Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the proposed national treatment centres for NHS Tayside and NHS Fife. (S6O-01320)

The issue about private rented accommodation and the quality of energy efficiency measures is being dealt with in the heat in buildings strategy, and I know that the minister is on top of that issue. We need to improve that quality across the private sector.

On transport, the freeze on rail fares is a welcome assurance to commuters. Free bus travel has already benefited hundreds of thousands of young people and their families, and hundreds of thousands more will join them in the months ahead. More fundamental long-term reform is coming to break the cycle of decline in bus services, reverse Tory deregulation and bring services under public franchises and municipal ownership.

On energy, funding for more direct advice and grants will give many more householders the ability to control their energy use and even generate their own energy. However, this Government is pushing up against the limits of the devolution settlement. To go further, it needs the fiscal power to fight Tory austerity, alongside the regulatory powers to make energy markets work for people and planet, rather than profit.

Oil and gas companies are recording billions of pounds in profits while half a million Scots have simply no money left after paying household bills. When BP’s boss bought a £5 million house with his bonus earlier this year, he talked about the corporation having

“more cash than we know what to do with”.

Meanwhile, people on prepayment meters have been disconnecting their homes to avoid rising bills.

Fundamental reforms are needed that lie beyond the powers of this Parliament. Although Scotland’s electricity generation is dominated by low-cost renewables, electricity prices still move in lockstep with wholesale global gas prices. That is wrong and it needs to be changed.

Like the banks before them, no energy company is too big to fail, and nationalisation in the public interest must now be on the table. Just as bankers and Governments were responsible for the 2008 financial crash, now, in 2022, it is the oil and gas corporations and the Governments that aid and abet them that are fuelling the cost crisis and the collapse of our climate. With Jacob Rees-Mogg in charge of energy at Westminster, the chief arsonist has now been sent in to put out the fire.

The obscene revenue from oil and gas could have been used to fund clean energy transition and independence from global markets. However, the so-called windfall tax was, in fact, a tax-avoidance scheme for more drilling.

We do not have to look far to see how a genuine windfall tax could have been used. Germany, Italy and Spain are all raising billions of euros to support their people through this crisis.

Scotland has the richest renewable energy reserves of any country in Europe. It is time that we had the power to use that energy for the common good, and not for the few.

I welcome the cabinet secretary’s response. We are still in a situation in which one in nine Scots waits more than a year to receive essential treatment, and they need hope that things are going to change. Will the cabinet secretary clarify what the focus of the treatment centres in Tayside and Fife will be and will he estimate the impact that the centres will have on tackling the backlog of elective surgeries and procedures? Will he also comment on how staff capacity can effectively support the delivery of the specialist services as the centres become operational?

Will the member take an intervention?

This programme for government comes in the midst of a humanitarian crisis that is without precedent in the devolution era. The Scottish Government’s response is the right one: protect the vulnerable in the short term, while addressing the long-term structural problems that have often been caused by decades of deregulation in the pursuit of profit.

On housing, it is clear that an evictions ban and a rent freeze are needed, but deeper reforms must also happen. When I see just how bad the quality of rented flats is in areas such as Stirling, I know that the crisis goes beyond costs—it is also about the dismal living conditions that are placed on some tenants, which need to be tackled urgently.

That is why the new deal for tenants, announced by the First Minister yesterday and expanded on by Patrick Harvie today, is so critical. I know that the Scottish Government will continue to reach out to those who are equally passionate about fixing the housing crisis to design the right solutions.

I will if there is time in hand.

I will take a brief intervention.

What key things would you wish to see in a delivery plan for freshwater? I will put the same question to Calum Duncan.

Is there something more fundamental about the way that Government and agencies work within the permanent architecture of civil servants and agencies such as NatureScot? Is the strategy prepared enough to tackle a nature emergency? It is still a biodiversity strategy and does not encompass the entire Government.

Indeed. Thinking back to what the witnesses on the first panel said, it is a concern that, although a biodiversity strategy was established previously, the delivery plans did not flow from it so that we could act. Has that been the issue up until now? Is there concern that, although a strategy may be set up that looks great, with some specific points within it, the meat of the delivery can then drift?