Chamber and committees

I press amendment 87.

Could I press the amendment instead, convener?

Will the minister take an intervention?

I am struggling to understand why you cannot accept the targets that the Scottish Government created many years ago—I do not remember how many years ago Maurice Golden said that it was. You seem to suggest now that the recycling targets would differ for each local authority. Why was that not the case when you set the 2025 and 2027 targets, which were blanket figures for the whole of Scotland?

I understand what the minister is saying, but if there is not some sort of value, does that mean that anything, regardless of how little value it would be, would have to be dealt with by the regulations? I was trying to put some sort of safeguard in, so that goods below a certain value would not need to go through the process that has been set out in the bill.

We have all agreed that one year is a bit too ambitious, and that two years is maybe unrealistic, as the minister has said. Will the minister accept different timescales at stage 3—perhaps three or four years? Surely we must be able to set a timescale so that it does not just drift along. As I said earlier, this cannot just be a piece of legislation that sits on the shelf.

I thank the minister for taking on board amendment 81, which will firm up what the Scottish ministers “must” do, and for providing clarification on the use of the word “appropriate”.

I press amendment 81.

Amendment 81 agreed to.

Amendment 90 is quite simple. A lot of work will be required from local authorities, so amendment 90 calls on the Scottish Government to fund them correctly to ensure that they can carry out any duties that the bill will impose on them.

Amendment 91 is a little different. I can give an example that I used in discussion with the former Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity when she was trying to understand the rationale behind the amendment. Local authorities may have contracts with providers—the example that sprang to my mind was of the contract that is in place to guarantee that a certain amount of waste will go to the energy-from-waste plant in Aberdeen. Some of the things that local authorities will have to do because of the bill will significantly reduce the amount of waste that goes to that plant.

My amendment 91 would ensure that local authorities were not punished for contracts that they put in place beforehand with good intentions and which may have to be revisited because of the bill. That is the simple idea behind the amendment, which would ensure that local authorities were not penalised for something that was put in place out of good will before the bill came into force.

Once again, it is down to the Scottish Conservatives to secure debates on the important issues that the people of Scotland are talking about while, once again, the focus of the SNP devolved Government is on independence. I thank Maurice Golden for securing this vital debate on climate change.

The present devolved Government has failed in its ambition and duty for the past 17 years when it comes to climate change measures. In fact, the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy herself acknowledged in an interview a couple of weeks ago that she was “proud” of the work that the Scottish Government had done, even though it had failed on eight out of 12 of the emission targets that it had set itself.

The cabinet secretary recently wrote to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee about climate change targets. In her three-page letter, there are a total of nine obfuscations, and here they are for ease of reference: two mentions of “in due course”; “putting in place”; “are being developed”; “moving to an approach”; “as soon as possible”; “on-going”; “remains committed”; and “consideration is ongoing”. There were no commitments, no timeframes and no demonstration of a Government that is committed to dealing with the issue in a timely way.

The letter actually has a line from the cabinet secretary that states that the Scottish Government has

“twenty years to finish the job.”

That is a disgrace. The Government has had 17 years and it is yet to start the job.

As the new First Minister has made clear, his first priority is independence. Apparently, the SNP can achieve that in five years. If only that same focus could be given to this issue, or to education or policing.

The motion calls for a plan to be introduced “with the utmost urgency”, but this Government has no sense of urgency at all. Targets are missed, deadlines shift and complacency is rife—yet, apparently, it is proud of that record. That is shameful.

Now we have a new strategy from the Government to deal with targets that they miss: delete them all together. Emissions targets are gone, and recycling targets are soon to be gone, as we heard today. Maybe that was what was on Bob Doris’s missing page: his Government’s targets.

Although the communities that I represent are crying out for clarity, this Government dithers and delays. The north-east is eager to work with all Governments to bring economic growth to the region, and is making huge strides through working with the Government in Westminster, which is committed to investing in the area, working with industry on a just transition and ensuring jobs and economic growth.

Earlier this morning, our colleague Maurice Golden tried to lodge amendments to the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill. One of them sought to bring back the 2013 recycling targets. That amendment was blocked by a Green member. Would Brian Whittle agree that that is absolute hypocrisy, given what we have just heard from the Green member who spoke previously?