Chamber and committees

The debate has been excellent, and there were first-class first speeches from both Sharon Dowey and Mercedes Villalba. It is great to have them among us, and I look forward to their further contributions.

We have so much to do—if nothing else, today’s debate has shown us that. We need to plant millions of trees and heat our homes and all our buildings without burning fossil fuels, as we do at the moment. We should have whole towns running on renewables, using ground-source and air-source heat pumps and district heating systems. We need to switch from millions of polluting cars to electric vehicles and get the charging networks in place. Liam Kerr spoke very well on that topic. He also talked about the need for carbon capture and storage, and I absolutely agree that it is part of the solution. CCS works, but it is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, and it must be done in tandem with a radical overhaul of how we all live our lives. He talked extensively about the quandary of the north-east. It is a quandary, because we cannot just pull the plug there. We need a just transition, and Gillian Martin was right to address that point.

As a critical part of our endeavour, we need to restore nature around us and recognise the inexorable link between the nature emergency and the climate emergency—they are deeply intertwined. Both the cabinet secretary and Lorna Slater mentioned the need to restore our peatlands. Some members may know that, in the previous parliamentary session, I was the RSPB Scotland species champion for the rusty sphagnum bog moss—they called me “the moss boss”. Members may laugh, but the proliferation of bog moss is key to Scotland’s efforts to reduce our emissions. If the moss is sufficiently irrigated, it grows on peat, and it is one of the best absorbers of CO₂ that grows in Scotland. When we dry and cut peat, we release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. That is why restoring our peatlands is important, and I will continue to campaign for it even if I am not the moss boss in this session.

Monica Lennon articulated well the need to deal with the waste products of the various industries in our society. That theme was picked up by Maurice Golden when he talked about addressing the massive problem of plastic pollution. We need to get rid of all single-use plastics. In Scotland, an estimated 300 million plastic straws, 276 million pieces of plastic cutlery, 50 million plastic plates and 66 million polystyrene food containers are used annually. At a beach clean-up in South Queensferry, in my constituency, we pulled from the beach 174 single-use wet wipes that had been flushed away and had not degraded in the sea.

I am sure that, during the election campaign, every member in the chamber felt the public will for change. All parties were elected on promises of a greener and fairer future. In her spellbinding first speech, Mercedes Villalba really captured the point about a fairer future. She reminded us of the substantial barrier to progress that profit creates in existing business practices. She also reminded us that climate injustice and poverty are inexorably linked. Alex Rowley was right to say that it is easier for someone to go green if they have money to do so.

The message from young people, in particular, is clear. I am glad that the Labour amendment refers to the work of the Teach the Future campaign, which my party fully supports. Young people have already had an incredible impact on the conversation around the climate emergency, and the school strikes of 2019 made a huge difference. When young people marched down the Royal Mile and knocked on the Parliament’s door, I was with them, along with my teenage son Finn.

The declaration of a climate emergency finally followed, along with our new emissions reduction targets, but we cannot make progress only when we have people knocking on the door of the Parliament, demanding it. Where sensible policies are implemented, real systemic change can happen. The plastic bag charge is one example of that, but we need more such measures.

There are many promising policies in the realm of the circular economy, such as the deposit return scheme, which the Scottish Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for. Likewise, a latte levy would help people to get back into the habit of taking their reusable cups with them. I am concerned that the strictures of the pandemic have caused us to lose our way and have reversed some of the progress that people had made on reusable options.

Of course, those are all problems on which we need to work together. Mark Ruskell talked about cross-party consensus. I have worked with him before, and I look forward to working with him in this session to find that consensus.

We need to work together internationally as well, because we need countries to come together and companies to change their ways and methods of production if we are to realise the phase shift that we have defined in the debate. COP26 gives us the opportunity for new international thinking. It is a chance to show Scotland and the UK at their best and to prove that we are ready to play our part on the international stage. However, it will not be easy. We need politicians to be constructive and to work together. Such events are no place for divisive and toxic discourse between Governments, and the Scottish and UK Governments really need to step up.

We need to be completely focused on recovery from the pandemic and recovery for the planet. Every delay reduces the chance of our avoiding catastrophic climate change and temperature increase, as well as species loss. Every delay will cause more pain for the countries that are already living with the impacts of climate change and that are most at risk of the worst damage. Alex Rowley is absolutely right that we need to get past making well-meaning speeches. Distractions could be fatal.

The previous coronavirus legislation—passed, as it was, in those weeks of high infection as the nation moved into lockdown—went through this Parliament at breakneck speed, by necessity. As a result, some disabled people had certain rights suspended, and we still have illiberal mental health powers. In addition, the Government would have ended hundreds of years of trial by jury in a single line of text had Liberal Democrats not worked with others to stop that. That is why scrutiny matters.

