Chamber and committees

Will the minister take an intervention?

I will give way to Bob Doris.

Perhaps Mr Doris was not listening when I said earlier that legislation was welcome. However, the focus should perhaps be on the behavioural change that even he discussed, because we can have greater impact with that than we can have with the legislation that is before us.

Murdo Fraser spoke of the blight of fly-tipping, about which I think that all of us have received emails. It is a rural and urban problem, not just one or the other. He spoke about the criminals who are making money from that and the need to make it easier for people to legally dispose of the goods that they no longer require.

Sarah Boyack and Graham Simpson raised the point that households could be criminalised for someone else putting the wrong item in their bins.

—who rely on us getting this right expect more. I look forward to the debate moving forward, and I hope that we can work collaboratively to make the bill fit for purpose.

The cabinet secretary previously told the Parliament that world leaders were contacting the Scottish Government to ask for advice on how to get to net zero. Can the cabinet secretary tell us who those world leaders were, so that we can let them know that the targets have been missed yet again?

Has COSLA raised concerns about the funding that councils will require to implement some elements of the bill?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I put it on record that I was a councillor at Aberdeen City Council at the start of this parliamentary session. I referred to that in my speech.

Liam Kerr has hit the nail on the head—we heard that point from the finance committee. The Parliament cannot do that. It cannot see what regulations will come forward and what the costs will be for our local authorities.

Maurice Golden also said that ministers need to be more accountable for missed targets. He raised the point that targets have been missed—I think that that has been in eight of the past 12 years—but no minister has resigned over that. Targets are simply missed, and things carry on as before.

Bob Doris talked about behavioural change—I completely agree with him on that. Perhaps the focus should be on that rather than on legislation.

Murdo Fraser, or Uncle Bulgaria, as he will now be referred to, spoke—

Bob Doris rose—

Chris Stark’s criticism of the Scottish National Party-Green Government was brutal and unprecedented, but thoroughly merited. I hope that this Government’s current record of failed legislation can be changed. Scotland deserves better, and our industries—

I thank my colleagues for their contributions to an interesting debate on an issue on which we all agree that action requires to be taken. I also thank the committees that considered the bill in great detail; the witnesses who gave their time to submit evidence on the proposed measures; and, of course, the clerks of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, who somehow managed to capture our views and get them into a report that we could all agree on.

We have heard many interesting contributions, which have focused on the intentions of the bill and how it will work in practice. As the committee’s report points out, there is a lot that is unsaid, unknown and unexplained in the bill, and I share the committee’s concerns in that area.

We all agree on the principle that legislation is required to assist with the development of a circular economy in Scotland. However, a lot of work needs to be done to the bill before it will be fit for purpose, and I look forward to being involved in the process of improving it.

Many of my colleagues have outlined some of the concerns that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee had when it considered the bill. I note that, in her response to the committee’s report, the minister outlined her acceptance of many of the recommendations that it made. That is helpful, and I hope that we can work together to improve the bill.

As other colleagues have noted, the committee found it challenging to scrutinise the bill, given that it is a piece of framework legislation, with much of the detail to be added later. That makes us all nervous, as we should not agree to legislation that is unclear. We are not a fill-in-the-blanks-later Parliament—or, at least, we should not be.

As a former councillor and council leader, I have specific concerns about the additional burdens that the bill will place on local authorities, in particular around increased centralised control through targets. I support action on increasing household recycling practices, and I welcome the minister’s comments about removing the potential penalties for local authorities. However, we need to work with local authorities more and to look at ways to reward local authorities that meet their targets.

It is vitally important that the Scottish Government continues to meet COSLA to discuss the proposed measures and how they are to be implemented fully, in agreement, in line with the Verity house agreement.

I have real concerns about the financial burden that the bill will place on our local authorities. I ask the minister what additional funding will be made available to local authorities to assist with implementation and with the additional reporting and recording that will be required as a result of the bill. An increase in the value of recyclate will not cover the cost of that.

I turn to some of the speeches that we have heard today. We heard from John Mason on behalf of the Finance and Public Administration Committee—that was quite a contribution—which has concerns about the lack of certainty, the lack or underestimating of costs and the passing on of costs from Zero Waste Scotland to local authorities. We also heard that the co-design process could and should have taken place up front, that there is a risk that the bill could be “unaffordable”, and that the financial memorandum is “not adequate”. That will always be the case with a framework bill.

We heard from my colleague Maurice Golden, who said that the bill as drafted will not deliver a circular economy. It is a waste and litter bill, with little detail and no guarantee of when—or even if—things will change.