If the cabinet secretary could answer those questions, I would be grateful.

I also thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement and welcome her commitment to transparency, although the adjusted numbers still represent missed targets and missed opportunities.

The cabinet secretary talked about 19 Scottish Government policies, most of which are not new and all of which lack detail. She mentioned the idea of integrated ticketing, which goes back to 2012, but the only commitment in the policy package is to explore that idea. A reduction in car use was also included but, in March, the UK Climate Change Committee said that any clear strategy for how that will be achieved is missing. The cabinet secretary referred to bus passes for the over-60s, which I introduced, and for the under-22s, which I welcomed, but we are losing buses, train services are being cut and peak fares are coming back at the end of the month.

Almost all 19 policies are just warm words. The current approach is failing, so will the cabinet secretary outline the actions that the Government is taking to tackle the highest-emitting sectors such as transport, buildings, land use and industry? Will she also set out what sectoral reductions the Government will actually deliver to reduce our emissions?

When this Parliament started 25 years ago, we had a great vision for Scotland—a Parliament where parties could work together to serve the people of Scotland and, as Richard Leonard said, to tackle the deep-seated inequalities that hold people and communities back and to build a brighter future for Scotland.

As a member who was first elected in 1999, I have seen the Parliament take great strides forward, but I have also seen it paralysed. I have seen where our constituents urgently need change but it does not happen. In a way, that is why this debate and the past 17 years have been so frustrating. The SNP Government has wasted the time and resources of Parliament to push the agenda of independence, when it was rejected by the public in Scotland. We had a big debate, but it was also rejected 10 years later in the general election in 2024—it was not people’s priority. A poll yesterday showed that even more people than a decade ago are against independence.

No, thank you.

It is frustrating, because we are getting people talking down the powers of this Parliament, which we should be using now to support our constituents. There are things that we could do. For example, when we first established the Parliament, Labour committed to working towards a 50:50 Parliament in gender representation from day 1. There is still a lot of work to do, but I am proud that we are now the largest cohort of female MSPs yet in Holyrood. However, the issues of childcare and our kids getting education in a school that fails them came up time and again in the general election campaign. We have the privilege in here to deliver change, but we are not using it enough.

I was involved in the first two national parks, free bus travel for the over-60s in Scotland, new active travel and railway line investment. However, we are going into reverse. We are losing bus services across Scotland and the ScotRail peak fares removal pilot has been brought to an end. At a time when we need to tackle air quality and the climate emergency, that prevents people from affording or having low-carbon transport options.

Yes, the title of the debate is crucial, but we are in danger of wasting the resources in Scotland unless we get serious about what we need to do to build a diverse, dynamic country. Take our culture and the arts. We have everything from the biggest arts festival in the world to grass-roots events and organisations in neighbourhoods across the country. We can rightly celebrate that, but we could lose talent, investment and international recognition if the Scottish Government does not give clear, consistent support every year.

Nowhere is Scotland’s potential more evident than in the exciting future of green energy, which Karen Adam has just mentioned. We have a talented workforce with transferable skills, but we do not have an offshore skills passport. We have fantastic opportunities with our natural resources on land and offshore, and technological innovation is driven by our higher education sector and businesses.

We have huge opportunities, but we are not getting the progress that we need, because the planning system is not efficient or properly resourced. People are having to wait not just months but years for decisions. The investment is ready, and it must not be blocked or endlessly delayed. Take the ScotWind project. That huge resource has been removed, meaning that supply chains will not get the investment, confidence is not there and we are not getting the training opportunities that people need now. We have the skills, but we do not have the jobs.

Our newly elected Labour UK Government has started delivering, setting up GB energy, creating a national wealth fund that will deliver and making sure that we get the investment that we urgently need in our ports across Scotland.

We can do a huge amount—the NHS, education, housing and transport are all areas for which the Scottish Parliament is responsible, but they are close to breaking. Our remarkable potential as a country is being squandered.

Scottish Labour has a vision for brand Scotland—to present the very best of our country to the rest of the world and to support our economy. We can be a leader in renewables. We can be one of Europe’s leading artistic hubs. We have industries that are the envy of the world and a dedicated workforce. Think about our fantastic food and drinks industry, and about our beautiful natural environment, which can fuel a tourism industry to bring benefits to local communities across the country.

We can build a modern, diverse and dynamic Scotland to tackle the deepening social inequalities and our climate emergency. To do that, we need to seize the opportunity with both hands and use all the levers that are available to us. We need a Government that focuses on the day job, not on using the constitution as an excuse.

