Official Report 1154KB pdf
The next item of business is a debate, in the name of Gillian Martin, on the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (Scottish Carbon Budgets) Amendment Regulations 2025. Members who wish to participate in the debate should press their request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible.
17:40
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (Scottish Carbon Budgets) Amendment Regulations 2025. In the interests of time, I will now refer to those as “the regulations”.
As members will be aware, the Parliament approved the move to carbon budgets last year, with no party voting against it. The 2009 act requires that ministers seek advice from the Climate Change Committee when setting those carbon budgets. The CCC published its advice on carbon budgets for Scotland on 21 May. The Scottish Government considered that advice at pace and, on 19 June, it laid, in draft, regulations to set the carbon budgets in legislation and provide new emissions reduction targets two months earlier than the statutory deadline for doing so. The reason that we did that earlier was to enable Parliament to approve the carbon budget levels for each five-year period up to 2045 in time for the start of the first carbon budget period on 1 January 2026.
I must be absolutely clear that, if the regulations are not agreed to today, there is a high and real risk that no carbon budgets can be put in place before 1 January 2026—in the first year of Scotland’s carbon budgets, as voted for by this Parliament—because of the time that would be required for the laying, scrutinising and passing of replacement regulations. That would, of course, also mean that we would be unable to finalise our next climate change plan during this session of Parliament.
The five-year carbon budgets that we proposed will limit the amount of greenhouse gases that Scotland will emit until 2045. The carbon budgets in the regulations have been set at the levels advised by the Climate Change Committee, which I thank for its comprehensive advice. Since then, the regulations have been scrutinised by the Parliament’s Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, and I take the opportunity to thank that committee for its work. In particular, I thank its members for producing their report in sufficient time to allow today’s vote to take place before the October recess.
This Government’s commitment to tackling the climate emergency remains unwavering, and enshrining carbon budgets in legislation is a crucial step towards our net zero goal. I understand that there is concern across the chamber about the planned timeline for the upcoming climate change plan. I state that I have done everything that I can to give Parliament time to scrutinise the plan in advance of the next election. As I outlined to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, it remains our intention to publish a draft climate change plan in the autumn, to allow sufficient time for the final version to be published before the end of this session of Parliament.
We intend to address the results of the consultation on the climate change plan as an iterative process, throughout the scrutiny period, which will not be limited to the weeks between the conclusion and the publication date. I reassure members that, although time is tight, I am confident in the proposed timelines. However, if the statutory instrument is not passed today, the timeline set out just will not be achievable.
Throughout the passage of the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2024, members agreed on the importance of receiving advice from our independent advisers before legislating for carbon budgets. In fact, some argued that the Government should be compelled to accept in law the carbon budgets recommended by the CCC. I am grateful to the CCC for providing its advice as quickly as possible.
I hope that my laying of the regulations weeks earlier than is required by statute is proof of my commitment to meeting the proposed timeline and the wishes of all parties, which asked for a climate change plan to be in place by the end of this parliamentary session. However, I again stress that that will be feasible only if the regulations to set carbon budgets are passed today.
The Parliament has, in the past, been united on the need for ambitious climate targets, in the face of increasing anti-climate rhetoric. I urge members to remain steadfast in our commitment to climate science and the need for strong climate action.
In parallel with the laying of the regulations, we published a statement that included information on the types of policies under consideration for inclusion in the next climate change plan. I understand that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee wished to receive further details on those policies in advance of the vote on carbon budgets. However, providing additional detail on policies beyond that which is contained in the statement is akin to publishing a draft climate change plan.
In the committee, members suggested that they could not vote on the Scottish statutory instrument without seeing that draft climate change plan. I have never said that a draft climate change plan could be produced before the carbon budgets were agreed—it is simply not possible. Indeed, the 2024 act, which was passed with cross-party support, clearly outlined the sequence of events that would lead to a final climate change plan. We cannot produce a plan setting out how our targets will be met without certainty on what the targets are; I have always been clear on that.
The Government has already said that it will not be accepting some of the proposals from the United Kingdom Climate Change Committee—for example, around agriculture. If you are not accepting some of the CCC’s recommendations, can you tell us what you will put forward instead to make up the gap from the savings that are not being made?
Always through the chair.
Cabinet secretary, I can give you the time back.
As I said, I gave the committee and members an indication of the types of policies that were being pursued in the climate change plan. However, that plan will contain the level of detail that is required by the legislation. We wanted to rule out some policies that the Climate Change Committee advised, because we felt that the proposals for those were causing uncertainty, in particular among those in the agriculture sector. We wanted to make clear our support for the sector and our disagreement with the policies that the CCC had put to us.
Parliament will have 120 days in which to scrutinise the plan—
Will the cabinet secretary give way on that point?
No, I am going to proceed. There is an hour’s debate for members to put forward their views, and I will respond at the end.
