Okay. I was hoping that you would tell us that, by next year, you would have done research, looking at the areas where more investment is needed and thinking about partnership approaches so that we could see the services delivered.

That is useful. I was told that it had been awarded without a tender, so it would be useful to have some detailed feedback on that.

To raise awareness of change, you have to bring everyone with you, and it is about ensuring that all the skills of the SEPA staff are used. I want to flag that, given that I am the sub for Monica Lennon, quite a lot of concerns have been raised with me about that in advance of today’s meeting. That was not weeks ago; rather, people immediately got in touch when they clocked that I would be here today and would have the chance to ask those questions, to make you aware that some staff are concerned about losing opportunities.

I would be particularly interested in an update on the project in Edinburgh and the Lothians that you mentioned, because that is very much on the agenda locally.

That leads me to another question. At the start of the session, you talked about the evolution of the agency and the issue of engaging with constituents and enabling them to get involved. I know that you are putting more information online, but I have been told that you are considering making the 24/7 contact centre automated. There will be a loss of staff with skills and experience, but it will also be much harder for our constituents to feed in questions or get information. Will you comment on that?

That is why I wanted a briefing on it—to understand what it means in human terms, so that we can convey that to constituents. With things like wild swimming, we now have people who want to know that the water is safe and when they can swim.

So, there are emergencies and there is also the day-to-day communication and the ability for people to talk to each other. A briefing on that would be useful.

My second point is about the reset and reboot of SEPA that Nicole Paterson talked about at the start. I want to ask about the redeployment of staff and whether staff redundancies are being made or jobs are being contracted out. It has been suggested to me that jobs are being contracted out and that the process is not very transparent. One example that I was given was the Adaptovate contract. The contract is worth £250,000 but, because it is in phases, it is not subject to Scottish Government scrutiny or accountability. Will you comment on the Adaptovate contract, other redeployments and the potential loss of staff due to contracting out?

I start by apologising to the finance secretary, Shona Robison—I inadvertently promoted her to Deputy First Minister earlier, so I had better correct the record now.

As Michael Marra highlighted, we have had years of mismanagement and poor decision making, which have led to cuts in vital areas instead of the investment that we should have had. As a Lothian MSP, it has been incredibly frustrating to me to see the flip-flopping on the eye pavilion, through which patients’ treatments are now being disrupted. The years of delay mean that when the much-needed new eye pavilion is finally designed and built, it will be years late and way more expensive.

We need investment now in Lothian that we are not getting. It is urgent that our young people get access to child and adolescent mental health services and the community projects that would give them the support that they need, instead of long waits and their impact not only on their health but on the wellbeing of their parents.

We have also seen millions of pounds being wasted on the SNP’s centralising national care plans, which have not resulted in any new carers when we urgently need them now for care in our communities, and to support people to live at home, instead of being stuck in hospital.

Although the SNP is highlighting the amount of money that is being put into those services now, that has been made possible only by the £5.2 billion increase in funding—record funding—from our UK Labour Government. We want more done on outcomes, not more self-congratulatory minor changes to previous budget cuts.

The situation is really frustrating, because on all the areas that I have highlighted the SNP Government has been told for years about the need for strategic and consistent investment, but instead it is making cuts to our councils’ budgets that have put massive pressure on our schools and our communities. Those cuts have harmed our councils in terms of their being able to play their vital role in supporting our local communities to tackle our climate and nature emergencies.

I was deeply disappointed to see the budget lines on energy efficiency and decarbonisation, which are facing real-terms cuts. That is another missed opportunity. We also have the proposed heat in buildings bill being delayed—it is missing in action—solar power support is being removed from energy efficiency grants, and it is now over a year since councils submitted their local heat and energy efficiency strategies proposals. Therefore, I have to say to the cabinet secretary that there is no actual plan to deliver on decarbonising heat in our homes and buildings.

We need investment and support for our colleges and access to funding and support for small and medium-sized enterprises so that there is access to the training and apprenticeship opportunities that are needed to get good-quality jobs and training in every community across Scotland now, to lower our climate emissions and to provide warmer homes.

I apologise, Presiding Officer; I inadvertently pressed my request-to-speak button.

I go back to the £5.2 billion opportunity that is being missed, and to the fact that this is a year-on-year problem: this is about money being cut year after year, and it is not just about our homes and buildings. How are we supposed to tackle the urgent issue of protecting our planet if nature and energy are not even given a second or third thought in the budget?

