Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2026 [Draft]
::I take the opportunity to thank the clerks of the committee, my fellow committee members, the Scottish Parliament information centre and all the witnesses who gave evidence. In particular, I thank members of Scottish Environment LINK and RSPB Scotland, which organisations bring considerable expertise and wisdom as conservationist land managers and policy specialists.
The bill has been a single opportunity to make progress in this parliamentary session to tackle the nature emergency, but we need another bill in the next session. It is clear in areas such as clean water that we are falling out of alignment with the European Union—we are way behind on that. It is also clear that in how we reform the management of our seas, coastal waters and fisheries, we are slipping behind the rest of Europe and, sadly, we are slipping behind England as well. We have seen frustrations from coastal communities being reflected in many of the amendments to the bill that have been lodged at stage 2 and stage 3.
I point to amendments from Ariane Burgess and Sarah Boyack that tried to fill a huge gap in the bill, but there was not time to unpack all that. Finlay Carson made a good point—although he perhaps did not make a good point about greyhounds earlier on—about the gap in marine management that will have to be filled in the next session if we are to have a hope of moving forward.
On deer management, at this point I am not entirely sure what the minister’s national venison food supply chain management plan will look like. There are still questions in my mind about who will be setting the ambition. Will it be NatureScot or Sainsbury’s? I am watching to see whether the plan will align with the recommendation of the independent deer working group.
On national parks, as I said earlier, the Government needs to be in a position to feel confident in leading a debate on national parks, and to feel confident in celebrating national parks, in expanding them and in designating new parks. A good basis for doing that in the next session of Parliament will be for the Parliament to review what has happened with national parks and the benefits that have been delivered over the 20 years since their establishment, and to explore some of the misinformation in the public narrative around national parks.
We should value national parks and empower them to protect our environment more and to support the communities that live in them. Earlier, we talked about lessons. There are certainly lessons from the Flamingo Land debacle, which I do not think have been fully reflected into the bill; however, those lessons will need to be learned.
We have seen progress on many individual issues in the bill. I appreciate that that was a challenge, because many of those issues were not part of the original bill, and it has been a challenge for committees to scrutinise them. On swift bricks, Holyrood showed how it can be fleet of foot. It has taken four years of trying at Westminster to get action on the issue, and it has still not achieved it. We have managed to do it in a matter of weeks through having a consensual conversation. It shows how devolution can work well to make progress on these islands.
I am pleased that my colleague Ariane Burgess got through the amendment to incorporate Ramsar sites in the bill. That will certainly be welcomed by her constituents at Coul links.
I am also pleased that the minister, Jim Fairlie, managed to finally close the loophole on grouse moor licensing. It is important that the licensed area moves beyond the narrow area where shooting takes place to where raptor species nest. I have been working on and highlighting that campaign since the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. It is great that the minister has found a robust solution to that in this bill.
Many more issues have been dealt with and many more issues have been raised, which I hope will be dealt with in the future.
The Greens absolutely support the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill at stage 3. It is an important foundation for further action to tackle the nature emergency, but there is so much more that needs to come.