Chamber and committees

I wonder whether the member could explain in what way the argument that he is making now is consistent with the fact that, just yesterday, the Conservatives secured a debate that reopened an issue that was settled in 2019—Scotland’s 2045 net zero target. The Conservatives brought to the chamber an unrealistic wish list, or shopping list, of a nightmare fantasy of dumping net zero.

It is inevitable that a debate such as this will, to some extent, rehearse arguments from the run-up to 2016 and everything that has happened since. Some of us argued against Brexit back then and have not changed our position. We are very clear that the damage that we predicted has happened. We can point to it, see it and feel it in our economy, in our communities and in the rights and freedoms of our citizens having been reduced.

Then there are those who argued for Brexit and are currently having to go through extraordinary mental gymnastics in order to deny the reality of that harm. With the best will in the world, Mr Kerr might as well have stood up and sung “Rule, Britannia!” for 10 minutes—it would have made as much sense as the speech that he just gave.

However, there is an additional dimension now, nine years on from that referendum. We do not just have Brexiteers and pro-Europeans. We now also have a cohort of politicians who argued just as vociferously as the rest of us that Brexit would be harmful, and, indeed, catastrophic for the UK and for Scotland, but who are now, let us be generous, merely resigned to it. They are simply not willing to be consistent with the position that they set out just nine years ago. I remind Mr Bibby that he was criticising others for inconsistency with a position from 50 years ago, but that is inconsistency with a position from just nine years ago.

I am very happy to restate the case for membership of a modern democratic family of nations in the European Union in relation to the economic heft that comes from the size of the EU. We would probably not have predicted then the unilateral trade war that has been sparked off by the US, but it is very clear that a trading bloc on the scale of the European Union has a degree of heft that the UK no longer has on its own. I am also happy to restate that case in relation to the voice of the EU on the world stage. In 2016, we were part of what had been for a long time one of the most progressive voices in the global climate debate, but we are no longer part of that. Whether one believes in a deregulated free market or a well-regulated, balanced market, having shared regulation across a larger market brings many advantages.

I think that the strongest argument is the value of freedom of movement, because, as I have said before, for not just generations but centuries, the young people of the countries of Europe grew up knowing that their best chance of seeing another part of Europe was if their own Governments rounded them up, marched them into fields and ditches and made them slaughter one another in the service of a ruling class—very often the same ruling class across different countries on different sides of the various wars. After the horrors of the second world war, the countries of Europe began to build the institutions that turned into the EU and created a different future for young people, one in which they could decide on their own terms and at their own time whether they wanted to travel to learn, to work, to play and to build a life and be part of a community together.

Freedom of movement was one of the most astonishing political achievements in the post-war era, and it is a betrayal of the rights and interests of the next generation that they have had those freedoms taken away. In fact, they have had those freedoms—those liberties—taken away by people who, in many cases, have the nerve to call themselves libertarians. Those freedoms have been removed from young people.

The case for rejoining the EU is very clear and, in my view, urgent. That case for rejoining applies whether we focus on Scotland’s future, the future of the rest of the UK or the future of the UK as a whole. In addition to that case for rejoining, we are faced with a new and very dangerous dynamic. For a long time, the UK has sought to face both directions—towards Europe and across the Atlantic. It has sought to be part of Europe and to treat the US as one of its most trustworthy partners.

Under its new fascist Administration, the US can no longer be treated as a reliable, trustworthy partner. It is unleashing unilateral economic attacks on previous allies and direct security threats, and it is not treating a country such as Russia as the security threat that it is. It is actively promoting far-right politics in European countries, and it is a threat to democratic countries that it previously treated as allies.

In short, the UK can no longer afford that dual approach to the world—the idea that it does not need to choose between a democratic, peaceful family of nations in the European Union and an anti-democratic, anti-environment and anti-social justice threat from the US. The UK Government must make that choice. I deeply regret that, at the moment, we have a UK Government that is refusing to make that choice, is kowtowing to the US Administration and appears unwilling to commit to what it calls a reset. I would love a reset of our relationship with the European Union, if that reset means restoring the rights, freedoms and opportunities of young people to move on their terms, when they choose and for their purposes, or, indeed, the right for economic integration with our European family of nations. That level of reset does not seem to be on offer from the UK. If we want it, the only way to get it will be to do it for Scotland, as an independent member of the European Union.

To ask the Scottish Government what it anticipates the impact will be on the Scottish film and TV industry of the US President’s intention to impose tariffs. (S6O-04645)

I do not have time.

It has made negligible investment in renewables. The International Energy Agency has stated:

“For the moment the oil and gas industry as a whole is a marginal force in the world’s transition to a clean energy system.”

That was before the industry started to further slash investment in renewables and to double down on fossil fuels.

We must raise the funds necessary, including from the industry, to invest in the just transition that neither Government is yet providing.

I genuinely hope that those in the Conservative Party who want their party to continue to show leadership on climate action—they are out there somewhere—are able, at some point, to take back control of their party, if I can borrow that phrase. It is very clear that, under its current leadership in Scotland and the UK, the party is abandoning its commitment to net zero, whether that is by 2045 or 2050. The Scottish and UK party leaders have said so, and they have said nothing about what the alternative target date should be.

