The next item of business is a statement by Gillian Martin on the draft climate change plan 2025. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions.
14:27
This Government’s commitment to reaching net zero fairly remains unwavering. Responding to the climate emergency is both one of the most important challenges of our time and, done right, one of our country’s greatest economic opportunities, with benefits for everyone. I am proud of the progress that Scotland has already made in reducing our carbon emissions and unlocking new low-carbon economic opportunities. Others might try to present economic growth and emissions reduction as opposing aims, but we have shown that they go hand in hand. We are now more than halfway to net zero and, in the same period, we have grown our economy by more than 67 per cent. Although we know that the most challenging part of the journey lies ahead, I am confident that, with Scotland’s talent for innovation and skills, and the strengths of our people, we have what it takes to deliver.
Parliament can no longer sit on its hands. Since the previous climate change plan, we have seen parties in the chamber oppose even modest proposals for the sake of opposition when today’s citizens, as well as future generations, need us to back those aims with action and take responsibility. I hope that Parliament will engage constructively with the draft plan.
Delivering the plan will take more than Scottish Government action alone. The United Kingdom Government must do more to support Scotland by, crucially, reducing the price of electricity, which will unlock so many critical climate actions and improve people’s lives. I will continue to work constructively with the UK Government to make that happen.
That includes working on our shared commitment to decarbonise heat in buildings. It is an area where the Scottish Government has shown leadership, which is demonstrated by our legislative requirement for clean heat to be installed in new homes and our continued drive and ambition to promote investment and growth in heat networks. The plan maintains that leadership. It confirms our target to decarbonise the heat in Scotland’s buildings by 2045 in a manner consistent with our commitment to reduce fuel poverty by maintaining our support for those who need it most.
The UK Government must show similar leadership. The latest delay to its warm homes plan means that we still lack essential information on when and how the UK Government will use its reserved powers to make clean heat systems more affordable. I urge the UK Government to provide that clarity as soon as possible, and we remain ready to work with it to accelerate the transition to clean heat in our homes and buildings.
We will also continue to work collaboratively with other partners—local authorities, industry and the third sector—and we must bring people with us on that journey.
The voices of climate inaction are growing globally, and here at home. Some question the impact that a country of Scotland’s size can make. However, Scotland has demonstrated how smaller countries can contribute to global change. We continue to accelerate the ambition and action of partners globally through our leadership positions as Regions4 president and Under2 Coalition European co-chair.
We increasingly feel the real-life impacts of climate change domestically. The growing frequency of storms, heat waves and flooding events is impacting our health, our livelihoods and the resilience of our communities. Indeed, the Scottish climate survey shows that most of us see climate change as an immediate problem for our country.
Tackling the climate emergency remains a priority for this Government and must continue to be so for Parliament in this and future sessions. The draft climate change plan that we have laid before Parliament today sets out more than 150 actions that we must take between now and 2040 to grow our economy and reduce our carbon emissions. As well as reducing emissions, the plan is about how we unlock economic benefits, strengthen our communities, tackle poverty, restore nature and improve health and wellbeing.
Many of those wider benefits are already being delivered. The number of low-carbon, sustainable jobs is growing faster here than in the rest of the United Kingdom, thanks to consistent Scottish Government investment. Low or zero-carbon industries, such as renewable energy and hydrogen, have expanded by more than 20 per cent since 2022, contributing more than £9 billion to the economy and supporting more than 100,000 jobs. Our electricity sector exemplifies that. Between 1990 and 2022, emissions from electricity generation fell by 88 per cent, driven by our natural resources, community involvement, supportive planning and falling costs, with wind and solar now the lowest-cost forms of new generation. Today, Scotland generates more than half its electricity from renewables and, in 2020 alone, community benefit payments from renewables projects exceeded £30 million. There is still massive untapped potential in, for example, hydro, tidal and wave energy, anaerobic digestion and geothermal energy.
The transition and the action that we are taking are already ensuring major benefits for Scotland, with much more to come. However, as well as seizing those new opportunities, we have a particular responsibility to areas where change will inevitably be felt the most. That is why we have invested more than £120 million so far in the north-east through the just transition and energy transition funds, supporting workers into low-carbon jobs and enabling investment in offshore wind, port infrastructure and supply chains. We are also investing an additional £9 million in the oil and gas transition training fund to help North Sea workers to move into those low-carbon roles.
