Chamber and committees

I congratulate Bill Kidd on securing this debate and thank him for lodging the motion. As he pointed out, this is an international day, and the issues raised when firefighters put themselves in danger in the interest of others are also international. I associate myself with all of the tributes that have been made to firefighters who have lost their lives.

Firefighters memorial day is a day of solidarity and one on which to remember all firefighters and fire and rescue services workers who have lost their lives. As has been said, more than 2,500 have lost their lives serving their communities and many thousands more have been injured. The health risks to firefighters are now very clear, with higher death rates, higher rates of heart attacks, higher cancer and leukaemia rates and excess cancer mortality rates linked to different exposures and fire toxins.

My office recently submitted freedom of information requests to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service about the conditions in our fire stations. In total, 75 per cent of Scotland’s fire stations are assessed as being of bad or poor suitability. Around 45 per cent of fire stations are assessed as being in either bad or poor condition. In total, around 30 per cent of Scotland’s fire stations do not have dedicated female toilets and about 33 per cent of Scotland’s fire stations do not have dedicated male toilets. Around 40 per cent of Scotland’s fire stations do not have dedicated female showers and around 26 per cent of Scotland’s fire stations do not have drying facilities.

At the Criminal Justice Committee, interim chief, Ross Haggart, estimated that £138 million is needed to address that issue, but he also cited a £630 million backlog in the fire service’s capital budget. Despite strong representations being made, the Scottish Government is cutting the budget in real terms over the next year. We also know that between 2012 and 2021 almost 1,100 firefighter jobs were lost across Scotland, which is around 15 per cent of the workforce.

Last Friday was workers memorial day. The message then and now must be that we must remember the dead and fight for the living. In reality, that means that we in the chamber must put our actions where our words are, and we must commit resources to ensure that firefighters in this country are provided with safe systems of work.

I, too, congratulate the minister on her appointment.

I want to ask about the timetable. I will support the instruments today. Labour supported the 2022 act and the creation of the various new criminal offences, despite the fact that we had concerns about the operation of the licensing scheme. You mentioned that, before June, we will look at a piece of delegated legislation in relation to control zones. Is it possible to share with the committee, prior to June, any information on the definition of control zones, which was a live issue as the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill went through Parliament? You will know that, when the committee gets statutory instruments to look at, the turnaround time can be quite tight, so, the earlier that we get that information, the more we will be able to actively consider and scrutinise it. It would be helpful to have early sight of that.

It would also be helpful to get information on the licensing scheme earlier, although I appreciate that work on that is at a far earlier stage. Genuine concerns were raised about that scheme. Of course, that will depend partly on the practicalities and the detail of how the Government takes forward the legislation. It would be useful for committee members, who have looked at the legislation in detail, to have an opportunity to consider that.

I do not think that I will get the time back, so I apologise but I will not take the intervention.

The approach that the Scottish Government has taken has created maximum distress and anger.

The cabinet secretary rightly pointed out that we are in the middle of a climate and nature emergency, the backdrop for which is a significant decline in the marine environment and in many parts of the fishing industry and fishing stocks over many decades. A World Wildlife Fund report that was published in 2015 highlighted that, worldwide, the number of fish in the oceans had halved since 1970. The report also highlighted that populations of marine mammals and birds fell by

“49 per cent between 1970 and 2012”.

I do not think that anybody in the chamber refuses to accept the scale of the challenge that the damage to our oceans poses or the urgent need for action to help to regenerate marine ecosystems.

Many parts of Scotland, such as Ayrshire—where I come from—had significant fishing industries in the past, with coastal communities that relied on the industry for jobs and livelihoods. With the removal of the coastal limit on bottom trawling in 1984, we have seen over many years the significant damage that Government policies have done to Scotland’s sea bed habitats. There is no doubt that the use of high-impact, unsustainable fishing practices has taken a significant toll on our seas.

Those issues, however, including the use of high-impact fishing methods such as bottom trawling and dredging, remain unaddressed by the Scottish Government. More than 17,000 tonnes of fish are estimated to have been discarded by Scottish fishing boats in 2021 as a result of its policies, but the future catching policy is unlikely to address those issues. The Scottish Government has failed to come forward with a sustainable fishing policy.

I will very briefly.

The Lamlash Bay no-take zone has already been mentioned in the debate. Having represented Arran, it is clear to me that strong marine protection can have support and buy-in from local communities. The Community of Arran Seabed Trust—COAST—was founded in 1995 and it led successful community campaigns to establish Scotland’s first no-take zone. The Scottish Government has much to learn from COAST’s approach and the painstaking work that was carried out on Arran to build community support for marine protection.

I pay tribute to COAST for the work that it has done because, without buy-in from the local community, marine protection areas will not work. I hope that the cabinet secretary will accept that there have been significant mistakes in the handling of the policy to develop highly protected marine areas.

The approach that the Scottish Government has taken has caused upset in many communities that rely on the sea and it has caused concern to many who would probably never be affected by any of the proposals. I hope that the cabinet secretary will accept that it would have been far preferable for the Scottish Government to have come forward with specific proposals to restrict particular practices in defined areas, and to have had a full and genuine consultation and evaluation process.

We need marine protected areas and we need community buy-in in order to get them.

I have no relevant interests to declare.

That is not very far.

The guidance on fair work first does not make trade union recognition a requirement for bidders; instead, it permits alternative arrangements. It also stipulates that there should be

“no inappropriate use of zero hours contracts”

instead of ruling them out completely. Will the Scottish Government commit to addressing those discrepancies?