Seòmar agus comataidhean

Our witnesses have already touched on aspects of my question in what has been a really great evidence session so far. I want to ask about the way in which the Scottish Government constructs its budgets. You will be aware of the recommendations of the joint working group between the Parliament and the Government, which resulted in colour coding of some budgets, which Professor Ulph alluded to earlier. How far does that approach now need to deepen within the Scottish Government, so that we get the transparency that you have been describing and clarity on the impact of carbon on certain budget decisions and how that might translate into long-term action? Have you any brief reflections on the Government’s progress on its journey towards carbon proofing its work and its considerations?

I presume that that outturn will also tell us about, say, the public sector’s capacity to deliver on low-carbon infrastructure.

I ask you to hold that thought while I move on to ask David Hawkey and Emily Nurse for their reflections on how we got here—on whether public bodies, the Scottish Government and the civil service could have done things differently on the 2020 target. Did certain policies fall off the cliff, perhaps because they were not being developed fast enough between the setting of the 2019 target and where we have got to today? Your brief reflections on that would be useful. Perhaps David could start.

I will go back briefly to Emily Nurse’s points about the interim targets for 2030 and 2040. There was a great sense of loss, particularly among people in the climate movement, about the interim 2030 target being, in effect, dropped. Obviously, it is now being replaced by a budgeting mechanism. Do you have thoughts on how it can still be articulated? It was about getting three quarters of the way to net zero by 2030. Even if that is not now possible, albeit that we might be three quarters of the way there by 2032 or 2033, people are perhaps still looking for a kind of metric—a measure—although, obviously, the actions are far more important than the targets. Do you have thoughts about how that could be articulated in the bill, if that is not already done?

Thanks for that.

I will stay with you, Emily. I think that the majority of the advice that you provide next spring will be on the seventh carbon budget, which covers the period from 2037 to 2042. How much more advice does the Scottish Government need right now to prepare for a plan that leads up to that seventh budget? Do you and your colleagues need to bring forward a lot of new work to enable the Scottish Government to produce those early first budgets and a climate change plan for that initial period?

Graeme Roy, do you want to come in?

Emily Nurse, I put that question to you.

Are there any other thoughts on that?

I hope that the cabinet secretary will reflect on the deep disappointment of thousands and thousands of people across Scotland at the return of peak fares. Scrapping peak fares led to an increase in passengers—around 7 per cent—and more income for ScotRail. If bringing back peak fares results in passengers abandoning train travel, that will mean less income for ScotRail. If that happens, will the cabinet secretary consider reversing the position?

I thank Sarah Boyack for bringing this debate to the chamber. It was inspiring to hear from her about the many international examples and to hear from Maggie Chapman about how intergenerational equity is so embedded in many societies.

I will focus my comments on the practicalities of what we do here at Holyrood. This week, as we have done in every year since 1999, we are scrutinising the Government’s short-term annual policy and budget choices. Much of our work as MSPs is focused on short-term delivery, but there is a pressing need to look beyond the short term—beyond electoral cycles—and towards the needs of not only the current generations but those who have yet to be born.

The big societal challenges of this century cannot be solved with short-term, year-to-year thinking, yet, in our consideration of issues such as hospital waiting lists, there is rarely space to bottom out the long-term preventative policies that could ultimately lead to a better society. That means that we miss the opportunity to make the links between, say, health and transport or between poverty and the environment. In a Parliament that is always driven by the immediacy of crisis, it can sometimes feel indulgent to pull back and start to look at the bigger picture. That is a major reason why, years on from the Christie commission’s recommendations on public sector reform, we have yet to see meaningful progress in areas such as preventative spend. It always feels indulgent to talk about such spend when we come to budget scrutiny in committee.

In that context, having a future generations commissioner for Scotland is essential. Such a proposal was mentioned in the Bute house agreement and was being delivered by my colleague Patrick Harvie. It is good to see Sarah Boyack keeping that flag flying.

As Sophie Howe, the former Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, put it,

“The Commissioner’s role is to take a helicopter view—not necessarily getting into the nitty gritty of problems emerging in the here and now—but offering a longer-term perspective”

and

“joining the dots between issues and organisations”.

Absolutely. This is a big piece of work; it is not something that a parliamentary committee can do on its own. There is a need to equip the whole public sector to think in the long term. I know that the Welsh FGC has been focusing on the skills to plan for 25 years ahead.

I have seen at first hand the benefits of having such a commissioner in Wales. Members might remember that, in 2018, I brought forward a member’s bill to introduce a 20mph safer speed limit for built-up roads in Scotland. At the same time, Wales was considering adopting a similar approach, and I was delighted to be part of that Welsh conversation. The role of the FGC in that debate was hugely important, because she was able to draw together the long-term public health case for communities of a speed limit change. That really helped to establish the right basis for moving the issue forward in the Senedd in a cross-party and consensual way, which, with hindsight, and looking back at my member’s bill, perhaps we lacked here at Holyrood.

Of course, later on, there were those who sought to make the roll-out of the 20mph limit a political culture war in Wales. However, now that the dust has settled there, we are starting to see the long-term benefits bed in, starting with huge and dramatic reductions in road casualties on Welsh streets. That is partly down to the work of the public health sector in Wales and the Future Generations Commissioner in leading that debate.

There are many other examples of where that commissioner has been pivotal in driving reform. I understand the Finance and Public Administration Committee’s concerns about the growth in the number of commissioners more generally in Scotland, but there is good practice from Wales about how its commissioner has worked closely with Audit Wales and other commissioners to share staff, reduce costs and maximise joint working. We should learn from that in any review that the Parliament undertakes of our commissioner landscape.

I again thank Sarah Boyack for securing this debate. She reflects our shared priorities to raise the focus of the public sector on the needs of future generations and a sustainable Scotland. I wish her good luck, and I will listen closely to the words of the minister in closing.