Those initiatives sit alongside the work that we are doing to support people through the transition and to deliver the wider benefits fairly. For example, the redesign of our energy and transport systems will also help to reduce household costs, improve air quality and enhance energy security. The draft plan includes new support for electric vehicle charging infrastructure and consumer incentives to encourage EV uptake. We will use commercial finance to support the decarbonisation of heavy goods vehicles. We are also introducing new energy performance certificate regulations and setting out proposals to boost heat network development by requiring large non-domestic premises, where they have the opportunity to connect to a heat network, to move away from fossil fuel heating systems. In that way, infrastructure and local places are being transformed to support health and wellbeing.
Our approach also focuses on nature-based solutions that will benefit communities, restore ecosystems and protect green spaces. In 2023, Scotland created more than 8,400 hectares of new woodland. To go further, we are supporting skills development in forestry management to increase farm productivity and tree planting.
We have restored more than 90,000 hectares of degraded peatland. Through the draft plan, Scotland’s new light detection and ranging—LiDAR—data will help us to accelerate the amount of peatland that is restored year on year. The speed of our decarbonisation follows advice from the Climate Change Committee. Scotland is delivering on the moral imperative to end our contribution to global emissions.
However, we will also make important departures from the committee’s policy advice, including on livestock numbers and agricultural emissions. We will support farmers, crofters and other land managers to continue to produce high-quality food and protect rural livelihoods, while enhancing diversity, soil health and agricultural business productivity. We can do that because of emissions savings in other sectors, including high fuel supply decarbonisation in energy supply and emissions reductions in peatlands. The plan reflects a distinctly Scottish way of achieving this.
I am grateful to the many people who have shaped our approach to the draft plan, including the climate change plan advisory group, the Just Transition Commission and scientific advisory bodies.
We know that involving people in the policy-making process makes policy smarter and more effective, so I encourage anyone who has an interest to respond to our consultation on the plan. My door remains open to any member who wants to engage constructively on the draft plan so that the final version is as strong as possible.
It is the Government’s responsibility to lead and, by doing so through the plan, we will enable others to act and innovate. However, we cannot reach net zero alone. People and businesses need to work with us on this shared national endeavour to fight against climate change and harness the possibilities that are before us. It is a national challenge that Scotland must win, because the prize is not only a healthier climate but warmer homes, cleaner air and happier, more equitable and prosperous communities.
The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for that, after which we will need to move on to the next item of business.
I think the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement.
The Scottish National Party has been promising for months that its draft climate change plan would lay out definitively how it intends to reach net zero by 2045, but today’s plan just rehashes existing SNP policies that do nothing to bring down energy bills and it provides no clarity on how it intends to reach the 2045 target.
Families across Scotland are anxious about how much the SNP’s net zero obsession will cost them. Will they be made to rip out their gas boilers in favour of heat pumps? Will they be forced to trade in their petrol vehicle for an electric car? Will the SNP lift its presumption against new oil and gas? The plan answers none of those questions; it is yet another SNP pamphlet that is heavy on rhetoric but light on solutions.
The carbon budgets that the Scottish Government adopted were made in line with the UK Climate Change Committee’s recommendations. In order to achieve those budgets, the CCC claims that we will need to install 35,000 heat pumps a year by 2030, more than half of our cars will need to be electric by 2035, and cattle and sheep numbers will need to fall by 2 million.
When will the cabinet secretary come clean with the public about the true cost of achieving net zero by 2045? Will she commit to making a revised final plan that focuses on an affordable transition?
Right. Well, that is the tone that Douglas Lumsden normally adopts when he talks about climate change. It is plain for all to see that, when it comes to reaching net zero, the Tories do not have any plans. In fact, they are rolling back on the commitments that they made when they were in Government at Westminster.
Douglas Lumsden said that we have no new policies. Let us look at transport alone—
Are we getting our £200 million for north-east rail?
Cabinet secretary, please resume your seat.
Mr Lumsden, you get to ask a question, which you have done. We now need to hear the cabinet secretary respond to it without a running commentary.
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
On transport, we have: consumer incentives to encourage EV uptake by householders, sole traders and microbusinesses; draft targets in the first carbon budget to reduce emissions from cars by at least 16 per cent; investment in the replacement of heavy goods vehicles and the deployment of charging infrastructure; increased funding for the capacity and capability of local authorities and regional transport partnerships; additional support for the rapid roll-out of critical EV charging infrastructure; and support for skills development, with funding available for many things, including the skills required for offshore wind.
