Chamber and committees

I wonder whether I might encourage the cabinet secretary to visit one of the jewels in the cultural crown of rural Scotland, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, which has a magnificent record of artistic production in rural Scotland. There might be a suitable opportunity with its upcoming production of “Sunshine on Leith”, which is not quite in Edinburgh Central, to be controversial, but is certainly close to the cabinet secretary’s heart.

During the recent extreme weather events, which had significant effects in my constituency, including the tragic death of my constituent Wendy Taylor, a number of flooding problems were, thankfully, avoided through the outstanding efforts and intervention of local volunteer resilience groups. Those groups have tried-and-tested experience of managing such situations—including in Aberfeldy and Alyth, to name but two areas—and they work in collaboration with public sector responders.

Will the Government commit to building into future resilience plans the vital role that volunteer-based organisations can play in supporting communities to deal with the awful effects of flooding, and take practical steps to offer the necessary support to make that happen?

Will the Deputy First Minister take an intervention?

Although I applaud the Government’s success in securing the changes that have been made to the bill, which protect devolution, does the Deputy First Minister agree that it would have been best for the Government not to have had to face such a threat by having a United Kingdom Government that respected devolution in the first place?

Does the cabinet secretary agree that, in light of the severity and extreme nature of the events that we have witnessed in the past three weeks, the imperative of intensifying our measures for tackling climate change is one of the key lessons that must be learned from these experiences and that there is absolutely no space in our political discourse for any foot dragging on the measures that are necessary for tackling climate change in our society today?

This is the first members’ business debate that I have led in nearly 17 years. That is not because I have been twiddling my thumbs for some time but because other obligations have prevented me from doing so.

I am delighted that its topic is the celebration of an initiative that emerged from one of the wonderful communities that I have had the privilege of representing for more than a quarter of a century, Dunkeld and Birnam, and is now spreading across the globe. The Climate Café movement was started in Dunkeld and Birnam in 2015 and, like many great things in Scotland, is anchored in the sharing of tea, coffee and cake. Local residents were involved in action to tackle climate change but increasingly felt that more had to be done. There was a deep concern, which I suspect is now shared even more by people in Scotland today, that individuals felt dwarfed by the scale of the climate crisis and people sought a way to work together to make a greater impact on the issue.

Many people in Dunkeld and Birnam were involved in establishing the Climate Café—a venture that involves people meeting together to plan local action and initiatives—but the leadership to bring it all together was provided by a local community activist, Jess Pepper. Jess has a formidable record on climate action; she made a significant contribution to formulating Scotland’s approach to tackling climate change and has collaborated with The Climate Reality Project, which was founded by former United States Vice-President Al Gore.

Jess’s late father, Simon Pepper, was the founding director of WWF Scotland and a pioneer of climate action. He would be so proud of the pioneering activity that Jess and her family are contributing to this most important of topics. The Climate Café concept has spread throughout Perthshire, with gatherings now held regularly in Blairgowrie and Rattray, Pitlochry, Aberfeldy, Kettins, Crieff and Perth. One of the greatest joys of that development has been the involvement of so many young people in this work, marked by the recent establishment of a Climate Café in Breadalbane academy, an encouraging signal of the commitment of our youngest citizens.

The concept has spread beyond our county boundaries to other parts of Scotland, including Dundee, Kinross-shire, Govan, Lairg, Kelvin, North Berwick and Aberdeen. During the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—virtual Climate Cafés took place involving people in Benin, Alaska, India and Mexico. The concept is now spreading widely across the globe, with inquiries coming in thick and fast to the hub in Birnam about establishing Climate Cafés from the United States to Australia to Finland.

Positive initiatives to deliver climate action are being taken as a result of that community dialogue. For example, the Dunkeld and Birnam community collaborated with Scottish Water to encourage local residents to reduce water consumption. That involved households being given advice and information about simple measures to reduce water use. The outcome was formidable: the small community of Dunkeld and Birnam reduced its water consumption by 1 million litres.

