Chamber and committees

What I can say with absolute certainty is that every Scottish Government minister is fully occupied and working hard every day to deliver on the commitments and policies of this Government.

I believe that Scotland is overgoverned and that there is some—to use Stephen Kerr’s word—bloating in the governance of Scotland. Some people call that the Scotland Office, but perhaps Stephen Kerr has some other name for it.

Let us have more streamlined government. Let us abolish the Scotland Office through Scotland becoming independent. While we are at it, perhaps the House of Lords could be dispensed with as well, so that all of the politicians that we have working for us are fully occupied doing real jobs and delivering day in and day out for the Scottish people.

I am pleased to confirm to Parliament details of the wide-ranging co-operation agreement that has been reached between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Green Party and endorsed overwhelmingly by our respective party memberships.

In nature, scope and intent, the agreement is genuinely ground breaking in Scottish and United Kingdom politics. It represents a new and, I hope, better way of doing politics. Although the agreement is the product of much negotiation and some compromise, it is also a leap of faith for both parties, but it is one that we are taking willingly and for the common good.

The challenge and discipline of working together, and of not allowing the issues on which we disagree to obscure those on which we do agree, will undoubtedly take us out of our comfort zones. Although the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Greens are joining together in Government, they are and will remain distinct entities with different identities and points of view. The agreement is, however, founded on shared convictions and common principles. Above all, it is based on our recognition that the times that we are living through render a business-as-usual approach simply not good enough. Scotland, like most of the rest of the world, faces significant challenges and many opportunities in the years ahead, and many of those are deeply interrelated.

We must tackle the latest surge in Covid cases while leading and supporting the country’s economic and social recovery from the pandemic; we must ensure that the recovery is green and sustainable; and we must address with urgency and determination the climate and nature crises that threaten the planet and the security of this and future generations.

We must, unfortunately, address and mitigate the consequences of Brexit, which are becoming more serious by the week, as labour scarcity and interrupted supply chains lead to shortages on supermarket shelves and elsewhere. Such shortages should be unthinkable in a country such as the UK, and we should make no mistake that they are a direct and shameful result of the Brexit disaster.

We must defend our Parliament against the UK Government power grabs that are undermining the very principles on which it is founded and, as we do so, recognise that the best way of protecting Parliament from Westminster and equipping it with the full powers that it needs to build a fairer, more prosperous country is to make it independent of Westminster—[Interruption.] That is why fulfilling our democratic mandate to let the Scottish people choose our own future is a key strand of the agreement.

Those are the inescapable challenges that confront us, and how we respond to them will shape Scotland now and for the decades ahead. In the face of the magnitude of those challenges—and we all bear a share of the responsibility for this—our politics can too often seem small, polarised, divided and focused on self-interest rather than the national interest—[Interruption.] Perhaps I am seeing evidence of that today.

If we are to meet the moment, we must all try to do politics differently. In this agreement, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Greens are accepting our responsibility to do that. Genuine disagreement, honestly and respectfully debated, and resolved through the ballot box, is the essence of democracy. However, we also have a duty to reach beyond our disagreements and, in the interests of progress, maximise the consensus between us. That is essential if we are to find the solutions that are needed to solve the big problems confronting Scotland and the world.

In my view and experience, instead of division and acrimony, people want to see much more co-operation and collaboration from their politicians. That spirit of co-operation and consensus building is very much in keeping with the founding principles of our Scottish Parliament. Arguably, it has never been more important for us all to live up to those principles, and that is the motivation for reaching this agreement. It is not a full coalition—our parties will retain distinct voices and independent identities—but it sets out processes of co-operation and consultation that will establish a firm foundation for the delivery of our shared and transformative policy objectives and the Scottish Government’s wider legislative and policy programme.

As part of that, for the first time in UK politics, the agreement will see Greens enter national Government as ministers, working in a spirit of common endeavour, mutual challenge and collective responsibility to deliver for the people we serve. To that end, I look forward to seeking Parliament’s approval later this afternoon for the appointment of Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie as Scottish ministers.

Such an agreement would not be seen to be in any way remarkable or unusual in other parts of Europe, but it represents an important landmark for politics across the UK. Most important of all, the agreement provides a strong foundation for bold and decisive action throughout the parliamentary session. After all, as with any arrangement of this kind, its ultimate test is not about how well the signatories get along but about what we deliver.

