If I have time in hand.

Will the member take an intervention?

After COP27, the odds are now, sadly, stacked against keeping the world to 1.5° of heating. The UN secretary general described the latest IPCC report as an “atlas of human suffering”. This is what we now face; it is completely inevitable.

However, the threat should galvanise us, because, even if 1.5° is now dead, we must redouble our efforts to keep hope and progress alive. It will not be enough to have short-term technical decarbonisation plans that allow business as usual to simply continue. We need a revolution in our thinking, and we must look forward to future generations with every action that we take, because the footprints that we leave today will last for generations to come.

It is time to join the dots and see the connections in what is already happening to our world. Europe is currently heating at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, while the Arctic is heating three times faster. Every fraction of a degree of Arctic temperature increase has resulted in a more erratic polar jet stream, bringing heat waves, droughts, forest fires and excess deaths across Europe.

A melting Arctic permafrost could mean game over for this planet. If the tipping point is reached, 25 to 40 per cent of global carbon budgets could be blown by permafrost emissions alone. We are one people living on one planet with a shared history and a shared future, and what happens in the Arctic writes the future of a community in Bangladesh.

That is why it was so important that COP27 finally took a critical step forward towards climate reparations for nations that are at the front line of the crisis, with a dedicated fund established for loss and damage. However, as the conference came to a close, we saw the progress that was made in Glasgow start to wither away without delivering the necessary commitments on a phase-out from all fossil fuels.

Despite Alok Sharma’s leadership at COP26 and his calls for a phasing out of all fossil fuels, the Westminster Government has largely continued with business as usual. Despite continuing calls from the International Energy Agency for there to be

“no new investments in oil, gas and coal”,

we have seen a disastrous expansion of oil and gas licences in the North Sea and may even see permission being granted this week for a new mega coal mine in the north of England. We cannot drill our way out of either the energy cost crisis or the climate emergency; the answer to both of those is a rapid transition away from oil and gas that delivers for both workers and the planet.

COP26 showed us that, when they work together, small nations can lead the world on climate justice. That is exactly the message sent by the launch of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, when a flotilla of countries joined together to plan for a fair and fast phase-out of fossil fuels. Chile, Fiji, and Washington were among the newest members to join the alliance and commit to fossil fuel phase-out dates at COP27. I expect that this Government’s programme of work to understand our energy requirements in Scotland will lead to us joining that growing network of climate leaders.

It is also crucial that the Scottish Government continues dialogue with Westminster about joining international calls for collective withdrawal from the Energy Charter treaty, which is now beyond reform. Fossil fuel companies should not be allowed to sue Governments for hundreds of millions of pounds if they introduce policies that limit the use of coal, oil and gas in line with our climate ambitions.

I thank Paul McLennan for giving us all the opportunity not only to celebrate the progress that we have made so far with renewables in Scotland but to look at what is in store for the next chapter.

The report that we are debating is a useful baseline. It captures the jobs and economic benefit delivered in Scotland to date, but, in the years to come, we will look back at today’s figures and see just how small they were in comparison to what will be achieved. I will focus my contribution on the onshore wind sector and the need to not forget about onshore wind but double down on its progress in the years ahead.

Onshore wind continues to deliver the lion’s share of the economic benefit of renewables in Scotland. It remains the lowest-cost renewable energy and, dispersed across Scotland, onshore wind farms continue to provide predictable supply at a time when electricity demand for heating and transport continues to rise.

Year on year, the carbon content of our electricity generation is falling, largely due to onshore wind. With that, in turn, the climate impact of every electric vehicle and heat pump falls. Step by step, turbine by turbine, we are decarbonising electricity, largely with onshore wind and almost without noticing.

Meanwhile, from Shetland to the Borders, wind farms continue to provide community financial benefit and, with new projects, there will be new opportunities for that benefit to spread more widely and to grow in value. Outside our national scenic areas, wind farms also provide the opportunity for investment in nature restoration, public access and economic diversification at scale in our uplands.

Public support for onshore wind remains consistently high and grows locally once communities have had the experience of hosting turbines. After nearly three decades, we now have a flourishing ecosystem of Scotland-based developers, subcontractors and specialists who are ready to support the next stage of growth in onshore wind. The real challenge will be to match that sector with an equally strong domestic supply chain for wind farm component manufacturing.

The renewed commitment to onshore wind in the Bute house agreement will help to provide certainty to manufacturers and others that there is a strong market and a supportive environment for investment in Scotland. A target of 12GW of additional onshore wind by 2030 backed up by planning reforms and a strong policy statement is the start of a sector deal that will drive investment. Let us remind ourselves that the sector is incredible. It has smashed every energy target that has been set at Holyrood since devolution. It is ready to meet the hardest challenge that it has been set to date.

That growth needs to take place at a scale that has never been seen before in Scotland. The pace of new development will need to speed up. We cannot afford to have wind farm projects languishing in the planning system for seven years, as has been the case recently. We are in a climate emergency. Good wind farm proposals in the right places need to be fast tracked through a streamlined planning process. We no longer have time to wait. The planning system must allow those machines to fight climate change.

However, it is not just new sites and new projects that are needed. Existing wind farms need to be repowered quickly with newer, more productive turbines. Repowering alone means another 600MW to 800MW every year for the next 15 to 20 years, so it is a huge mission. It will be our children who work on those wind farms, just as the hydro schemes from our grandparents’ generations are still spinning and creating employment today.

Endless renewable technologies supporting enduring jobs for generations to come: that will be the renewables story told by future reports. We just need to focus and realise that vision.

