Hansard

I do not want to depart into a debate about climate science. I was simply making the point gently—although I seem to have hit a raw nerve with Mr Harvie in doing so—that the strong scientific consensus in the 1970s was that we were heading for another ice age. I refer him to the scientific articles, which I can produce for him if he wishes, that said that at the time. We should always be wary when a scientific consensus is claimed and we should always challenge and debate such matters.

I will raise a couple of issues on which we could do with a bit more science in the debate, despite what we have heard from the Scottish Government about scientific evidence and advice. The first issue is genetically modified crops. It is widely believed throughout the world and the scientific community that such technology offers great opportunities and has the ability to feed the world’s growing population. If any member has not had the opportunity to do so, I strongly recommend that they visit the excellent James Hutton Institute in Invergowrie, which is doing world-leading research in the subject but which is held back by the Scottish Government’s approach, which does not permit the institute to do field trials of GM crops.

I understand the pressure that Governments are under and I understand that the public are concerned, that there is a lot of pseudo-science out there on the internet and that there are concerns about tabloid headlines that refer to Frankenstein foods. I simply say to the Scottish Government that it should have more courage and listen to people such as Anne Glover, the former chief scientific adviser to the Scottish Government and the current chief scientific adviser to the European Union, who said just this year:

“There is no substantiated case of any adverse impact on human health, animal health or environmental health, so that’s pretty robust evidence, and I would be confident in saying that there is no more risk in eating GMO food than eating conventionally farmed food”.

I am sure that members will recognise that the strong belief among scientists is that we should not close the door on GM crops. The Scottish Government should listen to that scientific advice.

The second issue is energy policy. The Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee has just done an extensive inquiry into renewable energy. In the breadth of the evidence that the committee took, it was interesting to note how the weight of the scientific and technical evidence was sceptical about the overfocus on intermittent forms of energy, particularly onshore wind.

When we looked at the evidence from bodies such as the Institution of Engineering and Technology, which sent the committee a joint submission from Sir Donald Miller, the former chair of Scottish Power, and Colin Gibson, the former power networks director of National Grid, we saw that they all expressed the same concerns.

On the other side of the debate, we received evidence from lobbyists such as WWF, Friends of the Earth and Scottish Renewables, which all said that there was no problem. We should listen to the scientists and the experts, not the lobbyists, and we will get better policy as a result.

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for indicating his support for my amendment. Education is vital: no matter how good our scientific advice is today, we need to ensure that we train the next generation of scientists so that they can continue to provide the necessary advice.

There are skills gaps in that regard. Any member of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee will be aware, from the evidence that is regularly presented to us, that there is a concern—particularly in areas such as engineering and science—that the flow of new entrants to the industry is not sufficient, which is an issue that Neil Findlay addressed in his speech.

There is a problem at college level with cuts in STEM courses. According to a parliamentary written answer that I received just a few weeks ago, there has been a 41 per cent decline in the number of places in science and mathematics at further education colleges since 2008-09. That is not surprising at a time of squeezed college budgets, which I will not go into today as we have discussed that enough in the past few weeks.

However, when colleges are under financial pressure, it is easy for them to make cuts in the courses that are expensive to deliver and labour intensive, and which require a lot of space. Those courses will be in science, technology and engineering, as it is much cheaper to deliver courses in a lecture theatre where a lot of students can be packed in. We need to be careful about that and ensure that those college courses are available. We also need better careers guidance—