Chamber and committees

Will the minister give way briefly on that point?

Will the member take an intervention?

I take the opportunity to extend my best wishes to the cabinet secretary as she is about to embark on maternity leave. I look forward to continuing to work with Ms Martin and to working with Dr Allan when he takes up his post.

The motion is right to ask the Parliament to reaffirm our collective

“commitment to tackling the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss through a just and fair transition”.

Very few people in Scotland would disagree with that.

We have had really helpful briefings, including those from Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, Scottish Land & Estates, Uplift and the Scottish Rewilding Alliance.

Tackling the climate emergency is an era-defining challenge, and all politicians and Governments have a moral responsibility to act. We cannot slow down or lose courage. However, as colleagues have said—and as, I think, the Government recognises—the Government has been struggling to turn ambition into action. We have heard about its failure to meet legal targets, which is important. Sarah Boyack set out that the Government’s new climate bill must be introduced—we cannot have any more delay—and it must be backed up by a climate change plan.

Dr Shivali Fifield, from the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, has said:

“To the Government we say: show us your homework. Too many times, you have overpromised and underdelivered, and in a climate emergency, the stakes are too high for wishful thinking.”

We agree that the failure to meet targets is not the only case of the Government failing. Many people, including from the Climate Change Committee, have said that there has been an absence of climate policy.

I agree with Transform Scotland that the Scottish Government’s commitment to cut car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030 is to be commended, but we are now three years on from that commitment being made, with no real plan in place. That is not good enough. I hope that we will have answers on when the route map for reducing car kilometres by 20 per cent will be published and on what policy measures it will contain.

[Made a request to intervene.]

I am grateful to the minister and I have listened carefully to his response, but students and college lecturers are already adversely affected.

The Scottish Government’s fair work credentials in further education are in tatters. We are seeing anti-worker deeming, threats of compulsory redundancy and the threat of closure of the trade union education centre at City of Glasgow College. The question from picket lines across Scotland, including South Lanarkshire College in my area and New College Lanarkshire, is this: when will the minister intervene to ensure that we see a funding package that will deliver a decent pay settlement for college lecturers that is consistent with the public sector pay policy, while protecting jobs and ensuring the continuity of course provision for our students?

As other members have, I record my thanks to Scottish Parliament staff, particularly in the Scottish Parliament information centre, for supporting the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. I also thank all the members of the committee and Scottish Government officials for their support.

I was pleased to hear Lorna Slater making a contribution. I also thank Gillian Martin for being generous with her time at short notice to work not just with me but with many colleagues around the chamber.

Scottish Labour believes that the bill as amended is stronger and better than it was when it was introduced, which is testament to cross-party working by members. That is why I am a little surprised that Maurice Golden does not seem to be his usual enthusiastic self today. Perhaps a bit of tiredness has set in. Every party in the chamber has added to the bill, which is a good thing.

At every stage of the bill, Scottish Labour has made sure that innocent householders will not be criminalised for the actions of others or for making the simple mistake of putting the wrong thing in the wrong bin, which is important. We have also tried to embed incentivising good behaviour and creating opportunities.

In closing the debate for Scottish Labour, I want to reflect on what my amendments and my colleague Sarah Boyack’s amendments contribute. I think that they strengthen the bill, particularly in relation to provisions on due diligence, human rights, environmental impact and global supply chains. All that is important. Our approach will also ensure that the secondary legislation to come will be strengthened in relation to reducing carbon emissions and on exempting food from the provisions relating to unsold consumer goods.

I thank the Government for working constructively with us, but we are disappointed, in the sense that we would have liked the Scottish Government to strengthen the bill further around reuse and the just transition, because some stakeholders wanted closer alignment with the just transition principles in the Climate Change Act 2008. Our amendments would have helped with that, but we will continue to work with the Scottish Government to do more.

I am pleased that the Scottish Government has committed to work on improving access to reusable nappies. We will see that in the route map and, I hope, in the co-design process with local authorities. I hope that the minister will establish a short-life working group to work with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and other partners to build on the findings of the James Hutton Institute’s report and the work that has been done by North Ayrshire Council.

We are very short of time, even though we did a lot of work on the bill. It is fair to say that some stakeholders have been concerned that the Government was not being ambitious enough; we have just had a debate on the climate emergency. We are putting faith in the Government on the circular economy, but we hope and expect to see action through the strategy and the route map.

It is important to say that we welcome the clarity around funding, but the matter requires the right framework and a fair approach as well as the right funding, because local authorities in particular need to be empowered to take the work forward.

I will end with the words not of circular economy guru Maurice Golden—he is a bit tired today—but of Ellen MacArthur, who said:

“If we could build an economy that would use things rather than use them up, we could build a future.”

I hope that those words will resonate. There is an opportunity before us to create a new economy in which we use rather than use up.

I thank the Presiding Officer for her generosity, and I look forward to working with the minister.

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to end the reported disruption to students in further education, in light of the on-going industrial dispute between College Employers Scotland and the Educational Institute of Scotland Further Education Lecturers Association over pay and conditions. (S6O-03638)

The member is making some really important points, but we are here to talk about action that the Scottish Government can take in Scotland. Does he agree with me and many others that the Scottish Government should join the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance, and that it should do so quickly?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I seek your guidance. At question 6, the minister was asked a very direct question about what action the Scottish Government can take regarding the on-going Fife College staff pay dispute, and that question built on my earlier question at question 2 on what action the Government could take. In response to my question, the minister Graeme Dey asked what the Labour Party would do and, in response to question 6, he gave no answer at all. Is the minister unable or unwilling to take meaningful action to resolve the industrial dispute at Scotland’s colleges?

What can members do to get proper answers from these ministers?