Chamber and committees

Will the member give way?

It is clear that this climate bill must result in a reset of climate ambition. However, to achieve that, there must be a level of honesty about what getting to net zero actually means and what choices must be made.

Yes, the 2030 target was ambitious—it was on the edge of what the UK Climate Change Committee believed was achievable—but it was also necessary that this Parliament reflected what climate science demanded. Last week, Jim Skea, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said:

“We are potentially headed towards 3°C of global warming by 2100 if we carry on with the policies we have at the moment”.

Colleagues know that a rise of 3°C would be utterly devastating for all life on this planet.

Just six years ago, at the time that we set the 2030 target, Jim Skea said:

“Limiting warming to 1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes”.

Unprecedented changes were what young people around the world were demanding on the streets at the time that we set the 2030 target. They demanded that we keep 1.5°C alive; they demanded that we listen to the scientists and that we make the changes that remain so necessary today.

However, those unprecedented changes were not put forward by Government. The climate plan that came out in 2019 largely fudged the issue; it did not spell out the emissions reductions that could be achieved. Dozens of recommendations made by parliamentary committees to improve the plan were ignored, as were warnings from the Climate Change Committee to ramp up delivery. Quite simply, it was too little, too late.

It was obvious at the start of this session of Parliament that the 2030 target was starting to slip beyond reach. As this bill looks to reset how targets are measured and as plans are made, we cannot ignore the need for Government to take seriously the need for unprecedented action to tackle the climate emergency.

Action is what Greens need to see alongside this bill if we are to give the bill our full support. We are still waiting for a new energy strategy with a clear presumption against new oil and gas; we are still waiting for the plan to reduce car dependency; we are still waiting for more climate-compatible options for improving the A96; and we are still waiting for a decisive shift in subsidy to help farmers cut climate pollution.

Decisions on those policies and many more will either lock in or lock out climate pollution in the years ahead, but clarity is needed right now.

Absolutely, but the role of public investment in levering in responsible private investment is absolutely critical. We have seen that with the excellent work of my colleague Patrick Harvie on the heat in buildings strategy, which has a hybrid model of public and private investment to deliver that change. Cabinet secretary, it is the plans that we need to see.

Five-year carbon budgets linked to action are broadly welcome, but, if budgets are being blown, meaningful corrective action is important. We recently received two section 36 reports in the Parliament that were meant to spell out the action that the Government is taking to make up for missed climate targets. However, they did not offer new actions and they did not explain how restated policies would get us back on track. Clearly, the new legislation must put more of a requirement on such reports to spell out—urgently—how course correction could be achieved and to include the financial cost.

How we take the whole of society on this journey is really important. Scotland’s first climate assembly, which was mandated under the 2019 act, delivered much-needed and very honest conversations and made some critical recommendations to the Government, some of which were taken on and others that were not. I believe that the Government should consider embedding that approach to public participation in the new climate change bill.

Once again, we stand on the brink of disaster. The climate change bill will help us to learn lessons and will make improvements, but it will not move us to safety. That can come only from the Government redoubling its commitment to the unprecedented action that is demanded by the science, and it must deliver that alongside the bill.

I have just read out a list of specific ideas that will help Scotland to reduce its climate emissions.

If Mr Simpson wants to go for a full dualling of the A96, I suspect that that will result in enormous amounts of carbon emissions that will be locked in for decades ahead. I say to Mr Simpson and to other members in the chamber—if this Parliament wants to make such decisions, we have to live with the consequences; if we go for high-carbon infrastructure, it has a consequence, so we need to measure it and understand it. If members want to trade that off against emission reductions somewhere else in the economy, they can make that decision, but we have to operate within our carbon budget. I think that that is implicit within this bill.

The bill does not alter climate ambition, which will come through the setting of a carbon budget next year. However, it does offer the opportunity to learn lessons from the past five years, especially through the need to link action plans with financial budgets and the new carbon budgets. Aligning a five-year carbon budget with a clear and costed plan will, I hope, deliver honest and transparent consideration of what is actually needed on the ground to get to net zero. The evidence that was presented on that by the Scottish Fiscal Commission was important and I hope that the Government will consider giving it a formal role in the process.

If there is time in hand, I will certainly take the cabinet secretary’s intervention.

Looking back on that target, I accept that it seems that it would have been incredibly difficult to achieve, but that target was arrived at in the context of a debate about the climate science. As I said earlier, scientists such as Jim Skea said that even a 75 per cent target would give us only a chance of keeping global warming to 1.5°C. It was a debate about the science. I agree with Liam McArthur that we should also have had a debate about how we would get to the targets and what that would mean for society. I hope that that can now come through the new budgeting process.

