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Absolutely. The bill raises questions about where we are now regarding our levels of Government and responsibility. Those questions can be opened up if there is a cross-party consensus in future sessions of the Parliament.

Given that Scotland—and the UK—is one of the most centralised democracies in Europe, it will take time for the bill to empower communities. However, going forward, I hope that the bill will provide a strong basis to do so. If we approve the bill tonight, Scotland will be the first country in the UK to be in compliance with the charter. Being a normal European country that respects communities would feel like progress.

Several members talked about the Verity house agreement. Alexander Stewart referred to some of the frustration that council leaders have at the moment with the agreement’s implementation, and Mark Griffin talked about on-going financial challenges. We will not talk about where those financial challenges originate from, which is Westminster. Fulton MacGregor highlighted some of the progress that has been made.

I hope that we can agree that there is a need to ratchet up the reforms. The bill will not give courts the power to declare whether the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, for example, is compatible with the charter. That is regrettable. However, if the 1973 act were to be repealed and re-enacted by the Parliament in the future, it would need to be in line with the charter and the important principle of local government empowerment. The window is open for further reform and the bill provides the foundation on which future ambition can be built, if there are the political will and consensus to do that.

I welcome that the cabinet secretary wrote to me ahead of the reconsideration stage. She said:

“In time, it may also be possible to bring more of Ministers’ functions within the scope of the section 2 compatibility duty, for example, if UK Act provisions in devolved areas are re-enacted in Acts of the Scottish Parliament or a mutually acceptable solution can be found to the issues around s.28(7) of the Scotland Act.”

It is now for the next Scottish Government to take those opportunities.

The Supreme Court took a view of section 28(7) of the Scotland Act 1998 that surprised many people. As Professor Chris Himsworth said:

“It was, for most commentators, I believe, wholly unexpected and constitutionally shocking. At the very least, it has given rise to great uncertainty.”

That perhaps speaks to some of the reasons why it has taken so long to bring the bill back to the Parliament for reconsideration.

There is clearly work to do, and reform of the Scotland Act 1998 should be on the table. The cabinet secretary has referred to some of the academic thinking about that, which needs to be taken seriously.

I will leave the last words to COSLA, which has campaigned for this bill for years. It said:

“We believe that there are … key reasons why Scotland should incorporate the Charter … It would improve the outcomes that national and local government can deliver … It would give Scottish communities rights that are already commonplace internationally … It would build partnership working into Scotland’s governance for the first time … It would ensure that Scotland fully complies with international treaty obligations”,

and it would

“Help give Local Government the powers it needs to deliver lasting, meaningful change for our communities.”

It is time to hit the reset button and finally get the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill into law.

I thank the cabinet secretary for her kind words and I thank members across the chamber for their speeches. I have my fingers crossed that I might be heading for an unusual record of getting two member’s bills agreed to at Holyrood within a fortnight, but we will see what happens next Thursday. At this point, I should also pay tribute to Andy Wightman, who had the foresight to introduce the bill in the previous parliamentary session.

We in the Scottish Greens undoubtedly have a deep-seated commitment to localism and the need to empower communities. Of course, we do not have a monopoly on localism. Alexander Stewart spoke well about his commitment to the bill, drawing on his experience over many years as a councillor and his commitment five years ago to getting the bill into law. Mark Griffin also spoke about the need for councils to be seen as partners, not administrators, which is an important point.

I was pleased that Alex Cole-Hamilton spoke about the quiet work of Jim Wallace in the Scottish Constitutional Convention. It was part of the blueprint of this Parliament that the European charter would be embedded into our working. That shows how long overdue the bill is and that it should form part of what we do in the Parliament.

I reflect on Jim Wallace’s view that we need to strike a “new balance” between the Parliament, local government and communities. There will always be a debate about the will of Government to achieve national objectives and the local accountability that is needed. I am sure that that debate will continue well into the next session of the Scottish Parliament.

Absolutely. The bill raises questions about where we are now regarding our levels of Government and responsibility. Those questions can be opened up if there is a cross-party consensus in future sessions of the Parliament.

Given that Scotland—and the UK—is one of the most centralised democracies in Europe, it will take time for the bill to empower communities. However, going forward, I hope that the bill will provide a strong basis to do so. If we approve the bill tonight, Scotland will be the first country in the UK to be in compliance with the charter. Being a normal European country that respects communities would feel like progress.