There is—rightly—a strong environmental theme to our shared policy agreement. We recognise the urgency of the climate and nature crises and the challenges inherent in tackling them. We also appreciate that, with the right approach and a commitment to climate justice, the transition to net zero will create economic opportunities and improve the wellbeing of us all. We are determined to seize and realise those opportunities.

During the current session of Parliament, we will do more to decarbonise our transport network and support active travel. We will dedicate at least 10 per cent of the Scottish Government’s overall travel budget to active travel—cycling, walking and wheeling. We will significantly increase investment in public transport. We will work to cut the sector’s emissions and make public transport accessible and affordable, with a commitment to free bus travel for young people, for example. We will bring ScotRail into public ownership.

All those measures will help us to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030, which is vital if we are to meet our climate targets and improve the environment in communities and neighbourhoods the length and breadth of our country. We will support the essential transformation in how we heat our homes and buildings. This parliamentary session will see investment of at least £1.8 billion in energy efficiency and renewable heating.

We will do more to protect our natural environment. We will designate a new national park, plant more trees, including more native species, and protect more of our seas.

We will work across the economy to support a just transition to net zero, with just transition plans for all sectors and regions, and a new green industrial strategy with investment in skills at its heart.

As part of that, we will support and accelerate the necessary and inevitable transition from fossil fuels to renewable and low-carbon energy sources. Under the agreement, we will deliver a package of stronger support for marine renewables and offshore wind, and significantly increase our onshore wind capacity. We will establish a 10-year £500 million just transition fund for the north-east and Moray, to ensure that the jobs and communities that depend on our oil and gas sector are not left behind and that we instead use the sector’s considerable infrastructure, skills and expertise to help to drive and speed up the development of cleaner alternatives.

Our agreement will also help to make Scotland fairer. It will tackle child poverty and deliver stronger rights for tenants, including an effective rent control system, so that housing in the rented sector is more affordable and more secure, especially for families and young people. We will make the investment in the current parliamentary session to support the delivery of 110,000 new affordable homes between now and 2032.

We will reform our public services, including through the establishment of a national care service, which will perhaps be the biggest public sector reform that Parliament will ever have undertaken. There will also be improvements in mental health and work to improve education and close the poverty-related attainment gap.

Finally, as I indicated earlier, the agreement confirms our intention to give people in Scotland the choice of independence. The mandate for that is undeniable: between us, the SNP and the Greens won 72 of the 129 seats in Parliament, and each one of us was elected on a clear commitment to holding an independence referendum. However, just as the mandate is undeniable, the reason for a referendum is just as important. As we emerge from the pandemic, the kind of country and society that Scotland is and will become, and the decisions that will shape our society, our economy and our place in the world, must be determined, democratically, here in Scotland, and not imposed upon us against our will by the Government at Westminster.

The agreement that we have reached offers a clear vision of the sort of country Scotland can become: a greener, fairer and—yes—independent nation. It also recognises and puts into practice an approach to politics that sees parties try to work together for the common good. I firmly believe that that is what most people in Scotland want to see. I hope that, as we move now to implement it, the agreement will demonstrate that, when we step out of our comfort zones and embrace co-operation, we enhance our ability to deliver the ideas and practical policies that can meet the scale of the challenges that we face.

Of course, the agreement is novel in terms of UK politics, but across Europe and in many countries around the world, arrangements like this are commonplace and based firmly on the idea that co-operation, rather than confrontation, will lead to better outcomes for people across our country. The Scottish Parliament has undoubtedly secured some significant achievements in the past two decades, and all parties can and should take credit for that fact. However, especially in recent years, there have also been times when our politics has been toxic and polarised—that is not unique to Scotland—and, because of that, we have sometimes seemed to be collectively incapable of properly living up to the expectations of those we serve. Just as we can, and should, all take some credit for our successes, we must all bear some responsibility for our shortcomings. I believe that we all have an obligation to make positive change. The agreement represents a renewed commitment from the Scottish Government to do so.

