Chamber and committees

Full access.

So, the cost of the medicine is falling, but the number of people using it may have risen.

But we want to get to the position where every practice has full access by 2026. There is clearly an awful long way to go.

I want to ask about one more area. In paragraph 16, which goes across two pages in the report, you refer to the number of police incidents relating to mental health. I am sure that most, if not all, MSPs will be speaking to their local police, and I have to say that, every time I speak to them, what always comes up is that the majority of their work is taken up with mental health cases. Indeed, I have heard quite stark figures ranging from 60 to 80 per cent.

In dealing with people with mental health issues, the police are being taken away from other duties. That is not the fault of the police or of the people with mental health issues, but it is a problem. Did you speak to the police about that? It is a serious issue out there.

What years are you referring to?

That may be something that we should look at.

Auditor General, you have spelled out quite a number of stark statistics. The first of those, which you set out in the key facts section of your report, is that about one in four people experiences mental health problems in any given year. Given that we have already discussed the difficulty of getting data, how do we know that?

The Scottish Government has been talking about having a national smart card for well over a decade, but nothing has happened. When Humza Yousaf was transport minister in 2016, he published a report that said:

“The passenger is the end user of smart ticketing and it is critical that they see benefits in a consistent experience across Scotland from multi-modal smart ticketing.”

Nothing has happened since then and the minister has just announced yet another talking shop. Why has nothing happened and, to go back to my original question, when will we see smart ticketing?

We need a base load, and nuclear power should form part of the mix across the UK. The minister has not mentioned nuclear at all. What lessons has she learned from the German nuclear phase-out, as a result of which that country is burning more coal than anyone else in Europe?

I did not hear most of that, but the language was not helpful.

Audit Scotland has said that the SNP’s

“climate change governance arrangements”

are missing

“core elements”.

It did a report on how well the Scottish Government is set up to deliver climate change goals and noted:

“we have found that some key elements of good governance are missing from the Scottish Government’s climate change governance arrangements or are used irregularly and inconsistently.”

The Scottish Government’s heat in buildings strategy will fail to meet its 2030 climate target. The Scottish Government itself admitted last week to “falling short” of its own climate change laws by failing to set out how its emissions-cutting targets are compatible with infrastructure investment. It has not published an assessment showing how those investments will impact targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

To me, the Prime Minister’s recent announcements were a dose of realism. We are still committed to hitting net zero by 2050, but Rishi Sunak wants to give the public a little more time.

The SNP says that it is in lockstep with the EU. It loves the EU and everything that it does, so why the outcry over bringing our own ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars into line with Europe’s? What is that about? You would have thought that SNP members would be happy about that. The move to push back to 2035 the date by which a new boiler has to be replaced by a heat pump, if appropriate, is also just common sense.

Speaking of being in line with Europe, I note that in July the EU passed a law that requires fast recharging stations for cars and vans every 60km—that is 37 miles in real money—along its main transport corridors by 2025. How about we fall into line with Europe on that? People would be falling over themselves to buy electric vehicles if we did that.

There have been some interesting contributions. In some cases, they were more heat than light. That was not so with Maurice Golden, the award-winning green giant who makes a lot of sense on environmental matters, although I do not agree with him on everything.

Mr Golden spelled out the long list of SNP failures: biodiversity, peatland restoration, woodland creation and renewable heat—I could go on and he did. He also reminded us that those missed targets are a symptom of failing to build a circular economy. We used to call that “reusing things”. There is nothing new in the circular economy; we have just forgotten how to do it. Whether a Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill will make any difference remains to be seen. Alongside Mr Golden, I have my doubts.

We heard from that strident defender of the North Sea oil and gas sector Douglas Lumsden, who reminded us that we need that sector to be strong because we do not want to have to rely on imported oil and gas. That is about energy security.

Mr Lumsden and I visited a couple of power stations recently. We were in Peterhead yesterday, where there are plans to build a power plant that will store its own carbon emissions before sending them off to St Fergus. Peterhead power station, which can produce enough power for everything north of Dundee, is the only non-nuclear power station north of Leeds. Scotland is pulling its weight in wind power and hydro, but we could do a lot more in helping towards the base-load.

We have yet to see a plan from the SNP to hit another of its targets: cutting car miles by 20 per cent by 2030. That must involve dramatically improving public transport, as Alex Rowley said, and making it cheaper so that people have alternatives to the car. We keep being promised a road map, but we have yet to see it. When the minister makes his closing speech, perhaps he will tell us what will be in that road map. I do not think that he will, but we will wait and see.

Scotland added just 169 electric vehicle chargers between October 2022 and August 2023, which is nowhere near enough—we are not getting there.

I have not even touched on homes, but that issue was mentioned by Kate Forbes and Edward Mountain. Improving a home’s energy efficiency is a good thing, but it can be ruinously expensive.

The UK actually has a good story to tell when it comes to cutting our carbon emissions, and we should celebrate that. Instead of creating division, the Scottish Government should seize the opportunity that has been presented by the Prime Minister to set more realistic goals that bring people with us.

Pointless fights and made-up gripes will not save the planet. Pragmatic politics might.