Parliament will have 120 days in which to scrutinise the plan, alongside a 12-week public consultation to invite views more widely. That consultation will be timed to enable us to have detailed conversations on the content of the draft climate change plan. It is of the utmost importance to me that we bring people along with us on this journey. My door has always been open, and it remains open to any member in the chamber who wishes to engage with me. However, I remind members that reaching net zero by 2045 remains a legal obligation. That has never been in question, nor is it in question that reaching it will require cross-party consensus on the difficult policy decisions that are required to get there.
Today, Parliament has the opportunity to solidify in legislation Scotland’s path to net zero; to reiterate our commitment to addressing this challenge head on; and to focus on continuing to drive forward action for the benefit of our communities, now and for generations to come. I urge Parliament to take that opportunity and meet the expectations of the public, who want us to act. My thanks go to those organisations that have reached out to MSPs to ask them to vote for the instrument, which sets in train that action.
17:48
I agree that this piece of legislation is vital, but, once again, such legislation is being rushed through the parliamentary process. Climate change legislation has been delayed and obfuscated, and is now, I feel, at serious threat of running out of parliamentary time before the dissolution of Parliament. It is important that the instrument is looked at closely, because we do not know what the costs or the impact on families will be as a result of what we are being asked to agree to today.
We have before us an SSI on carbon targets that has come before the climate change plan, for which we have waited and waited. A plan was promised in 2023, and now, more than two years later, we are promised that it will be published by the end of October so that the Parliament—and, more importantly, the public—will have an opportunity to consider, be consulted on, respond to and shape that most important strategy.
However, we are now being told that a plan cannot be published until the targets are set. We remain mystified as to why that has to be the order of things. Why are we agreeing targets when we have no idea how the Government plans to meet them? How can we say yes to the end point, without understanding the process of how we are going to get there? That was the mistake that was made last time.
How can we be sure that all our communities and, most importantly, those who are living in poorer or rural communities, are properly consulted on the impact that the targets will have? I hope that there will be some common sense about wood-burning stoves, for example, because, as Jim Fairlie tweeted during the storm last week, he had his
“wee stove keeping us warm”.
It is a good job that his party’s plan to ban them was derailed by the campaign that was led by the Scottish Conservatives.
When looking at the SSI and the amendments, the committee raised some significant concerns and asked for clarity from the Government.
Mr Lumsden, I think that you might be conflating—
Through the chair, please.
Presiding Officer, I believe that Mr Lumsden is conflating the climate targets with the climate change plan that the Parliament and wider society will be consulted on. We will be able to influence and change it in the coming months. Mr Lumsden is a bit confused.
I think that that is where Mr Doris is confused. We are being asked to approve targets, without knowing how we are going to achieve them. We do not know whether they will be achievable. I feel that we should have had the plan at the same time as the targets.
The committee wanted clarity on the estimated costs of each policy and detail on how each estimate had been calculated; how actions set out in the long-awaited climate change plan will link with the annual budget process, which requires urgent action, given that we will have a budget in a few months; details of the publication of other related strategies, bills and plans, alongside the draft climate change plan; and modelling of emissions reductions for areas where the Scottish Government intends to reduce emissions at a different rate to the Climate Change Committee’s model, such as agriculture, which I asked about earlier.
We also need clarity on timing. Although the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy has pledged to have the climate change plan in place before the Parliament is dissolved, time is tight: the draft has to be laid, the Parliament has to consider it and the public need to be consulted and their views taken into account. On 9 September, the cabinet secretary reassured the committee that the Government had confidence that the timetable could be met. I remind the chamber that we first expected the climate change plan in 2023.
I am sorry if I do not share the cabinet secretary’s confidence. While the devolved SNP Government has wasted two years developing the policy, the world has moved on: Britain’s domestic energy prices are now the second highest in the world and its industrial electricity prices are the highest in the world. Almost half the cost of producing electricity in Britain results from net zero spending, taxes and levies.
I have two quick questions. Did the member vote for the net zero targets to be achieved by 2045? Secondly, did the member’s party do anything to reduce energy prices while it was in office?
I am coming on to my party’s plan to reduce energy prices. The world has changed a lot since many of those targets were made. We are being asked to approve uncosted budgets, and I do not think that we are in a position to do that.
A third of the wholesale price of electricity is made up of the carbon tax. The Climate Change Committee has accepted that that is a policy choice that is designed to aid the transition to net zero. Ed Miliband’s decision to double the subsidies for offshore wind in 2008 means that many wind farm developers are paid almost three times the market price for their output. This week, the Conservatives pledged to axe the carbon tax, scrap extortionate wind subsidies and repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 to cut energy bills for everyone. Carbon reduction targets force Governments to take decisions that increase the cost of energy, make people poorer and make businesses unsustainable, which impacts our rural and remote communities in particular.
By axing the carbon tax for electricity generation, we would immediately save people money on their bills. It would mean money in their pockets for everyone as well as money off energy bills. By scrapping renewable subsidies, we would put money directly into everyone’s pockets. Those are commonsense solutions that would put money back into the pockets of hard-working Scots. While we wait two years for the SNP to come up with a plan to make us all poorer, the Scottish Conservative Party is looking at what will make us all better off.