This is the thing about the Tories—they are trying to make it look as though achieving net zero is too expensive. The cost of climate action might look significant, but the economic benefits that are associated with all the policies that are laid out in the climate change plan—I stress that they are laid out there—are significant for the people of Scotland. If Douglas Lumsden had taken the time to even glance at the climate change plan, the text of which I gave to Opposition members a good hour in advance of my statement, he would be able to point to a number of policies that will have those benefits and improve economic growth.
I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. I have tried to read the whole plan.
Climate campaigners are clear that we need a strong plan if we are to see the changes that are urgently needed. The SNP promised a publicly owned energy company, which did not happen. That was a massive missed opportunity. We have also not seen the manufacturing of renewables kit, even though there has been a big increase in renewable electricity production. We should compare that with the UK Government’s action in delivering Great British Energy and the national wealth fund, and supporting communities to install solar panels.
We urgently need action across Scotland, including a ramp-up of support for communities that are already experiencing the transition. Why is there no information in the plan about how the £500 million that has been promised will be spent and how communities will benefit from it? The cabinet secretary referenced heat in buildings, but not did not link that to the need to retrofit homes so that they are energy efficient. She also did not say how councils will implement their local heat and energy efficiency strategy plans. Shawfair received £7 million from the Government for 3,000 houses and Aberdeen Heat & Power was created 20 years ago, but council budgets have been slashed. What support will the Scottish Government give to councils, including those in Edinburgh and East Lothian, to maximise the opportunities from projects such as Berwick Bank to create new jobs and invest in our homes?
I thank Sarah Boyack for reading the climate change plan that I gave to Opposition members in advance of my statement. She has legitimate questions about the detail of it, and I look forward to engaging with her throughout its progress. She mentioned funding of £500 million, which I presume refers to money from the just transition fund. She will know that we have also established a just transition fund for Grangemouth, given that it is a high-carbon area.
An analysis is done on the just transition fund year on year, and we receive a list of outcomes for job creation and job retention, as well as information on the ability for companies in the supply chain and academic institutions to pivot towards demand. Just transition funding is not distributed for the first year only, with criteria that remain the same throughout: it is adaptive to the needs of the north-east. In particular, it is delivering for companies that are have been reliant on high-carbon activity and are pivoting towards being able to service low-carbon activity too. Personally, I think that it has been one of the best interventions from the Government, and I want to build on that work as much as possible. It also involves communities, who have their say in participatory budgeting rounds so that they can use the funds in their communities to reduce carbon and make them more resilient.
Sarah Boyack has asked me a number of specific questions about details including retrofitting and warm homes. I hope that she will join me in calling for the UK Government to bring forward its warm homes plan rather than delay it. Systematically across the UK, we all need to know what is being done at the UK level, because that will inform the decisions that are made in the devolved nations.
I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for her statement. I welcome the commitment to ensuring that we maximise the economic and environmental benefits of transitioning to net zero. Although good progress has been made, the cabinet secretary will recognise that there is a need to ensure that, in order to meet the 2045 target and the UK’s 2050 target, policy actions on areas such as Acorn and carbon capture, use and storage need to be taken by the UK Government to support us in achieving that. Is the cabinet secretary satisfied that the UK Government has shown the necessary ambition and pace in such key areas to ensure that we can meet our 2045 target and that we can maximise the associated environmental and economic opportunities?
Michael Matheson knows the area well, so he will know that the UK will not meet its 2050 target without Scotland meeting its 2045 target, and vice versa. When I mention the UK Government, it is not to have a go, but is to say that we need to work together on those things. We have a Labour Government that has shared objectives on net zero, so we have a moment in time when we are able to work together and achieve our shared aims.
The Climate Change Committee’s advice to the UK Government in carbon budget 7 was clear that between 30 and 60 per cent of the emissions reduction that will be required across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be in policy areas that are mostly reserved. That emphasises just how crucial intergovernmental co-operation will be in reaching not only Scotland’s net zero target but also the UK’s.
I have engaged, and will continue to engage, with the UK Government across many different forums. This week, I wrote to the secretary of state to reiterate our asks of the UK Government with regard to the climate change plan, not least on rebalancing energy prices to reduce the cost of electricity, which intervention the Climate Change Committee views as critical to delivering emissions reduction, as it does CCUS.
I wrote again yesterday with regard to the UK Government’s carbon budget 6 response, which I thought was lacking in detail.
I thank the cabinet secretary for her statement and for finally publishing the 400-odd-page draft climate change plan, which I have to admit I have not read fully in the hour in which I have had it.
