Chamber and committees

Our public money is being spent on mitigating the environmental damage caused by polluting private companies. We cannot afford to go on like this. It is therefore welcome that NatureScot is exploring the potential to apply the principle of cost recovery in its species licensing review.

I have previously asked whether the Scottish Government supports the principle that polluters must themselves pay for the environmental damage that they cause, but the minister did not answer, so I am asking again: does the Scottish Government agree with the polluter pays principle?

I put on record my thanks to Patrick Harvie for lodging the motion so that we can have this debate in the chamber.

I will use my time to raise a constituency case with the minister. I have raised it with her in the past, but it is important to get the details on the record, because they highlight a lot of the issues and concerns that Patrick Harvie raised in his speech.

My constituent contacted me in summer 2022. She had already been referred to the adult gender service two years previously, in November 2020, by her GP. She got in touch with me to say that she was in considerable distress—she had had to wait two years and had accrued significant personal costs in pursuing a private alternative. She said:

“I found it necessary to go down the private healthcare route as the NHS waiting times are three years minimum and more likely five years. I thought the only way I’m ever going to get any of my life is to take things into my own hands.”

As I said, she decided to go private, but she still tried to pursue healthcare through the NHS—we all have a right to access healthcare free at the point of need. However, she said:

“Any time I try to contact them, I get the same reply, which is that I’m on the waiting list and will be contacted when I reach the top, but the list seems to get ever-increasingly longer.”

I was shocked to hear that she had been waiting for two years without any indication of when she would reach the top of the waiting list, so I raised that with NHS Tayside. I was told that the provision of gender identity services was being reviewed by the population health directorate of the Scottish Government with the aims of improving waiting times, improving the support that is available to those who were on waiting lists and delivering new models of gender identity healthcare. Finally, in late 2022, my constituent received a first assessment. She was then placed on the medical review waiting list at the Glasgow adult gender service.

To fast-forward to summer 2025, my constituent was—five years since she was initially referred—still no further forward on the waiting list. Remembering that she had said to me that she thought that the wait would be

“three years minimum and more likely five years”,

I realised that it had already been five years and that there was still no end in sight.

I raised the matter once again—I contacted Sandyford, which is mentioned in Patrick Harvie’s motion, but it unfortunately could not provide an approximate date. It conceded that it could not comply with the 18-week referral-to-treatment guidance. It also outlined that the gender identity services have been under considerable operational pressure since 2014—so it is not a new issue—but the clinic has also experienced unprecedented demand, which has outstripped its ability to provide appointments in a timely manner.

I escalated the case to the minister—she may remember it, but I appreciate that a lot of cases come across her desk. Although she confirmed that the Scottish Government’s on-going commitment to improving access to and delivery of NHS gender identity services, that does not help my constituent, who has been waiting for more than five years.

It is clear that something in the system is not working. As Patrick Harvie said, the issue is not just in gender identity healthcare—hundreds of thousands of Scots are stuck on waiting lists on the Government’s watch. It is possible to bring down waiting lists, but we need the Government to get a grip.

I ask the minister, in her closing remarks, to let me know what hope she can offer my constituent that she will not be waiting for 80 years—as referenced in the motion—for an appointment, and to update me on what progress has been made on developing the support that is available for those who are waiting. In particular, I would like to hear about progress on any local support in people’s home health boards so that they do not have to travel outwith their health board area, and ask her to acknowledge that the scale of the problem warrants urgent action from the Government.

I end with a final quote from my constituent:

“Perhaps nothing will come of it, but at least they will know we are not sitting quiet any longer.”

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app would not connect. I would have voted yes.

I thank the minister for advance sight of her statement.

Continued uncertainty and chaotic decision making from private offshore renewables developers are harming workers and communities in the North East Scotland region. The mismanagement of UK oil and gas revenues by the privatised fossil fuel industry means that workers now face an unsure and unjust transition. It is critical that we do not repeat the same mistakes with offshore renewable energy.

One of the key recommendations in the Future Economy Scotland report “Rethinking ScotWind: Maximising Scotland’s Offshore Wind Potential” was for the Scottish Government to explore taking public equity stakes in offshore leasing and development. Does the cabinet secretary recognise the considerable long-term benefits that up-front investment from the Scottish Government would bring to renewables development? Will she ensure that the people of Scotland benefit from our common natural resources?

I will continue.

I have covered the point about how we already import timber. Sadly, a lot of the timber that we grow is used for compound materials or wood-fired heating. We are not growing the large ancient trees that we once did to produce things. That is just not the case.

The cabinet secretary said that the industry contributes £1.1 billion to the Scottish economy. That sounds like a healthy and vibrant business that does not require public subsidy. It would be better to redirect public subsidy to industries that are struggling but which provide a higher level of sustainability for the country and help us with our transition. We should not be rewarding industries that harm and pollute.

We publicly subsidise healthy industries, and the results of those industries lead to environmental degradation that the public then pays to clear up. Something is going wrong there.

The cabinet secretary referred to the issue being included in forthcoming forest plan guidance, and it would be interesting to hear more about that, especially ahead of stage 3, because I would be reluctant to drop the issue and leave it out of the bill without some assurance that it will be addressed.

You say that it is an ever-increasing percentage without providing any figures. An ever-increasing percentage of not very much is still not very much, and we need to go much further and faster.

With that, I will conclude. I will not press amendment 54 today on the ground that I will be working with the cabinet secretary ahead of stage 3.

Amendment 54, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 55, 56 and 195 not moved.

I thank the member for taking my intervention, which actually concerns her earlier amendments relating to goats, if that is okay—I was not quick enough to come in then. I was trying to follow what you were saying, and I am unclear as to the mechanisms that your amendments would leave for the management of goat herds. As far as I am aware, there are no natural predators, and it appears that your amendments would make it impossible to manage herds of non-native feral goats. Are the goats that you are referring to non-native?

I appreciate your saying that the goats are wild and that they descend from goats that have been here a long time, but I heard you acknowledge that they are not a native species and that management and culls are necessary, but I have not heard why that needs to be brought into primary legislation. Are there not any pre-existing methods to control the species?

On a point of clarification, the member seems to think that my amendments are targeting all game shooting, but they are focused in particular on invasive non-native species.

Of non-native species.