Chamber and committees

Sure.

I am happy to agree with the member on that point. As I have said, the amendment seeks to address the risk of displacing the problem instead of its being tackled. It is not saying that all deer fencing is a problem, in and of itself, but that alone, and without other measures, it can exacerbate existing problems.

Moving on to the topic of urban afforestation, amendment 13 seeks to introduce requirements for Scottish Forestry to partner with local authorities to plant urban trees in towns and cities—for example, in streets, squares and parks and on other local authority-owned land. Again, these amendments come from the recommendations in the RSE’s report that

“Scottish Forestry should provide targeted grants to Local Authorities to plant trees in existing urban locations”

and that

“Local Authorities should require all new built developments with road frontages to incorporate trees in the road or on their frontages.”

Scottish Environment LINK, as well as the Royal Society of Edinburgh, has highlighted the positive social, economic and environmental impacts of such spaces, particularly their promotion of good air quality in urban areas. Beyond the benefits to us, urban afforestation is vital in ensuring species connectivity and flood management. Again, this is a probing amendment, and I am keen to hear from the cabinet secretary about any partnership working that might already be in place between Scottish Forestry and local authorities, and how any best practice is being promoted across the country to encourage more of that joined-up working.

On the issue of sustainable forestry, the RSE’s report highlights that 61 per cent of Scotland’s coniferous woodland comprises Sitka spruce, and what lies at the heart of this particular set of amendments is an attempt to shift the balance towards native tree planting. For each area being amended, I have brought forward two options to amend the Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018, either in or after section 11.

I will not go through every amendment in detail, in the interests of time, but I can take questions on specific amendments. Broadly, they seek to increase instances of mixed native broadleaf planting, incorporate shrub cover, improve biodiversity, create mixed native woodlands, and ensure that any public financial support goes to schemes that improve biodiversity and increase native woodland planting.

There are also the amendments that the convener highlighted—that is, amendments 304A and 304B. Amendment 304 and the amendments that amend it seek to require an environmental impact assessment to be completed before any public funding can be used for tree planting, with the requirement applying to land of 50 hectares or above, or where the cumulative area of land held by the person receiving support would be 50 hectares or above, if the land adjoins or is adjacent to existing land held by the person receiving support and if support is being provided for the same activity across the cumulative landholding. Within that, there are provisions for sensitive areas relating to heritage and conservation.

The difference between the amendments relates to deep peat soil. The RSE has been proactive in highlighting the role of peat soil in sequestering carbon. Globally, soils contain three times more carbon than vegetation, particularly when the soil is peaty. Each of the amendments recognises that and seeks to ensure that deep peat soil is considered in environmental impact assessments. However, amendment 304 specifies a thickness of 30cm, amendment 304A a thickness of 50cm and amendment 304B a thickness of 40cm. Of those, a thickness of 30cm would be my preference. However, although I think that that would be incredibly beneficial, there are other options for consideration.

In conclusion, the findings of the RSE’s report “Inquiry into public financial support for tree planting and forestry” are stark. It says:

“Based on the evidence, the report concludes that subsidising commercial conifer planting is not justified and the potential for the forestry sector to deliver multiple benefits has not been fully realised.”

Clearly, although work might be being done in this area, it is neither successful nor efficient enough for the scale of the challenge that we face.

I am keen to hear from the cabinet secretary the Government’s response to these amendments before I decide whether to move them. However, based on those findings, I feel that, at the very least, there are grounds for the Scottish Government to carry out its own inquiry into the issues that are highlighted in the report.

I move amendment 11.

Good morning. I want to start by thanking the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Parliament’s legislation team for their support in drafting these amendments.

I have 17 amendments in this group, covering three areas: deer overgrazing, urban afforestation and sustainable forestry. All have been inspired by the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s report “Inquiry into public financial support for tree planting and forestry”, which concluded that

“subsidising commercial conifer planting is not justified and the potential for the forestry sector to deliver multiple benefits has not been fully realised.”

With that in mind, I have lodged these amendments to probe areas that the RSE report found would benefit from Scottish Government intervention.

First, on the issue of deer grazing, amendment 11, in my name, seeks to address the environmental damage caused by the overgrazing of deer while protecting other wildlife habitats. The RSE report identified a concern about

“expensive fencing around planted areas resulting in red deer being displaced to adjoining areas where browsing and grazing pressures then increase, together with capercaillie and black grouse mortality caused by collisions with fences”.

Put simply, deer fencing is expensive and, although those who can afford it are able to erect it, it simply moves the problem of deer overgrazing to areas without fencing, without addressing the problem of unsustainable deer numbers. At the same time, it poses a risk to wildlife, which might become trapped or injured in the fencing.

If the cabinet secretary believes that there are unintended consequences with amendment 11, I am sure that she will explain them. However, I ask that she outline how the Scottish Government will address the heart of the issue—that is, how it will support those without deer fencing whose plots adjoin areas with fencing to control deer numbers on their land. As, I am sure, she will agree, deer overgrazing is a national concern that no landowner or tenant should be left to shoulder alone.

Modelling by Uplift shows how new oil and gas licensing does not and cannot lead to new jobs in the north-east because, over the past decade, hundreds of new licences were awarded, but jobs in the sector still halved. What is the Scottish Government doing to support Labour-founded Great British Energy to become the UK’s energy champion, to accelerate the deployment of clean energy technologies that benefit us all and to redress deindustrialisation in the north-east region?

Last week, fossil fuel giant Shell UK was fined more than £500,000 after pleading guilty to two offences following a Health and Safety Executive investigation into its Brent Charlie platform. That was a potentially catastrophic incident that put the lives of more than 175 offshore workers at risk due to negligence and penny pinching by Shell.

Does the First Minister agree that such behaviour from Shell is wholly unacceptable and that offshore worker health and safety must be paramount to our energy transition, if that transition is to be in any way just?

Seaton primary school in my region has been the target of anti-migrant disruption twice in the past week alone. Successive Governments have allowed the poor to get poorer while the rich get richer. However, once again, it is migrants who are being blamed. Does the minister agree that those far-right protests disrupt not just education but our whole communities by sowing division? Is it not the case that the real solution to poverty, homelessness and unemployment is ending the gross inequality between us and the billionaires—

—and not attacking our hard-working friends and neighbours?

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.