Chamber and committees

As I said earlier, we will publish the details of the international agreements that we signed, as well as the other initiatives and the signatories to them. We will put that information in SPICe.

The Glasgow women’s leadership statement is hugely important. We know that women are disproportionately impacted, across the world, by climate change. When it comes to population displacement that is caused by climate change, around 80 per cent of all those who are displaced will be women and children. The impact is disproportionate, but women’s voices are not heard sufficiently loudly at any level. Often, it is women who are responsible for looking after children and for providing food for their families. If it is largely men who are designing the solutions, those often do not reflect the lives of women. From the grass roots, therefore, right up to leadership level, we need to hear the voice of women more loudly. The statement that we launched in Glasgow in partnership with UN Women—a significant initiative—is an important part of trying to drive that forward, and we will be encouraging other signatories in the months ahead.

On Saturday, COP26 concluded with 197 countries adopting the Glasgow climate pact. Today, I will report briefly on the Scottish Government’s activities during COP and offer our preliminary view on the agreement.

First, I want to record my gratitude to all those who helped to ensure that the hosting of the summit was a success. COP26 was one of the most important events ever held in Scotland; it was also one of the largest.

More than 40,000 people registered to attend, which is a higher number than for any of the previous 25 COPs. In addition, tens of thousands of activists visited the city. Some inconvenience was inevitable from an event of that scale, and I know that the city experienced disruption. However, the warmth and enthusiasm of Glasgow’s welcome were praised by every international visitor I met.

My first and very heartfelt thank you today is therefore to the people of Glasgow. [Applause.] I also thank the Scottish Event Campus, Glasgow City Council, all the volunteers and the partners across the public and private sectors whose hard work made the event possible.

My thanks go to the United Nations and in particular to the UN climate change executive secretary, Patricia Espinosa. The UK COP president, Alok Sharma, deserves huge credit. He and his team worked tirelessly to secure the best possible outcome. I am grateful to them for keeping me well briefed throughout the negotiations.

Peaceful protest is vital at any COP. It keeps pressure on negotiators and reminds those who are inside the blue zone of the vital job that they are there to do. Over the two weeks of the event, more than 400 protests were staged across Glasgow. That there were fewer than 100 arrests in total is a credit to protestors and to Police Scotland. The policing operation at COP26 was the biggest ever to be undertaken in the United Kingdom, and I pay tribute to the chief constable of Police Scotland and to all officers from forces across the UK who worked under his command for the highly professional manner in which the operation was conducted.

Over the past two weeks, the eyes of the world have been firmly on Scotland, and we have shown the best of our country to the world. Among the almost 500 meetings, events and other engagements that ministers undertook—including almost 100 that I undertook personally—many were with businesses and potential investors in green innovation. We also took the opportunity to strengthen our bilateral relationships with a number of countries and regions around the world.

As well as showcasing the country, the Scottish Government set clear objectives for our participation in COP. First, we aimed to amplify voices that are too rarely heard in such discussions—for example, those of young people, women and people from the global south—and we sought to be a bridge between those groups and the decision makers who were around the negotiating table.

To that end, we funded the conference of youth when the UK Government opted not to and we supported the Glasgow climate dialogues to give a platform to voices from developing and vulnerable countries. In partnership with UN Women, we launched the Glasgow women’s leadership statement on gender equality and climate change. I was joined for the launch of that statement by the leaders of Bangladesh, Tanzania and Estonia, and the statement has already been signed by more than 20 countries. We also endorsed the UNICEF declaration on children, youth and climate action.

Secondly, we worked hard to ensure that cities, states, regions and devolved Governments played our full part in securing progress. Scotland is currently the European co-chair of the Under2 Coalition, which held its general assembly during COP. More than 200 state, regional and devolved Governments are members of that coalition. Collectively, and significantly, we represent almost 2 billion people and account for half of global gross domestic product.

In the run-up to COP, the coalition sought to maximise its influence by launching a new memorandum of understanding that committed its members to reaching net zero by 2050 at the latest and to doing that as individual members earlier if that was possible. That has been signed up to by 28 Governments, and we are encouraging others to sign up.

More than 200 cities and states have signed up to the Edinburgh declaration on biodiversity. That represents welcome progress as we look ahead to the biodiversity COP next year.