Next week, I will host an online summit with my constituents to discuss the future of bus services, and I would be happy to share the results of that with the minister. Does the minister believe that the regulator currently has enough powers to hold the bus companies to account over minimum standards of services?

I thank the minister for attending the COP in Egypt. Although there was one step forwards, to address loss and damage, there were two steps backwards on fossil fuels. There was a clear failure to commit to any phasing out of oil and gas. Arguably, COP27 has left the goal of 1.5° dead.

Right now, fossil fuel companies are using the energy charter treaty to sue Governments for hundreds of millions of pounds if they introduce policies or laws that limit the use of coal, oil and gas. However, at COP27, Germany joined the call for the collective withdrawal of countries from the treaty. Does the minister agree that the energy charter treaty is now beyond reform, and will ministers raise the issue with the United Kingdom secretary of state?

To ask the Scottish Government what its assessment is of the outcome of the 27th United Nations climate change conference of the parties. (S6T-00978)

I thank the minister for that very clear response. The issuing of more than 100 oil and gas licences by the UK Government is reckless and hampers the just transition at the point when investment urgently needs to switch to renewables. The First Minister has previously said that the Cambo oilfield should not be given the go ahead. Does the minister agree that the Rosebank licence should also not be granted?

I join other members in welcoming the debate, and the excellent report informed by expert and learned opinion, which come at a point when the full horror of Brexit is really just beginning to unfold.

None of the Brexit outcomes thus far have been surprising in any way. The UK Government repeatedly warned itself about the economic implications of leaving the single market and ending free movement and about the sectors of the economy that would be damaged by a hard Brexit, the businesses that would take flight and the risk of recession.

What I find ironic is that the UK was so influential when it was a member of the EU, but so bad at explaining the benefits of that influence at home. It also saddens me that the UK was such a champion for the rule of law in the EU but it is now so willing to disregard the rule of international law when it comes to the TCA and the Northern Ireland protocol.

The arguably very British value of respect for the rule of law is now clearly being championed by others, including the Irish, in the EU. I, like more than half the members of this Parliament, hope that Scotland will be able to join Ireland as an independent state within an interdependent European family of nations and that, in time, the rest of these islands will follow in our footsteps and rejoin the most successful project for peace and prosperity in world history.

The British contribution to the acquis of European law and policy has been immense, so it would be an enormous act of self-harm if the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill results in a Brexit bonfire of the very laws that we wrote. There are so many protections and rights that we rely on, which, unless saved, will fall off the cliff edge in December next year. Laws on issues from equal pay to nature protection must be saved and retained.

If the UK Government lights the bonfire, there will be a desperate scrabble to save laws from the engulfing flames. It will put huge pressure on every democratic institution, every Government department and every minister and parliamentarian in every Parliament across the UK. It is clear that the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill should be scrapped and individual laws should be prioritised for reform.

For example, Governments urgently need to change the energy performance certificate system to deliver a step change in green heating. The Energy Performance of Buildings (Scotland) Regulations 2008 come from the EU directive on the energy performance of buildings, but when the UK left the EU it did so without putting in place any way to change the regulations, which has left the Scottish Government now desperately trying to find a legislative route through a Brexit mess.

Therefore, there is work to be done, but it must be careful work, not a slash and burn spurred on by ideology—otherwise, we will see yet another epic failure of statecraft from the UK Government.

We are in anything but normal times, but there needs to be respect between the UK and the devolved Governments. The Sewel convention, which a number of members have mentioned, has, in effect, been abandoned. Prior to that, it had been used 140 times at Holyrood to obtain consent, which was withheld on only one occasion. However, it is clear that it has now become merely an obligation to seek consent of this Parliament, rather than actually to obtain it. Despite any contrary view that Holyrood might have, the box always get ticked and the UK Government carries on regardless.

Parliamentary oversight is a cornerstone of our British democracy, yet post-Brexit legislation is coming before both Parliaments and the Senedd with broad, sweeping ministerial powers that have a strong focus on secondary legislation. A feast of Henry VIII powers is now ready for UK ministers; even the powers to amend primary legislation itself without consent are now on the menu.

With much of that post-Brexit legislation, there is absolutely no clarity about how secretaries of state would use the powers—it is anyone’s guess what the powers are for and what the policy objective is. Meanwhile, stakeholders fear a regulatory race to the bottom; businesses are unsettled; and certainty has eroded even further at a time when we really need stability.

For us parliamentarians, that makes scrutiny nearly impossible. However, Tory MPs should be very wary in what they ask for, because when they take their turn in opposition, there will be very few powers for them to use to challenge Government policy under these Brexit bills. Such a lack of scrutiny rarely makes for good decision making, regardless of who is holding the ministerial pen at the time.

I will not let the Scottish Government completely off the hook in the debate either, because we, as a Parliament, need to see our Government step up and realise the keeping pace commitment totally transparently. The Government should set out regularly what it will align with in both legislation and policy, and it needs to set out its approach to forthcoming EU legislation and the European Commission work programme as early as possible.

The role of Parliaments in holding their Executives to account has never been more important. There is a need for Parliaments across these islands to work together even if their Governments currently struggle to do so. We may have lost the European Union machinery that strived to build consensus among its decision makers and stakeholders, but the European values of openness and democracy are now more important than ever and we should uphold and defend them in this Parliament.

Mr Whittle raises an important consensual point. The important work that Government needs to do is about building up the supply chain and the capacity of the commercial sector and the sector that is growing our native woodlands across Scotland.

I warmly welcomed the minister’s announcement of a consultation on the next stage of the forestry grant scheme, which I hope will allow for an even sharper focus on that climate and nature objective and the need for woodlands and forestry to deliver multiple benefits.