Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, May 20, 2010

Official Report 1083KB pdf

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Point of Order

17:01

I believe that I have a point of order from Patrick Harvie.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. On Tuesday this week, the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee rejected on a vote of five to three an affirmative instrument setting out the Scottish Government’s climate change targets. Now, I think few of us were surprised that we were not being presented with the much-vaunted 3 per cent per annum targets that were a Scottish National Party manifesto commitment and which ministers initially confirmed as a policy target when they came to power. In fact, we were presented with targets that were almost non-existent for the first few years.

Members: The point of order?

With a little patience.

Members: Oh!

For the most important early years until 2013 there is almost a flat line in emissions. I asked Stewart Stevenson repeatedly in committee what process the Government would undertake if the committee rejected the order, but he repeatedly refused to answer. Yesterday, we received a letter with the new proposal: a new order will be introduced that will include an additional 0.5 per cent cut in 2012, which is after the current Government’s term in office. That proposal will apparently be put to the Parliamentary Bureau next week, with a view to bypassing further committee scrutiny and going straight to a vote in the chamber.

Many statutory instruments pass without a great deal of comment, but this one should not be allowed to. What is being proposed is that a Government that has been happy to trumpet the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 around the world is seeking to slow down our cuts in emissions from what they were before the 2009 act even existed and to defer the responsibility for serious action on climate change until halfway through the next session of Parliament.

Presiding Officer, I am not represented on the Parliamentary Bureau, so will you take a proposal to the bureau when it meets next week to amend next week’s business to allow proper time for debate in the chamber, so that members have the opportunity to challenge the attempt to pass the buck on responsibilities that should be met by this Government this year?

As always, I am grateful for prior notice of the point of order. I can certainly confirm that the bureau is due to consider this matter at its meeting on Tuesday.

Further to that point of order, Presiding Officer. In response to the point of order that was raised, I inform you that adequate time will be set aside next week to debate the matter properly.

As I said—

That is what I will recommend to the bureau.

It will be up to the bureau to decide on that. As I said, the bureau will consider the matter on Tuesday.