Chamber and committees

Question 4 was not lodged.

Three members have requested to ask—I hope—brief supplementary questions.

The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement, for which I intend to allow about 20 minutes, after which we will move on to the next item of business. I encourage members who wish to ask a question to press their request-to-speak button if they have not already done so.

Speak through the chair.

The Lord Advocate will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow up to 20 minutes for questions, after which we will need to move on to the next item of business.

We have two colleagues still to go. We will get them both in if the questions and responses are brief.

I certainly agree with Mark Ruskell’s final point, but I note that, in his speech, he said that the target in the 2019 bill was on the edge of what was achievable. In other words, what he was arguing for at the time was, in essence, over the edge of what was achievable. Therefore, the 75 per cent target was finally agreed. It is true that the minister made clear her misgivings and that the UK Climate Change Committee agreed that it would be a stretching target.

However, the UKCCC also agreed that the 75 per cent target was achievable, subject to appropriate actions being taken by both the Scottish Government and the UK Government. That is the end of the bargain that has not been upheld. Despite repeated and consistent warnings from the UKCCC that detailed action plans that mapped out a route to achieving our interim target were needed, the Scottish Government paid no heed and failed to deliver.

The blame, of course, always lay elsewhere. The fact that shortcomings were pointed to in the workplace car parking charge or the infamous bottle return scheme was evidence, according to ministers, that it was all Opposition parties’ fault or Westminster’s. Seldom was responsibility acknowledged, accepted and acted on by the Scottish ministers, either before or after the Bute house agreement. At the same time, we had Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf trotting the globe, lecturing leaders of other countries on Scotland’s world-leading record on tackling climate change. None of those leaders had the heart to point out that the only time that the Scottish Government had met its emissions reduction targets was thanks to the shutdown that was caused by Covid.

Whatever approach is taken, we need less hubris and hype and more of a focused, detailed, painstaking and consistent commitment to action. In that respect, as Sarah Boyack did, I acknowledge the approach that has been taken by the cabinet secretary and her officials. Most of what I have described thus far predates Gillian Martin’s taking up her present post, and I genuinely welcome the collaborative approach that she has taken in order to build consensus and rebuild trust. Even the ridiculous timeframe for considering the bill before us was something that she inherited.

On the subject of the bill and the committee’s stage 1 findings, I agree that a framework that is based on carbon budgeting is an appropriate way to proceed at this stage. It provides necessary flexibility and allows for the corrective action that Mark Ruskell mentioned in his speech. However, the committee is right to highlight the need for the Government to find a way of translating the 75 per cent target and, indeed, the 90 per cent target for 2040 into the new system of carbon budgets.

Similarly, Scottish Liberal Democrats support the five-year period that is proposed for each carbon budget and note the debate about whether that needs to be aligned with UK budget cycles. I am relatively relaxed about that. I can see the pros and cons in both proposals, and I will be interested to see where the committee goes at stage 2. However, any alignment cannot be allowed to delay plans for reaching net zero.

The final point that I want to make is about transparency and scrutiny. The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill is a framework bill, and much of the detail will come forward in due course. Given the significance of that detail and the fact that we are where we are precisely because of the absence of detailed action plans, it is imperative that the Government adopts an open-book approach to the options that are being considered. That can aid scrutiny by this Parliament but, just as important, it can provide an opportunity for stakeholders—businesses, local government, the third sector and others—to have their say in shaping the decisions that are taken, which will affect them directly and which we will often rely on them to deliver.

The bill is a reflection of failures. We cannot afford to find ourselves in this position again. We need to move past what Chris Stark, the former head of the UKCCC, described as the “sugar-rush phase” of target setting and on to the serious business of developing detailed plans for delivering on our collective net zero commitments. Having been involved in passing two previous climate change bills, I hope that, when it comes to delivery, it will be a case of third time lucky. In that hope, Scottish Liberal Democrats will vote in favour of the bill at decision time.

Thank you. There will be a brief pause to allow front-bench members to change seats before we move to the next item of business.

The next item of business is a statement by Angela Constance on Scotland’s prison population.

I, too, thank the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. It is hardly a secret that the timeframe in which the committee and the Parliament have been asked to carry out our scrutiny role on the bill could generously be described as suboptimal. However, with the help of those who have given evidence to the committee, the committee has discharged its duties well and deserves credit.

I will come on to the bill and the committee’s findings shortly. First, like other members, I will reflect on how we find ourselves in this deeply regrettable position and, importantly, how it should inform the approach as we go forward, which will be essential if we are to have any hope of meeting our net zero ambitions.

I was one of those who were intimately involved in shaping the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019—Mark Ruskell was another colleague who was involved at that time. Indeed, I can lay claim to having also had a hand in passing similar legislation a decade earlier.

Back in 2019, in a Parliament of minorities, consideration of the bill was a genuinely cross-party endeavour, which, I think, will be required in this instance. On the question of the interim target for 2030, my former Labour colleague Claudia Beamish and I lodged the amendment on the figure of 75 per cent, which was eventually adopted. That was a compromise. The minister at the time, Roseanna Cunningham, argued strongly for a lower target, which, as it happens, still looks unlikely to be met. Green colleagues were intent on going for 80 per cent, which was a figure that seemed to have been plucked out of thin air at the last minute in an attempt to appear more radical. There appeared to be little concern about how an 80 per cent target might be achieved or that any conceivable pathway to meeting it would result in a just transition being comprehensively bypassed.