Chamber and committees

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.

We have already published the south-west Scotland transport study, which emphasised the importance of a connected, safe, resilient and high-quality strategic transport network for people travelling in the region. Of course, the recommendations for targeted road improvements to the A75 and A77 are now subject to more detailed appraisal as part of the STPR2 process, and that is the overall process through which we have agreed to direct future transport infrastructure investment.

The process will follow the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000, which includes a detailed process of consultation of communities, local authorities and other stakeholders. The criteria for designation include the area being

“of outstanding national importance because of its natural heritage or the combination of its natural and cultural heritage”

and having

“a distinctive character and a coherent identity”.

In the agreement, we make it clear that we believe that national parks should be designated only in response to local community demand. We therefore encourage community stakeholders and local government to come forward now with proposals.

Graham Simpson should probably quote more fully from the agreement, but I will do that, and I will focus on what it agrees in terms of enhancements to the A96, which includes dualling from Inverness to Nairn; bypasses in Nairn, Keith, Elgin and Inverurie; road safety improvements between, for example, Fochabers and Huntly, and Inverurie and Aberdeen; the development of an A96 electric highway; and, of course, enhanced public transport improvements in north-east Scotland.

There are a range of improvements, including looking at a rail link between Dyce and Ellon and further north to Peterhead and Fraserburgh, and reviewing the A96 corridor, with a view to implementing bus priority measures.

Yes, the agreement does say that the current plan is for full dualling; however, as with any major road development, environmental assessments and impact assessments have to be carried out, because, in this period of having to address the climate emergency, no politician with any credibility would suggest that we do not assess all our policies against the climate imperative. We therefore set out clearly our priorities and the process that we will take to make sure that people across the north-east have the transport links that they need in order for the economy to thrive.

It gives me great pleasure to rise to move and support the motion in my name that proposes

“that Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater be appointed as junior Scottish Ministers.”

My statement earlier set out the reasons for and the detail of the co-operation agreement that has been struck between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Greens. The appointments will deliver a key element of that agreement. By approving the appointments, the Parliament will make history, not just in Scottish politics but across the United Kingdom as a whole. It will be the first time that Green politicians have entered national government in any part of these islands.

Our co-operation agreement commits us to a raft of commitments that are necessary to steer Scotland through the challenges that we face. Those commitments include action to support tenants and tackle poverty, plans to reform public services, investments to accelerate our transition to net zero and create green jobs, and so much more besides. The ministers appointed from the ranks of the Greens will share the responsibility and the great privilege of delivering on this bold, ambitious programme.

Patrick Harvie will take on the role of Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights. Patrick has of course been an MSP representing the Glasgow region since 2003. During his time in politics, Patrick has served as convener of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee, and I believe that he is the longest-serving party leader in the Scottish Parliament. He is also a passionate and effective campaigner for the causes that he believes in. I worked closely with Patrick during the 2014 referendum campaign, and that experience makes me genuinely enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with him again, this time in the Scottish Government. His wide-ranging brief, which includes active travel, energy efficiency and tenants’ rights, gives Patrick the task of leading and implementing, together with his ministerial colleagues, some of the most significant transformations that we must make to tackle the climate emergency.

Lorna Slater will become the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity. Among her responsibilities, Lorna will be tasked with driving a green industrial strategy, helping people to acquire the skills that they need to benefit from the transition to net zero, creating a more circular economy and working to protect our natural environment.

Lorna was born and brought up in Canada. After earning a master’s degree in engineering, she moved to Scotland in 2000. Since then, she has worked as an engineer and then as a project manager in the renewables sector, which included working on the world’s biggest tidal turbine. As such, although she may be relatively new to Parliament, Lorna brings formidable professional experience. As well as having worked in one of the key industries powering our greener future, she has project management experience that will stand her in good stead in ministerial office.

I have complete confidence that both new ministers will make excellent contributions to the Scottish Government. Patrick, Lorna, the rest of the Scottish ministerial team and I are ready to get on with delivering our ambitious commitments and building a fairer, greener Scotland. I therefore formally, and with great pleasure, ask Parliament to support the appointments of Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater be appointed as junior Scottish Ministers.

It seems that rising to the challenge of doing politics better, or even vaguely competently, is, for the moment, beyond Douglas Ross. Hopefully, as the parliamentary session progresses, that will change.

In his barely coherent set of questions, Douglas Ross really misses the point. We face big challenges—[Interruption.]

We are not planning anything by stealth. Today, in front of Parliament, I have been frank about the options that we are leaving open and I have given an undertaking to Parliament that we will be full and up front and will consult it in making any decision. I am sorry, but that is not doing something by stealth—it is actually quite the opposite.

I will come back to vaccine passports, because the issue is important. As I said to Patrick Harvie, and as I have said before, I am far from convinced that they are the right thing to do, but I will explain in a moment why we are not simply ruling them out for every possibility at this stage.

Before doing so, I will return to the first part of the question, about test and protect. Test and protect came under pressure in July, as it will always do when cases are surging, but it did not buckle under that pressure—it adapted and coped, and it is performing well. I thank everybody involved in test and protect. The work that they have done has played a part in getting us from a point where we had some of the highest case rates—even, at one point, the highest case rate—in Europe to a point where we have a much lower case rate. We are certainly there or thereabouts. I think that Wales might still be just below us, but we have the second lowest—and we may be heading towards the lowest—case rate in the UK.

These trends come and go, and it is what we do to try to stop cases surging—and, when they do surge, to get them under control—that matters. In the past few weeks, people working across our public health teams have done an excellent job, as has the public, to get us into the much stronger position that we are in today.

Finally, why do I not just rule out vaccine passports? I will not repeat everything that I have said about my scepticism and the need for a healthy degree of caution about them, because people have heard me say it. However, if there is one thing that I have learned—I like to think that I have learned more than one thing over the past 18 months, which have been grim, challenging and difficult for everybody—it is that, in the face of an infectious virus that keeps learning to run faster than us and that is changing itself to make the challenge ever more difficult, and after 18 months of having to ask people to live their lives in the most restricted and unnatural manner imaginable, it is not sensible just to rule things out for ideological or other reasons. I think that we have a duty to properly consider every possible step that we could take to get our lives back to normal and to keep them normal while protecting people from the virus.

Does that mean that we will take every possible step? No—there will be things that we decide are not the right things to do, and vaccine passports, in total or in part, may be one of those things. However, I do not think that it is responsible for me, as a politician, in the face of everything that we have lived through and what we are still having to deal with, to blithely rule these things out. I will continue to keep an open mind on anything that keeps this country safe while also allowing it to get back to normal.