Chamber and committees

Do I have time to take an intervention, Presiding Officer?

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to removing free bus passes from people who abuse the system. (S6O-03837)

That was a lengthy but welcome intervention. Monica Lennon knows the answer; she knows that I agree with her.

At the heart of this is the Scottish Government’s failure to meet legally binding climate change targets or to produce a draft climate change plan by the end of November, despite having promised to have it ready a year ago. Patrick Harvie was absolutely right when he mentioned that. That sets a worrying precedent, such that if a Government finds itself in a tight spot where it is unable to abide by the law, it just changes the law and, even worse, it expects Parliament to go along with it and to act at a speed that Parliament would not wish to act at, and without the level of robust scrutiny that we would normally wish for.

As the committee said in its report,

“effective Parliamentary scrutiny of targets and plans is a crucial component of overall net zero delivery and should not suffer due to the timing of this Bill’s introduction or the Scottish Government’s understandable wish to re-establish momentum.”

I agree with that.

It is worth setting out, as others have, the legislative landscape that has got us to where we are today. First, we had the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, which established the legal framework for setting emissions reduction targets and reporting on progress towards meeting them. That was amended by the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019. There was a lot of excitement that year about the climate emergency. That was the year when Nicola Sturgeon declared that there was one, so it must have been true. She said at the time that

“Scotland will live up to our responsibility to tackle it.”

No doubt the international confidence in the former First Minister’s messianic abilities to deliver is what had as-yet-unnamed world leaders queuing up for advice on how to do so.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the 2019 act imposed some pretty tough targets, including an interim target of at least a 75 per cent reduction by 2030, an interim target of at least a 90 per cent reduction by 2040, and a final target of net zero emissions by 2045. We are not going to hit the first target. That is not so surprising, given that the Scottish Government does not seem to have a plan to achieve it. Also, the Government is not going to meet its legal requirement to lay a draft climate change plan by 22 November.

The CCC, which is the independent adviser to Governments in the UK on climate change policy, had been due to produce its annual Scotland progress report in December 2023. In the absence of a climate change plan, that was postponed. The CCC eventually published its report in March this year, and among its conclusions were that

“Scotland missed its 2021 annual legal target. This is the eighth target in the past 12 years that has been missed ... The acceleration required in emissions reduction to meet the 2030 target is now beyond what is credible.”

The CCC went on to say that

“Scotland is therefore lacking a comprehensive strategy that outlines the actions and polices required to achieve the 2030 target.”

I am sorry, Mr Doris—I will have to leave that.

That was followed by the Scottish Government announcing on 18 April that there would be a new legislative approach to setting emissions reduction targets. In the statement and in further public communications over the following weeks, other details were confirmed: the 2030 target would be removed; the current system of a net zero target, supported by key interim targets and annual targets, would be replaced by a system of five-yearly carbon budgets; and the ultimate target of achieving net zero in emissions by 2045 would be retained. In the 18 April announcement, the cabinet secretary said that this new legislation would be “expedited”, which was to avoid running into the legal duty to produce the draft climate change plan by this November.

Against that background, it is not surprising that my good friends in the Scottish Green Party have been somewhat miffed by the lack of progress. I do not blame them. However, we are where we are. We have a rather unfortunate bill in front of us, and we must decide what to do about it with very little time.

The bill does not specify how soon after receiving advice from the CCC the Scottish Government must lay regulations setting carbon budgets. That contrasts with the UK Climate Change Act 2008: that matter must be addressed at stage 2. The acting cabinet secretary said that she was considering lodging an amendment to set a timescale between the receipt of that advice and laying regulations. We will do likewise, so we should work together on that.

Another issue is that of our possibly aligning with UK carbon budgets—we have heard about that in the debate—which makes sense. There was no clear agreement in committee on that, but it should be explored at stage 2.

We agree to the general principles of the bill, but there are still improvements that should be made. I look forward to stage 2 and, a week later, to stage 3. That is a bit longer than the Government argued for, which is a happy victory for the Parliament.

But that has not happened yet in any college—or has it?

Good morning. I want to stick to the list of six colleges that the Scottish Funding Council is working with. Are those colleges included in the 14 colleges that you have audits for?

Okay. So, all that you know is that there are six colleges on that list.

Have you asked for the list or not?

We could, indeed. I do not like to play a guessing game. We should know which colleges are in the most perilous state.

Which college was that?