We want cleaner energy and we want to meet our global responsibilities on climate change, but we can do that through providing cleaner nuclear energy and by using our domestic supply of oil and gas instead of relying on imports.
We oppose the SSI that has been laid before the chamber and encourage colleagues to hold the devolved SNP Government’s feet to the fire. The SSI would write a blank check for unlimited costs to meet arbitrary targets. The majority of the committee’s members did not approve those targets—they abstained.
I do not have confidence in the targets, the timeframes, the plan—or lack of one—to cut emissions or the Government’s ability to deliver change for the Scottish people.
I advise the chamber that we have no time in hand and have a lot of business to conduct before the end of play, so members will need to stick to their speaking-time allocations.
17:55
This debate is crucial. We all know that we are here because the Scottish Government did not meet its annual climate targets in nine out of 13 years, even though the targets were capable of being met. Without a comprehensive and specified plan, there is no way that we will meet the purported targets on our way to net zero. The United Kingdom Climate Change Committee is clear that the 75 per cent emissions target for 2030—five years away—will not be met until 2036.
To be clear: we support the principle of legally binding carbon targets. However, we urgently need a plan to deliver on them, and we do not have that.
We are in a climate emergency. We are seeing wildfires and flooding not only in southern Europe and east Asia but in Scotland. This week, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency issued water scarcity warnings across key parts of Scotland while, at the same time, during storm Amy, communities were cut off from electricity and suffered flooding. We are going to get more and more extreme weather hitting communities and businesses, so we urgently need action and a plan from the Scottish Government. We need an acceleration in emissions reductions, investment in adaptation to protect communities and businesses, and a focus on the highest emissions, on targeting, on mitigation and on the adaptation of our homes, buildings, transport, land and industry. However, when we discussed that at the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, it was striking that there was no detail about the implementation of the plan, and that is critical. Of course, we will need not only a plan but robust sector-specific strategies.
I will focus mostly on housing, because there is much more that we could do and must do in that area. The UK Committee on Climate Change says that, by 2035, the majority of homes should be heated using low-carbon electrical heat networks. Although we have standards to reduce emissions in new buildings and the requirement for some form of renewables to be used, we urgently need to see more support for existing households to decarbonise in a way that is affordable. I have regularly pushed the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy on the issue of the end of support for home owners to install solar panels before they install a heat pump. The cabinet secretary always says that budgets are tight, but this year the Scottish Government got an additional £5.2 billion from the UK Government.
It is not only the cabinet secretary who has responsibility for doing what needs to be done, because every part of the Scottish Government needs to invest in climate adaptation to support local supply chains, create jobs, reduce people’s bills and cut our emissions.
Last week, when I was at the Labour conference, I attended a raft of meetings focusing on the positive impacts of investment in community solar projects, the work to make people’s homes more energy efficient—which, again, is a win-win—and investment in local communities. We need a retrofit revolution in Scotland now, but we are not seeing it yet.
The missed opportunities in relation to homes and buildings are massive. Every local authority now has a heat network strategy, as requested by the Scottish Government, but the Scottish Government needs to step up and have a plan.
In my region, we have massive opportunities. For example, in the Shawfair development, Midlothian Council’s publicly owned heat network has powered 3,500 new homes with energy from waste. We could have such projects across the region. The Berwick bank offshore wind project will come online soon but, without a joined-up approach, the Government will pay the developers to turn off the turbines when we have too much electricity. Why not link it with other networks now and support our local authorities?
It is good that the Cabinet Secretary for Transport is here. People across the country need public transport and the infrastructure that lets them use their electric vehicles and makes it affordable for freight and logistics businesses to decarbonise.
More needs to be done to enable land use to help reduce emissions, with the right support for our agricultural communities, because climate change and extreme weather create not only new challenges but opportunities to deliver Scottish-produced food and to enable our natural environments, such as peatlands, to make a significant contribution to our goals.
However, we have discussed these issues for years. As we debate the SSI, it is deeply disappointing that we do not have a plan. If we had a plan that we could debate at the same time, we could target the areas where we need more action.
Will the member take an intervention?
No, there is no time.
We will not vote against the carbon targets tonight; we will abstain, because we urgently need to see the detail from the Scottish Government, as well as its long-delayed energy strategy, for which we have been waiting for more than two years.
18:00
I will start by reflecting on where we are in this journey. We have already used up nearly half the time from the first climate act to the 2045 target. In that time, we have fallen behind schedule, with a series of missed targets. The only rational response to falling behind schedule is to speed up, yet some people seem determined to advocate the very opposite.
The easy bit has been done already; from here on, it gets harder, and we have long known that that was going to be the case. It is not just technically harder; it is politically harder, too. That is shown by the way that the political parties of the increasingly extreme right are breaking the consensus and dropping support for any credible climate policy. It is also shown by the lack of urgency that we are seeing from the SNP.
