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Amendment 122 seeks to insert a requirement for the Scottish ministers to respond to the “Developing Scotland’s Economy” report. That would be an important measure, as it would add democratic business models to the heart of the bill by making it a requirement for the Scottish ministers to respond to the report, which explores inclusive and democratic business models, and then to actively consider how that should be integrated into the community wealth building statements.

Amendment 123 gives the Scottish ministers the opportunity to include community share and bond models as a way of allowing community benefit societies or co-operatives to issue shares and fundraising assets. That creates the option for more democratic and inclusive business models, allowing for greater diversification of Scotland’s community wealth.

I move amendment 122.

I am open to discussing these matters with the minister further, but I do not think that it is entirely onerous for the Government to have to cross-reference how a report that it commissioned interfaces with the bill. It is a relatively minor piece of work, but it demonstrates confidence that there is coherence in the Government’s approach, so there are no real issues with amendment 122.

Regarding amendment 123, given the context of the slow decline of Co-operative Development Scotland and the enterprise agencies, which has been reported, it is really important that it is explicitly put in the bill that community benefit societies and co-operatives should be developed in a clear, practical way, including through the issuing of equity and share capital to allow them to fundraise for community ownership, if necessary. It is a really useful exercise, and the Government should think about how it mandates Co-operative Development Scotland, which has been on a downward trajectory in the last few years, and how it rejuvenates the organisation within Scottish Enterprise. It is a useful test to see where the Government will take CDS in the future. With that in mind, I am minded to press amendment 122 and to move amendment 123 at this stage.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the amendments in the group. Their general context in the bill is that Scotland has one of the most foreign-owned economies in the world and is one of only a handful of such countries that is rich and developed but is not a microstate or an outright tax haven.

Although we do not often speak about the balance of payments or the capital and financial accounts in our economy, a good indicator is a comparison of Scotland’s gross domestic product with its gross national income. At the start of this parliamentary session, £36.5 billion was extracted from Scotland, largely in the form of profits and dividends to foreign companies and shareholders, while only £26.4 billion flowed into Scotland, largely as foreign investment income. That created a net outward flow of £10.1 billion in 2020-21. The need for measures in the bill to retain more wealth under domestic ownership is important, and my amendments seek to do that in meaningful and practical ways.

Amendment 119 seeks to broaden the bill slightly by adding the purchasing of community shares as an optional measure to fulfil the goal of reducing inequality and supporting economic growth.

Amendment 120 would add credit unions simply by mentioning them as bodies that can be supported and promoted. When we consider community groups, it is vital that credit unions, which underpin so many financial transactions, particularly in working-class areas of Scotland, are encouraged to flourish, and they should be explicitly mentioned in the bill.

Amendment 80 seeks to encourage steps by the Scottish ministers to encourage and support the Scottish National Investment Bank to develop a community wealth fund; to work with relevant public bodies and community organisations to provide financing for community wealth building projects; and to advise on the strategic use of community benefit payments, including from a change of land use, renewable energy projects and seed funding for community-led wealth building projects.

Securing funding for community wealth building activities is essential to ensuring that local communities and other organisations can take full advantage of the economic transformation that those activities provide. Simply grant funding them is not sufficient. Patient finance is important. The creation of a community wealth fund has been the subject of much discussion over the past couple of years, with detailed proposals for such a fund being put forward by the Scottish community coalition on energy. Those proposals would allow for the strategic and democratic use of additional payments from major renewable energy and infrastructure projects, most of which are in foreign ownership, and major land use change projects to seed fund community wealth building projects around the country.

Amendment 80 aligns with Sarah Boyack’s amendments 78 and 90, which set out that the community wealth building guidance, action plans and statement that the bill will introduce should refer to the community wealth fund. Amendment 80 would mandate a role for the Scottish National Investment Bank in providing finance for community wealth building activities, including the community wealth fund. In that context, it should be noted that one of the bank’s three missions is about place, and account should be taken of the transformational potential of expanding access to finance that is generally not currently provided by commercial banks.

