Seòmar agus comataidhean

I moved an amendment at stage 2 to establish a national deer management programme. The aim of that was to set clear expectations on deer management targets for landowners and to provide strategic direction at a national level. I did not just pull that out of my head—it was a key recommendation of the independent deer working group’s report, which was accepted by the Government in 2021, and in fact, the Government stated in a programme for government that it wanted to deliver that. Therefore, I am a little surprised that the minister is saying that it is a one-size-fits-all approach and is not appropriate and that that is really not where we are going. That feels like quite a subtle change in policy and direction for the Government and it begs the question where the independent deer management working group report now sits with the Government. Is the Government continuing to work through those recommendations? Is it adopting recommendation 97, which has already appeared in a programme for government?

The purpose of having a national deer management programme is, in effect, to lower deer numbers, to ensure that the population is managed at a level where public health—particularly with regard to road safety and to Lyme disease—is under control and to make sure that impacts on nature restoration are minimised. That approach has a very strong public health and ecological basis. I have brought that back as amendment 98, acting in the spirit of the independent deer working group’s report by reflecting its specific proposal and asking members to vote on it.

Notwithstanding that, I appreciate the openness that the minister has shown between stage 2 and stage 3. We have had a discussion about the importance of seeing venison and deer as a resource and the need to give greater support to the venison sector. Of course we would like to see venison in more public canteens and local shops and making a contribution there.

However, a balance needs to be struck between the aims of having greater oversight of deer management for the purpose of advancing nature restoration and ensuring that there is a growing market for venison. I am still a little confused about where the minister’s priorities sit in that respect. There needs to be parity. Deer management is essentially about an ecological decision that needs to be taken to restore nature and to deal with public health issues. It cannot be dependent on the vagaries of a food supply chain market, which is often dominated by supermarkets. I am not clear whether we are in the same territory as the debates that we have had in the chamber on organic food, where there has been a reluctance to increase the scale of the organic sector if it does not meet market demand. I am wary of relying on market demand for venison to drive what should be ecological decisions about protecting and restoring nature.

I understand where the minister is coming from. However, to an extent, the provisions will rework the recommendations of the independent deer working group. Those voices were there in the process and the working group came to its conclusions after a long process. It feels as though the policy is evolving, but I am not 100 per cent sure which way it is going.

I will make a bit of progress.

I welcome the minister’s support for amendment 20E, although he also said that it is not necessary to involve the environmental and nature restoration sectors. Why not? We will do that anyway. Nevertheless, I welcome his support for the amendment.

The Parliament has a choice to make. Amendment 98 is clear; its provisions are what the Government signed up to and what was in the programme for government. If policy is evolving in a slightly different direction to be more about working with the market for venison, we should at least put the population estimates into the plan, ensure that NatureScot has a properly funded role to do what the independent working group wanted it to do and ensure that important voices for environment and nature restoration are consulted. Those are the purposes of my amendment to the minister’s amendment and of my amendment 98.

I move amendment 20A.

I hope that the minister acknowledges that the amendment is focused on protected sites. What is the point of a protected site if those who are charged with protecting those sites—such as NatureScot—cannot get in there and ensure that the destruction ends? This is a natural environment bill, and surely we should be following through on nature protection.

On the wider issue of deer management, there are welcome reforms throughout the bill, but on the issue of protected sites, I am disappointed. I would like to hear more from the minister about the priority of ensuring that our last remaining habitats do not just disappear because they were at the bottom of the in-tray.

I thank Ariane Burgess for highlighting a major gap in the bill. I will speak to amendment 27. The intention of my stage 2 amendment on target-setting statements was to ensure that the Parliament was given reassurance about the approach that ministers would take to meet the targets. However, I have discussed with the cabinet secretary the challenges around providing exact costings for biodiversity action before plans to meet targets have been fully developed.

There are difficulties in setting out the full costs of the approach as my amendment detailed, so I am proposing to replace that with a requirement that ministers set out how the approach to meeting targets is to be funded. It is important to set out the broad investment opportunities for both public and private investment to deliver nature restoration. The wording in the amendment will ensure that there is scrutiny of the Government’s approach to funding the activities required to meet targets, but at an appropriate level of detail.

I am absolutely delighted to speak to amendment 141, which would finally deliver swift bricks on new buildings in Scotland.

The bill does some very big things for nature, including putting nature targets into law for the first time, but it would be a wasted opportunity if we did not use the bill to also make the simple changes that can help nature to recover.

Swifts are incredible: they visit our communities every summer and they treat us to their amazing aerial displays. It is a joyful moment each year when they return from Africa, but that joy is tinged with sadness because the species is in serious decline. We have lost nearly two thirds of our swifts since the year 2000. The reasons are varied—climate change and loss of insect diet are serious factors, but perhaps the biggest reason that swifts cannot thrive in healthy numbers is simply that they have lost so many nesting sites in our buildings. Modern building standards have brought benefits, but the system that is improving our homes has unintentionally squeezed out the space for swifts and many other small birds, and they are suffering.

A swift nest brick, which costs around £30, is such a simple solution to give nature a home. However, despite there being an agreed British standard for swift bricks, they are still not required in new builds. If amendment 141 is passed tonight, it would ensure that swift bricks are mandated in new builds in Scotland, which would be the first country in the UK to achieve that.

I lodged and moved an amendment on mandating swift bricks at stage 2, and I am very grateful for the cross-party support that I had to get that marker—finally—into the bill. As a result, section 33B places a duty on Scottish ministers to make regulations requiring

“the installation of an average of one ... swift box per”

building. However, following discussion with the cabinet secretary, I appreciate more fully the procedural concerns that were raised in the stage 2 debate, and I have worked with her on amendment 141.

