Seòmar agus comataidhean

I join colleagues in thanking Patrick Harvie for securing the debate. I also put on record my thanks to Paul McLennan for his recent motion marking trans awareness week and trans day of remembrance. I know that both motions mean a lot to trans and non-binary Scots, their families and their friends.

The fact that we are having this debate tonight reminds people that they are not alone. I should not be shocked, but when I consider the data in this area and listen to colleagues discuss the waiting times, I find the situation truly shocking. If the issue that we were debating involved people waiting 80 years for cancer treatment or an appointment for diabetes, heart disease or any other medical issue, it would be on the front page of every paper. There would be an emergency piece of legislation and something would be done. We are here collectively to appeal to the Scottish Government to do something. In my view, the actions that people and organisations, including the Equality Network, are calling for are within the gift of the Scottish Government. We need to look to every health board in Scotland and ask them to step up. There needs to be some accountability.

From the statistics in front of me, I can see that around one in five referrals to the Sandyford clinic involves a person from Lanarkshire—my community. What is NHS Lanarkshire doing? I know that the Scottish Government made additional funding available, but that did not lead to any new services and it did not change the outlook. I share colleagues’ fear that, when people are told that the best estimate of the wait for their first appointment is 80 years—an entire lifetime—they will lose hope and there will be an impact on their mental health.

It is important that we remember the human stories behind the statistics. I will not name constituents or people who have been in touch with me, in order to respect their privacy and dignity. However, when we hear people say that they feel that they are being tortured, that they cannot cope with the menstruation that they experience every month, that there is no support and that they have to access the internet and the dark web to get hormones and medication without medical supervision, that is not okay. We need to think about the safety of people right across Scotland.

We also need to support the workforce, who are often at the sharp end of the situation, which has an impact on their mental health as well. I would be interested to hear from the minister tonight what work is being done on workforce planning.

I will reinforce some points that have been made in the debate. It is clear to me that we need an urgent plan from the Government to address and reduce waiting times. We need investment in distributed service models, so that care is not concentrated only at the Sandyford clinic—as Mercedes Villalba said, people need to access healthcare in their own communities. We must address staffing shortages and training gaps.

On the current strategy, there have been multiple health secretaries and many different health ministers, and we cannot keep passing the issue on to the next person. I hope that the minister will hear tonight that, across the Parliament, there are MSPs who are willing to help her with that work and who will raise the issue with her and colleagues to ensure that it is a priority. We need to leave the chamber tonight knowing that the Government has a plan and that people will be able to find some reasons to be hopeful.

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for that welcome update. Organisations across the energy, manufacturing and housing sectors are expected to deliver the clean heat ambitions that are set out in the draft climate change plan, but many are saying that they cannot plan properly for the scale of the challenge, especially now that the heat in buildings bill has been kicked down the road until after the election.

I recognise the wider engagement that the cabinet secretary has carried out, and I welcome her offer today. What can she say to stakeholders who think that there is a lack of certainty and who want that effective engagement to continue?

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making in discussing Scotland’s draft climate change plan 2026 to 2040 with stakeholders and MSPs. (S6O-05186)

I suppose that funding is key. I will hand back to the convener.

I will build on Mark Ruskell’s questions. Will you give further examples of the more significant impacts of climate change that we expect to see in Scotland over the next 10, 20 and 50 years, particularly in the context of infrastructure and infrastructure planning?

That is really helpful, and I am thinking about some of the skills challenges around that. Are there international examples of climate adaptation targets that the committee could look at?

I wanted to ask questions about the different impacts at the different levels of temperature increases, but Mark Ruskell has covered that.

On the modelling, the evidence and the climate science, you have given a fairly favourable answer in relation to some of the work that is taking place across the UK, including in Scotland. That is reassuring on the one hand. However, on the other hand, anyone who follows the news will see examples of local authorities no longer having flood risk committees. Clearly, at a policy level, there is a push for more development to happen, particularly for house building, because we know that we need sufficient homes for everyone in the country.

How can we ensure that decisions remain robust, evidence based and are transparent, while meeting community needs and delivering the right development in the right places? If we are going to build in an area where there is a higher risk of flooding, for example, proper mitigation must be built into that.

I do not want you to provide a particular example or authority, but people talk about such issues, because they see these events happen and they worry about how they will insure their home or their business in future. On a technical level, how can we ensure that front-line decision makers have access to the best possible data?

Thank you for that comprehensive answer. We know that there is a risk of increased flooding, wildfires and droughts because of climate change, and you have described the way in which the weather is changing. Through national planning framework 4, the current and future impacts of climate change must be taken into account in local development plans, so that is a job for our planning authorities.

In your earlier response to Mark Ruskell, you described the need for a place-based approach. Which areas are least prepared? That might be certain sectors or geographical parts of Scotland. We also know that we need to review agricultural practices and infrastructure planning. Are there any comments that you want to make on that?

Thank you—that was helpful.

I have a question on enforcement. Another issue that has been raised is whether SEPA currently has enough resources and expertise to deal with complaints and cases that come to it at the moment, because a lot of its work is intelligence led. If the bill was passed, would it raise any issues about enforcement for SEPA or any other body?

As there are no more comments on that issue, I will move on to a final point. The notion of a deterrent has come up a couple of times. The witnesses have recognised that, when policy makers talk about ecocide, they are talking about the most severe instances—events that might happen only extremely rarely. In the bill, we talk about the likelihood of a sentence of between 10 and 20 years. Do you want to say anything about the sufficiency of the current deterrents?

Another issue that has been raised is that of how we can better inform and educate the public, given that science and knowledge of environmental harm issues change all the time. Could anything be done to raise awareness of the legal framework that we currently have in Scotland? How could we create more of a deterrent effect?