Hansard

I am pleased to open the debate on the committee’s inquiry. I thank the many people who contributed to the inquiry, especially the councils and their local partners from business and the voluntary sector who hosted the committee on its four visits, to Stirling, Dundee, Aberdeen and Orkney.

I also thank my committee colleagues for their marathon efforts on the inquiry, which lasted for more than a year. Not only did the committee take a lot of evidence, it covered a lot of bases. It looked at everything from the intricacies of multimillion-pound green finance deals to whether tree preservation orders are fit for purpose. It was truly a multipolar inquiry, informed by expert opinion from a variety of disciplines.

By the time that I joined the committee as convener in September last year, the bulk of the evidence had been collected. I therefore saw my main role as ensuring that we kept on top of the mountain of evidence that we had accumulated and came up with a report that was less a compendium and more a succinct call to action—to separate the wood from the tree preservation orders, as it were.

I hope that we succeeded. I think that it is a truly excellent report with a small number of clear general messages, interspersed with some more granular recommendations. I know that the report has been welcomed by local government, which I expect will be keen to hear what the cabinet secretary says in response today.

On that note, it is perhaps a little disappointing that the Scottish Government was not able to reply to our report before today’s debate. If it had done so, we might have been able to push the discussion on a little further today. However, I look forward to hearing what the cabinet secretary has to say. The committee embarked on the report while recognising the importance of local government as a layer of democracy closest to and most rooted in our communities, and the heft that that gives when it comes to preparing for net zero, for instance, in taking place-based planning decisions that truly reflect local needs.

Another strength of councils is their unique convening power—the power to get different interests round the table and to be a catalyst for positive change in climate change and, indeed, all other areas. On that note, it is important to stress that our report is as much about those partnerships as it is about local government itself.

The committee agreed the report unanimously, in the spirit of consensus, which is important. I hope that that constructive spirit can be sustained in today’s debate, with a pragmatic focus on the question: where do we go from here? I propose that against the backdrop of our headline finding that we are unlikely to make Scotland net zero by 2045 unless we have a more empowered local government sector that has better access to skills and capital. The sector will need to play a full role in this energy revolution, and it must have a clear understanding of the specific role that the Scottish Government wants it to play in some of the key delivery areas.

This is not a counsel of woe; good progress has been made in many areas. The committee was inspired by the work that many councils are carrying out with their local partners in the business and voluntary sectors in areas such as electric vehicle charging, reuse, recycling and renewable energy. The report has case studies on those.

However, overall, councils feel underpowered and they are struggling to deal with the pace of change that the net zero transition requires. To paraphrase the evidence of one council leader, it is hard work for councils to think strategically about their carbon footprint when they are wondering how they will fill potholes and keep schools open. That is a real problem.

This is not simply the debate that we are all used to having about council funding, hugely important though that is. In the report, we call on the Scottish Government to provide additional support to councils in future budget cycles, to help them to contribute to national net zero targets.

There is also a knowledge and skills gap, as councils themselves recognise. The net zero transition means that unprecedented and often highly technical demands are being made on local government’s resources and skill sets.

Where do we go from here? I will set the scene by mentioning four key recommendations, knowing that other committee members might want to expand on those or other ideas in their speeches this afternoon.

First, the Scottish Government needs to provide a comprehensive road map for delivery of net zero in key areas that also gives councils more certainty than they have right now about the roles that they will have to play and the leadership that they must provide. That applies in several areas, but I single out heat in buildings as one area in which progress most needs to be made and where councils are least sure of their role and least certain that they have the right tools and resources for that role, whatever that turns out to be.

Secondly, and complementary to that first recommendation, the Scottish Government needs to create a local government-facing climate intelligence unit to provide help to councils in areas where in-depth specialist knowledge is lacking. One aspect in which such assistance is most needed is in securing help with green finance deals from institutional investors. Just about everyone agrees that that will be necessary if we are to have any hope of meeting the 2045 target. That is specialised and high-value work. The rewards are potentially great, but the level of financial risk is equally high. We also want the Scottish National Investment Bank to be more active at the interface between local government and private finance.

Thirdly, we call for a review of the Scottish Government’s challenge funding streams for net zero-related projects. We want there to be larger, fewer and more flexible funds, to avoid the needless bureaucracy and perverse incentives that we heard can bedevil the current system.

Fourthly, we call on the Scottish Government to address churn and delay in the planning system, which has a chilling effect on investment in all areas, including renewables. We also need a strategy to address long-term decline in the number of people who are employed in council planning departments.

In some areas, councils could do more to help themselves. An Accounts Commission report from last September found inconsistency among councils in the level and depth of strategic planning for net zero. It also found that, in general, councils were not thinking enough about mitigating measures and addressing residual carbon. That was largely corroborated by evidence from our inquiry.

Many councils need to do more to show their working and demonstrate how they propose to reach their targets. Councils will find that work easier if they can tap into the enthusiasm of their residents. That was underlined by the evidence from the Freiburg council in Germany, which is a global leader in municipal-level net zero planning. The witness was clear that the city’s success was largely due to the engaged and politically literate local population, who constantly kept the council on its toes. To put it differently, the net zero project should not be centralised but should be something that people and groups can shape, lead and deliver.

That would have been well understood by Patrick Geddes, the father of modern town planning, much of whose work was done not far from this building. Long before the modern environmental movement was born, he understood intuitively that the best and most sustainable solutions are usually low-impact ones that are decided locally, not imposed from far away. “Think globally, act locally” is a mantra of the modern environmental movement, but that message was at the core of his philosophy and is at the core of the committee’s report.

I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the conclusions and recommendations in the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee’s 1st Report, 2023 (Session 6), The role of local government and its cross-sectoral partners in financing and delivering a net-zero Scotland (SP Paper 302).