Four years ago, the Greens agreed to join the Government, and a large part of our motivation in doing so was to restore that urgency, especially in three key areas that have not seen enough progress. One is cutting road traffic, which the Scottish Government knows needs to happen to address climate change and to cut local air pollution. Another is pressing ahead with a credible programme on clean heating, which is an area where the policy experts had previously been held back by the politicians, despite the unarguable need to decarbonise by ditching fossil fuel heating. Finally, on land use, a change in the nature of subsidy and support offers opportunities for reduced emissions and strong rural economies, meeting the need for healthier diets.
Now, however, on all three of those key issues, far from accelerating action to make up for lost ground, the SNP is slowing down. A 20 per cent target to cut car traffic has been dropped—not revised, as the Government originally announced, as there has been no replacement for that target.
Will the member give way?
I am afraid that I do not have time—I have only four minutes.
The heat in buildings bill, which is already wildly overdue, has only a few months left to pass through Parliament. To me, that confirms the suspicion that the Government has filleted it of any serious delivery mechanisms. The Scottish policy landscape, including on climate, is littered with targets that were introduced with no mechanism to deliver. It now seems clear that the Government intends to do the same again on clean heat. The Government is also rejecting the advice of the UK Climate Change Committee on how to cut agriculture emissions.
So far, there is no indication of any alternative actions that can compensate for the watered-down climate change policies in those three key areas. The Greens recognise that carbon budgets must be set if we are to see a new climate change plan come forward. That plan is urgent—after all, it is actions that cut emissions, not targets or budgets. Therefore, we will not oppose the carbon budgets, but it seems clear that, instead of accelerating action, the SNP is slowing down in key areas. I cannot begin to see how any climate plan that it produces in those circumstances can get Scotland back on track in cutting emissions.
I expect the SNP to go into next year’s election with a lacklustre plan. Instead of asking voters to compare that plan to what the science demands, the SNP will ask for a comparison with the increasingly denialist and defeatist stance on the political right. The Greens, meanwhile, will continue to bring forward the bold actions that are necessary to bring down emissions fast and achieve the healthier, fairer and more equal society that we know is possible.
18:04
The cabinet secretary surely must know that the Parliament is sceptical, and it is right to be sceptical, because we have been here before. The Government spent years boasting about world-leading climate change targets, but we did not have a world-leading climate change plan to go along with those. So when the Government eventually had to concede that it was not going to meet those climate change targets and we in the chamber accepted that that was inevitable, we thought that the Government might have learned its lesson and that it would have a plan to match the targets.
I understand that the process is difficult, but the cabinet secretary will have to go further to convince us because of that scepticism. Chris Stark, who sat on the Climate Change Committee, which we all respect, described setting targets with no idea about how to meet them as the “sugar rush” phase. That is the phase that we are in now—it feels great to set carbon targets without spelling out the difficult stuff that needs to be done. I accept that it is hard to do those things—if it was easy, we would have done it ages ago—but the longer we take to set out the details that we expect people to follow, the harder it will get.
Does Willie Rennie not agree that, if the Parliament votes down the targets today, what he wants me to do in setting out a climate change target will become impossible, as I will have to set out new budgets and a new climate change plan will have to be drafted to meet those targets?
The cabinet secretary is setting out a false choice. At no stage did I say that I would vote against the targets. I am urging the minister to reflect on the fact that people are sceptical about the Government’s ambition. She will have to work harder to convince us that she will come forward with a meaningful plan that allows enough time for various sectors across the country to implement it. That is all that we are saying. I think that the minister can see that it is reasonable for us to be sceptical, because, as I say, we have been in this position many times over many years—a position where the Government has failed to come up with the details.
Today, my friend Brian Whittle and I were at the Energy Efficiency Association. The energy efficiency sector should be vibrant and bubbling. It should be buzzing away with installers who are desperate to keep up to speed with demand. However, the association was so downbeat today, because the Government has devised a scheme that is bureaucratic and slow for applying for grants. The sector should be desperate to take on apprenticeships and workers to meet that demand, but it is not.
We are losing sectors’ confidence that the Government means what it says. Farmers have been waiting for years to get the future agricultural support scheme in place. The target of the beginning of the next decade for a massive reduction in carbon emissions was looming, but we did not have that for years; it took a long time. Farmers wanted a plan so that they would know what to work for. People are innovative; they can change and adapt to what is expected of them. We have seen that before when targets and plans have been set out for sectors. However, if we keep on punting it into the future because it is a bit too difficult, we will not be able to meet the targets that will be passed through the Parliament today.
I hope that the minister will take that message on board and that she understands that she will have to work harder to convince us.
18:08
It is worth reflecting on why we are in this position. Last year, the Parliament collectively came together and agreed that we should move to a carbon budgeting system such as that used in other jurisdictions. We recognise that it will provide greater clarity, transparency and accountability around how we go about achieving our climate targets and the policies that will be deployed in order to do so. The reason why we are making that shift is that the annual targets that we set became a very cluttered environment, with catch-up plans and so on, and it became increasingly difficult for the Parliament to scrutinise exactly what was going on and how the targets were going to be achieved. Based on the evidence that we have seen from other jurisdictions and from the Climate Change Committee, there is no doubt that carbon budgets will improve that process over a multiyear period, providing a more reliable way for the Parliament and parliamentarians to scrutinise the process.
