Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Official Report 1073KB pdf

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Motion of No Confidence

The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-09607, in the name of Liam Kerr, on a motion of no confidence. I would be grateful if members who wish to speak in the debate were to press their request-to-speak button.

17:02  

In the seven years that I have been in the Parliament, I have never lodged a motion of no confidence, and I actually hope never to do so again. Events of the past two years, and particularly the past few weeks, have signalled that the First Minister’s confidence in Lorna Slater, the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity, may be misplaced. I rise to offer Parliament the opportunity to state whether it shares the First Minister’s confidence.

I do not know Lorna Slater—our only major interactions have been in the chamber or in committee—and I do not doubt for a minute her integrity. I do not doubt that she strives to do her best in a crucial and wide-ranging brief, and I do not doubt her commitment to the deposit return scheme. All those matters are not in question in my mind, and nor do they fall to be considered today.

My reason for lodging the motion is that, since being appointed to this crucial ministerial role in autumn 2021, with particular responsibility for implementing Scotland’s deposit return scheme—a scheme that all parties in the chamber supported and voted for and wish to succeed—the minister has nevertheless struggled. I think that Kate Forbes said it best when she said:

“The idea of the deposit return scheme is sound—it works well in other countries—but we cannot have a scheme that is well intentioned, but fails to achieve its aims and causes economic carnage in the process”.

Indeed not. However, that failure—that economic carnage—is exactly what we are seeing happening, whether it be Lorna Slater’s first DRS postponement to August 2023, 18 months ago, or the second postponement to October 2025, just this month, or whether it be her knowing for years that an exemption from the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 was required, yet applying for it only at the 11th hour.

The Conservatives continue to pursue the line that our request for an exemption from the IMA was made only in March of this year, ignoring the fact that, in February, a document setting out the full and final proposal for the DRS was sitting on Alister Jack’s desk, and also ignoring the fact that nowhere in the common frameworks does it mention the official request for exemption that Alister Jack began to speak about only in March. Could Liam Kerr point me towards the place in the common frameworks where it says that that request mechanism exists?

What we have just heard is the concession that, until February—at the earliest—there was no final scheme on which to rule.

Lorna Slater then went on to contradict the scheme administrator, Circularity Scotland Ltd, which insisted that DRS was, nevertheless, very much viable with glass excluded. She chose a further postponement. Did she take legal advice before doing so? She refused to tell me in committee last week and many have concluded that the answer is no. similarly, she showed disrespect to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee by promising to publish and send a gateway report and then, having failed to do so for months, ultimately producing only a summary.

I asked what the Scottish Government had budgeted for DRS. Lorna Slater was confused on two occasions and told me what had been spent. Then she sent me a letter saying that it was wrapped up in the Zero Waste Scotland budget, but in that letter she quoted the wrong budget figures for the past three years.

She knew what would happen to the fines from the deposit return scheme. She failed to warn Circularity Scotland bosses of the delay to the deposit return scheme in advance. She then told the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee last week that the scheme was fully capitalised and that there was no problem with funding—albeit she also told the committee last week that she did not know the nature of that funding, a statement that was reiterated earlier today.

All that was just a week before today’s bombshell—the news that CSL has entered administration and around 60 people are looking for work. Those are people who trusted the minister to speak for them in Government, to command the respect of this Parliament and to answer truthfully and fully and take a collaborative approach. Also, businesses that have forked out hundreds of millions of pounds now face a scheme that is entirely up in the air and the position on compensation is entirely unclear.

That is just the DRS side of the portfolio. Members will well remember Lorna Slater admitting to using a misleading renewables statistic and not only failing to correct the record but walking out of the chamber as I made a point of order specifically to try and highlight that. They will remember the private charter boat that she used to visit Rum rather than using the public ferry, at a cost £1,200 against less than £10, and remember her having an empty limousine driven from the central belt to the north-east to drive her back to Edinburgh. Indeed, she has used a chauffeur-driven car for 50 journeys in the past year, despite urging Scots to use public transport instead of private vehicles.

Then she confessed, in November 2022, that she did not know the difference between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government—[Interruption.]

Members! I ask that we treat one another with courtesy and respect. [Interruption.]