Our third objective was to use COP to challenge ourselves to go further and faster in our journey to net zero. That is why I chose as my first engagement at COP to meet the climate activists Vanessa Nakate and Greta Thunberg. It is also why we moved away from our previous commitment to maximum economic recovery of oil and gas and embarked on discussions with the new Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance.

We published additional detail on our policy ambitions for onshore and offshore wind and launched a new hydrogen strategy and a £55 million nature restoration fund. We published a new planning framework with climate action at its heart, and we promoted our green investment portfolio to a range of businesses and investors.

We launched the blue carbon international policy challenge; supported international agreements on low-carbon transportation and reducing agricultural emissions; and signed new memorandums of understanding on heat with Denmark and on peatlands with Chile. A full list of such initiatives and of the 10 international agreements that we signed will be placed in the Scottish Parliament information centre later this week.

Of course, our most important objective was to use our engagement, influence and interaction to push for an international agreement that would live up to the urgency of the climate emergency. We wanted to see action to limit global warning to 1.5°C and, as a minimum, a tangible mechanism to keep 1.5 alive; we wanted the $100 billion of finance that was promised by the global north to developing nations 12 years ago to be delivered; and we wanted to see the developed world recognise its obligation to help developing countries to pay for the loss and damage that they are already suffering as a result of the climate change that they have done so little to cause.

The Glasgow climate pact represents progress on many of those issues, but it must be built on quickly if climate catastrophe is to be avoided. It is important that the necessity of capping temperature increases at 1.5°C is no longer questioned. However, the world is still on a path to temperature increases of well over 2°C, which is a death sentence for many parts of the world. To keep 1.5°C in reach, global emissions must be almost halved by the end of the decade. The requirement for countries to come back next year with substantially increased nationally determined contributions is therefore vital.

Finance is crucial to faster progress. I welcome the aim of doubling finance for adaptation by 2025, and the commitment to a longer-term finance goal. However, it is utterly shameful that the developed world could not deliver the $100 billion of funding that was promised in 2009 by the 2020 deadline, or even by 2021.

This COP also delivered significant commitments on methane and deforestation. In addition, a COP cover text has agreed, for the first time—albeit in language that was watered down in the final moments—the need to move away from fossil fuels.

In the run-up to COP, and as a result of what we heard during the Glasgow climate dialogues, the Scottish Government decided to champion the issue of loss and damage. Two weeks ago, we became the first developed country in the world to make a commitment to support countries that are experiencing loss and damage. I am delighted that our commitment has since been supplemented by Wallonia, and by a contribution from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation.

The final position that was agreed at Glasgow represents progress in recognising the loss and damage that the climate crisis, which was created by developed nations, is already causing in developing nations, but it does not go nearly far enough. I regret in particular the decision by some developed nations to block the establishment of a Glasgow financial facility on loss and damage. Over the weekend, I met Dr Saleemul Huq, who is one of the leading campaigners on that issue, and pledged that the Scottish Government will continue to work with him and others to build the case on loss and damage ahead of COP27 in Egypt. Loss and damage was an example of Scotland’s leadership during this COP, but ultimately Scotland can lead and speak with credibility only if we deliver on our own net zero targets.

As I reflect on the past two weeks, I feel pride in the leadership that Scotland has shown, for which we have been widely recognised. However, I also feel a renewed sense of responsibility to go further and faster; to face up to tough challenges as well as the relatively easy options; and to help raise the bar of world leadership more generally. Our focus in the months and years ahead will, therefore, be firmly on delivery.

This decade will be the most important in human history. The actions that we take between now and 2030 will determine whether or not we bequeath a sustainable and habitable planet to those who come after us. The stakes could not be higher, and I absolutely understand why many are angry and frustrated that more progress was not made in Glasgow. However the Glasgow climate pact provides a basis for further action, and the key test will be whether it is implemented fully, and with the required urgency. We must all focus our efforts on that between now and COP27, and then beyond. Scotland will, I am sure, continue to play our full part. While we can be proud of the part that we played at COP26, our responsibility now is to ensure that future generations will look back and be proud of the actions that we take in the months and years ahead.

The Scottish Government has been working—

We have taken several steps to highlight the nuisances and risks associated with fireworks and the new limitations on when they can be used. Outwith organised displays, fireworks can be used only between 6 pm and midnight on bonfire night itself and between 6 pm and 11 pm on most other nights of the year. We have funded three targeted publicity campaigns as well as promoting key messages on social media. We have also funded extra engagement with retailers by trading standards officers.