As we move into the second phase of tackling climate change, having achieved over half of the targets so far, it will be critical that we deliver stability, consistency and ambition—backed by investment—in order to make sure that we can deliver the targets that have been set. Some might want to portray that as being because we continued to miss our targets over a number of years. I listened carefully to Willie Rennie, and I accept that he is sceptical about those matters, but it is worth reflecting on the fact that the 2045 target was set collectively by the Parliament despite the fact that, at the time, the advice from our independent advisers on the Climate Change Committee was that there was no credible pathway for achieving net zero by 2045. We, in the Parliament, must reflect on the need to listen to advice on matters relating to the decisions that we make. It is critical that we do so.
I recognise that there are some issues of process. Ideally, we would have had the climate change plan before we considered the regulations. However, having passed the act, and given where we are now in this parliamentary session, the risk is that, if we do not pass the regulations, we are in default of the 2009 act and have to go back to the start. I would, ideally, like to have the climate change plan to scrutinise as well, but I recognise that we are not in a position to achieve that, given the very limited time that we now have.
Will the member take an intervention?
I have only four minutes, I am afraid.
The idea of the conflict between economic growth and the environment is a false dichotomy, at times. It is presented particularly by the Conservative Party, which has abandoned the climate change and net zero agendas just as it has abandoned the 2050 targets at the UK level. The reality is that the transition to net zero provides huge economic opportunities for us as a country. However, in order to achieve that, we have to create the type of stability around the policy environment and policy choices that will allow businesses and industry to invest in those areas. The flip-flopping that we hear from the Conservative Party, in particular, only undermines the confidence that we need to create if we are to attract the investment, jobs and opportunities that will go with meeting our climate change targets in the years ahead.
18:12
I want to make it clear at the outset that, although I am a member of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee—I am its convener—I speak in the debate as an individual. In case anyone asks me questions on farming, which I am delighted to talk about, I also declare that I have an interest in a farm in Moray.
We are in a difficult position. Budgets have been produced that the committee and the Parliament have had to consider. The problem is that they are not like any other budget that I, as an individual, have ever looked at in my entire career. We are told that we are to achieve targets but not how we will achieve them, the route to achieving them or the costs. That causes me problems.
If the Parliament is to have a climate change plan, the most important thing is that we move forward in a credible way and take the people of Scotland with us. If we do not do that and families do not know what it will cost them and how much they will have to invest in it, when they come to the stage at which it gets tougher, as Patrick Harvie suggested—as we get closer to the targets—they will start to balk at the route that they are taking. We cannot afford that.
I will concentrate my speech on the fact that we are getting very close to the back end of this parliamentary session. What concerns me is that we have delayed the process because of the way that it has been changed, and we are still at the stage of approving or disapproving the carbon budgets, but a climate change plan will not be laid in front of the Parliament before the end of October or early November. The cabinet secretary has said that she aims to produce it at that point. That is only an aim. I would much rather know that she will produce it, so that it can be discussed.
We will then go through a process of 12 weeks of public consultation and work by parliamentary committees. There will probably then be a month in which to summarise those views. For those who can do the maths—I am sure that all members can—that takes us to March, giving us about 27 days in March, not all of which are sitting days, to go through the climate change plan. Once that process has finished, the Government will have 90 days in which to lay its climate change plan before the Parliament. If it chooses not to lay the final climate change plan after the consultation, the Parliament will be in a situation in which the plan does not come to fruition.
I seek some certainty from the cabinet secretary that she will do more than just aim to lay the draft climate change plan by the end of October and that she will do it by the end of October. If she cannot do that, she should give the Parliament an assurance that it will be done before 7 November, so that we will have time to get through the process, do the right thing and consider the climate change plan. I hope that, when the cabinet secretary gets a chance to speak, unless somebody else sums up, she will clarify whether the Government is going to do that rather than just say that it aims to do it.
18:15
On our current trajectory, the planet is heading for life-threatening temperature increases of 2.6°C to 3.1°C by the end of this century. Climate breakdown is already upon us, and my constituents in the north-east are experiencing it in real time—we have prolonged drought, record wildfires and violent storms. The damage and destruction seem only to increase year on year.
Yet, it is in this context that the Scottish Government chose to pull its heat in buildings bill, scrap its car-kilometre reduction target and ditch its legally binding target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Why on earth has it done that, and why at a time like this? It was not because the Government had to, and it was not because the reduction could not be done; it was because of the Government’s own inaction, year after year, for 18 long years. That is why we are debating the setting of carbon budgets today. However, with scant detail and without much of a plan from the SNP, the carbon budgets will be cold comfort to those in my region who are at the sharp end of climate change.
Domestic and commercial energy use, including heating, accounts for 20 per cent of Scotland’s emissions. Indeed, the UK spends more money on wasted domestic heating than any other country in western Europe. Inefficient boilers combined with poorly insulated walls and roofs cost us a fortune in energy bills. Meanwhile, some rogue operators are going around cashing in by flogging inappropriate so-called insulating solutions that cause havoc in old buildings and lead to damp, mould and costly repairs. However, there is another way: a national retrofit plan to reduce our reliance on imported gas and create thousands of well-paid, unionised jobs in construction, manufacturing and fitting. Those builders, plumbers and joiners would all be trained and deployed here, in Scotland.