As the committee noted at stage 1, the Scottish National Investment Bank should have a prominent role in supporting economic development. It should play a key role as a public sector leader and a source of potential patient capital and underwriting for community wealth building. Amendment 80 would set out in the bill the bank’s important role in that regard.

In seeking to provide that the Scottish National Investment Bank must encourage community wealth building, amendment 121 would allow for a more holistic approach to be taken to economic growth, and it would put investment—sustained investment through ownership, rather than one-off windfalls—at the heart of community wealth building.

Amendment 126 seeks to add the purchasing of community shares as an optional measure to fulfil the goal of reducing inequality and supporting economic growth as part of the community wealth building plan, which is the norm in many other European countries.

Amendment 127 seeks to encourage credit unions, as organisations that have members who would benefit from community wealth building plans, to be part of that ecosystem.

As Lorna Slater said, the amendments in this group have a similar purpose. Amendment 124 would remove the possibility that the community wealth building statement might contain actions that are not acted on, and would instead require the Scottish ministers to implement the measures in the statement. It is key that action, and not just the duplication of paperwork, is the ultimate outcome of the bill.

Amendment 102 seeks to ensure that the community wealth building action plans are binding, enabling meaningful and progressive action towards outcomes. If the phrase

“so far as reasonably practicable”

is kept in the bill, relevant public bodies will have an enormous loophole to avoid following through on action plans. The ability of the community wealth building partners to deliver the action plan should be assessed and dealt with during a review or monitoring, rather than providing a general loophole in the bill. I hope that that loophole can be closed at this stage.

Amendments 125 and 129 serve the same purpose and are intentionally designed to reinforce the role of credit unions as part of community wealth building in Scotland. The minister was rather dismissive of their role and their unique position in the Scottish economy. Scotland has an extremely concentrated banking system, with the clearing banks dominating that system.

Credit unions in Scotland demonstrate remarkable reach compared with those in other parts of the UK. They serve almost half a million members in Scotland with £0.75 billion in loans. Given that credit unions penetrate 9 per cent of the population, there is a huge opportunity to build on those unique assets in Scotland. To dismiss or not recognise that exceptional situation is rather unfair, so I hope that the minister will reconsider his position and perhaps look at the matter again, if he is not minded to support my amendments at this stage.

We will bring them in if they get connected.

How can local authorities, integration joint boards, health and social care partnerships, health boards and so on better signal the impacts in their budget planning? Does better support in relation to national policy need to be identified in the CCP? How do you tie that together in a coherent way? It is one thing to have a plan but, if it does not have a linkage to operational plans, it might not have any real impact.

I will begin with a question about the lack of focus on mental health in the draft climate change plan. Climate change has had a massive impact on people’s mental wellbeing, for example in Glasgow, where an increase in rainfall has caused significant increases in flooding incidents in people’s homes. In a recent study by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, 57 per cent of UK adults said that their mental health had been impacted by the climate crisis, yet, as far as I can see, that issue is not considered in the plan. Do you agree that there needs to be a greater focus on mental health in considering the impacts of climate change?

I will move on to the financial costs and benefits of the plan. We know that there are significant financial pressures on local government. Is the current funding model for mental health services in Scotland robust enough to meet the demands of the climate crisis?

The point about a systems approach is interesting. Will you comment on the Scottish Government’s assessment of the financial co-benefits of the actions that are described in the draft plan? How can those be used and understood alongside modelling done by the ECCI?

You have talked about taking a public health approach, but do you think that, say, a continuing professional development programme and additional guidance are needed in the public sector, too? When financial controllers in certain departments plan budget allocations, how can they model the benefits correctly if those are not envisaged or understood? What happens when they plan, say, a railway line or council services such as proactive street cleaning or dealing with blocked-up drains so that they do not flood people’s houses?