Chamber and committees

I want to ask about inflation. It is important that third sector organisations are able to function properly and provide services, but also to be good employers and meet minimum standards, including the fair work agenda. How could inflation-linked funding be integrated to provide financial stability over multiyear funding periods? What role could funders have in that? Perhaps Neil Ritch would like to answer that first.

Thank you.

There are lessons to be learned from organisations such as yours.

Would Karin or any of the other witnesses like to comment?

We welcome the announcement of regulations to enable GPS technology for home detention curfew, but regulations have been in place for a number of years to allow GPS when an accused is on bail and the systems are still not in place to enable that to happen. Has the cabinet secretary now given instructions for the private company to carry out the work that is needed for GPS to be used, which we have for some time been calling for?

We welcome the extra £14 million for community justice, but the Criminal Justice Committee was told yesterday that that covers only the effect of inflation.

We now know that only five victims were informed in relation to the 477 releases over the summer, and the reoffending rate was 12 per cent. When the cabinet secretary announced the early release scheme, I asked her to exclude violent offenders, given the lack of appropriate systems of support and planning, the lack of victim notification and the higher risk from that particular group of prisoners. What lessons has she learned, and what consideration is she giving to prioritising offenders who have been convicted of non-violent offences?

On a number of occasions, the Parliament has been persuaded to extend the time limits in criminal cases—which means that many accused spend longer on remand. With regard to the emergency provisions, is the Lord Advocate confident that such longer time limits will be required in all cases? For the longer term, how confident is she that we can reduce the length of time that individuals spend on remand? What can the prosecution services do to support that by speedily preparing cases?

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, because although I am not a member of the committee and have not been involved in all the discussions that have been taking place in the Parliament about it, the debate about what targets should be and how we achieve them—which, of course, is the important thing—why we need carbon budgets and why we collectively need to step up to the challenge should be central to what we are all thinking about in this Parliament and beyond. Climate change and the effects of climate change should be at the forefront of our minds.

I accept that there is a political consensus in this Parliament that we need to step up to that challenge, but we also need to be honest with ourselves and admit that none of us has done everything that we should be doing, and we need to do far more than we have done.

We know that the Scottish Government has missed nine out of 13 targets so far and has missed eight in the past 12 years. We know that it failed to produce its climate change plan in late 2023, and I believe that we still have a legal deadline of late November to produce a plan, which is why we are having this debate.

Collectively, we need to agree that we must put in place every available resource to ensure that we do everything that we can to drive down our emissions.

I am not going to use my time here today to debate the pros and cons of the parking levy. There are many actions that need to be taken, and the member will be fully aware of the debate that is taking place on that issue.

Political parties in councils up and down Scotland also need to have the discussion that we are having, and we need to provide leadership. The Climate Change Committee deemed that the 2030 target of a 75 per cent reduction was beyond credibility. It also said that the introduction of multiyear budgets would

“provide a more reliable indicator of underlying progress”

and that a five-year period was most appropriate, given that the UK and Welsh Governments are already doing that. I agree that the Parliament and the Scottish Government should consider that, but we need to have a proper discussion of the pros and cons of that. I am not aware of all the arguments on both sides, so I hope that we are able to come back to that and discuss it as a Parliament.

The committee also said that each Scottish budget should be accompanied by a detailed plan, identifying what actions will be needed to achieve the reductions. I hear that Lorna Slater has one specific proposal, but a raft of measures will need to be taken. It is important to lay out what those policies will be, and an evaluation plan will be needed to track indicators to identify whether the deployment of scaling up at pace that is required is taking place.

As Liam McArthur said, there has been a series of failures on this agenda, and more detailed consideration of some of the specifics is something that the Parliament needs to do more regularly.

It has become abundantly clear that, although not enough is being done, there is a will in all political parties in the Parliament to do more. I am, therefore, supportive of the bill, but I agree that far more needs to be done to address the climate emergency, and, in the short time that is available to me, I want to focus on what that means to ordinary people, because this Parliament also has to carefully consider what a just transition means.

Much of the debate has been focused on a just transition for oil and gas workers, who will be at the centre of any move away from fossil fuel usage. I hope that the Scottish Government is working with the new UK Government to ensure that we have a concrete plan for energy transition jobs in Scotland.

Yes, I would be happy to—I can imagine what it might concern.

I understand that there is work going on regarding that issue, but I would point out to the member that I am not the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I make representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, and I know that Scottish Labour is fighting to ensure that as much as possible is done to make progress as quickly as possible.

Colleagues will be aware that Unite the union has launched its no ban without a plan campaign, which calls for new jobs to be commensurate with current workers’ roles. We need pay protection and training to allow workers to transition to the jobs of the future.

The experience of working people in the past has been of unjust transitions, and they have no reason to believe that it will be different this time. If we allow Grangemouth to close, the situation will be looked at again by working people to see whether warm words have become a reality. In many ways, the closure of Grangemouth is not just about climate change—there are far wider issues there—but we need to build support for the actions that are needed to reduce our carbon emissions. That has cost implications, and such actions need the support of all the community.

We cannot continue with the economy being at the mercy of corporate profiteering, which dramatically increases people’s energy bills. We need to move to a system of greener, cleaner energy at a price that we can all afford, and we need a strategy that gets the support of the whole population for the changes that we need to make. We are seeing the devastating effects of climate change across the world and, increasingly, we are beginning to see that in our own country. We must do more, we must do it collectively, and we cannot wait longer for real action to be taken.