As for the rest of the political spectrum, I hope that, when we see the advice from the Climate Change Committee on the new carbon budgets—I think that the Government has already seen it, but in looking at the minister, I see that that is not the case, so I hope that when we all see the advice and the response to it, we will all reject the kind of anti-climate rhetoric that we are hearing far too much. Just as is the case with other parts of the far right’s rhetoric, copying it and aping it will do nothing to defeat it, so we should not do what the Conservatives are doing by copying Reform on the issue.

In my opening speech, I used so much of my time pouring scorn on the Conservative position that I forgot to pour any on the two amendments. In the Government’s amendment, the SNP is correct to call out the Tories’ anti-climate rhetoric and to highlight the impact on employment, including in Grangemouth. However, it fails to acknowledge that the unjust transition that we are seeing is the result of choices that have been made by an industry and by private sector interests that have extracted vast profits over many years, are now abandoning that industry’s workers and are not being held to account by the Scottish Government or the UK Government. The idea that the best response now is a massive tax cut for the fossil fuel profiteers that have caused that crisis simply beggars belief.

The Labour amendment comes from a political party that is still equivocating on the future of the unlawfully granted licences for Rosebank and Jackdaw—indeed, it has not told us whether it will finally kill off the projects that the previous Government unlawfully granted approval for. Moreover, Labour is continuing its obsession with nuclear. Even before considering the issues of nuclear safety or waste, nuclear is wildly expensive and slow to build—it cannot and will not help with the Labour Government’s goal of decarbonising electricity by 2030, as it is simply too slow to do that.

More to the point, Scotland does not need nuclear. More generating capacity is not our challenge. Our challenge is in grid infrastructure, storage, interconnection and, for consumers, in the artificially high price that people are forced to pay for renewable electricity, which is cheap to produce but expensive to consume, as well as in other barriers to the uptake of electricity to displace fossil fuels from heat and transport.

I draw members’ attention to the paper that Oil Change International produced, which sets out clear measures about how the UK Government could

“raise over £6 billion a year”

to fund

“a just transition.”

The measures include taking money from the fossil fuel profiteers, converting the temporary energy profits levy into a permanent, predictable and fair tax on the big oil industry—that would generate at least £2 billion annually—as well as closing tax loopholes that benefit those who do not need it and stopping funding fossil fuels. Advocates often claim that it is renewables that need subsidy, but the fossil fuel industry is getting producer subsidies on a vast scale of much more than £2 billion a year. That money should be redirected from the causing of the problem to the solution.

I implore the Scottish Government and the UK Government to work together on a package that will genuinely redirect the funds from those who profited from causing the crisis to funding the just transition.

When this Parliament passed its first piece of climate legislation, the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, I warned that we had consensus on the destination but not on the actions that were necessary, and I have continued to say that. However, in recent months, it has become increasingly clear that the Conservative Party has detached itself even from that consensus on the destination.

The 2045 target was set a little more than five years ago, and the final Tory speaker in the debate in which Parliament agreed that target said:

“The Committee on Climate Change outlined how Scotland can go faster and further in achieving net zero emissions. I support the principle that we need to go further and faster, for the good of both the economy and the global environment”.

Further, he closed that debate with these words:

“we are confident that it lays the foundations for a climate change plan that will support innovation, create jobs and use technology, as well as addressing the undeniable climate change emergency that we face.”—[Official Report, 25 September 2019; c 103-4.]

It is inconceivable that a member of the Conservative Party would make such a speech now, railing as they do against renewable infrastructure, whether that is transmission infrastructure, storage infrastructure or anything else. Further, it now looks as though the future direction of travel is even worse, with Andrew Bowie, the acting shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, openly describing the IPCC as biased.

Today, the Conservatives say that they want an evidence-based debate. Mr Bowie had no evidence for what he said. In fact, when he said,

“There’s quite a few scientists that say we don’t need to get to net zero by 2050”,

he was, of course, unable to name any. He also said:

“There’s no scientific rationale for choosing 2050 as the point to which we should reach net zero.”

That is utterly at odds with the evidence that the scientific community has provided from around the world.

What do we need in order to reach net zero through a just transition? First, we need political leadership. That means not just backing targets but not blocking the actions that are necessary. Far too many politicians have voted for targets and then blocked the actions that are necessary, whether on transport, heat, land use or something else.

We need urgency from the Scottish Government. The energy strategy and just transition plan has been delayed for far too long, and it must include a strong presumption against new fossil fuel extraction. There must be urgency when it comes to the new climate plan, too.

For far too long, the 2030 target was slipping out of reach as a result of inaction over the first 15 years of this journey. If the track record of the past 15 years is repeated in the final 20 years of the transition, we will fail; however, we need not fail if we apply the urgency that is needed now.

Finally, and most crucially, we need accountability of the fossil fuel industry, which has made vast profits, including from the North Sea, over many years. It spent decades covering up what it knew about the climate change that it was causing. It then spent decades more funding and seeding climate denial conspiracies around the world. More recently, it has moved to a position of climate delay and is abandoning its workforce. If it had invested a fraction of those vast profits in the transition and in the workforce to which it owes a moral responsibility, the situation would be very different.

