aware of for a number of years. Having talked to people who are in the asylum system about the daily pressures that they face, the poverty that they have to endure, the lack of opportunity and the constriction of their everyday lives, I feel that such provision is the minimum that we can do to support them.

The committee will be aware that the amount of money that asylum seekers have to live on is very low—I think that it is around £5 a day, and if they are living in hotel accommodation it is around £1 a day. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to live on that amount of money. It feels to me as though it is an absolute impossibility.

The other side of the matter is that I have seen just how transformative the under-22s concessionary travel has been for young people—how it has opened up opportunities, how it has helped people to build relationships, to save money, to access jobs and employment, and just to go about their everyday lives and to have that kind of freedom.

I know that people who are in the asylum system do not have a lot of those freedoms as a right, but they are basic freedoms—just to get about and to participate in society, to see their friends, colleagues and others and to engage in the community. Their situation is hugely restricted, so just having free bus travel would make a massive difference.

The evaluations that the convener mentioned of the very limited pilots in Aberdeen and Wales—we are still waiting to hear about the pilot in Glasgow—will show the value of the policy. It feels to me that it would be a natural extension to the Government’s existing concessionary travel schemes—for over-60s, under-22s and people with a disability—to include this category of people.

I have to say that I am really at a loss as to why the provision has not already been introduced. The information that the committee has received in the SPICe briefing is quite clear that such schemes are not included in the category of benefits for which people with no recourse to public funds are ineligible, so that really begs the question whether there is another reason. Is there another legal interpretation that the Government has heard that is making it cautious? Are there complexities with extending the existing card-based concessionary travel scheme to people who are in the asylum system? Are there other issues about identification or other issues around budget? I genuinely do not know. I do not think we have had a clear answer from recent transport ministers. We have had four transport ministers in the past two years, so there is a question there, as well.

I am concerned that the issue is falling between different ministerial responsibilities. I am concerned that we do not have from the Government a clear view on the reason why the provision cannot be introduced, but I think that the case for it remains. It would be a great service for the committee to get under the bonnet of the issue to understand why it has not been introduced. On the face of it, such provision would be in line with the environment that the Scottish Government is trying to create, which is a welcoming environment for people in the asylum system as their claims are being processed. I do not understand why the scheme has not been extended.

At the end of the day we are talking about small numbers of people—fewer than 6,000—so, again, I do not understand, if there is not a budget reason, why the support has not been extended already.

We are seeing attacks from the Tories and Labour on the action that is necessary to tackle the climate and nature emergencies. Labour attacks action on the nature crisis on the same day as Rishi Sunak cancels action on the climate. Those are two sides of the same political coin; such politicians think only of the next election rather than the next generation.

Nature deserves to be restored for its own sake, but woodlands, peatlands and wetlands can also help us to lock up the climate emissions that are genuinely unavoidable.

The global biodiversity framework that was agreed at the 15th conference of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity—COP15—recognised the urgent need to scale up nature restoration and the sheer scale of the investment that is required. To close the global biodiversity finance gap, hundreds of billions of dollars are required every year. No country can deliver that through public funding alone, which is why the global framework commits countries to

“Substantially and progressively”

increase the finance that is available

“from all sources”

to restore nature.

Scotland has already begun to ramp up public funding. I am proud that, since the Greens entered government, more than £20 million has already been allocated to projects across the country—from the River Tweed to the Cairngorms—through the nature restoration fund, which is putting species and habitats on the path to recovery.