Chamber and committees

To be honest, I was tempted to ignore this debate altogether. I can think of a dozen better things I could do with a few hours than debate one of the most incoherent motions that I have seen in 23 years in this Parliament. Goodness knows what shape it was in when the chamber desk first got its hands on it and tried to sort it out. I saw little point in writing an amendment. I thought that, as long as there was at least one “delete all and replace” amendment, it would inevitably be an improvement, so I will vote for the Government’s amendment.

However, dangerous and toxic arguments are being deployed here and they need to be challenged. That challenge is important because, when other politicians and the media choose to ignore the arguments of far-right populism or, worse still, excuse them under the guise of “legitimate concerns”, they gradually legitimise them. We need to take the arguments on and set out clearly—not only here, in Parliament, but around the country—why they are wrong.

Let us start with the economic arguments. The motion repeats that tired old canard of Scotland being the

“highest-taxed part of the UK”,

which is a claim that ignores the higher council tax rate in England, costs such as tuition fees and prescription charges and the progressive nature of income tax, which taxes the highest earners a bit more. If you earn a little bit above average, the difference in your income tax bill is tiny; if you earn a lot more, you start to pay your fair share. That is how we build, to quote the motion,

“a successful nation, where everyone can feel hope”.

It is how we pay to protect public services, tackle poverty and more. However, how could we expect a political party that is run by millionaires and funded by billionaires to understand that or even to care? It will always serve the interests of the super-rich.

The motion talks about incentivising work, but that mindset says that, to motivate the wealthiest to contribute to society, they must be offered ever greater wealth and, to motivate the poor, they must be threatened with ever deeper poverty. The idea of collective solutions for our shared social welfare is anathema to Reform, which is why its priority is massive tax cuts for the rich, massive welfare cuts for the poor and even more austerity for public services.

On net zero, which yesterday’s debate showed most political parties understand to be a necessity and an opportunity, Reform members repeatedly said that they support the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change position even as they appealed for ever more fossil fuels while the mercury rises outside.

Let me tell the chamber what the IPCC chair said only last month. He said:

“At current levels of warming, we can already see the effects of extreme events, including intense heat, wildfires, flooding, heavy rainfall and tropical cyclones. These cause disruption and devastation, highlighting the vulnerability of our globally interconnected societies.”

As Brian Hoskins, the chair of the Grantham research institute on climate change and the environment, has said,

“the discourse around net zero is increasingly decoupled from that science and our changing weather. While it is right to debate costs and implementation, public and political discussion increasingly overlooks the fundamental ‘why’. Net zero is not an arbitrary slogan, rather it is dictated by the laws of physics. To halt warming, net greenhouse gas emissions must stop. Pretending we can safely slow the transition ignores the certainty of escalating climate costs, which will fall most heavily on vulnerable, lower-income households.”

No, I will not be taking interventions.

Those are the voices that we should be listening to, not Nigel Farage’s hand-picked politicians.

The anti-environment parts of today’s sprawling motion are followed by a brief but deeply ironic call for evidence-based policy, before it moves on to its other major theme: the culture war agenda. Whether it is transphobia or the immigrant bashing that we have heard for the past few weeks, it is all about encouraging people to blame some of the least powerful people in society for the problems that we face—problems that are, in truth, caused by austerity and the hoarding of wealth by the super-rich.

In just one line, the motion moves seamlessly from singling out so-called “illegal migration” to calling for measures against what it calls “non-citizens”—people who are, overwhelmingly, here legally. However, we all know that, just as we all know the effect—in my view, the intended effect—of such rhetoric. We saw it in the racist riots of 2024, and we have seen it this year in Belfast, in Glasgow and, most recently, in Edinburgh. It is not accidental. Those who use divisive and racist rhetoric are culpable.

I recognise that regulation of areas such as social media is outwith the control of the Scottish Government. However, does the cabinet secretary accept that there is a need for the Government to adopt, across a range of portfolios, a co-ordinated strategy to address disinformation? Individual bits of that are happening, but they are not yet joined up enough to be effective.

Will the member give way?

If there is constructive engagement, we should all welcome that. However, the minister described the commitment that has been given as a political commitment from a Government that is about to change leadership and, presumably, its whole cast of characters. Is this situation not a reminder of the deficiencies of the current process for agreeing legislative consent, which depends on good will—which sometimes is there and sometimes is not?

In raising concerns about this LCM, I want to make it clear from the outset that I do not have any disagreement with the intention behind the bill or, indeed, any desire to question the importance of the steel industry. The steel industry is critical, both in decarbonising the industry itself and in its contribution to decarbonising Scotland.

If anything, I welcome the fact that the UK Government is now willing, at least in some circumstances, to recognise that private ownership of critically important industry is not always in the public interest and that there should be a more assertive role for the state. To be frank, I would like to see more rather than less of that, so I welcome the intention behind the bill and I recognise its importance.

My concern is about the process. We are just one week on from the Government lodging a legislative consent memorandum that said that it recommended against giving consent to the passing of the bill. Now, at the very last minute, just before we vote in Parliament, we see a letter that changes that position.

I was a member of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee in the previous parliamentary session and I am a member of its successor committee in this session. I am not speaking on behalf of the present committee, because we have not discussed the issue, but its predecessor committee held an inquiry into the transparency of intergovernmental activity and its implications for parliamentary scrutiny. We published a report in March this year. The Scottish Government’s submission for that report said that restoring confidence in the Sewel convention—the convention by which we are asked for and either give or withhold legislative consent in these circumstances—

“is key to resetting the relationship between the UK and devolved governments and ensuring that the position of the Scottish Parliament is protected, with sufficient opportunity for scrutiny.”

Yet here we are again, just a few months later—by no means for the first time—seeing a legislative consent motion for which we have not had time for proper scrutiny and a bill that is being fast tracked through Westminster. I know the problems that I am identifying are outwith the minister’s control, but that in itself is a problem as well.

We have not seen progress between the two Governments on renewing the Sewel convention or adopting a new memorandum of understanding about how it is supposed to work. As I said in my intervention, the agreements that are reached—and I am pleased if there has been progress between the two Governments—are on the basis of a handshake and a degree of trust that has been expressed with a minister at the UK level who might well not be in post when the new Prime Minister reshuffles the Cabinet and creates a new Administration. This is a deeply inadequate process.

I have no wish to block the granting of legislative consent, but I do not feel that, as an Opposition party, the Greens have had the opportunity to scrutinise the details sufficiently, so we will abstain on the motion.

I hope that the minister and his colleagues will impress on the UK Government the need to fast track, if anything, the renewal of the Sewel convention and the restoration of respect for devolution in what is currently a deeply inadequate process.

18:04

Does the minister find it surprising—as I do—that, while the options remain on the table, some people seem determined to argue for the most expensive and time-consuming options rather than the quickest and cheapest option, which is removal? Does the minister agree that there needs to be an environmental assessment of the longer-term impacts and not only of the construction phase of the options—which has not so far taken place?

The proposed UK-EU partnership bill that was announced in the King’s speech will undoubtedly do a lot less good than rejoining the EU would but, if it has any potential to begin undoing some of the damage of Brexit, we should strive to work constructively with it. Has the UK Government been working collaboratively with the Scottish Government to agree the terms of that bill? Is the minister confident that there will be no breach of the devolution settlement or the Sewel convention?

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for being so generous in taking interventions. Does he agree that one of the further steps that needs to be taken is to make free bus travel for asylum seekers permanent, following the pilot of that policy? That would be a way to ensure that asylum seekers in our communities are able to access the services that they have a right to reach.

Will the member take an intervention?