Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government, when authorising fishing licences, what process it follows to comply with any legal duty under section 15 of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, and the judgment in the Open Seas Trust v the Scottish Ministers case, to act in accordance with the national marine plan. (S6O-04609)

If there is time in hand, Presiding Officer, I will do so.

The member is very keen that people’s bills should be brought down and that they should not pay more but get less. Does she accept that private rented sector tenants in Scotland are paying more for their homes than they would if they had a mortgage? They are paying more but getting less, so will she support the proposal for rent controls?

I like to begin my contributions to these debates with one positive point, so I welcome the fact that peak rail fares are gone for good. The Greens abolished them, and the SNP brought them back. We criticised that decision and the SNP derided our criticism, not just on financial grounds but by pretending that the policy had not worked. Now, peak fares are finally gone for good. I am glad that the SNP has finally accepted that the Greens were right on that issue, but people need consistent low fares if they are going to change their behaviour, not that kind of chopping and changing.

As for the rest of climate policy, the proposed heat in buildings bill has been gutted; the target to reduce car traffic has been dropped, with no alternative put in its place; rail decarbonisation has been delayed; and there has been no serious progress on emissions from agriculture.

We have seen years of inaction on anything other than green electricity production, and that is what left the 2030 target out of reach. Now, the Scottish Government seems determined to abandon any serious policy ambition on the actions that are necessary to make this year’s climate plan remotely credible.

On child poverty, we should all recognise that the Scottish child payment is one of the most important and successful policies of the devolution era, but it was possible only because the money was raised. Those of us who had, for years, made the case for progressive tax won that argument and forced the SNP to drop its no-change tax policy. That link remains—we can invest only if we raise the funds. In a profoundly unequal society, the funds are there to be found.

However, the First Minister now says that the Scottish child payment is at its limit and, worse, he is echoing right-wing rhetoric about not giving people too much in case they lose the incentive to work. That is an age-old story. For wealthy people to have an incentive to work or do anything, they have to be given vast salaries, bonuses and tax havens, but for people in poverty to have an incentive to work, they must be kept poor.

The comments that I read in the First Minister’s interview were that he was worried that, if the child payment were higher, it would “reduce the incentive” to work.

Just like the goal to end child poverty, the Scottish Government’s wider goal of investing in public services links directly to a new challenge—how to tackle the rise of the far right—which the First Minister has chosen to accept personally by hosting a summit on it. Too many centrist politicians around the world think that, to defeat the far right, we have to copy it. That has failed time and time again, and we cannot afford to repeat it.

I like to hope—and I do hope—that the Scottish Government would not go down that route if immigration were under its control. However, on social policy, I fear that it is beginning to follow that playbook. By abandoning progressive policies that once had the support of every single party in this Parliament, the SNP is now showing itself to be as much of a threat to the LGBTQ communities as the Conservatives and Labour are. As Helena Kennedy said, about the scrapping of the misogyny bill,

“We are seeing a retreat from some of these areas that are being characterised as ‘woke’”.

That is not the way to tackle the issue. We need to change the conditions of our society that give the far right its opportunity to manipulate people and spread its message.

Many participants in the First Minister’s summit challenged us all to invest in public services, housing and conditions in local communities that need to change if we are to address the real and justified alienation that dangerous forces are exploiting. Repeated comments were made at that meeting that made very clear that we can build a fairer society that will recover from 15 years of austerity only if we continue to raise the resources that are needed fairly, whether that is through local tax reform or a wealth tax. However, I am sorry to say that today’s managerial SNP Government seems to be terrified of anything that looks like the bold, ambitious change that our country needs.

Will the member give way?

The member expressed some scepticism about the Green’s position on heating and, in the very next sentence, went on to explain how much energy loss is involved in the production of hydrogen. Can he not accept, as the UK Climate Change Committee has advised, that hydrogen is an extremely inefficient way of providing heat for people’s homes and buildings in comparison to the forms of electric heating that are already available?

I welcome the fact that we have the opportunity to debate this issue. It should not be seen as a simplistic debate, and there certainly should not be a split between unequivocal hydrogen enthusiasts and hydrogen sceptics. The issue is much more complicated than that. The role that hydrogen could play in Scotland’s energy system and in several industries could be very significant. It could become a significant part of our economy, too, if we produce large amounts for export. I would disagree with anyone who suggests that that cannot happen, but hydrogen is not a magic solution for some of the challenging aspects of the transition to sustainability. I would equally disagree with anyone who wants to see hydrogen in the same category as carbon capture and storage, direct air capture of greenhouse gases or foolhardy experiments to dim the sun.

There are, sadly, some people in our society, and too many current and former politicians—as we have seen this week—who want to abandon real climate action in favour of implausible techno-fixes. Hydrogen has the real potential to be seen in the same way, and we cannot afford that. Neither can we afford the same simplistic, unrealistic thinking to affect the way that we develop the hydrogen sector.

Sarah Boyack was right to say that there are two critical questions—how we produce hydrogen and how we use it. The answers to both questions will determine the value that it has for our society and for the transition to sustainability.

First, where does hydrogen come from? The internationally recognised colour code for hydrogen has about as many shades on it as the pride flag does, but fundamentally, most industrially produced hydrogen to date has been made using fossil fuels with no abatement of emissions. Whether that is the most polluting fuels such as lignite, which some countries use to produce hydrogen, or others such as fossil gas, we need to be clear that that approach has no role to play in a transition to sustainability. It should not only be denied Government investment but simply not be permitted.

Then there are people who advocate for blue hydrogen, which is still produced using fossil fuels but with the addition of long-promised carbon capture and storage technology. Even if CCS can ever be made to work at high enough capture rates to result in negligible overall emissions—there is still plenty of doubt about that question—it will always be a huge additional cost, making the production of blue hydrogen dramatically less efficient. If hydrogen is to play any meaningful role, it must be produced using renewable electricity—it must be green hydrogen.

Will the member take an intervention?

Will the member take an intervention?