In the past few weeks, we have seen the difference that Labour is making—we have co-operative, constructive engagement between the UK and Scottish Governments, and there is respect. I agree that the Scottish Parliament should be working towards building the future, but it will take Scottish Labour to make that a reality.

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle antisocial behaviour in Lothian. (S6O-03728)

I welcome the minister’s response. I alert her to the fact that recent reports have shown that antisocial behaviour has had a major impact on local communities, which includes Lothian Buses pulling services due to an increase in antisocial behaviour. In West Lothian, there has been an increase of 12 per cent in antisocial behaviour, including vandalism and breach of the peace.

I welcome the fact that the minister is putting together a working party, but does she accept that communities need support now to tackle antisocial behaviour? Does she accept that—because local authorities are underresourced, which has had an impact on youth groups and community spaces—many young people in Lothian simply do not have the options, opportunities and support that they need? Can the minister tell us exactly what is going to happen to tackle the underlying issues that create antisocial behaviour in the first place?

What immediate difference will today’s statement make, given the need for investment on site from both the public and private investors, so that workers and communities know that there will be jobs this time next year? Will the cabinet secretary clarify how much will be invested in Forth Valley College now to make training and skills available for people who need them now?

That is an excellent point. It is key that, when we do renewables, we also do biodiversity and tackle the nature crisis. Given the decades of experience that we have, if we shared best practice and experience on what works best for animals, birds and our natural environment, would that help to move that work on and get renewables going?

I welcome the publication of the green industrial strategy, but I would have welcomed it more enthusiastically if it had arrived sooner so that I and other colleagues—never mind stakeholders—would have been able to properly scrutinise the report before today’s debate. It is worth reminding ministers that it was first announced in the programme for government in 2021, so we have been waiting a long time.

The points made by Douglas Lumsden, with whom I do not always agree, were very accurate about the raft of cuts being made by the SNP Government, delaying the progress that we urgently need, on things such as the climate change adaptation programme, the energy strategy, the solar ambition for Scotland and the sectoral just transition plans. We need a joined-up approach if we are going to deliver on climate change and deliver the thousands of jobs that we urgently require. Had the strategy come out earlier, we could have got to work, but instead we are lagging behind and losing out on skills and resources, while the Scottish Government dithers and delays. If we look at what is in green industrial strategy, it still feels like a rushed job, even though it has been hanging around for three years.

The Deputy First Minister mentioned the importance of a strategy for ensuring that our education and skills system is responsive to green economic priorities, but we still do not have that. Most of the plans outlined in the climate emergency skills action plan have never come to be, and the workers and our industries are still waiting for an offshore skills passport.

I attended an excellent conference of the Energy Efficiency Association yesterday, and it was striking to see the extent to which we simply do not have the skills to refit our homes and buildings, which would make them energy efficient and more affordable to heat and power. The lack of support for the supply chains was stark, and that support is crucial if we are going to decarbonise our homes and buildings. The message that came across from all the businesses there was that they need that support now.

We need more apprenticeships and more spaces in our colleges, and not just in a couple of cities—we need them right across the country, and we need them now.

We need support for people who want to install solar heat and power systems and innovative battery storage and heating systems. The fact that Mitsubishi announced last week that it might cut 440 jobs in Livingston is due to a decline in product demand. That is deeply worrying, given that its product is one of the solutions. We are not seeing the action on supply chains that is urgently needed.

In the past few weeks, we have also heard about the missed opportunities with the ScotWind contract, but the issue is not just about extracting the money and spending it to support supply chains. There has been a complete lack of conditionality with approvals and a lack of joined-up thinking that would get more renewables manufactured in Scotland—not just in recent years but over the past 17 years.

I have had the privilege of seeing the work that is being done in the port of Leith, which will give us home-grown supply chains. Manufacturing renewables there would be a huge opportunity, and we cannot afford to miss it. It was good to see the work that is being done in Ardersier as well. There are companies that are prepared to invest, but we need more support for manufacturing. We cannot just keep relying on imports for key components.

The problem with “Green Industrial Strategy” is that it is too vague. We see the same words peppered throughout the document: “support”, “explore”, “consider”. They are nice-sounding words but bear little connection to actual action and implementation. We have had 17 years of warm words, and that is not enough for a critical economic sector for our economy and to tackle our climate crisis.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how it plans to achieve its net zero and just transition goals. (S6O-03709)