That is not all. The second-largest emitting sector, with almost 20 per cent of Scotland’s emissions, is agriculture. Food production is absolutely essential to our nation and to my region, but it does not have to cost the earth. It is possible to balance the land needs of crops, livestock and wildlife and reap the benefits of all of those by promoting climate and nature-friendly farming, by breaking up land monopolies and by supporting smallholdings, tenant farms and crofts. There can be a farming revolution in which farming enhances nature and we are all better off forlkkkkjim it.
There is still more that we can do. The nationalisation of ScotRail in 2022 was our chance to make a real difference for Scotland’s energy transition. However, the SNP Government is missing this opportunity and throwing away a chance to decarbonise transport while creating a reliable, affordable public service.
Will Mercedes Villalba give way on that point?
I am afraid that I do not have time.
The member is just winding up.
Labour wants a clean, green electrified rail network that drives down emissions and gets people out of traffic and pollution and into work. The Scottish Government can and must do more to encourage a society-wide modal shift from road to rail for passengers and freight, to keep pace with the ambitious carbon budgets and emissions reduction targets. We must accelerate the electrification and decarbonisation of Scotland’s railways.
Home heating, agriculture and transport are devolved areas, so we have the power here, in Scotland, to make a change for the better. What we need, whether through climate targets or carbon budgets, is action. My constituents need a Government that will tackle the issue head on—not after the election, not in five years’ time, but right here, right now, before it is too late.
18:20
I find it incredible that Parliament is being asked to back a set of carbon budgets with no accompanying plan that spells out the action that is needed to deliver them. Members have talked about learning the lessons from 2019. Surely the biggest lesson from that was that, if we are going to set ambitious targets, we need to face up to the action that is required to deliver them and the benefits that will come from doing so.
I must tell the cabinet secretary that, when Douglas Lumsden, Sarah Boyack, Patrick Harvie and Willie Rennie are all reflecting the same concern, she has lost the confidence of the chamber on the issue. It is really important that we give sectors the confidence to go forward, but that requires detail. We have sectors that are prepared to step up, such as the air-source heat pump industry. Willie Rennie mentioned other sectors that want to go further and faster, but they need certainty now about what will be in the plan.
I do not believe for one minute that the draft climate change plan is not ready. Of course it is. Of course it has been signed off by the Cabinet, because it will be laid in a matter of weeks. Why does the Government refuse to let Parliament see its proposed action ahead of setting the carbon budget? Is it because the plan spells out policies that are so radical that the fear is that members of the Scottish Parliament would not back the budget, or is it that the commitment to real action on buildings, transport and agriculture is so weak? Time will tell, but we are being asked to back a level of ambition without a clear, credible plan for action. It is for those reasons that the Greens will abstain on the regulations tonight.
The Government has taken a pick’n’mix approach to adopting the Climate Change Committee’s advice—and it is entitled to do so. However, action must still add up to the carbon budget. To be clear, the Government has ignored the Climate Change Committee’s advice on reducing livestock numbers. On that policy alone, 1 megatonne of emissions will now have to be cut from somewhere else in society. Who will deliver that missing megatonne?
The cabinet secretary for net zero said in committee that transport will pick up the slack, but when the Cabinet Secretary for Transport came to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee yesterday, there was no clarity—there was just hope and enthusiasm for the sale of electric vehicles. There will not even be a commitment to incorporating the findings of the A96 climate compatibility assessment into the climate change plan. How do we know where we are going? How do we know that the Government’s actions will add up and that we will be able to deliver the reductions in the budget?
It is not good enough. A lack of ambitious action already means that we will not reach the goal of cutting emissions by three quarters until 2036. We have lost six years in the middle of a climate crisis. Without credible action, Scotland risks overshooting the even weaker carbon budgets. We cannot afford to do that. The planet cannot afford to wait. People cannot afford to wait for a greener, fairer Scotland. We need climate action now to deliver that. That is why it is important that the detail comes forth. It should have been here, ahead of the regulations being laid in Parliament, but it has not been delivered. We will wait to see whether the Government’s actions add up.
18:23
It is really striking that there is huge support across the Parliament for strong action to tackle the climate and nature emergency.
I thank the stakeholders who got in touch with us before today’s debate. WWF Scotland commented that the
“Scottish Government’s Indicative Statement falls short of what is needed to inspire confidence in delivery ... Without a credible plan ... Scotland risks overshooting its carbon budgets.”
It argues that the upcoming climate change plan should include
“sector-specific ... plans, costed policy pathways”
and
“alignment with the annual budget process”.
I could not agree more. We need a plan, across the Scottish Government, that goes on every year. As I said earlier, that is not just the job of the cabinet secretary but of the whole Government.
