Chamber and committees

Absolutely. It is a really striking method of describing the issue to say that, if food waste were a country, it would be the third highest emitter in the world. It is true that we have no global institutional capacity to recognise where surpluses and deficits are occurring and to address them. The international community must take that issue much more into cognisance.

It is sometimes hard to reconcile the macro or global level of this discussion and the effects with how we can meaningfully adjust matters more locally. It is important that the declaration was made in Glasgow, because practical steps are being taken in the city to address the issue. It is worth exploring those opportunities in more detail. It is often said that we have to think globally but act locally, and this issue is a very good example of where that applies.

During COP26, I joined Glasgow businesses that were launching the Plate up for Glasgow campaign, which was piloted by the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce through its Circular Glasgow initiative and funded by Experience Glasgow’s food and drink regional group. The event was hosted and led by Giovanna Eusebi of Eusebi Deli, which is one of Glasgow’s great restaurants. One of the amazing things that Eusebi’s has been doing is to promote the tradition of southern Italy, where people would never throw things away and it would actually be seen as sacrilege to throw food away. Because of the poverty of some of the communities there and the scarcity of food, it is treated as precious. The abundance of food in our rich society has often led to our having a very wasteful attitude. It is important that we try to bring that culture of southern Italy into our behaviours. There is the idea of adjusting portion sizes.

The campaign is about Glasgow restaurants recognising that they are likely to throw away £10,000-worth of food a year. Businesses need to adjust and try to reuse as many ingredients as possible to minimise waste. At the launch, I had a great insight into how businesses can adjust, reduce their costs and improve their efficiency and competitiveness, as well as reduce waste.

There is also the idea of a circular economy. Glasgow’s parks have had a budget cut of 70 per cent in the past 10 years. There is 5,115 acres of parkland in Glasgow. If we can start to cultivate that land—certainly not all of it, but a significantly larger share of it—we could grow more food locally and earn money commercially in the city by selling the product to local restaurants. That could help to create a sustainable model for the management of Glasgow’s parks. That is another example of how, rather than having a dependency model in which we have to cut things and continually retrench, we can have a more entrepreneurial approach in which we manage public assets such as parkland so that we realise income from them and create a more sustainable circular economy in the city.

I commend Plate up for Glasgow for what it is trying to achieve in the city. I urge members to have a look at the website, which is plateupforglasgow.co.uk. It is really great to see how we can take that global impact and adjust it to local policies that can potentially make a big difference.

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports, following comments made by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons, that local authorities across the United Kingdom, including Scotland, will be obliged to accommodate the increasing number of unaccompanied children refugees crossing the English Channel.

I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. I record my absolute disgust at the way in which those vulnerable people, many of whom are fleeing war and persecution, have been treated by the Conservative Government simply for seeking a safe place in which to live.

We are talking about unaccompanied children, so it important to be clear on the detail. Therefore, I have a number of questions that I would like the cabinet secretary to answer, if she can. Will she provide details of how many local authorities across Scotland meet the requirements that have been set out by the Home Office in today’s announcement? How many children are likely to be coming to Scotland, and how long does the Scottish Government envisage that they will be in Scotland?

What work is the Scottish Government doing to ensure that all local authorities have adequate provisions for the necessary safeguards for those children while they are in Scotland? What type of accommodation will they be living in? It surely cannot be the case that they will be put in hotels or unsupervised accommodation, so I would appreciate it if the cabinet secretary could at least explicitly rule that out.

I thank the cabinet secretary for that response—in particular, for the detail on the Scottish rota. I would appreciate it if additional information about that could be provided in writing.

It is right that Scottish local authorities are providing accommodation for the children. I sincerely hope that the Scottish Government will do everything that it can to ensure that, during their time in Scotland, they are treated with the dignity, care and compassion that they so clearly need. After all, those children have seen unimaginable horror.

I want to ask about funding. Although it is right that all local authorities play their part through the rota system, they are cash strapped. To be frank, they do not have the money to top up the £143 that the UK Government is making available for each child per night. Will the cabinet secretary confirm that the Scottish Government will, regardless of the cost, provide any additional funding that local authorities require, on top of the specified £143? This is about making sure that the kids are safe, and we cannot put a price on that. I strongly urge the Scottish Government to show compassion and to make that commitment here and now, because it is certainly not something that we will see from the Conservatives.

3.

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body when it last met trade unions representing Scottish parliamentary service and MSP staff. (S6O-00406)

Delegates to the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—were handed free smart cards like the one that I am holding up to access integrated public transport across the central belt of Scotland. However, my constituent, who was cleaning toilets for the world leaders at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, had to pay £5 for a bus ticket and another £3 for the subway every day, compared with £3 for publicly controlled Transport for London services or £3.60 on publicly controlled and owned Lothian Buses services. In Glasgow, on minimum wage, an hour’s pay each day is spent on getting to and from work.

Does the First Minister therefore agree that a green new deal for workers in Glasgow must include using the powers of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 to bring all public transport in greater Glasgow under a single, integrated, publicly controlled franchise, with London-style capped fares?

As a member of the GMB trade union, I welcome the strong relationship with trade unions representing parliamentary staff, but such a relationship is sorely lacking when it comes to the unions that represent the staff that members and party groups employ. If we truly value the principles of fair work and giving workers a stake in decisions affecting them in this place, surely the SPCB, as the ultimate financial controller of the allowances that we use to pay our staff, must properly engage regularly with trade unions such as the GMB.

According to Greenpeace, the increase in littering as a result of the deposit return scheme not being implemented runs at a rate of 21 million discarded bottles and cans a month. Does the minister agree that that externalising of cost to the public sector and the local authorities that have to collect the waste is not sustainable? If the scheme’s implementation continues to be delayed, will the minister be on our side and push for local authorities to get the extra money that is needed to cope with the continued expense of picking up litter?

The cabinet secretary has described a really exciting portfolio of investments. One of the big strategic problems that Scotland has faced is that the early commercialisation of start-ups has often ended with Scottish companies being subject to foreign takeovers. Is there an opportunity for the bank, as it makes strategic investments in companies, to protect them from predatory takeovers that prevent them from becoming the big global commercial players that we could build in Scotland?

Access to mental health support services is a vital focus. My friend recognised the Samaritans’ recent innovation of a specialised veterans app, which is potentially an effective way of improving access to mental health services, particularly for those in a crisis.