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As other members have, I record my thanks to Scottish Parliament staff, particularly in the Scottish Parliament information centre, for supporting the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. I also thank all the members of the committee and Scottish Government officials for their support.

I was pleased to hear Lorna Slater making a contribution. I also thank Gillian Martin for being generous with her time at short notice to work not just with me but with many colleagues around the chamber.

Scottish Labour believes that the bill as amended is stronger and better than it was when it was introduced, which is testament to cross-party working by members. That is why I am a little surprised that Maurice Golden does not seem to be his usual enthusiastic self today. Perhaps a bit of tiredness has set in. Every party in the chamber has added to the bill, which is a good thing.

At every stage of the bill, Scottish Labour has made sure that innocent householders will not be criminalised for the actions of others or for making the simple mistake of putting the wrong thing in the wrong bin, which is important. We have also tried to embed incentivising good behaviour and creating opportunities.

In closing the debate for Scottish Labour, I want to reflect on what my amendments and my colleague Sarah Boyack’s amendments contribute. I think that they strengthen the bill, particularly in relation to provisions on due diligence, human rights, environmental impact and global supply chains. All that is important. Our approach will also ensure that the secondary legislation to come will be strengthened in relation to reducing carbon emissions and on exempting food from the provisions relating to unsold consumer goods.

I thank the Government for working constructively with us, but we are disappointed, in the sense that we would have liked the Scottish Government to strengthen the bill further around reuse and the just transition, because some stakeholders wanted closer alignment with the just transition principles in the Climate Change Act 2008. Our amendments would have helped with that, but we will continue to work with the Scottish Government to do more.

I am pleased that the Scottish Government has committed to work on improving access to reusable nappies. We will see that in the route map and, I hope, in the co-design process with local authorities. I hope that the minister will establish a short-life working group to work with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and other partners to build on the findings of the James Hutton Institute’s report and the work that has been done by North Ayrshire Council.

We are very short of time, even though we did a lot of work on the bill. It is fair to say that some stakeholders have been concerned that the Government was not being ambitious enough; we have just had a debate on the climate emergency. We are putting faith in the Government on the circular economy, but we hope and expect to see action through the strategy and the route map.

It is important to say that we welcome the clarity around funding, but the matter requires the right framework and a fair approach as well as the right funding, because local authorities in particular need to be empowered to take the work forward.

I will end with the words not of circular economy guru Maurice Golden—he is a bit tired today—but of Ellen MacArthur, who said:

“If we could build an economy that would use things rather than use them up, we could build a future.”

I hope that those words will resonate. There is an opportunity before us to create a new economy in which we use rather than use up.

I thank the Presiding Officer for her generosity, and I look forward to working with the minister.

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to end the reported disruption to students in further education, in light of the on-going industrial dispute between College Employers Scotland and the Educational Institute of Scotland Further Education Lecturers Association over pay and conditions. (S6O-03638)

The member is making some really important points, but we are here to talk about action that the Scottish Government can take in Scotland. Does he agree with me and many others that the Scottish Government should join the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance, and that it should do so quickly?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I seek your guidance. At question 6, the minister was asked a very direct question about what action the Scottish Government can take regarding the on-going Fife College staff pay dispute, and that question built on my earlier question at question 2 on what action the Government could take. In response to my question, the minister Graeme Dey asked what the Labour Party would do and, in response to question 6, he gave no answer at all. Is the minister unable or unwilling to take meaningful action to resolve the industrial dispute at Scotland’s colleges?

What can members do to get proper answers from these ministers?

Amendments 102 and 103, which are in my name, would help to achieve Scottish Labour’s aims of strengthening the bill in relation to reuse—a point that has already been made a number of times today. We recognise the important role that individual households and local authorities will play in the success of the bill. Much of that will be achieved through the code of practice, which will be co-designed with local authorities.

Through my interest in reusable nappies—I know that Douglas Lumsden loves to hear about that—and specifically the North Ayrshire scheme, it is apparent that there is a lack of awareness of good schemes where they exist. By requiring the code of practice to promote schemes such as North Ayrshire Council’s, we can tap into the public desire to help the environment. I believe that the public want to do the right things. By requiring existing reusable schemes to be promoted by the code, we will make it easier for people in Scotland to find out about such schemes in their local areas. To be clear, amendment 102 seeks to ensure that the code promotes reusable schemes that are operated by local authorities.

We recognise that Maurice Golden’s amendments 58 and 59 will help to boost the prioritisation of reuse and repair, so we were glad to see them. We were also pleased to see Maurice Golden’s amendment 60, which would require proper resourcing for local authorities to enable them to meet their duties under the bill. Local authorities need to have adequate capacity, in terms of skills and resources, to ensure that we become a more circular nation. It is important that the Scottish Government supports local authorities in every way that it can to properly achieve a more circular economy.

This group of amendments is important. It follows on from an important debate that we had at stage 2. We believe that the targets that Maurice Golden and Graham Simpson have lodged are critical to driving up action to increase recycling. We also agree that targets are essential, but, as we have seen in relation to climate targets, action is crucial. Given that this is a framework bill, it is critical that we set the right ambitions now, so that we can steer the right action to meet those ambitions in the future.

I have one amendment in this group. Amendment 104 is to

“make further provision for the promotion of reuse to assist local authorities to achieve their targets”.

That is connected to Scottish Labour’s concerns that, initially, the bill had a lot of focus on recycling but not enough on other important parts of the waste hierarchy, particularly reuse. Section 13 deals with targets for household waste recycling specifically. However, ultimately, it is important that we include provisions for the promotion of reuse wherever possible.

I thank Scottish Environment LINK for supporting amendment 104. The amendment recognises the crucial role of local authorities. Increasing reuse through the targets will help our local authorities to drive down the amount of waste that is ending up in landfill and will help to ease the transition to a more circular economy.

I hope that there will be a break soon so that the minister’s voice gets a little bit of respite.

I think that I understand the minister’s point about the statutory duties, but people in the chamber and outwith it will be wondering how the bill will encourage more activity in the local authority space to work with our third sector partners and others so that we can shift towards more reuse, which is really important. If we cannot support such a simple amendment, how else can we give effect to that?

Will the member take an intervention?

I am grateful to Mark Ruskell for his comments and for his interest in the issue, as a fellow cloth-bum parent—if that is the right terminology these days. I just want to try to get a bit of debate here. The scheme in North Ayrshire has been on the go since 2019 and, in the past, there were other schemes. Every year, when reusable nappy week comes around—it is normally in April—I go on social media and see lots of activity being promoted by local authorities in England and Wales, and I feel quite sad not to see more of that in Scotland. I know that Lorna Slater has heard me say that before. Progress is not being made.

Amendment 105 would require local authorities to bring in schemes by April 2026, which gives a bit of time. I have had a chat with COSLA and there is no objection to learning more from North Ayrshire. However, does Mark Ruskell not share my concern that, if we do not start to provide a bit of national direction and leadership on the issue, no more schemes will emerge in Scotland, which would be a real shame?