WWF Scotland also quotes the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which estimates that timely action will require about £0.7 billion a year, or £700 million, from 2026 to 2050, and that if we do not get on with the investment that we need, unchecked climate impact could cost Scotland £11 to £45 billion annually by 2050. That is not somewhere that anybody in the chamber wants to go, which is why we have been arguing so strongly for action and for the plan now, so that we save money and avoid negative impacts on our communities and businesses.
As Friends of the Earth Scotland observes, we have only six months left in this session of Parliament, and the Scottish Government has failed to produce its climate change plan and its energy strategy and just transition plan. I was going to intervene on Michael Matheson, because he announced the draft energy strategy and just transition plan in January 2023. In three months’ time, that will be three years ago. We need action now.
It is not about the cabinet secretary getting everybody to agree on everything. That is not the point—it is about the plan. The reason why we will not vote it down tonight is that we do not want to delay it beyond the next election. However, we make the point that what is in front of us tonight is not good enough in relation to accountability, bringing businesses with us, giving certainty, and getting the investment going that is needed now. Some 280,000 houses are currently vulnerable to flooding. With rising sea levels and increasing extreme weather, that number will only go up. We urgently need to act.
Over the next few weeks, we will work constructively in discussion with the cabinet secretary and her team, but we need everyone, right across the Cabinet, all public bodies, and all our councils, to work together. Scottish Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats have all called for more clarity, a plan, and clear action. Setting targets with no idea how to meet them is not good enough. We need to build consensus. It is about making progress.
We need to bring our constituents with us, and all businesses and communities need to see action. We need to have targets that we can all buy into, even if we do not agree with all the details. People need to have trust that their politicians will deliver the action that we all need in relation to jobs, supply chains, improving people’s homes and getting the transport that we need everywhere. It is about having buses where people need them and trains that run on time and do not get delayed because of the climate emissions that are impacting on the railway network. All of that requires us to act together.
We will not stop these targets today. However, by abstaining, we are bringing them to centre stage. We are not getting enough from the Scottish Government. We need faster action. We will work constructively, but we need the plans now, on both energy and the climate change strategy.
18:28
It used to be said that the enemy of a good plan was the pursuit of a perfect one. Apparently, the modern version is to say that the enemy of a good climate change plan is the Scottish Government.
I want to make it clear that we on the Conservative benches want Scotland to decarbonise. We want Scotland to make the most of its vast renewable potential, with the economic opportunity that that brings, and we want an environmentally sustainable future.
The Scottish Conservatives, together with every party across the chamber, voted for the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill in 2019 because we saw both the need to decarbonise, and the potential gains if we get it right. However, if we get it wrong—if we choose grandiose headline-grabbing promises over pragmatism—we risk sabotaging ourselves in a spectacular fashion. Not only will we fail to meet unachievable targets; we will harm our economy, spend taxpayer funds ineffectively, and force the public to foot the bill. Sadly, that is just where we have ended up.
This Parliament has heard plenty of big, bold goals from the Scottish Government on climate change, but little in the way of detail on how it expects us to get there. When there is detail, it is usually late, unrealistic, or both. Let us take the target to convert 1 million homes to using heat pumps by 2030. That is a big, bold goal but, under scrutiny from the Conservatives, it soon became clear that the Scottish Government had given almost no thought as to how it would reach that objective or what the implications might be.
The Government had not considered whether the supply chain for heat pumps was strong enough to supply that many units or what it would do to ensure that. It had not considered who was going to install those million heat pumps or who was going to pay for them, never mind who was going to maintain them. When it eventually turned its mind to those questions, it was too late. It had set itself a goal and turned it into an own goal.
The future of the global economy is a race for energy and the resources that are needed to harness it. Who can produce, store and export the greatest amount most cheaply and most consistently? Scotland can be a leader in that race. In the same way that we built a global reputation for oil and gas, we can build, and are building, a global reputation for renewable energy. For Scotland to succeed in the race to net zero, our goal should not be to come first but to finish in a position of strength. That means using our skills, knowledge and energy resources to help the world to decarbonise and, through that, to help meet the costs of our own journey to net zero.
Whether by leading in the development of floating offshore wind, becoming a key manufacturing centre for subsea cables or combining our oil and gas knowledge with our renewable energy potential to become the dominant hydrogen producer in Europe, we can become a global renewables hub. The decisions that we make on how we decarbonise will determine whether our energy industry evolves and thrives in the new era of renewables or dies out. That means that we must not write off our oil and gas sector, but make it the foundation on which the renewables future is built. It means being willing to set aside an ideological opposition to nuclear energy and being willing to explore the potential to innovate technologies such as small modular nuclear reactors or even fission. It means accepting that we must be pragmatic if we want to retain the public’s support for what is a necessary goal and that focusing energies on things such as cutting red meat consumption or punishing people for having to rely on their cars will achieve exactly the opposite outcome. It means taking the time to prepare and plan for the future, taking into account how long it will take to reach targets in a practical way—not declaring proudly when we will arrive and then discovering that the only way to do that involves scaling Mount Everest wearing a T-shirt and flip-flops.
