Chamber and committees

I thank the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee for its excellent and detailed report on the bill. I hope to work closely with the committee on my proposed bill, which members have already heard about—there is some crossover between my bill and the bill that we are considering—later this year, so I want to keep in with the committee and its fantastic convener. [Laughter.]

At this stage, we are looking at the general principles of the bill, which are

“to make further provision about eligibility of elected representatives in the Scottish Parliament and in local government and to reform certain aspects of the law relating to Scottish parliamentary and local government elections”.

The committee agrees with the general principles, and so do Conservative members.

The committee’s report goes into detail on some very important areas. The bill gives foreign nationals with any form of leave to remain the right to stand as candidates in Scottish local government elections and Scottish Parliament elections. Currently, foreign nationals can stand for election to the Scottish Parliament only if they have indefinite leave to remain. The new proposal could mean that someone could be elected with no guarantee that they will be able to stay for their full term. That must be an issue.

There is also the question—which the committee picked up—whether there is a tension between the oath of allegiance that MSPs are required to swear and citizenship of another country. When he was asked about that, the then Minister for Parliamentary Business, George Adam, responded:

“There is always debate about that, and everyone has their own opinion on it, but it is up to each individual to consider how they deal with that when they put themselves forward as an elected member.”—[Official Report, Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, 2 May 2024; c 8.]

I think that that response was a bit of a cop-out, to be honest.

Absolutely, and that is a good thing.

The bill creates a new Scottish disqualification order that can apply to individuals found guilty of intimidating electoral workers. Malcolm Burr, convener of the Electoral Management Board for Scotland, said:

“A lot of abusive comments are made off the cuff or are of the moment and probably would not be caught. One would hope that the possibility of a disqualification order would deter anyone with political ambitions who was minded to participate in a campaign of intimidation or a premeditated act of intimidation.”—[Official Report, Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, 21 March 2024; c 5.]

I agree. The bill does not include provision for disqualification of individuals who have been convicted of a sexual offence and are subject to sex offender notification requirements from holding office as MSPs or councillors. However, the policy memorandum to the bill indicates that consideration is being given to such a provision being introduced at stage 2. I would certainly be happy to look at that, but it might be better if the Government does.

That brings me to another issue highlighted in the policy memorandum, which I also highlighted when I attended the committee on 2 May. Section 31 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 prevents individuals from standing or holding office as a local authority member if they have, within five years prior to the day of the election or since their election, been jailed for no less than three months. For elections to the Scottish Parliament, people are disqualified from standing or continuing to serve as an MSP if they have been sentenced to be imprisoned or detained for more than a year. The justification for the difference in approach is not clear.

As I have said, I have a member’s bill that is being drafted at the moment, which the committee will deal with. Part of it seeks to reduce the sentence limit for MSPs from over 12 months to six months. However, that would still leave a disparity in the way that councillors are treated and the way that MSPs are treated, for which I see no justification. As the minister said, I have had fruitful discussions with him about that issue and about the rest of my bill, because we need to fix that. He and I agree—I am not putting words in his mouth—that we ought to find a solution, but we need to decide what length of sentence should prevent someone from being a councillor or an MSP. It needs to be the same figure. I am confident that, over the summer, the minister and I will arrive at an agreement.

I will certainly lodge an amendment on that, but that would mean my not taking forward that element of my bill. I am strongly minded to keep the other sections of my bill, on non-attendance and recall. That should keep the committee well occupied in the latter part of the year and maybe beyond.

The Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill does a number of other things. It makes new provision on campaign finance. It places a duty on the Electoral Commission to produce a statutory code of practice on the application of expenditure controls for third-party campaigners. It contains provisions on deciding to postpone elections. It widens powers to conduct a pilot on electoral processes and to adjust the date of the new review of local government wards and numbers of councillors. It will also change the law on digital imprints.

There is a section in the committee’s report on dual mandate. I think that I am right in saying that most witnesses were against that, but there are differing views among MSPs and in my party. I note that the committee did not express a view. I am personally against dual mandate.

I thank the committee once again and look forward to contributing to the progress of the bill.

I have been contacted by a constituent with a 38-year-old niece in Lanarkshire who has breast cancer. Treating that will ultimately affect her fertility but, because she has passed her 38th birthday, national health service rules say that she must pay £5,000 for fertility preservation treatment. If she were an otherwise healthy woman, she could get in vitro fertilisation on the NHS into her 40s, and rightly so. I do not think that that is a very fair situation for anyone with breast cancer. Will the First Minister agree to look into that situation as a matter of urgency?

I am really interested in what Pam Duncan-Glancy is saying, but I wonder whether she has any specific proposals—she might not, as yet—to deal with the issues that she raises.

I also wish Màiri McAllan the very best of luck as she leaves to have her baby and I look forward to working with the other ministers in their new roles.

Alex Rowley calls for us all to work together. I agree with him that we should work together, because there is a lot of consensus on the issue. However, in order to agree on that, we have to agree on what the problem is.

The Government has tried to tell us that tackling the climate emergency is one of its top priorities, but it could have fooled me. Yesterday, Parliament rejected a series of amendments to the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill—and would have rejected others, had they been moved—that would have meant real change in the way in which we deal with goods and waste, and that does not show that the Government is serious about the issue.

Just last week, the Scottish Government revealed in its own report that it has, yet again, missed its legally binding targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. That failure is not a one-off but part of a pattern that has lasted for the past decade. Maurice Golden listed a number of failures, so he saved me the trouble of doing the same.

