Meeting of the Parliament 26 June 2024
As others have done, I thank the organisations and individuals who provided evidence and informed the scrutiny of the bill, and I acknowledge the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee’s work in undertaking that scrutiny pretty forensically.
This area of policy has always benefited from good cross-party collaboration, which has been in evidence throughout the bill process. As a result, as Sarah Boyack said, the bill is now much improved compared with what was introduced.
In particular, I commend the MSPs who led the consideration of the 100-and-whatever amendments yesterday evening. That allowed for constructive changes to be made, and some amendments were useful challenges that prompted commitments from the minister.
I make a special mention of Graham Simpson, who demonstrated that members do not have to press every amendment to a vote in order to make their point. I hope that others have learned that lesson.
I also thank the minister, who, as others have said, had the bill added to her portfolio at late notice, midway through the process. I am very grateful to her for the collaborative approach that she took in her engagement with me, and I detect that she took the same approach with members across the chamber. It would be fair to say that that approach was adopted by her predecessor, Lorna Slater, too.
At stage 1, I echoed concerns that were expressed by other members that the bill was light on detail, lacked clarity and did not measure up to its lofty ambitions and the needs of the moment. The final bill is certainly not perfect, and it leaves much of the heavy lifting to a future circular economy strategy and future targets, which are to be developed by ministers and others in due course. Nonetheless, there have been welcome changes that have added much-needed detail, and there are now provisions that embed just transition principles and strengthen the recognition that, in a circular economy, reducing consumption is just as important as reducing waste.
I very much welcome the commitments that the minister made yesterday on issues that did not make it into the final text, including, as Sarah Boyack indicated, on the joint working with the UK Government that will be necessary to reduce waste exports, which mask our own waste and emissions while causing untold damage to the environment overseas.
As I said in the stage 1 debate, the bill is timely, because it is more urgent than ever that we reduce our consumption-based emissions in order to combat climate change. In that context, and given the commitment to the necessary follow-through in the circular economy strategy and the other undertakings that were made by the minister, I confirm that Scottish Liberal Democrats will vote for the bill at decision time.