Seòmar agus comataidhean

That point stands up and it reinforces what I am saying. The question is for a new Labour Government—and we will be backing the Labour amendment in the debate. However, if the party cuts its net zero commitment from £28 billion to £5 billion, that would leave us in a poor state. Reflecting on Labour’s manifesto, Greenpeace said:

“You can’t deliver real change with spare change”.

We absolutely need infrastructure, which I know that the Tories do not always like. They do not like transmission lines or wind farms. They love nuclear, but Mr Lumsden cannot say whether he would love nuclear if it was in his backyard. We need to get serious about what is needed.

Patrick Harvie summed it up well when he talked about the new climate bill being a pivotal moment where we need to take bold policy choices. I ask the Government to double down on what we were starting to achieve collectively through the Bute house agreement and not to roll back on the initiatives that were started. I ask the Government to resist pressure within its own party and perhaps among those who are not speaking in the debate who want to see certain policies rolled back.

We are absolutely on the right track with heat in buildings—it is a template for the rest of the UK, and we should be doubling down on the work of Patrick Harvie when he was in Government and delivering on that, just as we will be doubling down this afternoon on the work of Lorna Slater with the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill. When it comes to the onshore wind sector deal and the vehicle mileage reduction plan, we need to be raising revenue to reinvest in public transport so that we can deliver safer communities. We need the Government to raise its ambition. As Ben Macpherson spelled out in his speech, we need to see climate co-benefits being delivered alongside climate change, and we need to make people’s lives easier, not harder, in tackling the crisis. That is what the Government needs to do: it needs to double down. We will be backing those actions and those policies in the chamber.

Will the member give way?

I am very proud that the bill will be passed today. It has been a long time in the making. Covid delayed the introduction of a bill on the circular economy in the previous session of Parliament, so it is welcome to see the bill before us today. The bill is a product of positive cross-party work across the chamber. In many ways, it has shown Holyrood working at its best.

I join other members in paying tribute to my Green colleague Lorna Slater. I am pleased that she took the opportunity to speak in the debate. She successfully led the bill’s development through all the stakeholder negotiation and drafting, and she secured a positive recommendation from the committee at stage 1. I thank her and the bill team for their work.

I also thank the new minister, Gillian Martin, who picked up the bill at incredibly short notice in somewhat bizarre circumstances. She kept the spirit of co-operative working very much alive throughout stages 2 and 3.

Last night, amendments from every party in the chamber were agreed to and included in the bill. I thank the environmental non-governmental organisations for inspiring many of the amendments and for their positive discussions with MSP colleagues. Who knows? Perhaps if everyone who supported the amendments had actually voted last night, more might have been agreed to in the bill.

Throughout the bill’s passage, the Government has made it clear that the bill will set a framework for action on the circular economy. It is a framework bill, and there was an on-going debate in the committee about what would appropriately be put in the bill and what would appropriately come afterwards. The key element—co-design—is really important.

The elephant in the room is, of course, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. We will see how the incoming Westminster Government will treat that act in relation to Scotland’s ability to take action and develop statutory instruments on the back of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill.

Some members have said that the bill is primarily focused on household recycling—Sarah Boyack mentioned that there is, perhaps, a sense of disappointment about that—but I do not think that it is, although household recycling is an important element of it. We have to recognise that levels of household recycling have plateaued in Scotland in recent years, so it is important that the bill equips councils to take the next big step in investing in recycling.

I think that I am a bit short of time.

I am a little short of time, so I will not, unless there is time in hand.

I turn to the Green amendments. I am pleased that we made progress on ensuring that ministers will consider reuse, refill and take-back schemes. The critical thing is to ensure that ministers do not just consider those things, but that they act on those powers.

I regret that we could not make more headway with amendments on public funding. I am also a bit disappointed that Maurice Golden’s amendment to strengthen the reporting requirement on public bodies was not agreed to. I hope that that discussion can continue, and I thank Action to Protect Rural Scotland for its support on those cross-party discussions.

I welcome the minister’s offer to look at how the issue of critical minerals recycling can be addressed in other parts of the Government’s energy policy. The case that was set out by Friends of the Earth Scotland on why Scotland needs to plan for how we prolong use of key minerals such as copper and lithium, particularly in the renewables sector, is strong, and I hope to see mention of critical minerals recycling and reuse in the upcoming energy strategy.

I am also pleased that Green amendments strengthened the bill’s focus on education and skills needs for the transition to a more circular economy. Finally, I am pleased that our amendments to require ministers to consider carbon emissions across a product’s entire life cycle when preparing circular economy strategies were agreed to. That will be critical to addressing the climate crisis.

In closing, I say that the bill is excellent, but it is only the first step towards delivering a circular economy. Lorna Slater’s point is critical; it is about how the powers are now used, so the Scottish Greens will continue to push for action and push the Government to use the powers that the bill will give it to deliver that circular economy.

I am delighted to hear Douglas Lumsden talk about renewable energy and the need to invest in it. Does he acknowledge that it is critical to build the transmission infrastructure that is required in the north-east in order to get the renewable energy from where it is being generated to where it needs to be consumed? Why does his party not back the development of the Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks transmission lines that are so desperately needed?

Can I come on to that issue separately?

I will come back to you on that.

I am content to support the regulations because I do not see this as an issue of policy divergence with the EU. It is more of a technical issue about how lists of invasive species are drawn up and whether they are fully inclusive on a European basis, or whether they are drawn more tightly with regard to the likely spread of species within the UK.

I note that on the list of species that are to be effectively excluded from the list of invasive alien species, there are, for example, aquatic species such as water hyacinth, which are highly invasive. However, because they cannot survive in winter in this country, scientists have made a judgment that there is no point in including them on the list. I also note that there has been quite a lot of lobbying from the aquatic ornamental trade bodies who want to see that plant sold again within the UK.

My only point on that, which could perhaps be reflected in a letter to the cabinet secretary, is that we are obviously in an age of climate change. A mild winter might be very different in ten or 15 years’ time, as the climate gets warmer, and those kinds of invasive species may be able to get a foothold in this country as the climate changes. I am interested in what the review process looks like when the list of species that can or cannot thrive in this country is drawn up.

The other aspect on which it would be useful to get feedback from the Scottish Government is trade. As I understand it, the new regulations effectively will not apply in Northern Ireland because of the Windsor framework, and it will not apply in the Republic of Ireland, which remains a member of the EU. If those ornamental species are being sold in the UK, that raises a question about what implications there are for exports, say from Scotland through Cairnryan to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. That is just a query about how trade of those species is being regulated and the checks that exist, given that we do not have a phytosanitary agreement with the EU.

Mhairi, do you want to come in?