Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 05 October 2021
I am grateful for that update. It is clear that it is not acceptable for correspondence from Scottish ministers to be ignored by UK ministers, and I hope that that issue will be resolved. However, it appears that there have been differences in how the Welsh Government has interacted with the UK Government. Perhaps colleagues on the other side of the chamber could provide insight into that, because that is another point of frustration. Scottish Labour does not have access to the legal advice that either Government gets, so we need more transparency on that.
The cabinet secretary and Donald Cameron spoke well and fairly about the fact that there is lots of agreement about what the bill seeks to achieve. There is little policy difference.
I turn to the amendments on forest risk commodities and deforestation. Alice Lucas, writing for the Fairtrade Foundation, reminds us that
“poverty and deforestation fuel each other in a negative cycle”
and that deforestation is
“wreaking havoc on the planet and its people”.
Today, many of us are wearing challenge poverty week badges. It would be good to be using our time to debate and discuss climate justice and to look at the impact of poverty, but here we are debating legislative consent instead.
To be honest, we are not quite sure how we have reached this point, but it seems to us that there should have been much earlier engagement and discussion between the UK Government and the Scottish Government. It will not be for Labour members to solve that, but we urge people to work more closely together. To make real progress in tackling the climate and nature emergencies, we need both Governments to work together to deliver strong environmental protections.
I move amendment S6M-01512.2, to leave out from “further calls on” to end and insert:
“is disappointed that the UK and Scottish governments have failed to have early and constructive dialogue on the environmental protections that are required, and believes that parliamentary time would be better spent on measures to address the global climate emergency.”
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.