Hansard

The Executive's partnership agreement states:

"We want a Scotland that delivers sustainable development; that puts environmental concerns at the heart of public policy and secures environmental justice for all of Scotland's communities."

That is a truly noble ambition, supported by strong pillars, but what does the Executive offer us? A thread.

Members must not misunderstand me: that thread represents the Executive's commitment, and my Green colleagues and I are delighted that the partnership agreement contains even a little green thread. We are delighted that the other parties incorporated more green rhetoric than ever before into their political manifestos, but—and that is a big but—words are not enough. If one good policy is undermined by another policy, we are no further forward and, occasionally, we might even be worse off.

Again and again, the Executive claims that its fence-sitting on tough decisions is dictated by the restrictions of responsible government. Those claims are increasingly being exposed as shorthand for business as usual. That is not good enough. Part of the Greens' job in the Parliament is to act as a conscience, to hold up green commitments to the clear light of day and to demand serious action. Our job is to outline key areas where the reality on the ground varies so widely from the stated public policy that the little green thread is in knots.

The partnership agreement makes a commitment to reach a target of

"40% of Scottish electricity generation … from renewable sources by 2020".

That commitment is made to address climate change and to meet our commitments under the Kyoto treaty. However, the partnership agreement contains no target for traffic reduction and is saddled with commitments to build more roads, expand airports and encourage air travel, all of which cause climate change. That is a policy contradiction.

Although the Executive supports renewable energy, it has still not ruled out nuclear power stations or waste-to-energy incinerators. What sort of signal does that send to potential investors in renewables? Meanwhile, the first wave machines could come on stream in Portugal, because renewables receive many times more investment there than is available in Scotland. That is another policy contradiction.

On food and health, the Executive has made commitments to local markets, organics and healthy eating. However, our Government is still sitting on the fence in relation to genetically modified crops. Without a GM-free Scotland, the Executive's positive commitments could be undone. In the debate that will follow this one, we will hear that GM threatens the future of both organic and conventional farming. That is another policy contradiction.

On reducing waste, there is a vague commitment to create significant opportunities for new products that are manufactured from waste—but it is just a commitment. However, the 1 per cent target—only 1 per cent—for the reduction in the amount of waste that we produce seems to have been abandoned. That is another policy contradiction.

At the root of the Executive's contradictory approach to sustainability is an obsession with economic growth as a sort of miracle driver for societal well-being. However, to judge progress on gross domestic product alone is to live in a fool's paradise. Even Tony Blair acknowledges that. He has said:

"focusing solely on economic growth risks ignoring the impact—both good and bad—on people and on the environment … Now … there is a growing realisation that real progress cannot be measured by money alone … But in the past … We have failed to see how our economy, our environment and our society are all one."

The crisis in the fishing industry is a sad testament to the illusion of the benefits of economic growth at any cost.

Some five years ago, the Executive committed to strategic environmental assessment, which was hailed—and we do not demur—as the most important tool to inform decision making. However, the Executive is only now taking action, to meet the deadline for avoiding legal action by the European Union. The minister has said that he will introduce primary legislation on strategic environmental assessment, which is welcome, but there is still no guarantee that it will cover existing strategies and agencies such as the new transport authority. The Executive is like a dinosaur at work: bang it on the head with a good idea and the tail twitches five years later.

So, what should we do about the green thread? Will we get it to pull all these things together? We need a sea change—a fundamental shift in approach and policy away from the inadequate pursuit of growth at any cost towards the goal of sustainability. An independent commission of the Centre for Scottish Public Policy, which includes Sarah Boyack, agrees with that. It says in a robust and clear report that was published this week that neither the Executive nor the Parliament takes the challenge of sustainable development seriously enough and that failing to meet that challenge would be cheating on our children, cheating on ourselves and cheating on our neighbours.

We need a truly green vision—not just a thread, but an entire cloth in which green threads join with one another to form a coherent pattern, each policy is considered in the context of others and there is truly joined-up thinking. To help to achieve that, the status of the Executive's sustainable development unit within government must be improved. We must have a sustainable development strategy and the Parliament should have a sustainable development committee to monitor progress.

We promised our voters that we would be both constructive and challenging in our role as parliamentarians. We are delighted that the coalition parties and others have adopted some of our language but we now ask them to adopt more of our vision. We acknowledge the Executive's apparent commitment to the environment and sustainable development, as outlined in the partnership agreement, and we will track its progress on those issues.

If we have a collective future, we will achieve it only if we grasp the opportunity that is presented by the Executive's start and if sustainability leads economic development, not the other way around.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes the Scottish Executive's intention of placing the environment and sustainable development at the heart of all of its policy making; notes, however, the policy contradictions, including those in A Partnership for a Better Scotland, which indicate that this goal is not likely to be achieved, and therefore calls on the Executive to integrate sustainable development within all of its policy making and organise government to achieve this end.