Meeting of the Parliament 12 March 2014
I thank Claire Baker and the Labour Party for bringing to the chamber a debate on air quality. I broadly agree with the tenor of the remarks made by the front benchers on the challenge that we face. However, it strikes me that it is one thing to announce more strategies and yet more action plans and all the rest of it, but this is a classic case of acting local while thinking global.
My reading of air management plans and strategies is that they have simply not worked. Maybe the minister should just start with a blank piece of paper and accept that the targets—whether they were set at European, UK or Scottish levels—have not been met. I noticed that the minister did not pick that up in his speech; perhaps he will do so when he winds up. He should perhaps admit where we are and then suggest that, rather than all these things that have not worked in the past, we would be better to consider a new approach. I agree with Patrick Harvie, although he should probably be grateful that it is Paul Wheelhouse on the front bench and not Fergus Ewing—I recall the days when Fergus Ewing was doing these debates for the SNP and there was a slightly different approach from the one that Mr Wheelhouse identified in his remarks.
Patrick Harvie was right about transport. I suspect that that was the point that the minister was implying in his remarks. As some members have said, dealing with transport and the issues that come from transport is fundamental in tackling the issue of air quality. In that sense, the easiest way to start is in public sector leadership. For example, how many ministerial cars are hybrid? How many ministerial cars are still run on a simple combustion engine—as, in fairness, they were in my day?
I hope that the minister has made a big inroad into that issue and that he would want to say to the chamber that every car that will sweep ministers home from work will run on some kind of hybrid engine. I hope that he will set a target for all our health boards, councils and public agencies to move over a period of time towards a position in which none of their vehicles is running on old diesel or petrol engines and all of them are, instead, hybrid vehicles. That would show some clear leadership from the public sector. This is one of the few areas where the public sector—national Government or local government—can set a strong target for change, and I suspect that the minister would have our clear support if he were to do that. I would certainly be happy to make that case in my part of the world, although I accept that it does not have the kind of air-quality problems that have been described by members from Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The argument is about transport emissions. I agree with the analysis about industrialisation and the move away from the emission-producing plants of yesteryear; they are exactly that—in the past. Therefore, when one assesses why Scotland is missing the climate change targets that are in the Labour motion and some of the amendments, one must agree that the issue comes down to transport, fundamentally.
We talk the talk around demand management. Some of us who have been around for a while will remember the debate about whether there should be a tolling regime in this capital city in order to pay for public transport. That was thrown out by all parties—they all ducked it. We should all hold up our hands and admit that we all ducked it.