Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, cabinet secretary—I am sorry, I mean convener.

Amendment 56 is vital to ensuring that the next climate change plan is robust. It will place a requirement on the Scottish Government to quantify its anticipated emissions reductions “in measurable terms” and it will put distinct, tangible outcomes into the climate change plan.

I thank the cabinet secretary for her support in relation to wording the amendment to ensure that the outcomes will be measured in terms of groups of policies rather than anticipated emissions per policy. That will enable a crossover between policies where multiple proposals will work together to reduce emissions. The effect will remain the same: in the climate change plan, we should see real actions that we can measure each year to track the impact of each policy so that we get more dynamic and impactful adjustments when the Scottish Government of the day is falling short. The key part of the amendment is the phrase “in measurable terms”, which ties the Scottish Government into making the outcomes more than just hopes and dreams, with things that can be scrutinised each year for efficiency and effectiveness.

I believe that my amendment represents a more effective version of what Mark Ruskell is trying to deliver through his amendment 18. That amendment’s emphasis on making the climate change plan more robust and helpful is right, but I think that, given its measurability aspect, my amendment is better. Moreover, Mr Ruskell’s amendment does not contain the flexibility that we need, which is included in my amendment through the groupings approach.

I very much agree with the sentiment behind Patrick Harvie’s amendment 17. The impact on the climate needs to be considered in major capital projects. Actually, that should be the case for all capital projects, because we should be thinking about the accumulation of impacts, and we can also learn something about best practice from different projects. That said, I would not put that sort of thing in the bill; instead, I hope that we will come back to it when we scrutinise the climate change plan next year. That is a better place to tackle those issues.

I urge the committee to support my amendment 56 so that we write into the bill a requirement to go further than the Scottish Government has previously gone in committing to measurable and impactful actions.

I am not against the SI, but I would like to know what monitoring will take place. Four of the 10 species were previously sold commercially in the UK, and there is an issue about what will happen once businesses are allowed to sell them again. Who will be doing the monitoring? Where will the species be coming from? Mark Ruskell made the point that our climate is changing, so we need to make sure that we keep an eye on the matter. I hope that we can put that feedback to the minister.

One of the other suggestions that you made was about “related earnings capacity”. Do you want to speak to that at this point?

Thanks. I wanted you to explain that and to put some of that on the record.

That is really useful. I do not know whether the other witnesses would like to come in on this. The hands have shot up.

Not all, convener—the detail is important. Did you want to come in, Jeremy?

I have a couple of comments. We could have had more information on the issue, and it feels like the instrument is flying through. I want to refer to comments from two stakeholders that I think are important. The issue that Environmental Standards Scotland raises about indicative timelines for reviews or setting lower limits is really important. We need to ensure that industry and regulators have appropriate notice to plan for the adoption of those lower limits. It is important to monitor the impact of the change and whether we need a lower limit in Scotland.

I also want to put on the record the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management Scotland’s comments that we need a review of the approach to persistent organic pollutants that considers all aspects of risk to human and environmental health so that we do not have any unintended consequences that impact negatively on other important areas. The institution suggests that there is significant cost and environmental burden in the proposed approach and that we need the human health risks that are still to be investigated to be properly addressed and analysed.

I support the principle of a short-life industry working group because, whether or not the instrument goes through, the issue needs to be followed up. We need more action so that there is information and monitoring of what is happening. We should draw on expertise in Scotland but also link up with the rest of the UK so that we have a wider UK group as well.

Regardless of whether the committee supports the instrument, it is important to raise those issues and put them on the record.

I can see arguments on either side. I want to abstain, because I want to go into the issue in a bit more depth.

Your recommendation would be to amend that section of the bill?