Chamber and committees

The Scottish Greens fought the recent election on policies that would deliver for people and for planet, tackling both the climate crisis and the cost of living emergencies. Our record results show that people are ready for those radical ideas that make lives better for current and future generations.

The SNP used to share that vision. This time, five years ago, we were working with it on a progressive plan for Scotland whereby we worked collectively to use every power of this Parliament to create positive change.

I try very hard to be collaborative and to work with the Government where and when I can, as does my party, and we will continue to do that this session. However, there are a huge number of disappointments in this programme for government.

The proposal to cap bus fares at £2 has been kicked into the long grass for most of Scotland. There is no plan to implement rent controls. The promised ban on conversion practices has been shelved. There is nothing on how to implement the boycott, divestment and sanction of Israel that this Parliament voted for a year ago. The only proposal for hyperscale data centres is to produce a plan to attract more.

That is not a programme for government that Nicola Sturgeon would have signed off. Five years ago, the Scottish Greens delivered free bus travel for under-22s, saving thousands of young people money and making work and studying opportunities more accessible. We believe that free bus travel should be expanded to everyone, which would cut emissions while saving people money at a time when the cost of living crisis seems to be ever deepening.

Last year, Green MSPs secured the £2 bus cap pilot in the Highlands and Islands as a step towards the final goal of having universally free bus travel. John Swinney promised to roll that out to more areas of the country, but this programme for government kicks the fare cap into the long grass across most of Scotland.

The £2 cap has been a game changer for thousands of people across the Highlands and Islands, helping families and regular travellers to cut the cost of getting around, reducing emissions and keeping more money in people’s pockets. It has shown what is possible when we put affordable, accessible public transport at the heart of our policies. We welcome the roll-out across the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport area from Monday morning, but the programme for government also says that it will take five years to roll the cap out to the rest of the country. A five-year wait, when there is already a national cap in England that will be reduced to £2 in January, lets down Scottish bus users. Why should people in the rest of the country have to wait five more years? The cost of living crisis is not waiting five years.

The programme for government says that the Scottish Government will continue to work with the United Kingdom Government to end conversion therapy, which involves trying to “cure” people of their sexuality and pushing them to stop being trans. In the programme for government, it says:

“Should the UK Government fail to deliver we will not hesitate to bring forward Scottish legislation.”

Has the First Minister not seen that the UK Government has published its plan but that it applies only to England and Wales? What more information does the First Minister need? This Government needs to get off the fence, stop hesitating and decide whether it stands with LGBT people or not. Protecting LGBTQ Scots from abuse is the Scottish Government’s job, and we need to see it act.

We are a year on from the Parliament’s historic vote to boycott the apartheid state of Israel and the companies that are complicit in its occupation of Palestine, but the Scottish Government has failed to turn words into action. In most respects, it has done the bare minimum and offered little evidence of meaningful change. We welcome the Government’s commitment to explore a scholarship for students from Gaza, but that does not do anything to end the occupation or prevent companies from profiting from it. If a company is profiting from apartheid and genocide, the Scottish Government must use every power that it has to ensure that that company does not also profit from public money here, in Scotland. That requires more than statements of concern or gestures that change nothing; it requires real, measurable action. We hoped that this programme for government would be the moment that that changes, but it does not seem to be coming.

Action means reviewing existing contracts, ending relationships with companies that are identified as complicit in illegal settlement activity and giving councils the powers that they need to make ethical procurement decisions. The Scottish Government has shown that it can act when it chooses to. When ministers issued guidance to Scottish businesses following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they made it clear that the private sector had a responsibility to respond. Palestinians deserve no less.

The programme for government should have been the moment that everything changed. It should have set out a clear timetable, concrete measures and a mechanism for accountability so that the Parliament’s vote is finally translated into action. We cannot have a boycott in name only. The Parliament did not vote for empty gestures, and it is hugely disappointing that the Scottish Government has not used this opportunity to set out how it will support the people of Palestine.

One of the most genuinely baffling parts of the document is that the Government is looking to attract “responsible green data” centres. Given that the Government cannot define a “green data centre”, a responsible green data centre seems even more ridiculous. Such proposals, such as the one at Larbert in my region, have caused huge concern for local communities. Noise, diesel generators and light pollution are concerning not only for Larbert residents but for local businesses and the care home that is next door to the development. The care home is concerned that it will be unable to use its garden and provide the end-of-life care that it currently can.

We need a moratorium on such applications while guidance is developed, otherwise councils will have already made decisions by the time that guidance appears. Some local authorities have said that they do not have the expertise to take a decision on the applications. They also do not have the ability to look at them at a national level and assess what they mean for our national energy needs. The Scottish Government needs to take the issue seriously and support communities rather than private profit.

Families across Scotland are feeling the strain on their budgets and have been promised free childcare when their little ones turn three. We welcome movement on any form of free childcare in the programme for government but are disappointed that there is no movement on supporting local authorities to truly deliver free at three, which would make hundreds of pounds of difference to families’ budgets. We have also seen issues with cross-boundary placements. Constituents of mine in Falkirk have had to move their children twice at short notice due to the removal of funding, all because they live in one local authority and their children go to a childcare setting in another local authority.