While the agreement is, at the political level, an agreement between the SNP and the Greens, I sincerely hope that, over time, it can and will encourage greater co-operation between all parties in the Scottish Parliament. There are issues on which we disagree profoundly and passionately, including, and perhaps especially, the constitution. I suspect that that is unlikely to change, although perhaps we should all make an effort to disagree more civilly even on those fundamental issues. However, as we recover from the pandemic and address the climate emergency, there are many other issues where I believe that acres of common ground can be found if we are willing to find them, while still acknowledging and respecting our disagreements.

Despite all the risks that are inherent in any decision of two parties to co-operate more closely, and with a full appreciation of the compromise and the ups and downs that such an agreement will entail, the SNP and the Greens are choosing to work together because we believe that, in a time of great challenge, a better, more collaborative politics is needed so that a better Scotland can be built, and we are resolving to spend the next five years working together to build it. As we do so, I make an open and sincere offer also to work with others across the chamber whenever and wherever possible. I hope that that offer will be accepted.

The agreement is a milestone in Parliament’s progress. It sets out how the SNP and the Scottish Greens will work together as the Scottish Government. It demonstrates our commitment to a new and better way of doing politics and it provides the strong platform that is needed to deliver the transformative policies that will build a greener, fairer country and make people’s lives across Scotland better. For all those reasons, I enthusiastically commend it to the chamber.

The agreement sets out exactly what we agree on and, as far as my view on new exploration is concerned, I set that out in a letter to the Prime Minister. Just as it is the case that new licences for exploration have to be assessed against the climate emergency, so too should existing licences be, before production goes ahead. We face an inescapable climate emergency and we have to recognise that it is no longer consistent with tackling that climate emergency simply to assume that we can go on and on with unlimited extraction of fossil fuels.

However, we must support a fair and just transition, and the oil and gas sector recognises that. The responsibility on Government is to make sure that we provide the support and investment to do that. Parties such as the Conservatives will no doubt go on burying their heads in the sand in the face of the climate emergency, but we will not do that. We will provide the leadership to make sure that Scotland meets its targets on climate change and the transition to net zero by 2045 and that we take the jobs, expertise, skills and infrastructure that have been built up over decades in the oil and gas sector and use them to drive the alternatives that we need.

I hope that other parties will be part of that, because we all have an inescapable duty to meet the climate emergency head on.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am absolutely delighted to be back in the chamber. I am enjoying it very much indeed so far.

I am sure that the Greens will achieve a great deal in government through collaboration and co-operation and by being constructive in getting things done.

I say again to the Opposition parties that the offer is there for all of us to try to come together to find the areas on which we can agree. The question is who is prepared to do that and who is not. The Greens, to their credit, are prepared to do that. It remains to be seen whether anybody else is willing to work in that constructive way.

The commitments in the agreement are about investing in our rail services, bringing them back into public ownership—nationalising ScotRail—and ensuring that people in every part of our country can rely on services, that fares are affordable for travel and that we cut emissions in our rail network.

Will there be difficult decisions to make along the way? Of course there will, but there is a determination to come together to take the decisions so that our transport network is capable and fit for the purpose of transporting people across the country for work and leisure, and so that it meets our imperative on the climate emergency.

I welcome input and engagement from members across the Parliament. The question is whether Labour members are prepared to work on that basis. I hope that they take up the invitation.

Yes, I do. That is one of the biggest challenges that we face. Notwithstanding the impressions to the contrary from some members today, I hope that there is unanimous agreement in the chamber that tackling the climate emergency with urgency and determination is not seen to be an option. I genuinely hope that we all agree on the need to do that.

One of the big questions is how we do that. Do we achieve it in a way that is just and fair, and which seizes and realises the massive economic opportunities? Being candid, I note that, although we have had exchanges about that in the chamber on many occasions in the past, we have not been as successful at it as we should have been. Subject to parliamentary approval later, Lorna Slater will have a key role to play in driving a new green industrial strategy so that we meet our obligations on reducing emissions, and do so in a way that creates new jobs and industries for the future. There is a big challenge in relation to climate change, but there is a massive opportunity as well, and the agreement will help us to seize that. For that reason, I think that all of us and people right across the country should be genuinely enthused, inspired and excited by it.

It is incumbent on us all not to disregard our disagreements, but to work beyond them to find the areas on which we can agree, and to work together for the good of those whom we represent. That is how we on the SNP benches will proceed in this session. In response, other parties in the chamber have a choice: they can join us and respect our disagreements but try to work together, or they can push themselves more and more to the margins of Scottish politics and simply hurl insults from the sidelines.