Excuse me, members! We may at times disagree with what is being said. That does not mean that we continue to have conversations or to make sedentary contributions.

Lorna Slater also believes that economic growth is wrong, leading Fergus Ewing to describe her as

“the enemy of Scotland’s small businesses”.—[Official Report, 1 March 2023; c 47.]

Presiding Officer, those are significant errors of judgment in a portfolio that we all want—no, need—to succeed. I said at the start, and I remind members, that this is not a question of Lorna Slater’s integrity. It is not a question of whether one supports or opposes the Bute house agreement. It is not a question of whether a member agrees with the principle of a deposit return scheme. The only question that is relevant is whether a member believes that Lorna Slater retains their confidence to carry out the duties, responsibilities and functions of the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity. If they believe that she does, they will vote against my motion and signal that she retains their confidence; if they believe that she does not, they will vote for the motion that states that they do not have confidence in Lorna Slater to continue as the minister.

In order that Parliament has that opportunity to speak, I move,

That the Parliament has no confidence in the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity, in light of the failure of the proposed Scottish Deposit Return Scheme.

17:09  

Lorna Slater and I are members of different parties—different traditions, even—but, for the good of our country and our climate, we have chosen to find compromise and to work together in the national interest. Time and again, members in other parties in the chamber have called for action that will tackle the climate emergency, only, time and again, to shirk their responsibilities when difficult decisions need to be made. Lorna Slater does not do that. She does not shirk her responsibilities.

Today, again, we see the Conservatives engage in tactics that are—let us be honest—aimed to deflect rather than engage on the serious issues that our country faces. Today, we regrettably learned that a process is under way to appoint administrators to Circularity Scotland. That is not a result of the Scottish Government’s or Lorna Slater’s actions. Responsibility lies solely and squarely with a Conservative UK Government whose aim it has been from the beginning to sabotage the DRS. [Applause.]

Thank you!

In his speech, Liam Kerr said—rightly, of course—that the Parliament voted for the deposit return scheme and for the regulations. The only small bit that he missed out was that it agreed to a scheme that included glass. What do we have? We have a Conservative Administration that, at the 11th hour, torpedoed Scotland’s deposit return scheme, making it impossible to progress. Those actions were taken in the full knowledge of the consequences that they would have for Scottish businesses, the scheme and Circularity Scotland.

Therefore, it is extraordinary that the Scottish Conservatives have lodged a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity despite her unwavering commitment to our deposit return scheme—something that Liam Kerr mentioned in his speech. To be quite frank, it is hardly a surprise that the people of Scotland have given the Tories a vote of no confidence in every election in the past 50 years. [Applause.]

Thank you!

Let me be clear: it is the Conservatives who have destroyed Scottish jobs and investment. It is the Tories who have undermined devolution at every turn. It is the Conservatives who, in bringing this absurd motion to the chamber, show themselves completely unable to take responsibility for the catastrophic decisions of their UK counterparts.

Will the First Minister give way?

I will in a moment.

It is the wrecking actions of Alister Jack that have put the DRS into jeopardy. Is Lorna Slater expected to be a mind reader? What deposit will the UK Government compel us to charge? It has not told us what that deposit will be, but it expects alignment. It expects alignment when it has not told us what the registration fee will be or what has to be on the labels. Can any Conservative member tell us what will be in a UK deposit return scheme? I give way to Jamie Halcro Johnston on that point.

The First Minister has been in the meetings with businesses. He has seen the anger and frustration. He knows the amount of money that businesses have spent on the scheme and he says that—[Interruption.]

Can Mr Halcro Johnston please have silence while he puts his question?

The First Minister said that Lorna Slater takes responsibility for the role that she has played. Has she, at any time, offered her resignation?

That was not worth the wait but, interestingly, Jamie Halcro Johnston was unable to give me an answer to any of the questions that I posed. [Applause.]

Thank you, members!

I am proud to have been in meetings with Lorna Slater in which she has engaged with hundreds of businesses. A number of iconic Scottish businesses and brands have told us that the UK Government’s interventions would put them at a competitive disadvantage.