Further to Murdo Fraser’s line of questioning, will the Government publish the bill now, so that we can consider what measures are still required, allow everyone to have their say over the summer, then give Parliament adequate time for scrutiny when it returns in September? Surely we can give lead-in time for changes that need to be made in the courts and other such places.

I am grateful for the chance to speak in what I hope will be a genuinely constructive debate.

As the Government’s motion sets out, tackling the climate emergency must be a shared and national endeavour, and that is why the Scottish Liberal Democrats are proud of the part that we have played in working with others to force the pace of change so far. Our 2030 target for a 75 per cent reduction in emissions, which the Scottish Liberal Democrats supported and worked hard with others to secure, is one of the most determined in the world, and experts recognise that it pushes us to the very brink of what is possible. Chris Stark, the chief executive of the UK Climate Change Committee, described it recently as “very, very stretching”.

Now, the work of making that target a reality really needs to bite, because more warm words will just make for an even warmer planet. The measure of our commitment will be ascertained not in the ambition of the targets that we set, but in the rate and reach of their achievement. My amendment speaks to the specific challenges that are presented by the transport sector, and that is what I intend to spend much of my time discussing.

We will not have a chance of meeting our climate change targets unless options for transport are truly, rapidly and radically decarbonised. The First Minister said that she recognised that in her reshuffle and arranged the portfolios accordingly. I welcome that. In 2015, transport became Scotland’s single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. It accounts for more than a third of our emissions. Progress has been made in other sectors, but transport has not budged. If that does not change, we will be in trouble, so that has to be one of the main missions in the current session of Parliament.

Car travel has been on the increase since the end of world war two. In 2019, 48.7 billion vehicle kilometres were travelled by road—up 10 per cent in a decade. The pandemic means that people are—understandably—nervous about getting back into the groove of using public transport, and surveys have shown that people are even more inclined to favour their cars above other forms of travel. Getting people out of their cars is one of our biggest challenges. Let us not shy away from the issue of active travel. We have, so far, failed to make Scotland a cycling nation.

My critics will point to the fact that I helped to lead a campaign that forced the City of Edinburgh Council to shelve plans for a low-traffic neighbourhood in my constituency. That is entirely true, but I opposed that scheme not because I oppose active travel—I do not; far from it—but because, had the city council bothered to ask my community, it would have discovered that it was proposing to close routes into what was largely a low-traffic area to begin with. In doing that, it would actually have compounded congestion and pollution on arterial routes.

I passionately support the principles of LTNs. I like what they have achieved in Waltham Forest, but I particularly like the five public consultations and the co-production that went into their creation there. None of that took place in my constituency, which was a great shame. As the council knows, its approach in seeking to strong-arm my constituents into permanent lifestyle change has set back the active travel agenda in our city. That is typical of the disconnect between political aspiration and delivery on the ground.

The 10 per cent target for 2020 completely failed to materialise, and last September’s statistics show that the share of car journeys that are instead being taken by bike has fallen to 1.2 per cent. Put simply, cycling needs to be made as easy as possible. Lockdown showed that when people feel that cycling is a safe option they are eager to take it up. With quieter roads, whole families were taking the opportunity to get out and get active in a safe and sustainable way. The streets of Amsterdam are not filled with bikes by accident. The Government there gave people the infrastructure and support that they needed so that both young and old could feel safe, secure and comfortable enough to get on their bikes.

There are many things that we could do in Scotland to help people to feel exactly like that. We could use planning processes to make sure that roads have space to keep everyone safe, and we could make funding available for facilities such as showers and changing rooms in workplaces. We could also get cycling proficiency training in schools back on track. At the moment, its availability is plummeting, which makes no sense at all.

Electrification must be the way forward for journeys for which active travel is not an option. Again, confidence will be key. Half of those asked say that they would consider buying an electric vehicle if they felt that the charging network was there to support them. We want to help people along the way by switching police cars and vehicles that are used by councils and the rest of the public sector to electric. That would help to motivate the roll-out of the charging network and build people’s confidence so that they can make that switch.

My amendment signs off with a challenge. Heathrow airport is already the single biggest producer of emissions in the UK. A third runway would go directly against all our green ambitions—the flights that would come to Scotland as a result would release 600,000 tonnes of emissions into our environment. Despite that, the Scottish National Party has a contract to support the building of that third runway. That flies in the face of the climate emergency and everything that we are trying to achieve. [Interruption.] I am afraid that I am in my final minute.

When the First Minister stood in Parliament and declared a climate emergency, we were told that difficult decisions would have to be made and everything would be under review—everything, it seems, except for that contract. That cannot be allowed to stand. Therefore, I urge all colleagues in the chamber to support my amendment.