I remain seriously concerned that the Parliament does not have enough time to fully consider the plan before dissolution. However, I have briefly scrutinised annex 1, which covers the need to decarbonise our homes. It will cost the owner of a pre-1960s house in the region of £45,000 to decarbonise. What percentage of that cost will the Scottish Government make available to home owners to help them to achieve the Government’s decarbonisation targets?
As Edward Mountain knows, the decision on spending is made at budget time. We are quite unusual in Scotland in that our climate change plan must include the costs and benefits associated with all the policies that it contains. No other country in the UK has to do that. The costs and benefits will apply not only to the Government but to everyone, including the private sector.
Edward Mountain said that we have finally published the climate change plan. I point out that, legally, I had until the start of December to publish it.
Should have done it last year.
I have published it so that we can have a finalised climate change plan by the end of this session of Parliament. Now that it is published, can we move on from the rhetoric around me taking my time to do things? I have been expediting work in this area, to allow Parliament the full period of time to scrutinise the plan—
There is no time left.
It is a year late.
—and have a finalised climate change plan by the end of this session of Parliament.
Can we also move on from making comments from sedentary positions during both answers and questions?
A total of 24 climate action hubs were set up across Scotland, following a 2024 programme for government commitment. The hubs are there to empower people to act in their neighbourhoods and have supported a range of projects, including those linked to local energy generation, flood mitigation and food growing. A total of £5.5 million was allocated in 2024-25 for the allocation of hubs. The cabinet secretary said:
“Communities are uniquely placed to play a key role in sharing and driving forward Scotland’s transition to low carbon and climate resilient living.”
East Lothian Climate Hub received more than £126,000 from the fund. I am meeting representatives of the hub tomorrow. What role will climate action hubs play in the climate plan? What message can I relay to East Lothian Climate Hub when I meet it tomorrow?
My message is to thank the hubs for everything that they do. I want to thank all the climate hubs across Scotland, which continue to innovate, inspire and achieve real action on the ground. Encouraging transformational change across our communities and supporting them to be climate ready is vital to delivering on the policies that are set out in the draft climate change plan.
I keep saying that the Government cannot tackle the issue alone, nor should it have a top-down approach to communities. Communities have the answers to what they need to do that suit them. We have provided £6 million of funding for the next year to the climate action hub network to enable communities to come together to engage in collective climate action and support the transition.
We have also ramped up the ambition for community energy, with additional funding going to the community and renewable energy scheme for funding and advice for community energy. Climate action hubs are pivotal in getting communities ready to invest and to apply for community energy projects. I thank them for what they do.
I thank the cabinet secretary for her statement and for publishing the plan, which will now sit for 120 days, during which consultations can take place.
With regard to the rhetoric, it is interesting to see the disparity between the Scottish Government and the UK Government. In particular, in her statement, the cabinet secretary sought to point the finger at Parliament, saying that it can no longer “sit on its hands” and that the plan needs to be a priority not just for the Government but for the Parliament in this and future sessions. How will she facilitate discussions within Parliament to ensure that we can undertake the role that she seeks for us?
I thank Martin Whitfield for that question, because it allows me to reiterate the approach that I always take to the legislation and the policies that I take through. I strongly believe that in this portfolio we must have as much consensus as possible. I hope that those in all the parties who lead on this policy area agree that I genuinely have an open-door approach.
Ahead of the plan being put forward today, I made sure that my colleagues in the groups that are associated with the policy decisions on carbon budgets have been sent invitations. Those who have worked with me on bills will know that I have worked with them to bring their opinions and suggestions into the work that I do.
This is Scotland’s climate change plan. It is not the Government’s climate change plan—it is our shared climate change plan. At the end of this session of Parliament, we will all be thinking about what we want to put in our new manifestos. I look forward to seeing everyone’s manifestos to see how they can ramp up climate action so that, when we come to the next session, those of us who believe that climate change is a real threat can work together against the voices that are out there that might be coming in here and denying that climate action is a necessity.
Given the levels of capital funding that are required to meet Scotland’s carbon reduction targets and, ultimately, to reach net zero, does the cabinet secretary agree that, since the Scottish Government does not have the full fiscal levers of an independent country, the UK Government must urgently reverse the cuts to Scotland’s capital budget and invest substantially more in delivering net zero?
It is true to say that Scotland, as a country, will be doing a great deal of the heavy lifting associated with emissions reductions for the whole UK, not least when it comes to electricity production, but also by restoring peatlands and providing carbon sinks. I have made the point to the UK Government many times that the funding that we get from it should reflect that.