The Parliament was set up to serve the people of Scotland, encourage collaboration between parties and deliver a better, fairer Scotland. I am proud to be part of a Government that embodies those values by bringing Green ministers into government for the first time in Scotland or, indeed, anywhere in the UK.

The question that I have is whether Labour and the Liberal Democrats will blindly follow the Conservative whip, giving the Conservatives protection and cover so that they can continue to undermine our democratic Parliament. I would hope not, but we will see very shortly.

Instead of working to deliver a better Scotland, the Conservatives are doing what their colleagues in Westminster are telling them to do. By contrast, Lorna Slater works every day to serve the people of Scotland. She is delivering great progress in efforts to tackle the nature emergency, and she has been overseeing the development of our new biodiversity strategy and the establishment of our new £65 million nature restoration fund. Under Lorna Slater’s leadership on the circular economy, we have made one of the biggest investments in a generation to modernise recycling in Scotland through the £70 million recycling improvement fund.

The Tories have spent many months trying to undermine the operations of this Parliament. That is hardly a surprise, of course, from the party that opposed the creation of this Parliament in the first place. Let us face it: it is no coincidence that they have pressed this stunt just a day after the House of Commons voted to press sanctions on Boris Johnson—sanctions that the soon-to-be Lord Jack failed to support. We know that today is meant to be a distraction from the work that the Government is undertaking and the work that Lorna Slater is undertaking to improve our nation.

I encourage members to flatly reject this Conservative motion and to stand up for this Scottish Parliament and Scotland’s devolution.

17:16  

I am personally no stranger to motions of no confidence, having been the second minister to face one.

Until recently, there was another course of action that could have been taken. On 19 April, I wrote to the First Minister, outlining my concerns about the minister’s ability to help reset the Scottish Government’s relationship with business and to deliver a workable DRS that commanded the confidence of producers, industry and consumers. At that time, my solution was removing ministerial responsibility for the DRS from Lorna Slater—a solution that was sensible and that would have helped to reset the relationship with business and to get us a scheme in place.

I have still received no official reply, although the First Minister’s spokesperson said that the First Minister had full confidence in Lorna Slater. I accept that Lorna Slater is not the only minister at fault. After all, it was the Scottish National Party’s Roseanna Cunningham who pushed ahead with the legislation, and it has been championed heavily by First Ministers. However, Lorna Slater was in charge of the scheme and is responsible for the mess that we have now. [Interruption.] I know that this is difficult to listen to, but I only have a short time in which to speak.

Will the member give way?

No, I will not.

The minister failed to listen to businesses and stakeholders such as GS1 UK and British Glass, whose representatives told me that they were not given meetings with the minister, despite repeated requests, and local businesses did not get meetings with the minister until MSPs asked for those meetings. Local authorities were left in the dark: they were not seen as potential partners, which left them unable to prepare for the financial impact on their waste services. The Scottish Government has failed to request a DRS exclusion from the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 for six months.

Last week at the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, however, Lorna Slater washed her hands of all responsibility for the work of CSL. Despite questions from MSPs on viability—[Interruption.]

I ask for all the conversations that are going on across the aisles to cease.

Ms Slater said that those points were matters for industry. In response to my topical question today, we learned that CSL has called in the administrators. I have stated previously that the Tory Government’s actions are indefensible, but the Scottish Government must also be held accountable for the decisions that it has made.

Last week I discovered through a freedom of information request that there were concerns in February this year over the viability of the August 2023 go-live date. The Scottish Government’s director of environment and forestry emailed officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, saying:

“Can we please meet urgently to work out what can be done to fast-track a commitment to an IMA exemption within the next week. If it lingers beyond then we run a very serious risk of compromising our 16 Aug go live date.”

In February, Lorna Slater and Nicola Sturgeon toured television and radio studios encouraging businesses to part with their cash and sign up for the scheme and at the end of February, in this chamber, the minister said:

“Scotland’s deposit return scheme remains on course to launch on 16 August this year.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2023; c 5.]

However, while the minister painted a rosy picture for MSPs, her officials were warning that there was a very serious risk that the August 2023 go-live date would not work. Businesses have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in a scheme that, in private, ministers knew was likely to be delayed, but Lorna Slater and Nicola Sturgeon left Scottish businesses in the dark.

