Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning. We all know that climate change is leading to more extreme rainfall events. What challenges does that lead to in the regulation of sewage pollution? Sewage pollution often affects our waters, but it is affecting more and more land in areas where pipes are not fit for purpose anymore. How is SEPA working with the Scottish Government and Scottish Water on those issues? Feel free to add any detail that I may have missed.

I recognise some of the work that is going on.

I will take you back a little bit. In the main, you have talked about water, but some of the problems with surface water and sewage seepage are happening on land and in communities. A number of years ago, there was a real difficulty at the Green in Aberdeen—some folk call it the merchant quarter; I still call it the Green. Thankfully, that was resolved, but we know that more capital works are required to deal with that.

Earlier, Nicole Paterson said that SEPA is led by data, science and evidence, and David Harley mentioned telemetry work, including in the great city of Aberdeen.

My question is about co-operation with Scottish Water. Is it listening to you? Is it looking at the evidence, data and science when it comes to formulation of its capital programmes? If it is not, does that mean that you will have more dealings with it in the future because it is unable to deal with the ever-increasing problems of surface water that result from climate change? I do not know who wants to answer that.

I think that Mr Doris will take that as a slight.

First, I would be failing in my duty, minister, if I was not to advocate for Aberdeen city and Aberdeenshire as the ideal place for the £2 bus fare cap pilot.

I have written to you about the matter already, and I think that I have set out good reasoning for the pilot to be in Aberdeen city and Aberdeenshire, but let us move on from that.

Anecdote says that the introduction of the young persons free bus travel scheme has led to the survival of some routes, and to the introduction of new routes. Is there any evidence that the scheme has made a difference in that way?

Thank you—the addition of those questions would be immensely useful.

I will change tack a little, because—like many others around the table—I have heard from constituents, on occasion, accusations of fraud around the scheme, with tickets being issued that say that folks are going further than their actual journey. That is an area of interest to me.

When I had the transport minister’s job, I asked officials to look at the issue and was told that there was always scrutiny of it, and that there were very few occasions when fraud had happened. Can you assure us, minister, that that scrutiny continues? Can you give us a flavour of how many times there has been fraudulent activity?

Thank you.

Does anyone else want to come in on that point?

Colin Borland has painted a picture of where we were and where we are now on the new deal for business. I will fling something in here, too. It is extremely important that there is engagement with Government and that business and Government are able to communicate with each other. However, certain other aspects have slipped. That might be a Covid thing, or it might not be. I would like to hear your opinion on that.

As well as the decision makers in Government, individual parliamentarians are involved. I am afraid that I am going to pick on you, Sara, as you are Prosper’s representative. From my perspective, under its previous name, the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, your organisation was immense at connecting elected folks with businesses in the north-east of Scotland. Ian Armstrong, who left around the time of the Covid pandemic, was a brilliant character who did his level best to connect everyone. However, that approach has gone in many places.

I am picking on you, Sara, but I put the same question to all of you. Are there missed opportunities for engagement with other politicians that you need to put right? Having conversations with Government is fine, but we other members are decision makers who will legislate on aspects of life that will affect you.

I will pick on you now, Colin, because, in the past, the FSB has been very good at directing elected members to visits to businesses. You said that some of the discussions that small businesses have are about the bread-and-butter stuff that they face day to day. When I talk to them at the moment, employer national insurance is top of the agenda, but the discussions often become much more strategic. Sometimes, we forget that folks have views on almost everything.

Is the FSB currently engaged enough when it comes to making those on-the-ground connections? I am not talking about things such as events, because sometimes the connection at those is slight, whereas if I am taken on a wee tour around Rosemount in my constituency by one of your representatives, as I have been in the past, rather than just getting five minutes at an event with somebody, I will get a good discussion about everything. Is there enough of that?

At the end of the day, the connection with the Government is fine—it is good, and I am glad to hear that it has improved—but I am still not convinced that we have got back to connecting with all elected members. I will go further than that and say that that is particularly the case for those who were elected during the Covid period. Those of us who had been around previously maintained our connections, and we grew them again after Covid. However, I am not sure that those connections are there yet for those who were elected during that time—whether that was to the Scottish Parliament, Westminster or to councils—which means that we canna feed into or scrutinise the Government.