The industry has made negligible—

Will the member give way?

The cabinet secretary is right that that has not been confirmed, but that is why we should seek to influence the UK Government in its negotiating position right now. Has the cabinet secretary spoken to, or does he intend to speak to, his UK Government counterparts to make sure that they prioritise the film and television industry, which has been a success story in Scotland, and make it clear that, in a country that already imports a great deal of cultural content from an increasingly toxic US culture, tariffs, as threatened unilaterally by the US President, will be entirely unacceptable?

The minister is right that we must continue the commitment to transition. Surely, however, the evidence tells us not just that we must maintain that course but that we are years behind schedule on where we must be—which means that we have to accelerate action, not merely continue on course.

I want to recognise not just the years but, in fact, the decades of work by many people. In parliamentary terms, I recognise the work of Jeremy Purvis and then Margo MacDonald, whose second bill I inherited when she died before she was able to bring it to the Parliament, as well as the likes of Kim Leadbeater and other MPs before her who have advanced the argument at Westminster.

I believe that Liam McArthur’s work on the bill, in learning from previous debates and scrutiny, marks a significant improvement on past efforts. In discussing the bill today, I will focus on the general principles rather than the detail.

The issue requires us to debate things that can be uncomfortable. It also requires us to listen to one another in ways that we, in the Parliament, always should do but often fail to. I thank everyone who has been in touch with me, whether to express their support or to share concerns, questions or strongly held opposition on the issue.

There has been long-standing public support for a change in the law, but it has taken time to create a bill that could properly bring the law into line with public views. As Liam McArthur has set out, there are many reasons for the complexity of any proposals for change, but, as he said, it is not always recognised that there is complexity, uncertainty and incongruity in the current law, too.

Fundamentally, a great deal of the debate comes down to the very different values—valid and deeply held values—that we hold. We live our own lives by those different values, and we bring them to the debate. People might express their values in terms of individual autonomy; the relief of suffering; the equal value of all life or, for some people, the sanctity of life; the relationship between doctors and patients or between carers and those who are cared for; the protection of the most vulnerable people in our society; or in many other ways.

Even though each of us will decide how we vote tonight, the debate should not be seen as one that is polarised between supporters and opponents. I do not think that most people are at one fixed point or the other. Many people who want the Parliament to vote yes this evening understand and respect the concerns that have been expressed by others, some of which they might share. Many people who want the Parliament to vote no respect and understand the wish of others to express the right to choose.

I know that, for some people who are concerned about a change in the law, the passionate support that some express for the principle can seem to obscure the social context in which people make choices. It is important that we recognise that social context, whether it is about social care, health services, palliative care or the diverse services and forms of support that many disabled people need in order to live their lives. We do not all make our choices in a context that is equal. That is a point that I have heard Pam Duncan-Glancy, in particular, make very clearly, and I look forward to hearing her contribution to the debate.

Is that social context lacking in today’s society? Yes, undoubtedly. Will it ever, even in the most optimistic version of our future, be perfect and unimprovable? No. If that issue is the central objection that some people hold to a change in the law to allow assisted dying, could there ever be some threshold of acceptability in terms of social context? I think that it is very hard to make that case.

The context of our society is not static, so we should be asking ourselves whether legalising assisted dying will stop us trying harder or will make us do better. Some people are genuinely concerned that the former will happen, while others, as Liam McArthur set out, point to positive evidence from other places that shows that we can do both, and that assisting dying and improving the support to allow people to live life on their own terms can happen at the same time.

Do the concerns justify refusing to give people the help that they choose, on their own terms, when they approach the end of life? The fundamentally different values that I mentioned, all of which are both subjective and valid, lead us to different answers to that question, but, for me, that is the very reason why we should allow people to reach their own decisions. If all people deserve the right to live life on their own terms, they surely have the right to face its end on their own terms, too.

In a recent media discussion with Pam Duncan-Glancy, I argued that our lives are our own and belong to us. Pam replied by quite rightly pointing out that that is far from being the practical reality of life for many disabled people. However, arguing that our lives are our own does not mean ignoring the ways in which we depend on one another as individuals and across society. In truth, nobody is truly and wholly independent, and the nature and degree of our interdependence differs markedly because of many factors, including disability.

Interdependence can be one of the enriching things about human life, and it should not be dismissed or devalued, but I cannot agree that it is right to use that as a rationale for legally imposing a denial of the right to choose. Surely it is never more important than at the most difficult time in life, when we approach its unavoidable end, for us to be supported on our own terms, as we would wish, rather than having someone else’s choice imposed on us by the force of the criminal law. That is important precisely because our differing values matter.

I genuinely do not know which choice I would make—perhaps we cannot know until we face it—but the choice should be there. I cannot accept that it is our right as legislators to use the criminal law to force everyone down one path, towards one way of facing the end of life, because someone else has chosen that. That is why I will be voting yes to the bill tonight.