One of the features of the consultation on the plan will be to build a dialogue on how the costs of the transition can be distributed. However, the lack of clarity from the UK Government on future funding and its repeated cuts to our capital budget make the task ahead of us in relation to this urgent need for action all the more difficult.
I take this opportunity again to call on the UK Government to set out clearly its plans for decarbonising homes and reforming electricity pricing and to provide clarity on the funding for carbon capture and storage. This is not a stick that I want to beat the UK Government with. This is me saying, “Here is an opportunity for the whole of the UK to decarbonise. Scotland can play more of our part if we get that funding released.”
Scotland is years behind where we should be on climate but, instead of accelerating action, when the SNP ended the Bute house agreement, it decided to slow that action down. Its draft plan today contains no change.
The Government has rejected the Climate Change Committee’s clear advice on agriculture. It has scrapped the road traffic reduction targets and replaced them with nothing. It has given no clarity at all on new fossil fuel extraction. It has filleted the heat in buildings bill and now proposes a target with no delivery mechanism. That has been tried and has failed many times before, on many different issues. How on earth can the cabinet secretary think that slowing down action will let the country catch up on lost ground?
I appreciate that members have not had a great deal of time to look at the climate change plan. Perhaps when Patrick Harvie has time to read it more fully over the weekend, he will spot that it includes a 16 per cent reduction from car-based emissions.
I also want to address Patrick Harvie’s point about the Climate Change Committee’s advice—it is advice. I have spoken to the Climate Change Committee since we made our decision to take a different path by putting more of our emissions reduction into transport, as opposed to reducing livestock numbers. It has warmly welcomed the fact that we have made our own decisions in that area, because it respects the fact that Scotland has to plough its own furrow, if I can use that metaphor. We are absolutely clear that we need to reach net zero in a way that works for rural Scotland and plays to our strengths. Cutting our livestock numbers would mean that we would import more produce from outwith the UK. That would not help to reduce emissions globally.
As someone from a rural area, I know very well the work that has been done on farms to reduce their emissions and to improve the livestock, plant and soil health associated with their work. We need to bring farmers with us. We need to realise that they are part of the solution and not work against them. We have so much scope, particularly in reducing emissions that are associated with heat and transport, that we do not have to put an additional burden on farmers and effectively destroy the industry, which is very much part of the fabric of Scotland and is critical to our economy.
There are good things in the plan, but I think that the cabinet secretary knows that not much in today’s plan is really new. I have read it, but it does not contain an awful lot that I did not know already. I would expect one group of people to be enthused by the whole climate change agenda: energy efficiency installers. I go to their conference every year, but I have never seen them as downbeat as they were this year. That is because of the broken Home Energy Scotland system of grants and loans. I urge the cabinet secretary to change that system at last so that people are incentivised to put in new heating systems and the industry can get moving.
Willie Rennie puts a fair challenge to me, because Home Energy Scotland gets a lot of Government funding and it is our vehicle for encouraging people. Where things are not working—I am aware of some issues from my constituency work—I want to make sure that they are revised and reformed in order to get more people through the door and more energy efficiency measures into homes. I am happy to work with anyone in the chamber on—and I want to hear from people in the chamber about—any issues that their constituents have had with Home Energy Scotland. I will feed those issues back, because it has to be fit for purpose, and the job that it will do will be even more important over the next five years.
We have taken 20 minutes. A number of colleagues still want to ask questions. I will get them all in, because we have some additional time over the course of this afternoon, but I would appreciate a little more brevity in questions and responses.
The cabinet secretary has referenced the worrying increase in anti-climate rhetoric. Does she agree that, if we are to protect the lives of future generations, we all, especially in this chamber, have a role to play in rejecting climate science denial and the dangerous commentary that climate action is avoidable?
I thank Emma Roddick for that question, because we all need to reflect on that, particularly ahead of the dissolution of the Scottish Parliament and the formation of Parliament in the new session. It is a great shame that the political consensus that we once had on the need for climate action no longer appears as strong. We might have previously disagreed on specific actions—I am happy to have those conversations, because I think that it is a healthy debate—but I had taken comfort in the collective ambition to tackle the climate emergency. That consensus is at risk. We see the Tories trying to outperform Reform in that regard, there is a concerning rise in anti-climate rhetoric, and people who want to come into the Parliament with a regressive agenda are starting to make comments about climate change that have long been debunked.
