Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 18 November 2020
No. I do not have time.
At the moment, the salmon farming industry is threatened with a market ban on exports to the United States, which should be something that concerns Annabelle Ewing as much as it concerns me. This is the danger that Andy Wightman talked about: the more the Government papers over the consensus, and the more that it is captured by the corporate sector and does not balance that with science and the interests of conservation and other stakeholders, the more it stifles progress, change and our ability to tackle and act on the climate emergency.
Parliament will have another opportunity, with the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Bill, to lay out its strong objectives for protecting the environment, and to lay out the environmental principles for a strong watchdog—environmental standards Scotland—that can hold the Government to account.
Although we have been unable to find consensus in the debate, I hope that we can find it when the bill comes to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee next week—certainly among the Opposition parties and maybe even the Government—to make it stronger so that we can protect the environment and act on the nature emergency. That will be the second opportunity; we might have failed today, but we will be back next week.