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Will Maurice Golden confirm that the bill does not need new powers for the development of refillables and refillable schemes in Scotland? As I understand it, those powers are in the Environment Act 2021. Is that not right? We therefore do not need more legislation. However, I accept his desire for more refillable schemes to come forward.

Hang on a minute—let me finish the sentence.

It will take more than six months to develop a strategy around construction and for the strategy to move into sectors in which there perhaps has not been that focus or development over time. I will leave my comments there.

I accept that Graham Simpson wants to put other options on the table, but we have also heard in the debate that there are sectors, such as construction, in which there has not been enough significant progress. To be honest, that will take time. It will take more than six months to—

I will speak first about amendments 182 and 186, which address the use of key minerals, which are sometimes called transition minerals, in our transition towards green energy. Members will be aware of many of the social and environmental impacts of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, iron ore and copper, which are all critical to the development of renewable energy and of battery systems. I acknowledge that the renewable energy industry is doing increasingly impressive work on circularity and on addressing the impact of transition minerals, but we need to go further, because the roll-out of renewable energy will continue apace and the limitations of those minerals will not go away. We need a focus and a plan from Government to drive that.

I acknowledge that Scotland currently does not have a strategy for the renewable energy sector for sourcing those minerals and that the UK has a critical minerals strategy. Although there is an acknowledgement in the draft energy strategy of the role of those minerals, there is not exactly a plan at the moment that will ensure that their availability and the environmental and social impacts of their use will be addressed.

Amendments 182 and 186 would require the circular economy strategy to include improvement plans for transition minerals for the energy sector. That would promote a more responsible and resilient approach to securing those essential resources. I hope that the Government will be open to working with me on a way forward on that.

Amendment 183 is linked to amendment 191, which we will come to later. It addresses concerns from Scottish Environment LINK that ministers need to give priority to the most damaging materials that are circulating in the economy. I have resisted putting in a specific list of those materials, because I think that that will change over time. However, members will, obviously, be aware of some of the more problematic materials at the moment, such as PFAS—perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances—or forever chemicals, which we see in packaging. Flame retardants in mattresses and upholstered furniture are a particular problem at the moment.

Amendment 183 would add in section 1(3) a requirement for ministers, in having regard to processes for the design and distribution of products, to focus in on particular minerals that are the most harmful and polluting over their life cycle. It would be up to Government to determine what the most problematic materials are.

I will in a second.

I would also point to the climate package that was announced a couple of weeks ago. The Scottish Government’s intention is to drive forward citizens panels, citizens assemblies and participative democracy in that space. Consumption is a very important part of our climate impact, so I hope that some kind of initiative and leadership can be shown on that.

That is useful to know. Are we hitting the buffers in that regard now, or are you anticipating that there will be problems with ferries being taken off routes in the next year or two?

When reflecting on Stephen Kelly’s comments, I was thinking in particular about Cairnryan. What practical changes might be needed in how Cairnryan operates its facilities? I note that there will be no border at Cairnryan, but, given where we are with border checks and agreements, what might need to change to meet your members’ needs at Cairnryan in the future?

It is useful for the committee to hear such practical, real-world concerns.

I thank Tess White for bringing to the chamber this important debate. Of course, it is not a new debate, and there are many lessons from history. After the second world war, Tom Johnston brought hydro power to the glens for the first time, which led to dramatic economic progress and improved quality of life for so many communities. It would be wrong to assume, however, that that progress came with no cost. Some communities were abandoned, and pristine rivers were damaged—some, such as the River Garry, are starting to recover only now.

There will always be a balance to be struck between national energy needs, local and global environmental impacts and the need for communities to have a stake in both decision making and the economic rewards of projects.

In more recent times, the Beauly to Denny power line upgrade—which, I believe, was consented by Mr Ewing—has left us with many lessons. The debates from 18 years ago are now being rerun all over again with the SSEN programme. I will reflect on some of those debates, in which I was involved at the time.

First, there were arguments that no grid upgrades were needed, and that wind farms would never be built. However, today, we have to accept the reality that the Beauly to Denny scheme was needed, that it led to the construction of onshore wind farms, and that those wind farms have slashed the climate impact of electricity while benefiting communities across the UK through lower electricity generation costs.

Lord Callanan, the Conservative UK Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, was absolutely right when he said:

“we need to build about four times as much transmission infrastructure by 2030 as we built in the previous 30 years.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 February 2024; Vol 836, c 193GC.]

The missed 2030 climate target reminds us that there is no path to net zero, in Scotland or the UK, without a massive switch from fossil fuels to electricity for both transport and heating. The reality is that the bulk of that can come only from renewable energy, and the new transmission lines will be required to get that energy to where it is needed.

I do not have much time to respond to that; a three-hour debate on this issue would be fantastic. There are certainly lessons to be learned from the Beauly to Denny line about early engagement with developers. In this case, of course, it goes through a different consenting process from the one that local authorities are engaged with. The critical issue here is early engagement, and I will come on to more points about that later, if I have time.

Secondly, reflecting on the Beauly to Denny line, some people acknowledged the national need for grid upgrades but believed that undergrounding was a panacea—out of sight, out of mind, shove it all underground. I wish that that were the case, because there will undoubtedly be a landscape impact from new pylon lines. They are not pretty, but digging a motorway-sized trench through sensitive landscapes and farmland and across rivers and streams causes environmental damage, leads to vulnerability of supply and requires vastly more expensive infrastructure—that is just a reality.

Thirdly, in relation to the Beauly to Denny line, some communities accepted the need for pylon upgrades and reluctantly accepted that complete undergrounding might not be feasible but successfully negotiated changes with developers. They not only won route alterations but managed to secure other improvements, including the removal of existing infrastructure such as substations.

I am pleased that there appears to be some progress in the negotiations around the current SSEN programme, just as there was with the Beauly to Denny project, but it is clear that the developers need to go further. They need to double down on their work with communities and find compromises that are not going to be welcomed by everybody but will become more acceptable.

My final point is about mitigation. The long, drawn-out and bitter public inquiry into the Beauly to Denny project led to years of wrangling before a programme could be agreed and delivered. We cannot afford another four-year public inquiry process with the SSEN programme. These projects must be delivered faster if we are to make progress. Communities cannot wait for funding for landscape mitigation to come years after the event.