Committee
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee 13 January 2026
13 Jan 2026 · S6 · Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Item of business
Draft Climate Change Plan
Professor Jill Belch (Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh)
Watch on SPTV
May I answer that question? The ambition for outdoor air quality is reasonable. There is an ambition to reduce air pollution. However, the plan has missed out something important in that it has not talked at all about ozone. As you may know, Scotland does not really control ozone. A lot of it comes from Europe and from England. It can damage health, but the problem occurs when it mixes with VOCs—volatile organic compounds—which come off paint, fuel, industry and even chairs, couches and sometimes vegetation. What happens is that they prevent ozone from being metabolised. There is nothing in the plan about any legislation to have fuel covered, to reduce paint spillage, and so on. My impression is that it is one thing that is missing.The second missing thing is ammonia, which, as you know, comes from urine, manure and fertiliser. When ammonia is hit by increased temperatures, it combines with NOand SOto form ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate, which are forms of PM, which, as you know, are the most toxic compounds. Things can be done, such as covering slurry, managing how it is spread and not fertilising during high temperatures—you can have legislation for that. That has, in my opinion, been missed.Otherwise, the plan has done really well on external air quality, and it has summarised the literature. However, internal air quality has hardly been touched on. Some committee members may know that the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh wrote to the Government asking that wood stoves not be permitted in new builds. Wood stoves produce about 20 to 29 per cent of all the PMin the United Kingdom. Only about 8 per cent of people in the UK burn wood, although the figure may well be higher in Scotland because of our rural community. We are now introducing—thank goodness—legislation for warmer houses and for insulation, but that in itself will stop air circulation. There is excellent work out there showing that the stoves that have been approved by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—that is, the so-called eco-stoves—produce about 400 times more PMthan gas boilers, while, of course, electricity produces none at all. To me, those are the three missing components in the air pollution climate change document.
In the same item of business
09:15
The Convener
SNP
Item 2 is oral evidence from a panel of witnesses on the draft climate change plan and its implications for public health in Scotland. This is the first of t...
David Torrance (Kirkcaldy) (SNP)
SNP
Good morning. Witnesses, do you think that the policies and proposals set out in the climate change plan will improve indoor and outdoor air quality, and do ...
Professor Jill Belch (Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh)
May I answer that question? The ambition for outdoor air quality is reasonable. There is an ambition to reduce air pollution. However, the plan has missed ou...
David Torrance
SNP
Do any other witnesses want to come in on that point? No? Okay. Could there be any unintended consequences for health or inequality from the policies?
Professor Peter Scarborough (University of Oxford)
Do you mean generally in relation to air quality?
David Torrance
SNP
Yes.
Professor Scarborough
I work on food and diet, so I will speak only about the agriculture elements. I do not think that the proposals that have been put forward in the agriculture...
Professor Belch
We know that air pollution strongly produces health inequality. Therefore, there will be benefits as we reduce it. The issue is that one of the ways that we ...
Brian Whittle (South Scotland) (Con)
Con
Good morning. I am interested in the data on change of diet. I had a meeting yesterday with Food Standards Scotland about its report, and I was pleased to he...
Professor Scarborough
The Climate Change Committee report is clear about having a pathway for bringing down meat consumption. Maybe I am missing it, but I could not see that in th...
Brian Whittle
Con
I am talking about the Food Standards Scotland report and the way in which it has been interpreted.
Professor Scarborough
Okay—you mean the Food Standards Scotland report and what underlies it. It is a question of the evidence for the health benefits of reducing meat consumption...
Brian Whittle
Con
I have to say that I agree with you that we should get processed meat out of the diet, for sure, but I am concerned that we talk about obesity and diabetes b...
Professor Scarborough
Obesity can be related to more than one thing. Yes, it is related to sugar and salt consumption, but it is also related to red meat consumption.
Brian Whittle
Con
It is just not.
Professor Scarborough
The evidence is that, if you are reducing meat consumption, you see a reduction in body weight levels and in diabetes levels—
Brian Whittle
Con
I am sorry to interrupt you, but we have eaten red meat ad infinitum, and obesity has become a problem only in the past 20 or 30 years.
Professor Scarborough
We have not eaten red meat at the levels at which we are consuming it at the moment.
Brian Whittle
Con
Tell me how that is related to red meat.
Professor Scarborough
Red meat consumption in the UK is at a historically high level, although it is slightly scaling down. If you look at it in terms of the amount of consumption...
Brian Whittle
Con
But is that processed meat? Are we talking about processed meat or are we talking about fresh meat that we produce? What are we talking about here?
Professor Scarborough
Both have been going up since the 1940s or 1950s—they are both higher than they were. This is where we are at. Meat has become a staple within the diet in a ...
Brian Whittle
Con
Just finally, should we be doing more? Generally speaking, the production of meat has a high-carbon footprint globally. We should be exporting our knowledge ...
Professor Scarborough
Yes, without a doubt. The Climate Change Committee’s carbon budgets report is quite clear that things really need to crank up by 2045—that is when big change...
Brian Whittle
Con
Am I out of time, convener?
The Convener
SNP
No—on you go.
Brian Whittle
Con
This might be one of the most important topics that we discuss in relation to the health of the nation in this whole year. My worry is that people, especiall...
Professor Scarborough
That is exactly what the Climate Change Committee suggests in its report and through the balanced pathway—we should be eating a healthy, sustainable diet fro...
Brian Whittle
Con
I very much agree with you about changing the food environment in which we work, but I think that you are tackling the wrong thing.