Then there was a delay until March next year. Scottish businesses have been under immense financial stress and pressure. The First Minister himself mentioned the hundreds of millions of pounds of investment that have been made but will not now be used. We have had months of chaos and grandstanding. This SNP-Green Government has now failed to deliver on reuse, recycling and tackling litter and someone must be held accountable.

Two months ago, I asked Humza Yousaf to take responsibility and to remove Lorna Slater’s ministerial responsibility for the DRS. At the end of the day, it is not fair for workers to lose their jobs as a result of Government decisions and for Lorna Slater not to lose hers.

17:21  

The motion of no confidence is the most shameless, cynical and desperate Tory stunt that I have yet seen in this chamber. On the very day on which their leadership at Westminster fell apart among Boris Johnson’s lies, they lodged the motion in a pathetic attempt to distract everyone from the dying days of their Government.

The audacity of the motion—the absolute brass neck of it—beggars belief, because it is the Tories who have scuppered the DRS scheme by forcing the removal of glass, which the scheme was built around, and by setting conditions on its operation for which it is impossible to plan. Now they are trying to gaslight Scotland into believing that it was somehow Lorna Slater’s fault all along. That is absurd.

We can expect that sort of rank opportunism from the Tories, but what about Labour? I urge every Labour and Liberal Democrat member in the chamber to think long and hard about what they are voting for and whom they are lining up with to do that, because this is not just an attack on Lorna Slater—it is an attack on everyone who believes in devolution. [Interruption.]

Members!

Sarah Boyack is shaking her head, but if she does not believe me, she should listen to Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford, who recognises the power grab for exactly what it is.

It is important to reflect on the qualities that good ministers have an abundance. The ability to show determination is important, but so is the ability to listen, to understand how policy affects people and business—[Interruption]

Let us hear Mr Ruskell.

—and to respond with humility to concerns and make improvements.

Lorna Slater was tasked by Parliament with bringing in one of the most ambitious DRS schemes in Europe. She has spent the past 18 months listening and responding, and revising the scheme, so that we now have a DRS that has been designed and shaped by business itself. It sets the model for the UK, and Lorna Slater deserves huge credit for getting it to the point of launch—[Interruption]—only for the Tories to step in.

I am finding it very difficult to hear Mr Ruskell and would be grateful if we could hear him. Please refrain from commenting.

We can contrast Lorna Slater’s actions with the disgraceful actions of Alister Jack, who, as Secretary of State for Scotland, stood up in the House of Commons and completely misrepresented our deposit return scheme. Alister Jack and his fellow ministers have acted with disdain for Scottish business and with contempt for the years of work that have been spent designing and investing in a DRS scheme for Scotland. They have not listened or compromised and they refuse even now to provide the certainty that business needs to move forward. Last night, Jack would not even vote to censure Boris Johnson for breaking almost every rule in the book. Instead he stood right with him to the shameful end. If anyone should be resigning, it is him. [Interruption.]

Members!

I am proud of my minister, Lorna Slater. She has not only brought the DRS to the point of launch but has increased investment in nature, banned new waste incinerators and introduced the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill to cut littering and waste. She is also delivering Scotland’s first new national park in a generation. She is a doer—a renewables engineer with real-world experience in industry. We are lucky to have her—[Interruption.]

Let us hear Mr Ruskell.

—yet the disrespect and lack of courtesy that are shown, even now, by some members in the chamber has at times disgusted me. This Parliament needs more Lorna Slaters and so does the Government, so get used to her. She is just getting started and has barely even begun to deliver the transformative agenda of the Greens in government. She is not going anywhere but forward tonight.

17:25  

I take no pleasure in addressing members on the matter that is before us. My party will vote for the motion, because we believe that the situation is too far gone for Lorna Slater to retain the confidence of the Parliament. That is because it is clear that business lost confidence in the minister a long time ago.

There was immense frustration at her failure to answer basic questions about such an important scheme. There was immense frustration at a scheme design that would take Scottish produce off Scottish shelves. If it had been executed with care from the start, as has been the case in other European countries’ schemes, it could have dramatically reduced waste and emissions. Instead, a pig’s ear was made of a good idea, and no amount of spin can hide that. Retailers and producers could have worked with a scheme that was coherent and did not throw up barriers, but that is not what the SNP-Green Government put in front of them.