Several members talked about the Verity house agreement. Alexander Stewart referred to some of the frustration that council leaders have at the moment with the agreement’s implementation, and Mark Griffin talked about on-going financial challenges. We will not talk about where those financial challenges originate from, which is Westminster. Fulton MacGregor highlighted some of the progress that has been made.

I hope that we can agree that there is a need to ratchet up the reforms. The bill will not give courts the power to declare whether the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, for example, is compatible with the charter. That is regrettable. However, if the 1973 act were to be repealed and re-enacted by the Parliament in the future, it would need to be in line with the charter and the important principle of local government empowerment. The window is open for further reform and the bill provides the foundation on which future ambition can be built, if there are the political will and consensus to do that.

I welcome that the cabinet secretary wrote to me ahead of the reconsideration stage. She said:

“In time, it may also be possible to bring more of Ministers’ functions within the scope of the section 2 compatibility duty, for example, if UK Act provisions in devolved areas are re-enacted in Acts of the Scottish Parliament or a mutually acceptable solution can be found to the issues around s.28(7) of the Scotland Act.”

It is now for the next Scottish Government to take those opportunities.

The Supreme Court took a view of section 28(7) of the Scotland Act 1998 that surprised many people. As Professor Chris Himsworth said:

“It was, for most commentators, I believe, wholly unexpected and constitutionally shocking. At the very least, it has given rise to great uncertainty.”

That perhaps speaks to some of the reasons why it has taken so long to bring the bill back to the Parliament for reconsideration.

There is clearly work to do, and reform of the Scotland Act 1998 should be on the table. The cabinet secretary has referred to some of the academic thinking about that, which needs to be taken seriously.

I will leave the last words to COSLA, which has campaigned for this bill for years. It said:

“We believe that there are … key reasons why Scotland should incorporate the Charter … It would improve the outcomes that national and local government can deliver … It would give Scottish communities rights that are already commonplace internationally … It would build partnership working into Scotland’s governance for the first time … It would ensure that Scotland fully complies with international treaty obligations”,

and it would

“Help give Local Government the powers it needs to deliver lasting, meaningful change for our communities.”

It is time to hit the reset button and finally get the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill into law.

The European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill is about strengthening local democracy and, as such, I am pleased to be able to play my part in bringing the bill into law.

As the member in charge of the bill, it is incumbent on me to move the motion to enable the reconsideration stage to progress. Although the reconsideration stage is rarely used by the Parliament, I believe that it is a valuable process to ensure that legislation that the Parliament has decided to pass can be fixed and implemented. I will therefore be happy to move the motion in my name.

I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for progressing the amendments. I also thank key stakeholders, such as the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, for maintaining pressure throughout most of this parliamentary session so that progress was made. As we are getting very close to the end of the session, I am pleased that time is being made available so that we do not lose the opportunity to complete the process.

I thank Roz Thomson and the entire team of legal advisers with the non-Government bills unit who have done a phenomenal job in this session of helping members to bring forward what has been a kaleidoscope of legislative proposals.

I also thank Andy Wightman, who was the original member in charge of the bill in the previous session and the driving force behind making the policy law. This is a somewhat unique situation, in that it is, I believe, the first reconsideration stage involving a member’s bill at Holyrood. Given that Mr Wightman was not returned in session 6, it fell on me, as the additional member in charge, to bring the bill back.

I would have liked to have moved to this point earlier in the session. The Supreme Court ruling was made in 2021 and it has taken until now for there to be something approaching agreement between the Scottish and United Kingdom Governments on the scope of amendments and for reconsideration to be scheduled. My approach all along has been to hold open a space for the bill to be fixed and, although I could have moved to reconsideration earlier in this session of Parliament, the issue has, at its core, been one for Governments to resolve by mutual agreement and I am pleased that they have now reached that point.

It might be helpful in informing this final debate on the bill if I briefly highlight some of the contributions to the consultation held by the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee.

The Law Society of Scotland observed that

“the draft amendments are complicated and illustrate the way in which provisions must be drafted to address the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the effect of section 28(7) of the Scotland Act 1998”

and acknowledged that

“the effect of the amendments is to narrow the scope of the Bill and accordingly limit its practical impact.”

COSLA focused on what the remaining policy in the bill could mean, arguing that

“The passing of the Bill to incorporate the European Charter of Self Government into law is a huge opportunity for national and Local Government to work together to improve lives across the country, and give Scotland’s communities rights that are already commonplace internationally.”

It went on to say that

“Council Leaders from across Scotland have already unanimously supported the passage of the bill and are supportive of the proposed amendments to address the Supreme Court ruling.”

