Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you all for your questions. I am going to be asking the question on behalf of Afam. Is there anything that I need to keep in mind while asking that question? I am particularly going to be focusing on participation.

Thank you—that is really helpful.

That was really fascinating—thank you.

What is the current state of play with marine funding after Brexit?

It has been reported today that the European Commission has imposed a fine of £5.6 million following a 2020 audit’s uncovering of failures in how the Scottish Government was administering common agricultural policy fund payments to Scottish farmers. Where will the money to pay that fine come from?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. The programme for government said that a science and innovation strategy for marine and freshwater environments will be published. Will that have budgetary implications for Scottish Government-funded science?

I would like to get some examples, if possible, that paint a picture of where you feel mainstreaming has not worked to tackle inequalities and to reach human rights aspirations. Would people’s participation in those areas have helped us to gain a better understanding of the impacts of policy making and would it have made a difference?

The cabinet secretary clearly set out at the beginning of her speech the targets that Douglas Lumsden is asking about. The next part of my speech might be valuable to him.

Not every Scottish Conservative kept quiet in response to the Prime Minister’s statement. It is not often that I say this, but Maurice Golden was right: the Prime Minister’s decision last week was indeed

“a regressive move that isn’t only damaging environmentally but economically and socially too. It drags net zero into the territory of culture wars.”

What a shame that the leader of the Scottish Tories cannot bring himself to say the same.

In the words of my son, who is in his 20s,

“it’s extremely shortsighted and indicative of Tory politicians’ inability to see past the end of their terms, they don’t care about the consequences because, by the time they come around, they’ll be long gone and have pocketed the gains already.”

The latest move is another glaring example of the Tories’ lack of urgency in the fight for our planet. It took more than a decade for the UK Government finally to announce support for the Scottish Cluster’s Acorn carbon capture project in my constituency. That came only after the project missed out on the track 1 funding back in 2021, which the Tories instead granted to two projects in the north of England—which was a purely political decision. We should make no mistake about it: along with Rishi Sunak’s roll-back of climate objectives, that shows a clear pattern of behaviour, by virtue of his having thrown responsibilities to our planet under the bus for some cheap votes.

Douglas Lumsden really likes to move the goalposts. I remind him of the fact that the Acorn project still does not have the green light—it has an amber light. If he were to meet Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage, he might realise that that is delaying our intention to capture carbon, which means that we are not competitive in the global market. It is not unlike the Tories to pull back Scotland.

During my two and a half years as a parliamentarian, I have taken a keen interest in food security, both as a member of the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs and Islands Committee and as a proud representative of a coastal and rural constituency, so I know about the essential roles that fisheries and agriculture play—not only in our economy and our culture, but in the availability and secure supply of sufficient safe and nutritious food. It is clear that the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss pose an undeniable threat to the security of our food and nutrition. Around the world, we are already witnessing slowing agricultural activity as a result of the effects of climate change. That, along with Russia’s war in Ukraine, is stoking further food insecurity.

We do not need to tell our farmers and fishers any of that—they know at first hand the impact that those crises are having on the land and the sea. Their expertise and involvement have been, and will continue to be, vital as we deliver on our climate pledges. After all, food systems are responsible for up to a third of the global greenhouse gas emissions that are caused by humans, and are the leading cause of biodiversity loss.

I am grateful that the Scottish Government has a strategic vision, with provision of the right support and a commitment to bringing lived experience to the policy-making table. Without that, we risk driving more food insecurity. The climate emergency is the most serious challenge of our lifetimes; only by working with our fishers, farmers and crofters will we succeed in our ambitious efforts to achieve net zero emissions by 2045.

I am proud of the climate action efforts of the Scottish Government, led by the SNP. For decades, we have led the charge on demanding investment in carbon capture and storage in the north-east and further investment in renewables.

The essential role that my constituency and the wider north-east will play in achieving a just transition cannot be emphasised enough. With the carbon capture project and the Moray East and Moray West offshore wind farms, Banffshire and Buchan Coast is certainly punching above its weight in Scotland’s efforts on industrial decarbonisation, renewables and carbon capture and storage.

I implore all members who are in the chamber today and all elected representatives across the UK to take our responsibility for climate action as seriously as they do the future of our children and grandchildren, whom we hold dear.

In preparation for today’s debate, I spoke to my children. After all, the world—and all its fragile beauty—is what our generation will pass on to the next. As elected representatives, we have a moral obligation to do our utmost to ensure that the world that we pass on to them is peaceful, inclusive, healthy and full of life. I would like to think that my parents and grandparents had that wish for us, too, with the knowledge that they had in their time. It is an obligation that we should all take extremely seriously, with the science and knowledge that we have today.

I asked my children what inaction on climate change means to them. The consensus was quite clear: there is distrust of politicians—should I say that, given that they are my children?—and of businesses, when it comes to doing anything with the urgency that they sincerely feel, or with true intent to change the course of the climate disaster, which they will face to a much greater extent than we will. They do not have much hope that, overall, we have a grasp of the situation—they are my greatest critics. They are fearful, and they need assurances that we are doing all that we can.

However, like many people around the world—even some Conservative members—I was truly dispirited by the Prime Minister’s statement last week. His betrayal of the current generations of my children and grandchildren, and of generations to come, is truly unforgivable. He should hang his head in shame, as should anyone who dares to defend the indefensible or who stays silent when our climate and environment are crying out for help.