I move amendment S6M-00278.4, to insert at end:

“; recognises that rapidly reducing emissions in the transport sector will be critical to Scotland meeting its 2030 and 2045 targets; considers that achieving sustainability will require the acceleration of work, including the opening of new railway lines and stations, establishing a network of well-maintained rapid chargers for electric vehicles and additional support to rapidly increase active travel, and believes that, as an indication of its commitment to sustainability, the Scottish Government should immediately withdraw from its written agreement with Heathrow Airport to support the building of a third runway, which is incompatible with the climate emergency.”

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer—sorry, I mean Presiding Officer. You do change around a bit.

I pay tribute to my colleagues across the chamber. They have spoken with real passion and eloquence, and very movingly so. I pay special tribute to those who have made their first speeches today. Marie McNair and Natalie Don made significant contributions to the debate and I welcome them both to their places.

Scotland has a poverty problem that is growing in menace. The Scottish Association for Mental Health recently published a report that states that 29 per cent of people in Scotland are unable to afford three or more of the 22 basic necessities that have been identified as essential and which no one should go without. Being forced to decide between heating and eating is not a choice; it is a blatant violation of human rights.

The SNP fought the election on the basis that it would not seek to hold another referendum until Covid has passed, but even if this Government meets its target of reducing child poverty to below 18 per cent, which is by no means a given, that will still leave us with up to 40,000 children living in poverty. The Government needs to address that issue before we turn to matters of the constitution.

Although it was not entirely a surprise, my colleagues and I were disappointed that the minister felt the need to hijack the debate and turn it into yet another excuse to squabble with Westminster before the motion had even been lodged. The Government will boast proudly of its achievements in reducing poverty in Scotland, but that is not enough. It is simply not doing everything that it could do, and that is why I intervened on the cabinet secretary.

Far from doing down our social security system, I want to empower it. I want to give it the reach that was imagined for it by the signatories of the Smith commission in 2014—all of them. They recognised that the Scottish social security system under full sail would have command over £4 billion-worth of spending. Imagine what we could do to level the playing field and address poverty and social inequality in this country with that kind of reach. Instead, we have taken the levers of just 3 per cent of that opportunity.

The Government will also boast proudly of a range of achievements, but when food bank usage in this country is at a record high, it cannot lay everything at the feet or the door of Westminster. When a household is made homeless every 19 minutes and those in the most deprived parts of the country are more than twice as likely to fail than to get a higher at level A, every second spent bickering about Westminster in order to push forward the constitutional debate is a second not spent assisting those in Scotland who need the Government the most. The Liberal Democrats will always hold Westminster to account, but only when it is relevant to the progress of our society, and we will never try to push forward that constitutional agenda.

I welcome Miles Briggs back to his place, and I look forward to working with him on a cross-party basis. I thought that Pam Duncan-Glancy, with typical passion, brought to the debate a compelling argument about how our two Governments will committee together have to carry some of the responsibility for this issue, and they will have to work together on some aspects. I thought that that was very eloquently put. Maggie Chapman rightly pointed out the instantaneous impact that doubling the child payment and introducing a universal basic income would have on the poverty problem in our country—it would be transformational overnight. It is within our grasp in lots of ways and we just need to reach for it. As I said, Natalie Don’s speech was passionate and I think that that passion will mark many contributions to come. It was also great to hear from Richard Leonard. To listen to him speak about poverty is inspiring; he sets a challenge and a high bar, for which we should all reach.

The Liberal Democrat amendment calls for

“urgent interventions to ... include an immediate end to the scandal of thousands of children and adults waiting over a year for”

first-time

“mental health treatment”.

That wait is keeping so many people from fulfilling their potential—and not just those people, but those who care for them and live around them.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its preparations for Euro 2020, including the fan zone. (S6T-00055)

With respect, all the human rights and inclusion issues have been successfully resolved south of the border.

Hospitality businesses in Scotland, especially in Glasgow, have had a punishing time. They have invested thousands of pounds in safety measures only to be shut for months. The rules remain tight and businesses are not even allowed to advertise the fact that they are showing the tournament. The last thing that they want is for the progress that we have made to be undone by a third wave. The cabinet secretary can understand their concern about a temporary event on their doorstep that is able to accommodate thousands of people for 31 days straight. What reassurance will the Government give to those businesses? What additional measures will it take to mitigate the impact on them if a third wave hits Glasgow as a result of the existence of the fan zone?

Finally, after weeks of asking, NHS Lothian announced an hour ago that, from next week, walk-in vaccination clinics will be available to those over 40, which is very welcome. Last week, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care told me that Edinburgh is now the new Glasgow in terms of infection rates. If that is the case, why do we still not have access to the door-to-door surge testing that has been available for weeks in areas such as G41? Why are Edinburgh residents not as deserving of Covid protections as Glasgow residents?

We are just days away from Scotland’s men’s team appearing at its first tournament for 23 years—and at Hampden, of all places. That should kick-start a summer of great sport and activity, from grass-roots to elite level. After 15 months of being locked out of events, people are excited by the prospect, but they expect things to be done in the safest way possible.

