Hansard

What a great debate this has been about Scotland’s rivers, and I thank Audrey Nicoll for it. I always like such debates, in which people champion things in their constituencies and regions, and I agree whole-heartedly with Christine Grahame and Willie Rennie about rivers being part of our identity and where we live.

Members will forgive me if I squeeze in some mentions of rivers in my constituency; I know that I am not really supposed to speak in terms of my constituency, but I cannot talk about rivers without occasionally mentioning the Ythan and the Don.

I am in no doubt that members recognise the vital importance of protecting Scotland’s rivers and streams. The Tay, the Forth, the Spey, the Dee, the Don, the Ythan, the Eden and the Tweed have all been mentioned, and they support the nation’s economy. Thousands of jobs in rural communities are directly dependent on the food, drink, tourism and recreation industries that our rivers sustain, so any problems with the rivers will have massive knock-on effects.

I am very alive to Willie Rennie’s discussion of water scarcity, its impact on yields and the additional stress that it put on farmers, who, basically, were told that they could not take any water from rivers over certain periods. Rivers on the east coast, in particular, were at very low levels until recently.

The case for biodiversity is beyond dispute. Rivers and their flood plains support the highly diverse habitats and ecosystems of otters, salmon, dippers and damselflies.

Humans thrive in rivers, too. I hope that members will forgive me for mentioning that one of my most treasured recent memories of my late sister is of our swimming in the frankly perishing River Dee at Cambus o’ May two years ago. The water was not 23° on that summer day, I can tell you.

Indeed, I also want to mention wild swimming and how Scotland has become the destination for that activity, with people from across the UK coming to swim in our rivers. Swimming, wild or otherwise, is one of the best things to do in Scotland, and people are coming here for that new and trendy pastime. The fact is that Scotland’s rivers are respected and loved by people from well beyond our borders.

I have heard today about the on-going threats to our river environments and the species that depend on them. The freshwater pearl mussel has been mentioned, as has the Dee salmon. I recently met representatives of the River Dee Trust to discuss some of its suggestions for protecting salmon in that area, and I was also very interested to hear what Emma Harper had to say in her speech about what the Galloway Fisheries Trust has been doing.

In fact, I want to note the importance of river trusts throughout the country and of the incredible work that volunteers do, particularly in tackling invasive non-native species. Giant hogweed is a real threat to our riverbanks; it is nasty stuff, and it is particularly difficult to handle. It seeds at an alarming rate; in fact, it is almost a Sisyphean task to deal with it, and I commend the work done by river trusts in keeping giant hogweed and other species down.

At this point, I want to mention the Scottish invasive species initiative, which is a groundbreaking partnership led by NatureScot to tackle the problem alongside rivers. It covers a third of Scotland’s total area, and phase 2, in 2023, was awarded more than £2 million under the nature restoration fund.

I am pleased that so many people have mentioned the importance of that fund and the work that is being done on our rivers. The fund is a key lever in delivering our biodiversity strategy; it has funded numerous projects from the remeandering of rivers to the creation and restoration of ponds and wetlands, which enhance biodiversity. I was very interested in what Christine Grahame had to say about the tributaries coming into the Tweed, and I know of some particularly impressive work that has been done through the River Peffery catchment restoration programme near Dingwall.

Some members mentioned the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill and the statutory targets. We will have plenty of time to talk about what we do in that regard over the coming months; the targets are challenging but achievable, and they will be developed using expert advice with significant stakeholder engagement. I do encourage volunteers involved in river trusts to get involved in the scrutiny of that bill.

I will take on board Paul Sweeney’s comments about integrating river management with plans. A lot is happening in and around the Clyde—and Mr Sweeney might know that my parents are from Clydebank. The Clyde looks in a lot better shape now than it did in the 1970s.