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I am proud of my minister, Lorna Slater. She has not only brought the DRS to the point of launch but has increased investment in nature, banned new waste incinerators and introduced the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill to cut littering and waste. She is also delivering Scotland’s first new national park in a generation. She is a doer—a renewables engineer with real-world experience in industry. We are lucky to have her—[Interruption.]

The cabinet secretary is right to highlight the record investment in active travel and the free buses for more than 2 million people. In addition, with the removal of peak-time rail fares in the autumn, the dial is starting to shift towards a greener and fairer transport future. What more action does the Government need to take to reduce transport demand? What is the role of the UK Government in securing that reduction in transport demand? What is the role for the other parties in the Parliament, which are very quick to sign up to targets and very weak when it comes to taking the action that is needed to tackle the growth in transport demand?

We can contrast Lorna Slater’s actions with the disgraceful actions of Alister Jack, who, as Secretary of State for Scotland, stood up in the House of Commons and completely misrepresented our deposit return scheme. Alister Jack and his fellow ministers have acted with disdain for Scottish business and with contempt for the years of work that have been spent designing and investing in a DRS scheme for Scotland. They have not listened or compromised and they refuse even now to provide the certainty that business needs to move forward. Last night, Jack would not even vote to censure Boris Johnson for breaking almost every rule in the book. Instead he stood right with him to the shameful end. If anyone should be resigning, it is him. [Interruption.]

—yet the disrespect and lack of courtesy that are shown, even now, by some members in the chamber has at times disgusted me. This Parliament needs more Lorna Slaters and so does the Government, so get used to her. She is just getting started and has barely even begun to deliver the transformative agenda of the Greens in government. She is not going anywhere but forward tonight.

Scotland’s deposit return scheme was getting ready to go live, create jobs and make our streets cleaner before it was recklessly blocked by the UK Government. When the minister met UK ministers to discuss their decision to impose unworkable conditions on our scheme, did they provide any reassurances that Scottish expertise and experience, a lot of which sits in Circularity Scotland, would be used to contribute to the development of a UK-wide scheme?

The motion of no confidence is the most shameless, cynical and desperate Tory stunt that I have yet seen in this chamber. On the very day on which their leadership at Westminster fell apart among Boris Johnson’s lies, they lodged the motion in a pathetic attempt to distract everyone from the dying days of their Government.

The audacity of the motion—the absolute brass neck of it—beggars belief, because it is the Tories who have scuppered the DRS scheme by forcing the removal of glass, which the scheme was built around, and by setting conditions on its operation for which it is impossible to plan. Now they are trying to gaslight Scotland into believing that it was somehow Lorna Slater’s fault all along. That is absurd.

We can expect that sort of rank opportunism from the Tories, but what about Labour? I urge every Labour and Liberal Democrat member in the chamber to think long and hard about what they are voting for and whom they are lining up with to do that, because this is not just an attack on Lorna Slater—it is an attack on everyone who believes in devolution. [Interruption.]

I will move to Seona Shand, on a similar theme. Reading your submission, it is obvious that there is a lot of excitement among business about the business opportunities of COP28. I think that you say that it is one of the largest global moments. Business will be trying to make sense of those opportunities in the same way that it did with the Dubai Expo 2020.

In relation to the COP process, at one level, COP26 in Glasgow felt like a big trade show. That is not to diminish the importance of that, as it is clearly served an important function, but it raises questions about credibility in relation to the business sector’s engagement in the COP process. It is about where you draw the line. When I was wandering around COP26 and looking the hundreds of stands that there were in Glasgow, I saw some stands from countries that were clearly stretching it in terms of credibility in terms of the kind of businesses that were being presented, the genuine sustainability of some of the offerings and what the countries were wanting to promote from their own individual sectors.

I wonder how you find that line of credibility within Scotland. Is COP28 an opportunity for everybody to come and present their goods and services? Are there particular key themes where the Scottish Government will say, “Look, this is our contribution in relation to climate change in terms of goods and services”, but there may also be others that are more questionable? I certainly saw some questionable promotion at COP26, which was widely described as “greenwashed” by others.

Okay. That is useful.

I will turn to my last question. We received evidence from Scotland’s International Development Alliance in which it proposed extending the outcomes and indicators for how we measure Scotland’s impact in relation to international work. It took a bit more of a wellbeing economy approach in wanting the inclusion of fossil fuel extraction and export, the arms trade, the socioeconomic impact of supply chains and the material footprint of Scotland’s businesses on the rest of the world.

Do you inherently welcome the emerging consensus around the wellbeing economy and what that means, or is it something that your members might have a concern around?

I will go to Gareth Williams first.

Thank you, convener. In recent weeks, the committee has taken a lot of evidence on what makes a good global citizen. The main theme that has come through has been the importance of Scotland’s role as a climate leader and in taking international action on climate change. Credibility is an important part of that. Do the panellists see any inherent contradiction in that?

Much of your written evidence has included comments about international aviation and, for example, the need to increase the number of international flights, open up new routes and increase visitor numbers. That puts us in complete contradiction as regards the work that we are trying to do to show our climate leadership. Without there being a credible path towards developing sustainable aviation fuels, is there not an inherent acknowledgement there that such business growth and international connectivity through aviation will set us against those climate objectives? I am interested in hearing how you would square those aspects.

I think that Vicki Miller said earlier that we are now seeing in the sector a pivot away from domestic tourism and that VisitScotland is very much going to lean into that, in recognition of the fact that that is where the market is going. In switching away from investing in attracting people to holidays at home and really leaning into the international market, do you acknowledge that there are contradictions and potential credibility issues in there? If so, how would you attempt to square them?

Do you want to start, Vicki?

I think that you have acknowledged that there is a bit of contradiction there, and the question is how we square that.

I just wanted to ask you about the use of other transport modes to connect Scotland. There has been renewed interest in a Rosyth to continental Europe ferry service, but I am not quite sure where we are with that as a well-defined offering for tourists. You will have also seen the trends in continental Europe, with the growth in overnight train journeys, and the actions of some Governments, particularly the French Government, in restricting domestic flights and pushing travel and tourism more in a certain direction. Obviously we face challenges in that respect, not least because of Brexit, but I am interested in hearing about the extent to which the Scottish tourism sector is looking at connectivity beyond aviation. When I read your submission, I felt that it seemed to be saying, “Let’s have more flights,” and it did not seem to say very much about more lower-carbon and perhaps more future-proofed forms of interconnectivity.