Asymptomatic testing has been an integral part of trial events across the United Kingdom, including entry to the FA cup final last month. Euro 2020 events are being advertised as taking place in a Covid-secure environment, but there is no way on earth of verifying that without knowing the Covid status of every participant. Why has the Government decided that mandatory testing is not necessary for attendance at the fan zone or the games at Hampden?

I support the cabinet secretary’s aspiration of moving as fast as we can to alleviate poverty in Scotland, but does she recognise that, as her Government has taken only 2.8 per cent of the welfare provisions that are available to it and which the Department for Work and Pensions has said that it is ready to hand over, she is not moving at the pace that the Scottish people would like?

I will speak to my amendment and offer support to both the Labour and Green Party amendments.

I welcome Shona Robison to her post. Shona is an excellent politician and it is great to see her back in the Cabinet, in front-line politics. I worked very well with her when she was health secretary and I hope to do so with her again in her current brief, which is a very important one.

About three years ago, a story emerged about a little boy in Glasgow whose teacher had noticed him taking tomato sauce sachets from the canteen. He was taking the sachets home, squeezing the ketchup out of them and adding boiling water to make soup. He was doing that because there was literally nothing else for him to eat in the house. Thankfully, that was spotted and there was an intervention and a referral to a food bank, where parcels would include tins with ring-pulls on them so that the little boy could open them himself. He was starving in 21st century Scotland.

There are countless reasons why families find themselves in such situations, such as delays built into universal credit, insecure work and no recourse to public funds. We could debate any one of those catalysts for poverty for hours and I hope that, over time, we will give each of them that attention. However, that particular boy was facing such hardship as a direct result of his parents’ mental ill health. The Liberal Democrats and I have been talking about the links between mental ill health and poverty for many years. That is one of the reasons why transformational investment in mental health is so important to us.

The case that I have just described is symptomatic of one of the biggest, yet often overlooked, contributors to poverty in our country, which is Scotland’s mental health crisis. That is one of the reasons why, in February, the Liberal Democrats succeeded in asking the Scottish Parliament to declare a national mental health emergency. Everyone deserves the opportunity to work hard and to build a good life for themselves, their family and their community. Mental ill health is one of the biggest barriers to that—it disrupts people’s education, training, and entry into and progression within work. It does that to their families and those caring for them, too.

Although mental ill health does not discriminate as such, in that it is classless, it undoubtedly walks hand in hand with poverty. Suicide rates in Scotland increase with increasing deprivation. The rates in the most deprived areas are double those of the Scottish average. It is one of the most devastating health inequalities in the country and it is directly and inexorably linked to poverty.

My amendment also covers education as a route out of poverty. Over the past year, much of the discussion surrounding education has been focused on university students and exam-level school pupils—rightly so, because they have been severely let down by the Government. That matters because education provides a ladder to social mobility. Education could be a leveller and should offer opportunity, but far too often a broken society means that it serves only to widen the gap between our richest and poorest young people. At the age of five, children in families in the highest 20 per cent of earners are around 13 months ahead in their vocabulary compared with children in families in the bottom 20 per cent of earners. We know that that situation has worsened in the pandemic.

The only route to stable mental health and life-changing education is through appropriate and decent housing—it is the rock on which everything else is built. If someone’s home is making them sick, keeping them up at night or collapsing around them, none of the routes out of poverty will be available to them.

My amendment acknowledges that three of the five evils that Beveridge first identified more than 70 years ago still hold sway in our society. Want of education, want of decent housing and want of sound health—particularly mental health—are destroying lives and perpetuating poverty. Getting those issues right could be the antidote that we all seek, but only if the Government takes action and uses the powers that it already has. As such, the Scottish Government cannot blame the full extent of the poverty that exists in this country on a Government that operates from another city. It cannot do that when it has been empowered for years to address poverty but still elects not to.

I move amendment S6M-00263.2, to leave out from “urges the UK Government” to end and insert:

“notes the risk that Scotland’s 2024 interim child poverty reduction target, unanimously agreed by the Parliament, could be missed and agrees therefore that families cannot afford for any delay on the part of either the Scottish or UK governments for additional action, backed by stronger fair work principles and a social security system that operates on a human rights basis; believes that poor mental health, the poverty-related attainment gap, and insecure and substandard housing are among the factors that prevent people from achieving their potential and getting on in life, and calls for urgent interventions to therefore include an immediate end to the scandal of thousands of children and adults waiting over a year for mental health treatment as the first step towards meeting the 18-week targets for the first time ever, the extension of funded early learning and childcare, Pupil Equity Funding and in-class support for children and young people, and the building of at least 40,000 new homes for social rent during the current parliamentary session as part of a plan to end homelessness and raise the standard of housing in Scotland.”