Chamber and committees

Still on the topic of the community right to buy process, I have a question that follows on from Mark Ruskell’s question. Are the pre-notification and registration provisions unnecessarily complex and difficult to navigate? Are they likely to act as a deterrent to communities?

I invite Linda Gillespie to kick off on that.

My next question ties back to Mark Ruskell’s previous question. Let us say, for example, that a landowner with a large estate has a cottage that he is looking to sell. Would that sale be delayed by the whole process? Would it be right to delay it? How do we get around that?

Like Monica Lennon with her amendment 1, I find myself in a position where I had a win at stage 2, when I got some amendments in, but I am unpicking some of them at stage 3. My stage 2 amendments sought to put a timetable in place for the committee and the Parliament. However, following discussions with the cabinet secretary, we felt that that would tie not the Government’s hands but Parliament’s. We therefore looked for a better way of achieving our aim. I am happy to have worked with the cabinet secretary to lodge amendments 6 and 12, which work together.

The other amendment in the group is Mark Ruskell’s amendment 11. Its changes to wording would add to the bill, so I will be happy to support it.

I move amendment 6.

I thank the cabinet secretary for that intervention, but this is the problem. We have been told that the energy strategy is imminent and ready. We were told that it was delayed because of the general election and that it requires Cabinet sign-off, but the Cabinet meets every Tuesday, so what are we still waiting for? The industry is waiting for it—it is waiting for the direction of travel and the certainty—but the strategy instead seems to be being kicked down the road while jobs in the north-east are lost.

The Scottish Conservatives welcome the bill as a step on the way, but more should and must be done. We need to see a draft climate change plan as soon as possible after the Climate Change Committee delivers its report, next spring. This party wants there to be a new independent office for net zero, which would work with and scrutinise public bodies and their progress to net zero. We would establish a national centre for green jobs that was based in the north-east, with a manager who lived in the north-east of Scotland. I thought that I would clarify that for our Labour colleagues, who think that GB energy should be based in Aberdeen but managed by someone 350 miles away, in Manchester.

The Scottish Conservatives want to continue Scotland’s role at the forefront of energy. We, of course, support a transition for our oil and gas sector, not the cliff edge that it is facing under the devolved Scottish Government and Labour at Westminster.

We support the bill as a step along the way, but more must be done to bring us to net zero. Difficult choices lie ahead.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Will you clarify whether Michael Matheson’s vote was a yes or a no? Originally, I heard him say no, and I would like to know whether members can change their vote.

I absolutely agree. The way in which the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill has been handled and the approach to the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill, for example, have been like chalk and cheese. We have all benefited from that, and we now have a much stronger bill at the end of the process.

As I was saying, the energy strategy is a prime example. We have been told for months that it is imminent, but there is still no sign of it. During the stage 1 debate, I asked the cabinet secretary to intervene and tell us when it would be released. I repeat that invitation now. Can the cabinet secretary tell us when the strategy will be here?

We do not feel that we can support amendment 13. There is still a little woolliness with regard to what might constitute a capital project in the future. It is still not clear whether that would always include the private sector. I also heard the reference to the A96, and one of my fears about amendment 13 is that it might be used to stop projects such as the dualling of the A96 and the A9.

I thank the committee and the devolved Government, which have worked together to make significant improvements to the bill. There has been true collaboration, and I give credit where credit is due. I commend the Government’s approach to the bill. It has worked with Opposition parties to improve amendments, and—importantly—it has explained and discussed why some amendments were unworkable. I guess that that is why at stage 3 we had only 15 amendments to consider and only two votes.

The bill is now at a point at which the Scottish Conservatives can support it; but, of course, this is just the start, and tough choices will have to be made in the future. More needs to be done to reach net zero, and we will continue to hold the Scottish Government’s feet to the fire on the hugely important issue of climate change and our journey to net zero, because its record in this area has not been great. The devolved Government has failed to meet its climate change targets, it has failed to address the challenges that we are facing, and it has failed to set out a clear plan on how, together, we can achieve net zero.

The stage 1 report by the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee did not pull its punches on how the bill needed to be improved, and I, along with fellow committee members, other MSPs and the cabinet secretary, have worked hard to ensure that some of the committee’s concerns have been addressed. I thank the cabinet secretary for taking on board some of those concerns and addressing them in the bill.

I said in the stage 1 debate:

“The issue is too important, too big and too vital—its significance is too great—to rush through without adequate thought or thorough examination.”—[Official Report, 10 October 2024; c 86.]

I still feel that that is the case, and I would have welcomed more time to work with colleagues on the issue. However, we are where we are, and we must move forward.

There have been welcome improvements following stage 2, and it is worth reflecting on some of them. I thank my colleagues Graham Simpson and Maurice Golden for their helpful amendments requiring the Scottish Government to share an indication of what policies and proposals might be included in the next climate change plan, including the requirement for a cost benefit analysis to be published for the period covered by a Scottish carbon budget. Importantly, a further amendment from Maurice Golden requires the Scottish Government to assess whether the carbon budget will be met.

One area where we did not manage to agree was the issue of alignment. The majority of evidence that we heard in committee supported alignment with the UK carbon budget. It was disappointing that the Scottish Government did not go down that road, but I am sure that we can make the arrangements work. I know that Northern Ireland has aligned, but Wales is not doing so, so I fully accept that there were arguments on both sides of that debate.

The amendments that have been agreed through the passage of the bill have strengthened it, particularly on accountability. That is badly needed in the Scottish National Party Government, which has failed Scotland and our green industry in past years. It has failed to achieve its key climate change targets in nine out of 13 years, it is set to fail to reach four out of its six recycling targets for 2025, and it has failed to publish its draft climate change plan.

During the stage 1 debate, I expressed concern that having the new bill

“will mean nothing if the devolved Government does not follow it up with actions.”—[Official Report, 10 October 2024; c 88.]

The energy strategy is a prime example of that.

I am following what Patrick Harvie is saying. On that basis, would he also expect local government, when it is setting a budget, to have regard to the Scottish Government’s carbon budget?

I thank Patrick Harvie for taking an intervention. There are a couple of points on which I seek clarification. He referred to major capital projects. When would a capital project become a major capital project? Is there already a definition of that? Are we talking about capital projects that are owned by the Government or would that include the private sector?