Seòmar agus comataidhean

When you set your climate change plan and the plans for the future, you must have a temperature in mind that will be the temperature that you have to work to in order to achieve all the things that you want to do. I mean, if it gets too hot, you cannot achieve some of the plantings that you want to achieve or carry out some of the rewilding that you want to do, because areas might have dried out. I wondered, therefore, whether you had a temperature in mind. Are you just going to work to 1.5°C and keep your fingers crossed that it is going to be the right figure?

As those are all the questions that we have, cabinet secretary, I thank you and your officials for attending. Of course, this might be the last time that we see you before you go on leave, and, on behalf of the committee, I wish you well in the next few months.

The result of the division is: For 2, Against 5, Abstentions 0.

Amendment 175 disagreed to.

Amendments 176, 78, 177 and 178, 79 and 179 not moved.

Sections 19 and 20 agreed to.

At an appropriate place in the Bill

Amendment 180 moved—[Gillian Martin]—and agreed to.

Long title agreed to.

Good morning and welcome to the 19th meeting in 2024 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.

Item 1 is a decision on taking items 4 and 5 in private. Item 4 is the committee’s annual report. Item 5 is consideration of the evidence that we will hear this morning on the Scottish Government’s climate change and environmental governance stocktake. Do we agree to take those matters in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Amendment 119, in my name, is grouped with amendment 120. I will move amendment 119 and speak to both amendments in the group.

I had hoped to get amendment 119 dealt with last week. It is a fairly simple amendment about littering from private vehicles. Before I go into detail, I remind members that, as a farmer with landholdings in Moray, I experience fly-tipping on a regular basis, whether that be from moving vehicles or from other vehicles that just stop and turf stuff out the back. It can be anything from bottles to builders’ rubble. Bottles cause immense problems because they choke and kill my cows and their calves. I am therefore a little bit more bought into this problem, perhaps, than some others, but I know that everyone faces it.

In my lifetime, I have seen various campaigns to stop this, such as the dumb dumpers and don’t be a tosser campaigns. All those campaigns have been to stop people throwing rubbish out of their windows. However, when we go up the A9, as I did on Thursday night, just after the bend on the dual carriageway at Dalnacardoch, there is a phenomenal amount of rubbish, which has obviously accumulated because of people throwing stuff out of windows in places where they think that they cannot be seen, and it is disgusting. We will all have places like that within our constituencies, where people just throw rubbish out of their windows because they do not care.

To my mind, the problem with that is simple. We have to pay somebody to come along and clear it all up, but, because rubbish is dumped in the most dangerous places on the road where there are no sight lines—that is why it is dumped there—we are often putting people’s lives at risk to clear it up. I believe that we should send a strong signal to those people who think that it is appropriate to throw things out of the window that that it is not appropriate. That is why my two amendments are, first, to increase the penalty charge to a minimum of £500 and, secondly and ancillary to that, to make sure that that penalty can be carried through.

People say that the point of the fixed-penalty notice should be that it applies to the act of throwing rubbish out of a window. That can be so, but the beauty of my amendment is that it relates to the owner of the vehicle, too. If somebody gets a fixed-penalty notice, the owner of the vehicle concerned—if it is a commercial vehicle—can be stung for the fine, which makes them responsible for their employees or the person who had the vehicle. That seems a logical move if we are to ensure that we keep our countryside and our cities beautiful by not throwing stuff out of the window.

Before I do my summing up, Jackie Dunbar wishes to make a quick declaration.

Your actions have sparked Douglas Lumsden to follow you on that particular point.

I will now wind up on this group. At this stage, I am disappointed that the minister is not prepared to give us an indication of what an appropriate level of fine would be. She suggests that going from £80 to £500 is disproportionate and unreasonable, but I would say to committee members that it is clear that £80 charges are not working. If £80 was working, we would not see all the rubbish that we do see along the edge of the road.

I absolutely believe that, by sending out a strong and clear message to people that littering from vehicles is unacceptable—

I do not know the specific answer, although I tried to do some research on how many fines Moray Council had issued for fly-tipping, and the answer was very few, if any. I do not think that there were any, in fact.

I am happy also to give way to Bob Doris, who wishes to come in.

You are of course quite right with your comments that it is all about enforcement. That is why I would support more policemen and policewomen on the streets, but if I tried to make that part of the bill, to ensure that enforcement was carried out, I might not get away with it.

I am happy to give way to Mr Doris again, but I will then conclude.