Look at the £15 million that has been allocated for the just transition fund. The SNP previously made a commitment that £500 million over ten years would be given to that fund, which surely means that there should be £50 million this year, not £15 million. We have been hearing that a lot of people now see the term “just transition” as meaningless. We need real policies. If we want jobs in clean energy, clean heat and renewables technology for years to come, those industries need to have proper investment now, not in a decade.

Thankfully, our UK Government is absolutely serious about the climate and about the just transition. That is why Keir Starmer, at the weekend, made a commitment of £200 million for Grangemouth, which is vital investment that is needed for new jobs and innovation, with decent jobs and opportunities now.

The Just Transition Commission has been clear that our communities need support for training to enable people to develop their skills and to benefit from new tech and the new opportunities that are here, if we seize them.

I want to highlight an issue that has not been mentioned yet—the huge opportunities that can come from developing community renewables, energy efficiency projects and low-carbon infrastructure. Good work is happening in Scotland, but it is stretched and it is not at the scale that we need. Our communities need a lot more support if they are to fully realise the potential of our renewables revolution.

We also need investment in adaptations, because communities are being hit now by the impact of extreme weather. That means that we need flood management schemes, peatland restoration and land management that creates local jobs and investment to address our climate and our nature emergencies.

However, we have to be strategic with that investment. Once again, the Scottish Government can celebrate the cash that has gone towards peatland restoration, but it avoids talking about why we are consistently missing our peatland targets. It is because the workforce and supply chains are currently insufficient to meet the significant challenge of restoring 250,000 hectares of peatland.

With an additional £5.2 billion from the UK Government, the budget could have delivered so much more. However, after 18 years of inefficiency and spending waste, our constituents will not see the investment that we urgently need. The budget is not good enough—it could have been way better with the additional money that the Scottish Government now has.

Will the Deputy First Minister acknowledge the fact that there have been year-on-year cuts, and there has not been the investment in retrofitting that our constituents urgently needed?

Members will remember that, in the debate two weeks ago in which when we agreed to the LCM on the Great British Energy Bill, it was flagged up that there would be subsequent amendments that would require our approval in the Scottish Parliament.

The amendment states that GB Energy

“must keep under review the impact of its activities on the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom.”

It is a crucial amendment because it ensures that we have more joined-up thinking, which some of us have been calling for for a long time—and continue to do so; for example, in my upcoming wellbeing and sustainable development bill.

Many of the sustainable development goals that need to be addressed fall under the remit of the Scottish Government, so our Parliament needs to debate the issue and give its consent to the LCM. Scottish Labour will support the LCM today.

GB Energy will incentivise new and emerging technologies, such as marine renewables and floating offshore wind, so that we can maximise the new job opportunities and get the range of new clean energy and heat supplies that we urgently need to support supply chains and investment in green manufacturing.

In my previous speech on the issue, I focused on the need for a “more joined-up approach” between the new UK Government, the Scottish Government and our councils. However, we also need to focus on decent job opportunities. Financial support for offshore wind developers so that they invest in their areas, including in traditional oil and gas communities, is part of the clean industry bonus deal.

As Ed Miliband said, this is our clean energy “superpower” mission. Part of the transition is about kick-starting growth, delivering energy security and transforming towns and cities, from the ports of Nigg and Leith to the manufacturing hubs of Blyth and Hull. We need to be part of that process and we need a just and fair transition. If we are to get sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, decent work for all and the building of resilient infrastructure and the promotion of inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, we need to see GB Energy delivering in practice. As I raised with the First Minister this week, the work of the Scottish Government sits alongside that, including the

“long-awaited energy strategy and just transition plan”.—[Official Report, 18 February 2025; c 39.]

The irony is that we are debating a very straightforward amendment, because we have debated sustainable development on numerous occasions in the Parliament.

The point is about the end of a stage of a bill. We have the same issue in the Scottish Parliament when we go from stage 2 to stage 3, when, suddenly, key actors see events coming up in stage 3. The point that was made by the convener of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee was well made, as it was the last time.

We have to debate the issue now. We need to take decisive and rapid climate action. That is more urgent than ever. We cannot just have another negative debate promoted by the Tories. We have to make sure that we are engaged in the process and that we take it seriously, because the climate emergency will impact on our economy more regularly. The last Friday in January, when Scotland pretty much shut down, is a good example of the negative impact of the climate emergency.

Although the UK Labour Government is serious about delivering for Scotland and our planet, and the SNP Government now reluctantly admits it, the Tories are determined to drag us away from progress. That is desperate politics: our constituents and our communities need more grown-up politics.