Before I come on to the two questions that Douglas Ross posed, I will say that, given the scale of the challenges that we face and the responsibilities that we all bear, Douglas Ross’s rhetoric is not only deeply inappropriate but deeply ironic. Right now, across this country, there are shortages of food on our supermarket shelves. In England, at least at the moment, the health service is being told to ration blood tests due to a shortage of test tubes, and children are being told that there might be shortages leading to a lack of toys at Christmas—all because of Mr Ross’s party’s obsession with Brexit. Is it not about time that he took some responsibility and recognised the importance of coming together to try to address those challenges?

Turning to oil and gas, I recognise that we must meet the climate emergency and I take that responsibility extremely seriously. That means making a rapid enough transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy in order to meet that challenge. I do not want to see jobs in the North Sea lost, which is why at the heart of the agreement is a just transition deal of £500 million specifically for the north-east. That is so that we can harness the skills, infrastructure and expertise of that sector and use it to drive the development of the alternatives.

Here is a suggestion: in the spirit of consensus and co-operation, perhaps the UK Government might agree to match the Scottish Government’s commitment to a transition deal for the north-east and Moray. Let us hear some substance in place of Mr Ross’s rhetoric.

Finally, on the question of independence, Mr Ross and I fundamentally disagree on the future of Scotland. My vision of the future of Scotland is of a prosperous, fair and green country. I believe in democracy and in the right of the Scottish people to decide their own future. That is the prospectus that I put to the Scottish people in May and, as I said, between us, the SNP and the Greens won 72 of the 129 seats. Democracy demands that the Scottish people get the right to decide. Only a politician who fears the outcome of such a choice would seek to block the right of the Scottish people to make it.

Jackie Baillie has been in the Parliament since its inception and she is very well aware of the constraints on ministers when it comes to planning applications. I am quite surprised that she asked a question of that nature when she knows how ill founded it is.

On the other question, I say to Jackie Baillie that any member in the chamber will be able to find lots of examples of where the Greens and the SNP do not agree and have not agreed in the past. However, what we have done—this is the whole point of what we are doing—is come together to focus on where we agree but also, crucially, to work together to find ways of achieving the things that we agree on.

On the question of pay for social care workers, yes we want to achieve that. To their great credit, the Greens have decided to come into government to be part of working out, through our budgets and our decision making, how we can deliver that, rather than simply standing on the sidelines shouting for something to happen with no consideration at all of how to make it happen. It is the difference between achieving nothing in opposition and achieving lots by having the guts to go into government and take the decisions required.

I believe in economic growth that is sustainable. The Greens and the SNP have a difference of opinion, which is set out openly in the agreement, about the role of gross domestic product as a metric for that. I believe that GDP is an appropriate metric, but not the only one on which we should rely. I believe that we should widen our measurements of economic success—I have believed that for a long time, which is why this Government is one of the founding Governments of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. A growing number of Governments across the world are now involved in the alliance and are saying that the health, happiness and wellbeing of a population should also matter in our judgments of economic success and that the measure of success should not simply be GDP.

At the heart of our agreement is an agreement to develop the metrics of how we measure our success as an economy and society. I think that more and more people in Scotland, and more and more people and Governments across the world, are recognising that. It does not surprise me, but it disappoints me, that the Conservatives continue to sit outside that. I hope that we will see that change during this parliamentary session.

At a very basic level, the agreement will make sure that those of us who have been in government for a long time accept and embrace fresh challenge, because we need fresh thinking, bolder ideas and action to meet the climate emergency. There is no escaping that. We must make sure that we accelerate the transition. As we do so, we must ensure that we are harnessing and realising the massive economic benefits that are there to be won, but which we have not always been as good as we should have been at harnessing in the past.

Through the agreement, which focuses on specific areas—how we change the way in which we heat our homes, how we decarbonise our public transport system and how we protect our natural environment—we can see how we can take forward those responsibilities. However, the very nature of the co-operation agreement is to demand compromise from all of us and to demand consensus building. I hope and believe that we will challenge each other to go further and faster. I believe that that is what is needed and, indeed, wanted by a majority of people across the country.