Businesses have been caught in the middle and strung along, thereby incurring costs and desperately struggling to navigate the uncertainty. Staff at Circularity Scotland—60 people—have been left high and dry and are facing immediate unemployment. For months, there has been cross-party pressure, including from Government back benchers, for the Scottish Government to amend the deposit return scheme. We offered good and reasoned debate about why delays and changes were necessary.

However, I must say that if the Conservatives were serious about today’s vote, they would have talked to MSPs in the other parties beforehand. They did not. Instead, there is, I believe, an element of deflection from the Conservatives and an attempt to distract from their own—[Interruption.]

Let us hear Mr Cole-Hamilton.

There is certainly an attempt to distract from the Conservatives problems in London, and it is no coincidence that the no-confidence vote is what Conservative MSPs were tweeting about last night while MPs backed the partygate report.

My party finds the debate to be wholly depressing, because the problem at the heart of it all is that we have two Governments that are incapable of owning up to their mistakes, that deflect blame and for whom “co-operation” is a dirty word, even if that is what hard—

Will Alex Cole-Hamilton take an intervention?

I am sorry, but I am coming to the close of my remarks. I will not take an intervention, I am afraid.

The Governments are incapable of co-operation, even though that is what hard-pressed businesses are crying out for. Businesses lost confidence in Lorna Slater long ago, but they would not have much good to say about either of our Governments, if we are honest.

We are listening to businesses. It is in that context that the Scottish Liberal Democrats will vote for the motion.

17:28  

Today’s vote of no confidence is not a matter that anyone would take lightly, but I want to make it clear to Ms Slater that this is not personal. It is about a collective failure in the minister’s and her Government’s ability to deliver on the promises that they made to Scotland.

Lorna Slater, the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity, who travelled to the Western Isles on a chartered catamaran at public expense, pleaded ignorance to the UK minister in the face of questioning on gene editing. She is a minister who failed to warn of the delays to the DRS.

The SNP knew what was on the horizon—wildlife management and a fishing ban in 50 per cent of Scotland’s seas—and the party saw its scapegoat for the inevitable calamities that would follow. She was thrown to the wolves and the wolves have had a field day. Fergus Ewing has described Ms Slater as

“the enemy of ... small businesses”.—[Official Report, 1 March 2023; c 47.]

With Ms Slater in post, Scotland’s carbon emissions have increased and biodiversity has plummeted, with iconic species including the capercaillie being on the brink of extinction. The minister has also failed to make any progress on her plans to ban waste incineration.

Like a King Midas in reverse, everything that Ms Slater has touched has seemed to turn to screeching U-turns and lengthy delays—anything but gold. However, I would say that her failures do not need to be a bad thing; we can learn from these mistakes. We can begin to understand the value of proper consultation, of taking our time to get things right and of evidence-based policy making that engages with and listens to businesses and communities throughout the process.

Ideological fervour alone is never enough. It falls short of the expectations that the Scottish public have of us. I feel that that goes to the heart of what has gone wrong here. Rushing policies such as the deposit return scheme and the fishing ban without taking the time to speak to the people whose lives will be most affected by them comes at a cost, and that cost is the people’s trust in this Government’s ability to do the right thing. We cannot ignore the minister’s woeful record on maintaining the trust of the people of Scotland. As Blair Bowman said of the minister’s handling of DRS,

“We deserve better than this incompetence.”

Can the public continue to trust a minister who misled Parliament over Scotland’s renewable energy statistics? Can business trust a minister who does not believe in the concept of economic growth? Can farmers trust a minister who repeatedly ignored formal and informal warnings over the need to allow use of Asulox? Most important, can we trust a minister who promised to deliver a deposit return scheme when the firm that is in charge of the scheme has been put under threat of bankruptcy—[Interruption.]

Members.

—jeopardising jobs and investment? The answer, I am afraid, is no.

That concludes the debate on the motion of no confidence. It is now time to move on to the next item of business.