Hansard

It is great for me to speak in today’s debate as the new environment, climate change and land reform spokesperson for Scottish Labour. I thank my colleague Claudia Beamish for her excellent contribution to the debate and for her work in the run-up to COP26.

This has been an excellent debate. The four committees have made important recommendations, and there have been some excellent and passionate speeches. I hope that the Scottish Government will listen to the debate. We need to meet our climate change targets; it is not enough just to have good targets. The criticism from the committees is powerful. There is cross-party support across the Parliament for more radical action to tackle our climate emergency, and members have made an incredibly powerful case for wide-ranging and cross-cutting measures.

The Local Government and Communities Committee concluded that decarbonising our existing housing stock is a key challenge in the update and has to link into tackling fuel poverty. The draft heat in buildings strategy is an important step, but there are different challenges across Scotland. For example, Councillor Heddle from Orkney Islands Council argued that there has not been support for heat pumps to date, which is a practical solution for rural communities that needs to be supported; whereas, in urban areas and cities, councils will need support to meet the challenge of heat networks because of the complexity and the risk taking that will be required.

In Edinburgh, for example, we are now seeing the second phase of our Edinburgh Community Solar Co-operative, which is a community-led co-op that uses our schools to create electricity and generate resources, which are reinvested locally. However, it took the best part of a decade for the co-op to be established, and we do not have that time now, so we need community projects across the country to be supported with knowledge from our councils. If we are phasing out gas boilers in new homes in three years, the work needs to start now. We need more support to incentivise existing home owners, especially those in tenements, as Liam McArthur said.

Councils are critical in protecting us from impacts of climate change that are already happening, such as flooding, and in relation to the need for new green infrastructure to support adaptation measures. At our committee, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and witnesses from individual councils were clear that they need to be properly resourced and empowered to meet their climate change ambitions, with investment beyond national programmes. They worry that current levels of funding are not sufficient to meet the challenges and targets that are set out in the plan update. In his introductory comments, the minister mentioned pots of money, but long-term revenue and capital funding will enable councils to plan ahead. We need a holistic approach across the country, so we need to change our thinking on how funding is delivered.

In our committee evidence session, the Royal Town Planning Institute made the point that we need to put planning centre stage in reducing emissions and giving people attractive low-carbon connections between our homes, our schools, our workplaces and our shops. One of the lessons of the pandemic is that there is an appetite for safer walking and cycling across age groups. If we are to deliver the aspirations of 20-minute neighbourhoods, which everybody loves, we will need joined-up planning, investment in new active travel networks, much more affordable and accessible bus and rail services, and investment in low-carbon vehicles. That point was made effectively by Emma Harper and Edward Mountain earlier in the debate.

The call for detail and action is echoed across the reports. Although the update is only an update—it is not meant to be a full plan—the Scottish Government needs to listen and turn the targets into clear action plans. Scottish Labour has been clear in calling for bolder and clearer action from the Scottish Government to tackle the climate emergency. That action needs to be tied into the nature emergency, too. We need to think about how we rebuild our economy after Covid-19 and about the opportunities to join up different policy initiatives, so that we tackle the inequalities that the pandemic has exposed in our society.

Claudia Beamish was right to highlight the skills that are needed to give us an effective green recovery, so we should ensure that we do not miss out support for those who are unemployed or at risk of unemployment over the next few months as a result of the current crisis.

Procurement will be critical. In Scotland, we spend £11 billion of public money on procurement every year. That money needs to be leveraged to ensure that we purchase climate-friendly goods and that, when there is no Scottish supplier, we help existing companies to diversify or create new supply chains. That work needs to link into the real living wage and to recognise trade unions. We need to reduce our carbon footprint right across the procurement sector.

As Richard Leonard said, we also need private sector companies to source low-carbon materials and prioritise manufacturing in Scotland.

There has been a huge missed opportunity in renewables across the country, but renewables will repower during the next few years. New constructions need to involve turbines and heat pumps that are built in Scotland. That is not only to help in our recovery from Covid, but to help us transition to a low-carbon economy. That means a just transition and—as Richard Leonard said—trade unions need to be involved in that transition and in tackling inequalities.

As Claudia Beamish—as well as almost everybody else—noted, we are in the run up to COP26, at which our climate targets will be broadcast as being world leading. They are world leading, but we have to showcase the steps that we are taking to implement them, because the progress that we have made thus far is not fast enough.

It is a shame that Roseanna Cunningham is not able to join us today, but I am sure that she will read the Official Report. I hope that when she leaves as minister, she leaves in her outbox the recommendations that the four committees have made, and that she in turn makes them to the next Parliament. We need to act on them urgently if we are going to tackle the climate emergency.