With all those proposed amendments now debated and agreed to, the bill is, in my view, ready to be approved and to go forward for royal assent.

Finally, Professor Chris Himsworth summed up the overall situation well in my view, stating in his consultation response that he was

“very pleased to see that, in the light of all that has happened since the final passing of the Bill, it has been revived and is now once again on track to reach the statute book”

and that

“although the Bill offers no silver bullet, it has the capacity to contribute to better central-local relationships”.

I hope that that is something that we can all agree on, and I look forward to members’ contributions to the debate.

That the Parliament agrees that the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill be approved.

16:22

:I want to turn to the climate change plan itself. You will probably have had a chance to glance at the report that we published last week, in which we highlight a number of concerns about the absence of specific delivery plans. We question whether there is enough detail in the CCP to map out the policies, timelines and responsibilities so that certainty can be provided in relation to delivery, particularly for the first carbon budget period.

You have made similar points, and I want to give you the opportunity to expand on what you think should be described in a delivery plan to build certainty and show leadership on meeting objectives. Are there particular sectors that you want to highlight?

:There are certainly a lot of hockey-stick-shaped graphs in the plan, by which I mean periods of slow growth followed by sudden shoot-ups in future carbon budget periods.

I am interested in how you tailor your advice and in how this committee and our successor committee can engage with the plan, in the next carbon budget period in particular, so that if there comes a point at which we do not have certainty about how delivery rates will suddenly shoot up in future carbon budget periods, we will know what the early warning signs look like. If there are still contingencies and dependencies that have to be worked out, and if programmes have to change and evolve over time, that cannot be done at the end of the next parliamentary session. We cannot all look at the climate change plan again at that point and say, “We’re not sure how we’re going to deliver that.” There needs to be a process for evolving the delivery plans over time.

What advice would you give us on that? At what point in the next carbon budget period would you give that advice, so that plans and delivery plans can be revisited if we do not have certainty about what the trajectory for the next 10 years looks like?

:I move on to the subject of negative emissions technologies. The assumption in the draft climate change plan is that there will be about 12 megatonnes of emissions reduction in the third or fourth carbon budget. That is double what the Climate Change Committee has recommended. What are your thoughts on that? Is it really credible to double down on that emissions reduction? What are the key risks and contingencies, particularly given that some of the main sources of carbon that were going to be fed into Acorn at Grangemouth and Mossmorran are no longer going to be feeding in and that there are questions about delivery in relation to Acorn?

:Can I just intervene? You are giving useful context, but there is only one negative emissions technology proposal on the table at the moment, and that is project Acorn, which is on track 2. There are concerns about the deliverability of and risks to that. I am interested in your thoughts about that, particularly in relation to the climate change plan. The cabinet secretary was in front of the committee a few weeks ago and she said:

“If CCUS did not develop at the level that the Climate Change Committee has modelled in its calculations, that committee would have to go back to its assumptions and provide additional advice”.—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 10 February 2026; c 45.]

So, on the point about the Scottish Government having a plan B if project Acorn does not materialise, it is clearly saying that it is for the Climate Change Committee to think that one through. If project Acorn does not happen, what do you see as the contingency plan? What would that plan B look like?

:The difficulty for the committee is that we are trying to understand the implications of project Acorn not going ahead. You have flagged up one sector where it has been difficult for the Government to make progress, and that is buildings. Are you saying that we are going to get a 12 megatonne reduction in emissions from buildings and that that is the way forward? If you are not able to point to what a plan B might look like at this point, when could that advice be given to the Scottish Government? It is clearly asking the CCC for the advice.

It is disappointing that there is no automatic seat on the board for worker representation. ScotRail’s board has a representative who has come from a senior position at the Scottish Trades Union Congress. That is the kind of representation that we look for on a public utility.

I come back to the balance of non-executive and executive members. You said that Steve Dickson represents the interests of employees and employee rights, but we do not know what his background is. We will get his CV—maybe we can google it.

I also note that the reduction in executive board directors involves the removal of the role of chief operating officer, who would normally be responsible for all elements that relate to staffing, recruitment and terms and conditions. I am a bit concerned—and I think that the Water Industry Commission for Scotland has also raised this concern—that, with the COO no longer in existence and part of the board, there is a danger that some of the staffing issues, which have been in the public eye through the concerns of unions, could somehow slip off the agenda a little bit more. Who from the executive board team will be primarily responsible for those issues, which are of concern and importance?