This funding is part of a national scheme, so parents cannot understand why they are being excluded because of their postcode. I hope that, as part of the childcare review, the Government will look at this issue and work with local authorities to solve it. This is a programme for government that will be a huge disappointment to those who need cheaper bus travel, those who need a watertight ban on conversion practices and those who care about the environment. It is clear that the Scottish Greens are now the only party that will speak up for current and future generations who care about equality for all, economic justice and a habitable planet. We will spend the next five years speaking up for those people.

16:05

I am pleased to hear that the First Minister is considering that, because councils are saying that they do not have the necessary guidance to decide on the megaplans. Fife Council has confirmed that the Scottish Government is looking at whether an environmental impact assessment is needed for the Auchtertool application, because that is not clear enough from existing guidance. That comes on top of City of Edinburgh councillors saying that they cannot make a decision on local applications until the Scottish Government comes up with a definition of what exactly a green data centre is. If the First Minister is considering a pause, what will be the timescale for that to ensure that we can take an overview of the applications?

I appreciate the First Minister’s response. Local issues aside, the most significant impact of the data centres is their combined energy use. If all 24 applications are approved, they will use up to one and a half times the peak energy use of the whole of Scotland. If it is the Government’s position that councils should be able to make the planning decisions locally, I note that they cannot. How are we supposed to possibly get a handle on the combined energy impacts? How many do we have capacity for? At the moment, we simply do not know.

Councils cannot make those decisions in a co-ordinated and planned way without the Scottish Government stepping in. The Government has the responsibility to provide councils with guidance and communities with certainty, and they need the pause that we are asking for. While the guidance is being considered by the First Minister, will he announce a pause on applications?

Since we raised the issue of hyperscale data centres with the First Minister last week, more than 6,000 people have written to him to back the Scottish Greens’ call for a moratorium. Hundreds of those people gathered outside the Parliament yesterday to make their voices heard.

Communities are rightly worried about the local environmental impacts and the massive strain on our energy system that approving such applications could bring. António Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, has now joined the call, saying that artificial intelligence data centres are

“hungry for land, water and power”

and calling for every major AI company to

“publicly disclose the full environmental impact of its systems”.

Will the First Minister stand with communities across Scotland and the head of the UN in taking on big tech, or will he continue to allow a free-for-all on hyperscale data centres?

There are lessons to be learned from this situation, but that will be of little comfort to the staff and patients who are dealing with an old hospital. Right now, it is 30°C in some parts of Monklands hospital, wall trims are held on with duct tape and there are historical issues with asbestos in the building.

The cabinet secretary said that immediate infrastructure risks will be addressed. How quickly will those infrastructure risks be dealt with? Will the cabinet secretary meet unions and staff representatives to ensure that the hospital is a safe place to work?

I declare a voluntary interest, as I am a member of Unite the Union.

I am pleased that the minister is getting up to speed on that part of the portfolio.

Scotland’s network of marine protected areas was intended to be a vital marine safeguard, but the designation itself does not protect our marine environment from the impacts of trawling and dredging. Will the minister set out a clear timeline for the consultation and development of those management measures, to give assurance to our coastal communities?

To ask the Scottish Government when it will implement management measures for inshore marine protected areas and priority marine features. (S7O-00109)

We all know how damaging Brexit has been to our economy and our democracy. I am pleased to hear the minister highlight the human costs, because I think those are tangible things that everybody can realise we have lost.

At a time when global relations are so unstable, we need to work more closely with our European allies. That involves having a strong programme of international engagement. Can the minister confirm that he will prioritise maintaining the network of international offices, and particularly those in Europe, to assist with that alignment?

I follow others in wishing Steve Clarke, the Scotland men’s team and the tartan army a safe and productive journey in the US.

The racist violence that we have seen on the streets of Belfast, as well as in Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland this week, has been utterly shameful. People were trapped inside Glasgow central mosque and the St Enoch centre, sheltering for their own safety. Others were attacked in the street because of the colour of their skin, while mobs shouted “Send them home” at children because they were not white.

Nobody should be made to feel unsafe on our streets, and it is horrific that that has happened to so many people. No so-called legitimate concerns can justify that kind of hateful action. What will the First Minister do to provide reassurances to people and communities who are worried about their safety and that of their loved ones?

This is a time when our Parliament must stand together to condemn racists and fascists who seek to divide our communities, and I am heartened by most of the response that we have had so far this afternoon.

However, today, The National has revealed that an active member of Reform UK, who attended the election count in Glasgow alongside the party’s deputy leader in Scotland, not only took part in the racist scenes on Buchanan Street but also boasted that he would do so again. Last year, that man, who is clearly a friend of Reform UK’s leadership, wrote:

“Jews are forcing us to swallow hordes of migrants, flooding land with the dregs of the world to dilute our Protestant stock and shatter the Union.”

Just quoting that makes me feel sick.

As we have seen this afternoon, this is a party that has consistently branded new Scots as strangers, attacked Glaswegian schoolchildren who speak more than one language, and scapegoated and demonised our migrant communities. What does the First Minister have to say to those on the Reform benches who have fanned the flames of hate and actively welcomed racist and antisemitic members?