Seòmar agus comataidhean

Yes, if it is an airport coffee.

In part, convener, but I want to come back on Ralph Lavery’s comments about the United Kingdom emissions trading scheme.

Ralph, perhaps you can explain further, because I am struggling to understand how the ETS will work alongside the measures that are in the bill in order to assist the roll-out of SAF. It would be good if you could offer some views on that, in particular in relation to the current change in the ETS with the withdrawal of the free allocation for aviation. That would be useful; I will probably ask Simon McNamara to come in as well.

Has there been enough alignment between the development of the bill and the on-going policy discussions and decisions that are being made on the UK ETS and now, presumably, the European Union ETS?

Is there not a fifth one—demand reduction?

That is all useful. Thank you.

I am looking for your thoughts on pricing and any other aspects. Do you see it as all the same and part of your business?

Half a cup of coffee.

Do you see a role for that?

We are not entirely sure about the costs of SAF. We have a figure of a £1.50 increase in the price of a ticket and you say that that is hotly debated, but that increase will be spread across all the tickets and seats that you sell. There will not be a focus on particular flights that might or might not use more or less SAF than others.

The key question at the heart of the bill is, does it address the battles over land rights, concentration of power, access and ownership across Scotland that so many communities find themselves struggling with? The amendments in this group are an early test for the Government at stage 3. The concern that I, David Torrance and many other MSPs have raised is a real one that is faced by a real community in Burntisland. Rights of access that have been asserted since Victorian times are being trampled over by Forth Ports, while Fife Council has been completely ineffective at upholding those rights.

That is happening in a green freeport area that we were told would deliver incredible economic opportunities for communities. However, so far, not only have the jobs not materialised in Burntisland, but people are now being fenced out of their own community. They have serious questions about the effectiveness of Fife Council in holding Forth Ports to account, given the deep pockets of Forth Ports and the economic power that it holds locally.

I welcome the fact that members of the community have come to the Parliament today and have engaged MSPs—including, I believe, the cabinet secretary—in conversation about the struggle that they face.

The bill could have been an opportunity to improve the enforcement of access rights, not only for the community of Burntisland but for many more communities across the country.

For example, I have constituents at the other end of my region, in Glen Lyon, who for years have been unreasonably denied access to the North Chesthill Estate. Again, a lack of consistent enforcement action by Perth and Kinross Council has been raised.

In its briefing for the debate, Ramblers Scotland highlights that there is

“a growing concern about a gap between Scotland’s access rights on paper and their effective application.”

Councils, in their roles as access and planning authorities, are, in some cases, proving ineffective at upholding and enforcing those rights, which are long established in common law.

We are now 20 years on from the production of guidance on part 1 of the 2003 act, which was designed to enable councils to operate effectively as access authorities. However, so far, no updated guidance has been produced, despite two decades of real-life experience in working with the act. I therefore ask the cabinet secretary to commit to finalising the review and publishing such updated guidance.

I welcome David Torrance’s amendment 321, which is an attempt to explicitly carve out access to Burntisland harbour in law. It makes an important point.

My amendments 234 and 264, together with amendment 238 in a later group, seek to put in place general requirements for all large landowners to help to facilitate public rights of way over their land and to engage with communities proactively on those specific rights of access. That engagement has been completely absent in the case of Burntisland. I understand from discussion with the cabinet secretary that there are concerns about those amendments and their potential consequences. For those reasons, I will not be moving them.

However, I would like to hear from the cabinet secretary about what commitment she can give to engage with Fife Council on the issue in order to ensure that it is upholding its responsibilities as an access authority and supporting the community, because it has manifestly failed to do so. The Scottish Government must help us to hold Fife Council to account. The amendments are a warning flag that access rights that appear world class on paper are being eroded in Scotland. We need to ensure that enforcement is resourced and that it is effective. In the case of Burntisland, it has not been, and that must change.