People are also missing the fundamental point that the actions that are associated with reducing our emissions in Scotland are a huge economic opportunity that cannot pass Scotland by. Although countries in the rest of the world are putting forward their own measures, they often look to what Scotland is doing. The consistency of our approach means that we are attracting inward investment, not least from Japan, which wants to invest in the cable manufacturing capacity that is associated with our offshore wind and floating offshore wind. Hitachi told me that the reason that it is basing its UK headquarters in Glasgow is that Glasgow has a 2030 net zero target, and Hitachi wants a piece of that action.
The plan offers little on the proposals and on how they will impact motorists. That will alarm car users at a time when the latest RAC report for 2025 shows that the cost of motoring is the top concern for UK motorists, whether they are driving an EV or a car with an internal combustion engine. The biggest challenge is the inequality in the cost of charging; it costs 9p per kilowatt hour at home and 81.2p per kilowatt hour when using public charging. The draft plan does nothing to address that inequality. I have not done speed reading, so, cabinet secretary, will you guarantee that hard-pressed motorists will not face any additional costs because of the plan? What reassurance can you give to motorists that their concerns will be listened to?
Always speak through the chair.
I have outlined quite a lot of the new policies for EVs that are in the plan. They include consumer incentives to encourage EV uptake and additional support for the rapid roll-out of critical EV charging infrastructure, including on public EV charging in rural communities and home charging at domestic properties, which includes cross-pavement charging. It is important that we recognise that a lot of people want to own an EV who do not have a driveway and the ability to have their own home charger. A great deal of work is being done by my colleague Fiona Hyslop in that regard.
There needs to be consistency in this. Look at the situation in London, where the former mayor—a certain Boris Johnson—put in place measures to encourage EV use, which were then whipped away from people who had bought EVs; they had to get rid of those cars because the charging associated with them went absolutely through the roof.
When Labour was previously in power at Westminster, it introduced transmission charges in Scotland while subsidising transmission elsewhere in the UK. The policy was continued by successive Westminster Tory Governments. An average 1GW Scottish offshore wind project could pay £38 million a year to Westminster, while an identical project in England could receive a subsidy of £7 million. What impact has that had on attracting investment to the renewables industry? What discussions have Scottish ministers had with the UK Government about removing those discriminatory transmission charges?
Kenneth Gibson makes a very good point. Everything that he has just outlined is a major blocker to investment, yet such investment would have the knock-on effect of keeping Scotland as the UK’s energy capital, providing all the energy jobs that we need and helping to achieve decarbonisation. The current system of transmission charges is unfit for purpose. It unfairly penalises Scottish renewable energy generators, putting them at a commercial disadvantage, and the UK Government needs to set out a long-term solution to the issue.
We are deeply disappointed that the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets has rejected the decision to implement a cap and floor mechanism in the short term. We have called on Ofgem to be open to feedback from the energy industry, which is most adversely impacted by the charges, and to guarantee that it will provide a short-term solution ahead of longer-term reform, given that Scotland’s renewable sector is absolutely crucial to achieving the shared aims for clean energy of the UK and Scottish Governments.
I am in awe of Willie Rennie having read all 410 pages of the report. I do not know how he does it; I will have to have a lesson from him on how that is done.
I am assured that the plan says:
“In reality, costs and benefits are likely to change as a result of economic and technological factors.”
That is true, so will there be an independent economic assessment of the effects of the plan, at macro and fiscal levels, on Scotland’s productivity and growth, sector by sector, and of its gross domestic product, employment and consumer cost burden impacts?
Stephen Kerr is calling for an independent assessment. I imagine that there will be many independent assessments of the costs and benefits as the plan goes through scrutiny. However, this is not just about the costs—that is where the Tories really get this wrong. They talk about costs, costs, costs, but it is about the benefits, as well. We estimate that the direct financial benefits that will result from the delivery of the draft plan and all the policies will total £42.3 billion for the Scottish economy over the period from 2026 to 2040. Many of those will be direct financial benefits that will go into households and businesses in Scotland, largely driven by action on transport. For example, the switch from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles is expected to deliver lower running and maintenance costs.
We have everything to gain from the plan. We will make our towns, villages and cities more resilient; we will make our lives healthier; and we will create economic opportunities if we get behind the plan. I welcome economic assessments of the plan, because they might well show that I am being a bit small-c conservative in my estimation of the benefits.
That concludes this item of business. There will be a brief pause before we move to the next item of business, to allow front-bench members to change over.