Chamber and committees

Is there time in hand, Presiding Officer?

I hope that Bob Doris recognises that, in any one financial year—because I am suggesting that we examine each year’s fiscal budget in isolation—we will be very aware of the context. We will know what UK Government policy is and what kind of changes have been made in the investment that is being brought to bear by the private sector, which needs to play a role in reaching net zero. We already have to consider each year’s fiscal budget on its own terms, in the wider context of how the rest of our economy is shaping up, and the connection with climate and with our emissions trajectory is no different.

I am glad that everyone is logged in in time for this last group—although, on this occasion, I do not think that it will do me much good.

I want to take members back to the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. In the passage of the bill that became that first climate act, 15 years ago, I moved an amendment making the case that we needed a degree of scrutiny of the Government’s budget—not of the carbon budget that we are discussing at the moment, but of the annual finance budget, which, I argued, needed to be scrutinised through a climate lens. There is a good degree of consensus that we need proper and robust scrutiny of everything that the Government does under the heading of climate action, including the climate change plan and so on. In addition to that, however, I feel that we need to bring a climate lens to our scrutiny of all Government action, including all Government spending.

I therefore moved an amendment at that point, and the committee and the Government at the time agreed that there needed to be a carbon assessment of the budget every year. We were debating that at a time when no one had ever done it—no one, in any country, had ever conducted a carbon assessment of their budget. It was a piece of work that was about innovation and creating a new methodology, and we all acknowledged at the time that the methodology would change, evolve and grow over time and that we would learn by doing.

Although I think that the methodology has improved and that it still adds some value, what has always been missing is independent scrutiny of the Government’s budget in climate terms, which is what I have sought to propose, both today and at stage 2 of this bill. At stage 2, I lodged an amendment to which the Government and others—quite reasonably—objected on the grounds of timescale—that is, that it would not be possible for Parliament to independently scrutinise the Government’s budget in climate terms in the short time available between the UK Government passing a budget, the Scottish Government introducing a budget, and then Parliament passing it.

What I am suggesting now is that, instead of that scrutiny taking place within the budget process, we set a later date within each financial year, which we align with the end of May or the period just before the summer recess. That is the timescale within which the Government has an agreement that, in normal circumstances, it will present the medium-term financial strategy. That is not to say that the document specified in my amendments should form part of that medium-term financial strategy; it will be looking at one year’s budget and asking whether it adequately funds the action necessary to be compatible with the carbon budget.

However, climate action works over a longer timescale, and so does the Government’s medium-term financial strategy. At that moment—at that fiscal event, if we like—the Parliament will be asking all those longer-term questions, such as whether we are heading in the right direction and whether we are going to achieve what we are setting out to do.

The key issue is that we are missing the independent nature of financial scrutiny. The Scottish Fiscal Commission—which I would consider to be the appropriate body to carry out that independent assessment—gave evidence to the committee at stage 1 of this bill. Graeme Roy said:

“Nothing in the annual fiscal budget says, for example, what we are spending on net zero, so how can you have a bill that says what our ambition is and what progress we are making on the targets, if you are not able to trace that through to whether the Government’s spending action is consistent with that? Is it overachieving, overambitious or underachieving? That is one piece of the jigsaw that has been missing.”

And it remains missing.

Parliament’s scrutiny, of both the budget and wider climate action, would be stronger and better informed if this aspect of the budget was subject to independent scrutiny, in the same way that other aspects of the Government’s fiscal policy are subject to independent scrutiny. We pass tax resolutions through Parliament, but the Government’s tax policy is first assessed by a body with the appropriate fiscal expertise—the Scottish Fiscal Commission—to tell us whether that tax policy will generate the revenue that the Government expects it to. We, as a Parliament, would not be in a position to make those decisions in a well-informed way if it were not for that independent scrutiny, and I am seeking to add that to the bill with regard to the connection between the fiscal budget and the carbon budget.

I expect that the Government will argue that that would imply somehow that it is only the Scottish Government’s budget that is relevant to the investment in spending that we need in order to comply with the carbon budget. Of course it is not: every level of Government—the UK Government, the Scottish Government and local government—has a role to play, as does private investment, both by companies and by individuals and households, in redirecting our entire economy towards our net zero ambition.

As a Parliament, however, we have a responsibility to scrutinise the Government’s budget as it presents it, and that scrutiny needs to be well informed with regard to the alignment between what the Government says that it wants to achieve on climate action and the contribution that it is making to achieve compliance with the carbon budget.

rose—

I thought that I was intervening, Presiding Officer.

We will certainly explore that, as the Government’s quote in response to The Scotsman article seemed to suggest otherwise.

The fundamental question is this: how are we to have any confidence in a new framework? It is not enough simply to pass the framework, just as it was not enough to pass the original framework and the original climate targets. We need to have confidence that we will not wait for Climate Change Committee advice, the carbon budgets or the climate change plan, but will take action now on the issues that are already stalled. It is only by doing that that we will have confidence that the new framework will be effective. If it is not effective, I fear that we will be in a repeating cycle, and we simply do not have time to waste.

Thank you.

I am grateful to the minister for giving way. Clearly, we disagree on some points, given the objections that she raises. However, she talked about the pilot, and I would like to know whether she is in a position to give an explicit commitment that the work that the Government is developing will be subject to external independent scrutiny, whether that is by a body such as the Scottish Fiscal Commission or another independent body with the appropriate expertise. There will be circumstances where the Government marking its own homework, if you like, will be appropriate, and other circumstances where it will not be. There will be situations where parliamentary scrutiny is appropriate and places where it becomes a bit of a political football. To my mind, that independent scrutiny is the critical missing piece of the puzzle. Is the Government in a position to give an explicit commitment that what it is developing will be subject to independent scrutiny?

I have no additional comments to make. I wish to press the amendment.

I am grateful to the member for reminding me that I should have been clear in my opening remarks: I am aiming at alignment with the medium-term financial strategy, but that document has not been produced every year, so I am offering two alternatives. One amendment refers specifically to alignment with that strategy, while the other sets a specific date rather than referring to the strategy.

My preference would be for the first of the amendments that we are going to vote on, but either option would be viable to enable the Parliament to have before it the information that it needs, and in time for in-year budget revisions to address the concerns that are raised.

The situation is comparable to whether one is in the room as a politician or a civil servant. Very often we are in the room, but we have a lesser status or less opportunity to influence discussion.

At the same time, in the EU, there is a kind of move away from the idea that accession is just a binary, in or out process, and the idea is that there is more of a graduated change for countries that seek EU membership to gradually integrate. Even though I might wish that we—Scotland or the UK—become a re-accession country one day, whether or not that happens, I presume that there is space for a level of integration that will address some of the issues that we are discussing today that is comparable to that which the EU now explores with countries that are seeking membership. Am I going too far there?