Would Mr Cole-Hamilton like to reflect on Sue Webber’s comments, which were inherently divisive and pitted the needs of pensioners in this country against people who are fleeing persecution and war? Is he prepared to condemn those comments, as most of us in the chamber do?

In closing the debate, I offer an apology to all the people in Scotland who, having fled persecution and war, are languishing in the asylum system, because the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament made a promise to them that they would receive a small but very important freedom—a free bus pass—which, in the words of Kaukab Stewart, would make a “huge difference” to their lives. That apology needs to be made.

I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government appears to be recommitting to the policy, but caveats are already starting to be introduced. The policy is apparently dependent, in part, on the budget, and the Government has said that, if we want to go down the route of a national entitlement card, there will be timescale issues. Frankly, those of us who have been working on the issue and the asylum seeker community more generally have heard those excuses over many years, and we are fed up with them.

We want to see practical progress and a timescale for implementation. We want Transport Scotland to implement the policy, not to continually workshop it, talk about it and push things out to pilot projects. A lot of work needs to be done to restore faith within the asylum seeker community in Scotland that the policy will actually be introduced.

Let us be clear: we are talking about people who are living in state-enforced destitution. As many members have pointed out, they simply cannot work—they are not allowed to work. I am thinking about the 180 people in Perthshire, in my region, who are living in hotels on £8.86 a week. That forces them to make unimaginable choices. If they wanted to get a day pass to get around Perthshire, they would have to spend half their weekly allowance on one day pass to get the bus. If they wanted to get the bus to see their friends and family or even their immigration lawyer in Glasgow, that would cost £13. They would have to spend weeks and weeks saving money just to make that essential trip. Those choices are impossible.

Patrick Harvie has already spoken about GP appointments, and I am seeing evidence of asylum seekers being unable to access out-patient appointments. These are people who have gone through mental and physical trauma. Some of these people have come from war zones. They absolutely need the medical care that they deserve. They are having to make impossible choices. Do they top up their mobile phone with extra credit or do they buy food for their kids? Can they afford to see their immigration lawyer? Those are the real-life choices that are being made.

I will turn to some of the comments that were made by Sue Webber. I am so disappointed in those comments, which I feel were frankly disgraceful and bring this chamber into disrepute. Pitching asylum seekers—

No. I have heard enough, frankly.

Pitching asylum seekers against pensioners—we should always call that out in this chamber, and I call it out now. I am grateful for Alex Cole-Hamilton’s very passionate speech, which underlined the values of our nation. Emma Harper made similar comments. These issues should be beyond party politics. As Richard Leonard said, we are the Scotland of Kenmure Street. Those values are embedded in this Parliament. It is beyond party politics.

Bob Doris reminded us that we have had Conservative colleagues in the past, such as Jackson Carlaw, who have taken a humanitarian approach to the question. They left their party politics at the door. They understood this from the perspective of people in the asylum system who are desperate. I commend the work of Paul Sweeney, Bob Doris, Jackson Carlaw and many other members who have championed the needs of people in the asylum system.

Douglas Ross commented on the investment in bus services in Moray. Of course, that is important, but this debate is not about a choice. If he had cared to notice, investment in concessionary travel leads to a reimbursement rate, and many services across rural Scotland have been saved as a result of that. This debate is not about a choice or about pitching rural bus services against asylum seekers; it is about human rights.

Absolutely. I look at the bus services in Perthshire and I see community organisations running bus services that would welcome asylum seekers, who would help to improve their viability.

In the time that I have left, I will focus on some of the comments on the budget. The £2 million that was committed is a tiny amount of money in the context of the overall Scottish budget. As Paul Sweeney said, it is effectively a rounding error in the context of the wider budget for concessionary travel, which runs to hundreds of millions of pounds. It is 0.2 per cent of that budget.

The cabinet secretary said that we need to find a way forward in the budget process, but that does not fill me with confidence. There needs to be better financial management. Claire Baker pointed out that there has been a failure in allocating that £2 million to particular budget portfolios. That should not be the case. We have to see commitment following budget and delivery coming on the back of that.

A number of comments have been made about the amazing voluntary organisations that are supporting people who are languishing in the asylum system across Scotland. Patrick Harvie mentioned Refuweegee and Bikes for Refugees. There are many informal groups of people who are supporting asylum seekers across rural and urban Scotland, but the important point was made that that help cannot be an alternative to state support. We absolutely need state support to give asylum seekers that basic right.

In the words of Maggie Chapman, we need to turn warm words of welcome into acts of justice. We need to do that. We need to commit to that policy. People in the asylum system need free bus travel and they need it now.