Chamber and committees

The public are still very concerned. Scottish Water has obviously made some progress, but are you satisfied that the actions that were set out in responses from Scottish Water, the Scottish Government and SEPA to the ESS investigation report on storm overflow will address your recommendations? I hear what you say about the Scottish Water overflow map, but do we now have a complete picture or is it still incomplete?

Is there anything in relation to CSO that should be in the long-term strategy that Scottish Water is consulting on?

On Mark Ruskell’s point, it is important that we get this right, as there has been a huge amount of public interest.

My comment is more on the enforcement side. It would be good to hear more from the Scottish Government about how it expects it to work in practice, given that the responsibilities of the enforcement officers will be very public facing. There will be a lot of public interest in getting this right.

I am relaxed about whether we raise that with the Government in writing or through its appearance at the committee, but we need to hear more from the Government about how the fixed-penalty notices will work in practice and about enforcement.

Cole Thomson is 12 years old and lives with a severe form of drug-resistant epilepsy. Medical cannabis is keeping him alive, but his mum, Lisa Quarrell, is running out of funds to pay for Bedrolite privately. The national health service has made a small number of exceptions in England and Northern Ireland for children in a similar situation, but there has been no such help in Scotland as yet, despite the best efforts of the chief pharmaceutical officer, who has been very helpful.

Time is running out. Will the First Minister ask the health secretary urgently to meet me and Cole’s mum to explore all possible options to get Cole the support that he needs?

That is helpful to know.

A few years ago—perhaps five or six years ago—you were on SEPA’s board, but there has been a lot of change since then. You have touched on some of the resource pressures. We hear in the committee and in our individual regions and constituencies that people feel that it is hard to get information if they report something to SEPA or have a concern about pollution, and the public do not always hear about the lighter touch that is taken by having a dialogue with people who might be causing pollution. It feels as though there is a growing gap between the concerns that are reported and what the public hear in relation to outcomes and resolutions.

You have talked about your role in the networks and your insight. I have given the example of SEPA, but it is not the only organisation with such issues. How do you see ESS being able to be fair but firm and being able to improve public understanding and confidence? Right now, people feel that there is not a lot of accountability.

I do not know what will happen after today, but I think that we need to hear more about that. Thank you for your answers.

Thank you—no pressure, convener.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I want to return briefly to the issue of urban land and the convener’s questions about what is not in the bill. In your opening remarks, you talked about the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill being about both the national interest and local needs. It was helpful to hear you talk about the previous recommendations of the Land Commission; however, we are a few years down the line, and quite a lot has changed, including with other bills that the Government is considering.

Will you expand on the Government’s thinking? A constituent in Lanarkshire in my Central Scotland region might be wondering what is in the bill for them, and that will be the same for other communities up and down the country. What amendments are you thinking about?

In addition, related to that, you mentioned other bills, including on community wealth building, and work on community right to buy, purchase orders and compulsory sales orders. What is the Government doing to ensure that the work on this bill will align with those other bits of work? There might be a concern that there are some really good ambitions and objectives, particularly around sustainable development, but that the Government could be too busy, and we could miss the opportunity to make all those connections.

I thought that I had been forgotten there. Thank you, convener.

The committee has had quite a bit of feedback from stakeholders on the bill’s climate and nature aspirations, and I know that you have been listening keenly. You mentioned guidance and further consultation. Might stage 2 amendments be needed to clarify those aspects for landowners and communities?

It is helpful to hear that. The issue with guidance is that we cannot scrutinise it right now, so we are trying to get as much clarity as possible on what could be in the bill and what could be strengthened.

My final question is on urban land, because I think that I understand the points around scale and why there has been a focus on rural areas. In some urban areas, we could be talking about much smaller pieces of land, but there could still be wins for those communities through opportunities to protect and enhance biodiversity and to do work on climate mitigation and so on. Is the Government aware of that? We are behind on our climate and net zero targets in Scotland, so we need to do more and go faster. Can you reassure the committee that we will not miss the opportunity to have bold and ambitious reform in our urban communities?