Chamber and committees

Some of the benefits could involve things such as access to skills development, competence enhancement and support for clinical advancement. I say that as a former clinical nurse educator who taught people across the care sector.

As a former liver transplant nurse, I know that one of the treatment options for addiction is a liver transplant. If someone was seeking a treatment option and wanted such a transplant, would that be part of the list?

I have a wee supplementary question about the reference in the bill to

“a second relevant health professional”.

Is there a hierarchy of health professionals? I am thinking of what might happen if the first health professional was a specialist in alcohol and drug harm reduction, and a medical doctor, and the second was an advanced nurse practitioner, and their opinions were different.

I know about the challenges of helping to support people to reduce harm from alcohol and drugs. It is really complicated. We speak about polydrug use, and there are issues with benzodiazepines being delivered to people’s doors by taxi companies and people buying stuff off the internet when they do not even know the dosage of things such as blue benzos, as they are known. I am also thinking about the medication assisted treatment standards that have been implemented. There is the roll-out of heroin reversal agents such as naloxone, and research is being done on a reversal agent for benzodiazepine called Romazicon. A lot of work is being done, so is the bill sufficiently future proofed in its drafting to account for the evolution of the way that people are taking drugs—including nitazines, for example?

Another thing that came out of the evidence is the primary focus on a medical model of treatment rather than broader psychosocial factors. It is similar to the trauma-informed practice issue. Some of the concerns are about focusing only on a medical model, instead of including the wider psychosocial aspects.

On having a sectoral negotiating body, our briefing papers say that the bill is in the House of Lords at the moment, so it is reserved legislation. It would be better if employment law was devolved to Scotland completely, as that would give us more control over what we do with employment throughout Scotland. If the legislative consent motion is agreed to, what will be the next steps to establish a sector-wide negotiating body?

The bill would not affect a single mum with two kids who cannot go to residential rehab but who is worried that her children will be removed from her. How would the bill support somebody in those circumstances?

I will in one second.

Some feel that they are being frozen out of the benefits and management of renewables, while being expected to thole the presence of all those wind turbines. That point was reflected by Michael Matheson when he stated that communities feel that they are being done to, and not done with.

I will take the intervention now.

Please accept my apologies, Presiding Officer, for not being present at the beginning of the debate.

I cannot help but make at least a passing mention of the history of Norway’s community-owned energy sector—in its case, the entire oil and gas sector, as well as a hefty chunk of hydro. Decades ago, the Norwegians took a groundbreaking decision to ensure that their Government, on behalf of the people, would have strategic ownership of oil and gas developments from the 1980s onwards. The result of that is that, today, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is worth more than £1.7 trillion. The biggest debates in Norway’s Parliament are on how much can be spent without overinflating the economy.

At the same time, the UK Government used North Sea revenues to subsidise tax cuts and the destruction of huge swathes of our industrial base. Not for nothing was unemployment benefit known in the 1980s as “oil money”.

Clearly, the days of drilling for hydrocarbons with no regard to the wider environmental implications are gone. However, Norway shows what real community ownership on a national scale looks like, as opposed to having revenues frittered away by a Parliament far, far away. We can take the successful model of Norway but decentralise it and put communities in charge of their own energy destiny, and work with them to ensure that the benefits of the green industrial revolution lie with them, rather than being expropriated elsewhere.

In the south, a number of wind farms are at various stages of the planning process, and it is fair to say that, as we have just heard, none enjoys universal popular support; however, all enjoy some public support. There are different objections to each development. The Sandy Knowe wind farm at Sanquhar in my region has developed a good record of community engagement and action and has worked together with local residents as a matter of normal business. However, I believe that the common thread through all the proposals that are currently on the table in the south is the lack of community involvement and community ownership.

I can see the argument that there are too many wind farms in Dumfries and Galloway. However, I also think that we need to reflect on where we are in relation to achieving net zero, developing a renewables sector and getting communities to benefit from all that. There is not an easy yes-or-no answer when we are looking at how we support our communities and the environment, and how we tackle biodiversity, the nature crisis, the climate crisis, and all that—that is a whole other debate.

Some members will be aware of the goat culling west of Newcastleton, which has caused outrage locally, as the new owners of the estate try to clear the majority of a goat population that has been there for more than a millennium. Oxygen Conservation purchased the Blackburn and Harsgarth estate two years ago, and has made a big play of its plans for rewilding across the 11,000 acres. However, in the middle of its rewilding pitch to the community is buried a reference to building the UK’s biggest onshore wind farm. When I raised with it its intentions for the estate, Oxygen Conservation revised its estimate and said only that there would be a wind farm, not that it would be the UK’s biggest.

I do not necessarily have an objection to marrying up rewilding and large-scale native tree planting with a renewables scheme, but it is clear from all the Langholm locals who have been campaigning against the goat culling actions of the owners that they have not been engaged with properly about the prospect of another wind farm being erected in their back yard.

I do not envy the planning authorities or the Scottish Government in making decisions about wind farms or the infrastructure that supports them. I am proud that we have a Government that takes the transition to net zero seriously, and that has put in place a framework to make that happen.