I want to get this right, even if it takes a little longer for new building standards to be delivered. Amendment 141 would replace section 33B to address those concerns, ensuring that provisions are introduced in such a way that the statutory duties in the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 are fulfilled and that sufficient time is provided to enable the outcomes of statutory processes to inform, and be fully incorporated into, regulations and the technical guidance that accompanies them. The amendment provides assurance that action will be taken by the Scottish Government in a way that is suited to the purpose, role and conventions of the building standards system, while delivering the intent of the amendment that I lodged at stage 2, which was supported by members in the Parliament.

I look forward to hearing more from the cabinet secretary about the Government’s commitment to the action for swifts. In particular, I would like to hear confirmation that future consultations will focus on an average minimum of one brick per building and on the need for boxes that follow British standard guidelines.

Lastly, I thank all the campaigners across these islands who are working on swift conservation. In particular, I thank Hannah Bourne-Taylor, who is in the public gallery tonight. She has inspired thousands of people, including me, to take up the fight to save our swifts. I hope that we can get this amendment over the line at Holyrood tonight, set an important example for the rest of the UK and give swifts a home for good.

I move amendment 141.

Section 3 of the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 currently sets out that ministers may require NatureScot or any other public body with relevant expertise to consider and report on a national park proposal. I believe, however, that ministers should have the flexibility to be able to appoint either an independent person or organisation or a public body as the reporter in that process, depending on what is considered most appropriate in the circumstances. My amendment 32 modifies the national parks legislation to provide that flexibility.

I will briefly address Sarah Boyack’s amendment 77. I believe that it is right that public bodies actively implement those national park plans. The amendment that she has lodged is very similar to amendments that I lodged at stage 2, and I hope that it can be reflected in the legislation.

If that is the case—I accept that that is a useful clarification—I do not understand why the minister is not supporting amendments 20A and 20B. Amendment 20A would add in the need for population estimates for deer and cull targets, and 20B would ensure that the minister sets out how NatureScot will be funded to meet the requirements of population estimates and cull targets.

Putting deer management on the basis that the independent deer working group requested will require provisions that are much more explicit than those that have been laid out in the bill and in the minister’s amendment 20. That is why, as well as providing the option of amendment 98, which is a lot clearer, I also provided the option of amending the minister’s amendment to make it crystal clear what we are talking about.

Amendment 93 was originally lodged by Emma Roddick at stage 2. In my experience, Emma Roddick is right about most things and I think that she is right about that particular amendment, because we do need to take action where deer are damaging our protected sites. We know that large deer populations have been identified by NatureScot as one of the main reasons why those critical sites are often in an unfavourable condition. The public investment that goes into internationally protected habitats such as the flow country or Scotland’s rainforest is completely undermined by critical damage caused by deer.

In evidence to the committee, NatureScot indicated that it plans to use the new powers in the bill to add proposed new sections 6ZA and 6ZB to the 1996 act, but that it would use those powers only once or twice a year. I am struggling to get my head around that, because that feels completely inadequate for the scale of nature restoration that is required, particularly for sites that are hugely degraded.

Amendment 93 is designed to specify the situations in which NatureScot must act to control high deer numbers because we cannot wait. The amendment is tightly drawn to cover habitats of national and international importance as well as peatlands, due to their critical role in storing climate emissions. In instances where those habitats are being damaged by deer, NatureScot must use its powers under sections 7 and 8 of the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996 to intervene to save those sites from further destruction and decay. Existing procedure on appeal provisions in the 1997 act will also apply in those situations, so no additional appeals process is required.

I hope that the cabinet secretary will respond, because sites are degrading and we need to take action now.

A majority of the committee agreed that there were problems with part 2 of the bill as introduced. It would have given ministers extensive powers to rewrite environmental protections, including the habitats regulations, and there was a lack of clarity from the Government about why such extensive powers were needed. The committee was given few clear examples of how the new powers would be used or what problems they would solve. Members were asked to put a lot of trust not only in this Government but in all future Governments that the powers would be used wisely. As a result, a majority of members voted to remove part 2 from the bill, and I think that that was the right outcome.

However, it is clear from the months of evidence that the committee heard and from discussions with environmental stakeholders before and after stage 2 that there is a lack of clarity on some of the guidance on the implementation of the habitats regulations. The first guidance came into effect in the 1990s. Times have changed and environmental priorities have evolved, and the Government, its agencies and the huge range of land managers increasingly want to take forward broader nature restoration projects. With the existing habs regs being based on the protection of specific species, there have been some instances where those different aims have conflicted. Questions have been raised about how much flexibility exists under the current habitats regulations to allow for restoration, such as tree planting on river banks, to take place on sites that might be protected for species such as the wild salmon.

The intention behind amendment 31 was to require the Government to review the existing regulations guidance with the new environmental goals in mind, to establish what degree of flexibility exists within the guidance without taking the original approach of opening up the entire habitats regulations to broad changes at ministerial discretion. It would be a nutcracker to crack a nut, rather than a sledgehammer. I welcome the comments from the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy, particularly on the setting up of a working group to look in detail at that issue specifically. That is very welcome, as is the timeframe that she has just outlined for that work. On that basis, I am content to not move amendment 31.

Amendment 31A would extend the timescale for review from one year to two years. On amendment 31B, I would not be opposed to the creation of an independent working group, but I would be concerned if there was not a more wide-ranging public consultation, which I think is needed. There was not a full consensus on part 2, particularly among environmental non-governmental organisations, and we would want there to be much more unity on what would be appropriate to change the guidance on the habs regs as we go forward. However, I do not intend to move amendment 31, and I am content with the commitments that the cabinet secretary has made with regard to moving the issue on.