Seòmar agus comataidhean

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the proposed ferry route between Rosyth and Dunkirk. (S6O-05048)

The minister will be aware that, before the summer recess, the First Minister gave assurances that his Government would “welcome the ferry route” and do

“everything that we can to remove any obstacles that are in the way.”—[Official Report, 5 June 2025; c 20.]

Four months on, the biggest barrier remains the border control post designation. I believe that that is resolvable. The ferry route is a significant opportunity for the local community, the Scottish economy and our connection to Europe. How will the Government support the delivery of the ferry route in the coming months? Time is ticking away; we will lose the ferry route and the direct connection to Europe. We cannot afford to lose this opportunity, and I think that the First Minister knows that, too.

I find it incredible that Parliament is being asked to back a set of carbon budgets with no accompanying plan that spells out the action that is needed to deliver them. Members have talked about learning the lessons from 2019. Surely the biggest lesson from that was that, if we are going to set ambitious targets, we need to face up to the action that is required to deliver them and the benefits that will come from doing so.

I must tell the cabinet secretary that, when Douglas Lumsden, Sarah Boyack, Patrick Harvie and Willie Rennie are all reflecting the same concern, she has lost the confidence of the chamber on the issue. It is really important that we give sectors the confidence to go forward, but that requires detail. We have sectors that are prepared to step up, such as the air-source heat pump industry. Willie Rennie mentioned other sectors that want to go further and faster, but they need certainty now about what will be in the plan.

I do not believe for one minute that the draft climate change plan is not ready. Of course it is. Of course it has been signed off by the Cabinet, because it will be laid in a matter of weeks. Why does the Government refuse to let Parliament see its proposed action ahead of setting the carbon budget? Is it because the plan spells out policies that are so radical that the fear is that members of the Scottish Parliament would not back the budget, or is it that the commitment to real action on buildings, transport and agriculture is so weak? Time will tell, but we are being asked to back a level of ambition without a clear, credible plan for action. It is for those reasons that the Greens will abstain on the regulations tonight.

The Government has taken a pick’n’mix approach to adopting the Climate Change Committee’s advice—and it is entitled to do so. However, action must still add up to the carbon budget. To be clear, the Government has ignored the Climate Change Committee’s advice on reducing livestock numbers. On that policy alone, 1 megatonne of emissions will now have to be cut from somewhere else in society. Who will deliver that missing megatonne?

The cabinet secretary for net zero said in committee that transport will pick up the slack, but when the Cabinet Secretary for Transport came to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee yesterday, there was no clarity—there was just hope and enthusiasm for the sale of electric vehicles. There will not even be a commitment to incorporating the findings of the A96 climate compatibility assessment into the climate change plan. How do we know where we are going? How do we know that the Government’s actions will add up and that we will be able to deliver the reductions in the budget?

It is not good enough. A lack of ambitious action already means that we will not reach the goal of cutting emissions by three quarters until 2036. We have lost six years in the middle of a climate crisis. Without credible action, Scotland risks overshooting the even weaker carbon budgets. We cannot afford to do that. The planet cannot afford to wait. People cannot afford to wait for a greener, fairer Scotland. We need climate action now to deliver that. That is why it is important that the detail comes forth. It should have been here, ahead of the regulations being laid in Parliament, but it has not been delivered. We will wait to see whether the Government’s actions add up.

Apologies for being slightly late to the meeting.

I will come back to the issue of speed limits. It is very welcome to see a 20mph limit being rolled out across Scotland, but will the target of ensuring that all appropriate roads are 20mph by the end of this year be met, or are we seeing a staggered implementation?

My other question is about changing the national speed limit on single-carriageway roads—reducing the speed limit for most vehicles but slightly increasing the speed limit for HGVs. Is that still on track? What has the feedback been on that?

Are you saying that the options within the A96 climate compatibility assessment suggest that there is no impact on the climate at all? I am not suggesting that every street should be in the climate change plan, but surely the two biggest multibillion pound road-building programmes should be reflected in some way. Do they make emissions go up or down? Does it matter if everyone is driving EVs? I am being simplistic, but how does it all add up?

Or manage my expectations.

One policy that was agreed in the most recent budget, for a very simple price of £2 million, was a regional bus fare cap, with a date of 1 January next year for when that would be operational. We have just three months to go, but my understanding is that there has not yet been a discussion with the sector about introducing that cap. I also do not think there has been any discussion with individual regions that have indicated an interest in running a bus fare cap about being ready to roll that out on 1 January. Are we still on track for that? Is it going to happen?

You are fairly confident that a bus fare cap will be in operation in one region of Scotland on 1 January.

Just before you move on, I will say that the timescales are important, because the quicker we can make changes that have an evidence base showing that lives will be saved, the quicker we can save lives. That is an important point.

I will continue in that vein. In the plans that you expect local authorities to come up with—particularly those of urban local authorities, which will need to have a target in mind for traffic reduction—what kind of measures will you support? Will you support traffic demand management measures? How would the Scottish Government respond if a council came to it with a form of congestion charging or workplace parking charging and said, “We want to do this. Can you support us, help us to explain the benefits and help us with modelling it?”