I was going to weave that issue in towards the end of my comments but can introduce it into what I am saying about procurement. The public sector can be critical in buying food, influencing attitudes about food waste and thinking about how to avoid food waste, which is unacceptable. Food waste has an environmental impact, and there is something that is just wrong about throwing away food when people are starving.

We must take a strategic approach and must also ensure that we maximise the purchasing power of Scotland’s public sector. At the same time, we can influence the private sector to ensure that the money that is spent on food is spent well.

I am also very keen that we support agritourism, which has been mentioned during this debate and is an opportunity for us to market our fantastic produce to those who visit Scotland. We must not miss that opportunity. I am looking forward to getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to visit Craigie’s Farm in my constituency to see what it is doing.

We need a strategic approach and must make sure that we are delivering the best value for food production and for our environment. That means supporting farmers to ensure that they are able to meet our nature and climate standards and that they can be resilient in adapting and mitigating to address the coming climate and economic changes.

An adaptation strategy is absolutely critical. The Scottish Government must see that as a high-level issue, particularly when it comes to land use and farming. Statistics show that, in 2017-18 alone, extreme weather contributed to losses of £161 million from the farming sector and that soil erosion is costing about £50 million a year. We must support our natural environment, and food must be part of that joined-up approach.

Rather than just having good words about the ambition, we need to talk about how we are going to deliver in practice, and today’s debate gives us an opportunity to do that. We passed the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill last year, but we need to address food poverty now. A quarter of Scotland’s children are living in food poverty and 69 per cent of those kids live in working households. We need to join up the inequalities and social injustice. Colleagues across the chamber have made some good points about that. We have the highest gap in life expectancy between the most affluent and the worst off in our communities since 1997, so we really need action.

One of the ironies about the cabinet secretary’s speech is that she mentioned energy powers but she did not talk about the many more things that the Scottish Government could do to maximise community benefits in our rural areas, or about the ScotWind failure whereby we have failed to deliver the economic opportunities. I also note that we still do not have the publicly owned energy company that was promised. More action is needed.

We need to focus on what our communities are doing and give them more support. None of us wants to have food banks. Those who provide them do not want to have to do that. They do a fantastic job, but last year there was a 25 per cent increase—

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Court of Session’s ruling that a so-called nil cap for sexual entertainment venues under provisions in the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2015 is unlawful. (S6O-02243)

It would have been a more constructive debate if the minister had not started by deleting most of our motion. We have agreement right across the chamber on the importance of bus services to our constituents. In the early days of the Parliament, I introduced free bus passes for the over-60s. Through a Labour amendment to the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, we made sure that we got support for municipal ownership of bus services, because we know the benefits of Lothian Buses and we know, from the situation in Manchester and London, the benefits of using municipal ownership to deliver services.

We welcomed the introduction of free bus passes for under-22s. Our choice would have been under-26s, but that measure gives young people the opportunity to use buses as a matter of course. However, as Monica Lennon said, that only works if those young people have bus services to use. As Neil Bibby said, we need conditionality. We need to get the maximum benefit from the huge amount of money that is going into bus services and we need to get the right response from the private companies that are taking that money.

In the past few years, the loss of bus services means that there are now 25 per cent fewer than there were a decade ago. Across parties, we have had excellent briefings from lots of organisations, which have highlighted the need for us to act now. Buses are vital to give people low-carbon choices.

—because, trust me, the Government will not tackle the climate emergency without it.

If it is very brief.

Having met the organisers this morning, I know that we need actual buses. It is a case of, “Where’s my bus?”

That takes me on to digital connectivity. On the points that Beatrice Wishart made, we can see that there are massive areas of Scotland where there are no buses at all. There is also a digital disconnect, which is a particular issue for older people and people on lower incomes. Those people need to know about the availability of the buses that there are, and they need to know when those buses will arrive. We need to make sure that that information is accessible for older people. We need more, not less, real-time information at bus stops.

We need to make sure that people are able to use buses. A key issue in the research that we were sent was reliability: 83 per cent of those surveyed said that it was their top issue. People do not want to be stuck at a bus stop if they are elderly, with kids or trying to get to work on time. We are not only losing bus services; we are seeing fares rising, and this is at a point when we are seeing major amounts of money being spent.

We need to get value for money, and that means that we need political leadership from the SNP-Green Government. We are not seeing that. We need more promotion of the available bus services. We need investment to enable communities to be served, so that we make that shift to low-carbon buses. That is not just about having low-carbon services, but about having any services. It is about empowering and funding our local authorities to invest in bus priority schemes, to enable buses to be more reliable, and to make them more attractive to people who currently have to rely on cars.

As people move to electric vehicles, huge numbers of our constituents will not be able to afford such cars, and that will make buses more important than ever. We need to reverse the cuts that are taking place and add more services for the future. That will require municipal buses.

Today’s report by the Accounts Commission highlights that councils are at “breaking point”. The comments made by COSLA show that it knows that councils do not have the money to make the radical change needed.

We need a fares cap now, so that people can continue to use buses. We need conditionality for the money that the Scottish Government currently spends on buses through our over-60 and under-22 schemes. We need to see investing in and supporting bus services as a key action if we want to tackle social inequalities, shift people out of cars and tackle the climate emergency.

In addition, we need to address constituents’ current fears that there are more bus cuts to come. That is happening right across the country: in Renfrewshire, West Lothian and Pathhead in Midlothian, and even in Edinburgh, with Lothian Buses. Constituents in Edinburgh are writing to us because we have lost buses such as the 42, and we are losing the 41 and 49. We need action now, and we need a political commitment.

I go back to the minister’s first words. Can we have consensus? Yes. The cross-party group on sustainable transport has a mission, and it is telling the Scottish Government what to do now. Our motion sets out what we need now. If we accept the Conservative amendment, we could get action before the summer holidays. Although #lovemybus week is next week, “Where’s my bus?” is a problem for now. We need action from the SNP-Green Government now—not warm words and nice pledges, but action. Next week, the Government should announce what it is going to do to spend the money to get better results for our constituents—

When I previously raised the issue in the chamber, the minister’s predecessor was very supportive of the policy. Although there is now a consultation on-going, what steps will the minister and the wider Scottish Government take to make modifications to policy—and, if need be, to legislation—to ensure that our councils can lawfully implement nil caps, if that is their democratic decision after they have carried out consultation?

Yesterday, Circularity Scotland told me that the DRS launch date of 16 August 2023 would have allowed only a few weeks for all stakeholders to test implementation. What consideration has the minister given to the period of time that is available to test the new DRS arrangements, given the new launch date? How long will that information be available to the industry, so that businesses can test implementation of the scheme in advance?

Has the Scottish Government discussed the potential for a UK windfall tax—given the unprecedented energy profits that are being made—and the Scottish Government’s plans for the energy company that it was proposing to establish? Will that be on the agenda with the UK minister, because we need to accelerate plans to invest in energy-efficient homes in Scotland in order to eradicate fuel poverty, to lower bills, to create jobs and to deliver on net zero. Would not that be a practical way to get going on that?

I was asking about leadership, venues and employment—the practicalities to enable access in our communities.