Others are also playing an important role. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, Police Scotland, community safety partnerships and charities—from Crimestoppers to the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—are putting huge effort into advisory activity to minimise distress and harm to people and animals across Scotland.

We continue to focus on ensuring equitable access to cancer services throughout the pandemic. For example, mutual aid across health boards means that every patient is seen according to their priority. We continue to provide support through the screening inequalities fund, in order to increase screening rates across all groups in our society, and we have recently completed a second funding round of our more than £100 million national cancer plan, where the impact on equalities was a key criterion in the award of funding. Finally, the most effective means to reduce mortality from cancer is early detection, which is why we continue to invest in our detect cancer early programme.

As I outlined, the Scottish Government had extensive engagement and consultation with the police and other partners and stakeholders over a long period of time in coming to the new, tighter restrictions that are now in place. We will continue that engagement in terms of the enforcement and assessment of the restrictions.

I appreciate the local issue that has been raised. I think that any of us who saw the pictures on social media that evening of the explosion in Siobhian Brown’s constituency understand the shock and that therefore there will be particular sensitivity in the area around fireworks this bonfire night. I will ask the relevant minister to engage with the police locally and nationally, and with Siobhian Brown as well.

I do not think that. If Anas Sarwar had listened to what I said, he would have heard me say that we are listening to the front-line professionals. The nurse numbers that I cited are facts: there has been an 11 per cent increase in nurses and midwives since we took office. I went on to say that that is not enough, because the pressure on our health service has increased. We are listening to the people on the front line and we are supporting health boards with additional investment to recruit more staff into the health service in order to deal with the pressure.

Anas Sarwar said that we are somehow not listening to the people on the front line by—in his words—turning people away from accident and emergency services. That is not the case. We recognise the pressure on accident and emergency services and we recognise the need to ensure that people get the right care in the right place, and we are trying to find the solutions.

The part of the solution that is encapsulated in the new guidance is supported by the people on the front line. It is supported by the very person whom Anas Sarwar quoted—the vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, John Thomson. He said that the approach is the right thing to do to ensure that patients get

“the right care, at the right time, in the right place”.

We absolutely recognise the challenge, but we are listening to those on the front line in coming up with the best and the right solutions.

I take responsibility every day. With respect to Anas Sarwar, I note that I have held the positions that I have held for as long as I have only because, on several occasions, I have put before the people of Scotland my record in the ministerial posts that I have held, and the record of the Government, and have been re-elected with the trust of the people of Scotland to face up to these challenges.

In the years that we have spent in government, there has been an 11 per cent increase in the number of nurses and midwives working in our national health service. We have increased training of nurses; the overall intake for pre-registration nursing and midwifery increased by 5.8 per cent this year.

That is what we are doing. We recognise the acute challenges in our national health service. Those challenges are shared by health services across the world, largely because of the Covid pandemic. We are bringing forward solutions to support the people who work on the front line and patients throughout the country. That is what the people of Scotland have entrusted us to continue to do.

In the spirit of openness, I will certainly look at that. Prisoners have rights, which are often upheld in courts of law, and we have to consider the issues carefully in ensuring that we address them properly.

There is a deeper issue that, in the spirit of openness and sincerity about trying to find the solutions to the matter, I ask Douglas Ross to consider. I accept his sincerity on the issue without doubt or equivocation, but it is too easy for all of us in the Parliament to oversimplify some of the issues in quoting ministers and to forget to understand the nuances of the matter. The factors behind the drugs crisis are complex. We all understand that, so let us not oversimplify or take quotes out of context. Let us focus on the substance of solutions, as Douglas Ross has been doing, and try to find maximum consensus.

I will go away and look in detail at the particular issue that he raised. If we consider that a change is necessary, appropriate and possible to make, I undertake that we will give it due and serious consideration.

Those are important issues. Any member who hears reports about people in their constituencies or regions finding it difficult to access either the Covid booster jag or the flu vaccination should raise those with the health secretary so that they can be looked into.

Both vaccination programmes, which are being delivered on an integrated basis, are generally going extremely well. More than 850,000 people aged over 12 have received a third dose or a booster vaccination. Last week, more than 500,000 combined flu and Covid doses were delivered. We are ahead of some other parts of the United Kingdom on delivering that.

The programme is going extremely well overall, thanks to the dedication of those working on it across the country. As I have said before, there will be instances of individuals experiencing difficulty and it is important that those are raised so that they can be addressed as quickly as possible.