How can Parliament—or, indeed, the Scottish public—believe that the Government is prioritising the climate emergency when, as a number of members have pointed out, it has missed nine of its past 13 climate targets? Not only that, just months ago, in an admission of that failure, the SNP Government scrapped its target of reducing emissions by 75 per cent by 2030.

When Nicola Sturgeon announced Scotland’s climate change targets in 2019, she boasted that Scotland had the

“most stretching targets in the world”.

They proved to be too stretching for the SNP Government.

Domestic transport accounts for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland, at 28.3 per cent in 2022, which was up from 26.2 per cent the year before. Emissions from international shipping and aviation have almost doubled in the past year. Those figures are heading in the wrong direction.

The Greens’ answer to transport emissions is to tax motorists even more, through nasty road charging schemes. We have yet to hear what the SNP has in store for us, perhaps because it fears a voter backlash. Where is that plan to cut car miles? We have yet to see it and we do not know when we are going to see it.

The SNP Government is always quick to blame Westminster for anything. It says that the Scottish Parliament lacks responsibility for energy and that it needs more capital investment to deliver net zero.

In September, Humza Yousaf called Westminster rolling back on its climate pledges “unforgivable” and vowed that Scotland would

“continue to show global leadership in the face of the climate crisis”.

However, we have yet to see that, and pointing the finger of blame south of the border is not going to save the planet.

In two or three years’ time, if we were to look at what difference the bill has made to anything, what would we notice?

When considering a bill, it is always useful to have a look at what it is meant to achieve. To do so, we need look no further than the general principles, which we all agreed to. They are:

“to prepare and publish a circular economy strategy; to make provision about circular economy targets; to make provision about the reduction, recycling and management of waste; and for connected purposes.”

I said during the stage 1 debate that we do not need a bill to have a strategy—incidentally, I agree with the First Minister that we have too many of those—or to set targets. I also said that I had concerns about the framework nature of the bill, and that I would not support it if it was not improved.

When the marathon stage 2 ended, I was definitely of a mind to oppose the bill, because the minister dug in and opposed a series of sensible amendments that would have led to greater reuse and greater recycling, along with deadlines. She got her way to block those green measures with the support of the committee’s Green member—it was all very bizarre. I had to hold out hope that things would change at stage 3. To be fair, there were some very friendly and cordial discussions with the minister, but I have to say that she gave the impression that she was trying to find reasons to oppose useful amendments rather than trying to find ways of making them work.

Yesterday, there were a number of examples in which she questioned, quite rightly, the wording of amendments. However, the wording could have been fixed had we known about the issues with it. So much for the new politics that was promised by the First Minister. The valiant efforts on this side of the chamber to improve the bill largely failed. The one crumb that I had from Gillian Martin’s table was an amendment that would see us prioritise the reuse over the recycling of unsold goods in the waste hierarchy.

During the course of four days at stage 2 and a lengthy stage 3, that was it for me. There were no targets, no holding the Government’s feet to the fire and no ambition. Maurice Golden, who has been this Parliament’s greatest cheerleader for the circular economy, suffered a similar fate, and he must be feeling very deflated—he is deflated. He spoke earlier about the lack of market signals, and he spoke of his frustration. I do not blame him. The only thing that we can say was getting recycled yesterday was the Bute house agreement, as Mark Ruskell did the Government’s bidding for it.

The bill will not change much, but there are still potential traps for the unwary, such as a fish-and-chip tax—your suppers could become more expensive.

My test for the bill is whether it will lead to change. I have to say that I do not think that it will see us reusing or recycling more, as my failed attempt to push the recycling industry into dealing with items such as drink cartons showed.

No—I have no time, I am afraid. The minister said that she thinks the one thing that the bill will lead to will be waste managers sharing best practice. Lorna Slater said that it could lead to us all carrying our own coffee cups about. Well, if that is it, it is not a very exciting bill.

Having said all that, though, I am prepared to give the bill a chance—not least because it now contains measures to tackle fly-tipping, which will please Murdo Fraser, and a few other crumbs from the minister’s table.

In what way does missing nine of the past 13 targets demonstrate it? It does not demonstrate it at all.

We need to get real—Scotland’s record is not good. We need pragmatic plans that bring people with us on the journey to net zero. Douglas Lumsden’s speech was all about plans, but we do not have them from the Government.

The Climate Change Committee’s damning report was published in March. It should have been a wake-up call for the Scottish Government, because it found that the Scottish Government has failed to achieve its ambitious climate goals yet again, that the publication of the draft climate change plan has been delayed yet again, and that

“Most key indicators of delivery progress ... are off track”

yet again. Most concerning of all, the committee said that

“there is ... no comprehensive delivery strategy”

from the Scottish Government. No wonder its actions continue to fall short of its legal requirements.

I mentioned transport. I am very keen to know when we might see a route map for the Government’s plan to deliver 24,000 EV charge points by 2030. I would also like to know when we will see an integrated ticketing system for our public transport network, to get more people using public transport. We have been promised that for well over a decade, but there is no sign of it.

Our amendment also calls on the Scottish Government to

“reverse its anti-science approach to new nuclear technology”.

When I asked the—

I have no time, I am afraid.

When I asked the First Minister about that last week, he told me that the Government does not support new nuclear power stations because they are more expensive. He failed to mention that renewable energy is far less reliable than nuclear, with wind available only 45 per cent of the time and requiring back-up from gas.

Now that the annual targets are being scrapped, such debates will become less frequent but, Presiding Officer, I sincerely hope that we will not be back in this position in 2045—well, you and I will not be. If tackling the climate emergency is really a priority for the Government, it needs to take responsibility and take action.