Chamber and committees

The Government has already said that it will not be accepting some of the proposals from the United Kingdom Climate Change Committee—for example, around agriculture. If you are not accepting some of the CCC’s recommendations, can you tell us what you will put forward instead to make up the gap from the savings that are not being made?

The Labour Government in Westminster is, of course, equally culpable, as the numbers arriving have been increasing exponentially over the past year, mostly in dinghies and—I say this to Maggie Chapman, so that she knows—not from war-torn countries, but from France.

More should, and must, be done by all Governments by working together, not by stoking petty grievances. Solutions can be developed only in partnership, through a cross-UK approach. The SNP, with its constant refrain of independence, is hurting the opportunities for co-ordinated action. There should be one message from all Administrations in the UK.

Billions are being spent on asylum hotels, which means that less money is available for the devolved Administrations. Money is being spent on taxis to shuttle asylum seekers to doctors’ appointments, which means that there is less money to spend on education. Decisions made by the Government have an impact on our communities. Offering things for free has a cost. Nothing is free; everything is paid for by hard-working Scots through their taxes. Only the Conservative Party has a commonsense approach to controlling immigration in our country. Only the Conservative Party has taken a whole-UK approach, understanding that the solution can be found only by working together.

Refugees should not find it easier to get accommodation in Scotland than in England. Scottish local authorities should not be under greater pressure to deliver accommodation than our neighbours in England, because we simply cannot cope. We have a housing emergency and the SNP is adding to it with the open-door policy that it is pursuing. Hard-working families cannot get on the housing ladder and they see people from other parts of the country jump to the top of the list. Local connection rules that were abolished should be reinstated and emergency policies that were adopted during Covid to house asylum seekers in hotels should be dropped. Our communities demand more and better, and it is time that the SNP Government listened to people’s concerns and stepped up or got out of the way.

15:31  

I think that that is where Mr Doris is confused. We are being asked to approve targets, without knowing how we are going to achieve them. We do not know whether they will be achievable. I feel that we should have had the plan at the same time as the targets.

The committee wanted clarity on the estimated costs of each policy and detail on how each estimate had been calculated; how actions set out in the long-awaited climate change plan will link with the annual budget process, which requires urgent action, given that we will have a budget in a few months; details of the publication of other related strategies, bills and plans, alongside the draft climate change plan; and modelling of emissions reductions for areas where the Scottish Government intends to reduce emissions at a different rate to the Climate Change Committee’s model, such as agriculture, which I asked about earlier.

We also need clarity on timing. Although the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy has pledged to have the climate change plan in place before the Parliament is dissolved, time is tight: the draft has to be laid, the Parliament has to consider it and the public need to be consulted and their views taken into account. On 9 September, the cabinet secretary reassured the committee that the Government had confidence that the timetable could be met. I remind the chamber that we first expected the climate change plan in 2023.

I am sorry if I do not share the cabinet secretary’s confidence. While the devolved SNP Government has wasted two years developing the policy, the world has moved on: Britain’s domestic energy prices are now the second highest in the world and its industrial electricity prices are the highest in the world. Almost half the cost of producing electricity in Britain results from net zero spending, taxes and levies.

I am coming on to my party’s plan to reduce energy prices. The world has changed a lot since many of those targets were made. We are being asked to approve uncosted budgets, and I do not think that we are in a position to do that.

A third of the wholesale price of electricity is made up of the carbon tax. The Climate Change Committee has accepted that that is a policy choice that is designed to aid the transition to net zero. Ed Miliband’s decision to double the subsidies for offshore wind in 2008 means that many wind farm developers are paid almost three times the market price for their output. This week, the Conservatives pledged to axe the carbon tax, scrap extortionate wind subsidies and repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 to cut energy bills for everyone. Carbon reduction targets force Governments to take decisions that increase the cost of energy, make people poorer and make businesses unsustainable, which impacts our rural and remote communities in particular.

By axing the carbon tax for electricity generation, we would immediately save people money on their bills. It would mean money in their pockets for everyone as well as money off energy bills. By scrapping renewable subsidies, we would put money directly into everyone’s pockets. Those are commonsense solutions that would put money back into the pockets of hard-working Scots. While we wait two years for the SNP to come up with a plan to make us all poorer, the Scottish Conservative Party is looking at what will make us all better off.

We want cleaner energy and we want to meet our global responsibilities on climate change, but we can do that through providing cleaner nuclear energy and by using our domestic supply of oil and gas instead of relying on imports.

We oppose the SSI that has been laid before the chamber and encourage colleagues to hold the devolved SNP Government’s feet to the fire. The SSI would write a blank check for unlimited costs to meet arbitrary targets. The majority of the committee’s members did not approve those targets—they abstained.

I do not have confidence in the targets, the timeframes, the plan—or lack of one—to cut emissions or the Government’s ability to deliver change for the Scottish people.

The Scottish Government first committed to dualling the A96 in full in 2011. Is that still a Scottish Government commitment? Should we then expect money in this year’s budget to be assigned for the A96 work to start in the coming year?

But it was reported that Mr Maclennan was due to have another term, and that was changed. Is that the case?

Thank you. That is a good point to clarify.

Last week, the sole islander on the board of CMAL—Murdo Maclennan—was ousted. Do you have any more details that you could share with us of why he was removed? Are there plans for another islander to be on the board?

It was reported by the BBC that he raised concerns about civil servants from Edinburgh doing a launch and that, after that, his recommendation for reapproval was withdrawn. Was that not the case?

Thank you, convener. I will stay on the topic of dualling, but I want to ask about a different road. The A96 corridor review was published almost four months ago. What next steps will the Government take on the A96 dualling project?