The Climate Café has now spawned a food-share initiative that involves surplus food being collected from local stores at the end of the day and, with the support of a substantial and expanding list of volunteers, being made available to local residents. The initiative provides assistance to individuals at a time of huge pressure on household incomes, avoids the unnecessary disposal of perfectly good food and also reduces the contribution to landfill. There is also now a repair cafe, perhaps modelled on the much-lauded television programme, that provides a space for the restoration and repair of items that would previously have been replaced with newer versions. The saving of resource and energy is beneficial.

Promotion of the work of the Climate Café is important, and there is no greater symbol of that than the local taxi in Dunkeld and Birnam, run by the formidable Marian Wallace. Known as “Lady Driver”, Marion drives visitors from the station to the hotels and venues in the village in an electric taxi emblazoned with the branding, “Dunkeld and Birnam: Home of the Climate Café”. There is just enough time, I am told, on the journey from the station to the village for visitors to hear the explanation from Marian of the importance of climate action and the steps being taken locally to put it into effect.

The work of the Climate Café in Blairgowrie and Rattray has led to the creation of the HEAT Project, which is now an established organisation that has delivered direct energy saving advice to more than 700 households in north-eastern and highland Perthshire, helping achieve significant savings in energy bills. It is a regular source of free advice for communities across the local area.

The thinking behind Climate Cafés is to create a space in which people with shared interests and common purpose can come together to make community, regional and global connections, and to create the political space in which that action can be emphatic. I suppose that that last component is critical at this moment in time. The political environment in which we all live just now is highly charged and intensely contested. Today, I want to avoid getting bogged down in why we find ourselves where we are. What I want to do is make an appeal for us to find the space to have the essential conversations that we must have to deliver the long-term societal change that is necessary to deliver net zero. Without that realistic and urgent discussion and the necessary action that must follow, we run a very high—if not inevitable—risk of failing in the mission to achieve net zero. If we fail in that endeavour, we will have made the sustainability of our planet and of our communities very precarious.

We must find places where people can be drawn together and barriers can be broken down, and take collective action. We cannot allow ourselves to be dwarfed by the enormity of the challenge, and we cannot think that it is the responsibility of somebody else to act. We all have to be involved.

That is the great strength of the Climate Café initiative. Climate Cafés serve as a welcoming forum for all, irrespective of people’s initial stance on, or knowledge of, climate issues. By cultivating a spirit of unity and building bridges in our communities, the initiative shatters the paralysing belief that, if we cannot do everything, we should do nothing. Instead, it champions the idea that every single step counts and that every individual’s action can accumulate to a powerful collective response to the environmental challenges that we face.

In conclusion, one of the many thought-provoking projects that the Dunkeld and Birnam Climate Café has taken forward was to enlist the community in the creation of bunting to be displayed at COP21 in Paris. Local residents were invited to create images on the theme of love of the planet. One that caught my eye was that of an oak tree accompanied by the message “For the Love of Birnam Oak”, which was a reference to the oak tree in Birnam wood that is celebrated in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”.

I think that we are entitled to conclude that the Climate Café that was started in Dunkeld and Birnam is a profound example of the old saying “From tiny acorns mighty oaks will grow.”

What about the legal profession?

Dr Hill, I am interested in the opening part of your written statement, which Sharon Dowey referred to. You said:

“a Commissioner should not be brought in—at considerable expense—to act as a substitute for real action in improving the experiences of victims and witnesses, such as consistently scaling up the Bairns Hoose model”,

following the recent very welcome opening of the first bairns’ hoose, which was the subject of my colleague Rona Mackay’s debate in Parliament. We all know that money is tight, so what is the priority?

Would it be fair to conclude from what you have said that, if you had a choice over the same pot of money, you would put it into a bairns’ hoose rather than a victims commissioner?

Thank you for that.

I hear what you say about the lack of references to the perspectives of children in the policy memorandum and documentation. What do you think the victims commissioner could do that the children’s commissioner currently cannot do in asserting the interests and protecting the rights of children?