I, too, congratulate Alexander Burnett on lodging the motion and managing to bring the debate to the chamber.

There are parts of the motion that I do not agree with, but I think that it is important that we have this debate, so that people can raise issues from their communities and test them in the Parliament, especially when our constituents are with us in the public gallery tonight.

However, I want to hold to account our colleague Mr Burnett, and indeed every Conservative MSP, because they stood on a manifesto which stated:

“We need to deliver a wholly renewable powered Scotland, and we have the wealth of natural resources to achieve this.”

The manifesto went on to say,

“We also support the expansion of onshore wind capacity in Scotland where it is agreed by and benefits local communities, as well as our country as a whole.”

I do not think that the motion matches up with that commitment exactly.

I agree with the motion’s emphasis on the involvement of communities, and I will reflect on that. We see that in our planning system—it is crucial that communities are involved and treated with respect and that local authorities consult them properly. We need to ensure that our planning system is not a top-down process in which controversial issues automatically go up to the Scottish Government and then get given the go-ahead.

There is a need for a more grounded, local approach. In Scottish Labour’s manifesto for the most recent Scottish Parliament elections, we suggested that there should be what we called the third-party right of appeal, so that local communities could appeal against a decision being taken. That would ensure that communities are given more priority, and it would encourage developers to talk to them more.

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding any implications for its deposit return scheme, when it and its agencies were informed of Circularity Scotland’s financial position, including the company's reported need to send staff home. (S6T-01459)

Under regulations agreed by this Parliament, a scheme administrator has to be able to subsist for a period of five years. If it cannot, it must inform ministers and SEPA of a change in circumstances, which could ultimately require the minister to withdraw approval. Does the minister have confidence that Circularity Scotland will be able to subsist for the entirety of the next five years, and what does “going into hibernation” mean?

Minister, we know that approximately 60 staff are sitting at home and are unaware whether they will be paid, while their chief executive is advertising them on LinkedIn as

“60 Brilliant People Available for Roles”.

In her answer to written question S6W-18398, the minister said that CSL has been “a trusted partner”. However, the minister told us, and we know from press releases, that Circularity Scotland said that the scheme could go ahead, so how should we view that now? Can the minister say that a company that acts like that and does not follow the regulations set by the Parliament to inform ministers and SEPA of material changes in circumstances is a partner that she and the Scottish Government is actually working with? How do we know what is going to happen next? The minister claimed last week that she did not know, even though we were all reading about it in the newspapers.

If we do that, it will be a just transition.

I am personally no stranger to motions of no confidence, having been the second minister to face one.

Until recently, there was another course of action that could have been taken. On 19 April, I wrote to the First Minister, outlining my concerns about the minister’s ability to help reset the Scottish Government’s relationship with business and to deliver a workable DRS that commanded the confidence of producers, industry and consumers. At that time, my solution was removing ministerial responsibility for the DRS from Lorna Slater—a solution that was sensible and that would have helped to reset the relationship with business and to get us a scheme in place.

I have still received no official reply, although the First Minister’s spokesperson said that the First Minister had full confidence in Lorna Slater. I accept that Lorna Slater is not the only minister at fault. After all, it was the Scottish National Party’s Roseanna Cunningham who pushed ahead with the legislation, and it has been championed heavily by First Ministers. However, Lorna Slater was in charge of the scheme and is responsible for the mess that we have now. [Interruption.] I know that this is difficult to listen to, but I only have a short time in which to speak.

No, I will not.

The minister failed to listen to businesses and stakeholders such as GS1 UK and British Glass, whose representatives told me that they were not given meetings with the minister, despite repeated requests, and local businesses did not get meetings with the minister until MSPs asked for those meetings. Local authorities were left in the dark: they were not seen as potential partners, which left them unable to prepare for the financial impact on their waste services. The Scottish Government has failed to request a DRS exclusion from the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 for six months.

Last week at the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, however, Lorna Slater washed her hands of all responsibility for the work of CSL. Despite questions from MSPs on viability—[Interruption.]

Ms Slater said that those points were matters for industry. In response to my topical question today, we learned that CSL has called in the administrators. I have stated previously that the Tory Government’s actions are indefensible, but the Scottish Government must also be held accountable for the decisions that it has made.

Last week I discovered through a freedom of information request that there were concerns in February this year over the viability of the August 2023 go-live date. The Scottish Government’s director of environment and forestry emailed officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, saying:

“Can we please meet urgently to work out what can be done to fast-track a commitment to an IMA exemption within the next week. If it lingers beyond then we run a very serious risk of compromising our 16 Aug go live date.”

In February, Lorna Slater and Nicola Sturgeon toured television and radio studios encouraging businesses to part with their cash and sign up for the scheme and at the end of February, in this chamber, the minister said:

“Scotland’s deposit return scheme remains on course to launch on 16 August this year.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2023; c 5.]

However, while the minister painted a rosy picture for MSPs, her officials were warning that there was a very serious risk that the August 2023 go-live date would not work. Businesses have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in a scheme that, in private, ministers knew was likely to be delayed, but Lorna Slater and Nicola Sturgeon left Scottish businesses in the dark.

Then there was a delay until March next year. Scottish businesses have been under immense financial stress and pressure. The First Minister himself mentioned the hundreds of millions of pounds of investment that have been made but will not now be used. We have had months of chaos and grandstanding. This SNP-Green Government has now failed to deliver on reuse, recycling and tackling litter and someone must be held accountable.

Two months ago, I asked Humza Yousaf to take responsibility and to remove Lorna Slater’s ministerial responsibility for the DRS. At the end of the day, it is not fair for workers to lose their jobs as a result of Government decisions and for Lorna Slater not to lose hers.

I thank the cabinet secretary for the advance sight of her statement.

We urgently need our Governments to work together nationally and locally, so the Scottish Government needs to stop using net zero as a constitutional battle and use the powers that it has to the max to tackle our climate emergency. That would include taking measures such as: retrofitting our homes; tackling fuel poverty; delivering the community and co-operative heat and power projects that we need right across the country; providing affordable buses and trains; and fixing broken electric vehicle chargers.

Yesterday, Labour launched its clean energy mission, which Scottish National Party members criticised as being too little, too late. They—not we—form the current Government, yet our plans go way beyond today’s statement. Will the cabinet secretary admit that she does not currently have plans in place to meet the Parliament’s net zero targets? Is she not embarrassed that 35 per cent of our households live in fuel poverty? Will she commit to replacing the thousands of bus services that our communities have lost, so that we can deliver the just transition that all our constituents urgently need?

Given the scale and urgency needed to decarbonise our homes in an affordable way, what work is the Scottish Government doing with local authorities to set targets and to work with suppliers so that we get retrofitting and renewables into our communities? In particular, I am thinking of solar technology, heat pumps, wind turbines and the infrastructure for heat networks. We need those jobs in our communities now.