Hansard

This committee debate is extremely important and timely as it comes in the immediate aftermath of the recent severe weather and flooding. They focused all our minds on emergency arrangements and resilience, and, equally important, on the longer-term climate change adaptation process.

The overarching aim of the draft programme is:

“To increase the resilience of Scotland's people, environment, and economy to the impacts of a changing climate.”

Scottish Labour is solidly behind the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee’s motion, and I thank the convener and the Minister for Environment and Climate Change for their opening speeches in what I hope will be a positive debate.

Our committee took a wide range of evidence, as has already been said. The evidence was broad and deep in its range. We wrote to the minister and we received a detailed response, which has been helpful.

There has also been a Scottish Government public consultation, the result of which was out recently. That scrutiny has helped to hone the draft programme into a more focused way forward. We now have the opportunity to engage with one another and the minister and take into account everything in the final programme.

In his foreword to the draft programme, the minister states:

“Our climate affects people’s health, our road and rail services, water supplies, energy demands, tourism – the list is ... endless.”

It is indeed endless. I was very relieved to hear the minister reassure us today about speaking with different departments: that on-going dialogue is essential to tackle climate change.

It is impossible for any single speaker to touch on all the issues, but between us we have a chance to get it right. We should acknowledge that, importantly,

“The Programme ... sets out the arrangements for wider engagement in meeting those objectives.”

As the minister just said, it is a collective endeavour. Governance arrangements are at the heart of the way forward. In this rapidly changing world, it is essential that the climate change delivery board is a robust and effective body as it oversees delivery.

In the draft programme we see that the board will have a new reporting role for the programme, which relates to the meeting of annual emissions targets, which we all know have been missed in successive years. We have future challenges on that.

I turn to monitoring and assessment of the programme. The minister stated in his response to the committee:

“It is important for the evaluation of the Programme to be an on-going process to ensure the right measures are in place to address the effects of climate change. We are currently considering options for monitoring and reporting ... and the views of the Committee and stakeholders will be taken into account”.

I note that perhaps the minister will explain in his closing speech more about how that will work in practice, which would be helpful.

In its briefing for the committee, Scottish Environment LINK recommends that

“All wider policies which will make Scotland resilient and adaptable to a changing climate in the long-term”

should be addressed not just in terms of

“addressing risks in the next 5 years”,

but beyond. I hope that the minister will take that into account.

In our letter to the minister, the committee said:

“The Committee will also consider climate change issues as part of its own scrutiny of the National Performance Framework 3,”

or NPF3. We will also consider climate change issues in relation to the national planning framework 3, which has the same acronym. The national planning framework has a fundamental role to play in this context. It had a fundamental role for the previous Administration and will have a role beyond this Administration, into the future. I hope that the minister agrees with me on that.

The responses to the Scottish Government consultation show the range and depth of understanding of and commitment to climate adaptation across Scotland. Although there was

“broad support for the Programme’s overarching framework, and its objectives, policies and proposals ... it was common for respondents to request more detail about certain aspects of the Programme and to suggest that there should be a greater emphasis on ‘taking action’.”

That is important for the final draft.

Significantly,

“there were requests for clarification about how”

the programme

“would be delivered, who was responsible / accountable for delivery, priorities and timescales, funding, and arrangements for reporting and monitoring.”

The committee’s view is that a lot of that is in the draft programme, but there are ways in which perhaps it could be sharpened.