Fail to prepare and you prepare to fail. That is what we have seen time and again with the Scottish Government and climate change. My colleagues and I will not be supporting the passage of the SSI, not because we oppose decarbonising and renewable energy but because we cannot support an approach that prioritises getting it done over doing it right. We cannot support targets that, yet again, have been set without any notion of how we will get there.
18:32
I wish to be clear about sequencing. The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2024, which was passed with cross-party support, outlines the sequence of events that result in a final climate change plan. Under that legislation, the deadline for laying a draft climate change plan in Parliament is two months after the carbon budget regulations come into force. That is set in statute, and I have always been clear that that is the order in which the regulations and the plan would be developed. In fact, no other UK nation is compelled to produce a climate change plan in draft at the same time as it lays its carbon budget regulations.
Is it the Government’s position that work should always be left until the final deadline? It is possible to bring things forward ahead of time.
I say with the greatest of respect that the work that is required to set out a climate change plan in draft takes months. That is because we may have to adjust some of our proposals on the basis of advice from the Climate Change Committee. We also need to speak to our Cabinet colleagues about what is possible within their portfolios, which I have done, and I am very grateful to them for their pragmatic approach and their suggestions.
I understand the urgency that is felt by most members across the chamber on tackling the climate emergency—I agree with them. I am afraid, however, that I cannot reconcile that sentiment with the prospect that some members may sit on their hands and abstain on the regulations.
I had hoped that my intelligence on, and my thoughts about, where members might go with the vote would be wrong, and that members would work with me in supporting the regulations, which are based on the advice from the Climate Change Committee. Some members asked me to accept the CCC’s advice—in fact, they wanted me to be compelled by that advice, no matter what it was, even well before we started to work on our climate change plan. I simply cannot reconcile that view with what I have heard today. However, it is not my job to tell members what it is politically expedient to do.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention on that point?
I want to address some of the comments that members have made in the debate.
Douglas Lumsden may be mystified, but the law is clear on the process; I have set that out clearly. No other UK nation has to bring forward a climate change plan in draft at the same time as it brings forward its regulations. The timing has been set out to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, alongside the carbon budgets.
It is a shame that members of other parties want to be associated with the rhetoric from Douglas Lumsden. I know that those parties have very different policy messages, but if those members vote alongside the Conservatives, I will find that quite disappointing, to be honest.
Patrick Harvie says that a plan must match the carbon budgets. The Climate Change Committee has made it clear to me and to others that it does not dictate the policies that we would use—that is up to Parliaments and Governments to decide.
As I said to Willie Rennie, the climate change plan will be a plan that matches the targets. If Parliament—
Will the member give way?
I am getting the sense that Parliament is not going to vote down the targets, but most members look as if they are going to abstain. Again, I find that very disappointing.
Michael Matheson rightly pointed out the importance of stability and staying the course on our climate ambition. I was told very recently by a company—Hitachi—that is about to base itself in Glasgow that the reason it chose Glasgow as the location for its UK headquarters is that Scotland is staying the course on its climate ambition: Glasgow has set out its ambition to be a net zero city by 2030, and Scotland has set out its ambition to reach net zero by 2045. That is what brings in investment. In a very uncertain world, where we can provide policy stability and ambition, it is incumbent on us to do so.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
I will take an intervention from Patrick Harvie.
Perhaps that is one reason why we are not seeing the investment in the clean heat sector that we could be seeing if the Government was giving crystal clarity. Does the cabinet secretary accept that the criticisms that have been made this evening are about not only process, but substance? The very areas in which the new climate plan needs to accelerate action are those areas in which the SNP has been slowing down, watering down, diluting and delaying.
It is about process, and the process is that we vote on the carbon budgets. We have set out our carbon budgets, taking on board the recommendations on the level of those budgets, and we have put them before Parliament to vote on today. That will set in train our delivering the draft climate change plan. I have said that it is my aim to give that to Parliament and the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee by the end of October. Obviously, it is up to the Parliamentary Bureau as to when that happens, but I have said time and time again that I want to give Parliament the greatest amount of time in which to scrutinise the draft climate change plan.
I reiterate that it is a draft plan, which can be altered and changed before we publish the final plan; I have set out a commitment to do that by the end of the current session of Parliament.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
I have only 30 seconds left, and I want to make some other points.
I am afraid that the cabinet secretary must wind up.
I am disappointed that members may abstain on the vote, but it is for me to deal with my own disappointment. Nevertheless, I think that the environmental non-governmental organisations that got in touch over the past week to ask members to vote for the carbon budgets will also be disappointed, and the people who support those ENGOs and who want to see Parliament working as one—together—on climate action will be disappointed, too.
I would like to think that in the next few minutes, there might be some soul searching around the vote—[Interruption.]
Let us hear the cabinet secretary.
—and that members who have set out their position of sitting on their hands may take the better option. They will be able to look those ENGOs and those people who want us to get on with this in the eye and say that they supported the carbon budgets as advised by the Climate Change Committee.
That concludes the debate on the draft Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (Scottish Carbon Budgets) Amendment Regulations 2025.
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