Chamber and committees

Toni Freitas wants to come in on Mr Ruskell’s question.

One of the challenges with the construction industry is that it overlaps devolved and reserved areas. That takes me to some questions from Brian Whittle.

Professor McHarg, Mr Whittle addressed his question to you. Do you want to add anything very briefly, just for completeness?

Toni Freitas wants to come in, so perhaps Douglas Lumsden could ask his next question and Toni Freitas can answer both. Have you finished, Dr Marques-McEwan?

That feeds into your next question, Monica.

If anyone other than Dr Irving has a strong view on the question, I ask them to indicate that they wish to speak.

Our next agenda item is an evidence session as part of our stage 1 scrutiny of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill. For our first panel, we are joined by organisations that will offer us a United Kingdom-wide and international view on the circular economy. We are very pleased to have all the witnesses with us.

I am delighted to welcome Line Kikkenborg Christensen, who is a partner advocacy officer at the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, and is in the room. I am also very pleased to welcome the witnesses who are joining us remotely. Jocelyn Blériot is executive lead for international institutions and policy at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation; Emma Hallett is programme lead for resource management policy at Waste and Resources Action Programme Cymru; Anna Larsson is director of circular economy development at Reloop Platform; and Charis Scott is campaigns and communications lead at the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland. I thank all of you for joining us today.

We have allocated around 75 minutes for this session. We will move straight to questions.

What are your first impressions of the bill? Does it provide an ambitious framework to support Scotland’s transition to a circular economy? If not, what would make it more ambitious within the powers of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament?

Perhaps Line Kikkenborg Christensen can go first, as she is in the room.

So, it is about how we move to a wellbeing economy as well as a circular one, and it is about decoupling economic progress from unsustainable consumption and extraction. Perhaps Emma Hallett would like to comment on that and on the initial question.

My colleague Mark Ruskell will come in with a specific question on that shortly. However, before we move to that, Anna Larsson, what are your thoughts on and impressions of the bill overall? Does it provide an ambitious framework?

We will come back to many of those points as we ask further questions.

Charis Scott, what are your overall impressions of the bill?