 The next item of business is a debate on motion 11036, in the name of Maurice Golden, on supporting communities to mitigate flooding impacts and increase resilience. I'd be grateful if members who wish to speak in the debate were to press their request-to-speak buttons. I call on Maurice Golden to speak to and move the motion up to 13 minutes, please. I move the motion in my name. Storm Babbit has left a terrible trail of destruction in its wake, and the north-east of Scotland, Persia and Tayside have been hit especially hard. There was widespread damage to infrastructure, families were evacuated from their homes and tragically people lost their lives. We are joined today in the gallery by Councillor Gavin Nicholl and other residents from Breakin who have been affected by this flooding because it is on that personal level where the real impact of the storm is being felt by the individuals who have been left to pick up the pieces. Let me tell you something of those people who fear their plight might be too easily overlooked such as in Milton of Feneven where I visited last week. Most people in the chamber or watching at home won't have visited there but they will have driven past it. It's a hamlet of 25 homes and is adjacent to the busy A90 between Forfer and Breakin. That road became one source of flooding from the run-off. On one side of the village there is a limno burn, which is now a river, and on the other is the River South-Esc. Both breached their banks during storm babbit, effectively meaning the small village was being assaulted from all sides. The effect was devastating, with the River South-Esc surging through farmers' fields, destroying crops and wrecking homes. The devastation was massive and deeply distressing. I met a family who had only just moved into their home in February, but now all their appliances, their furniture and their kitchen were destroyed. What's left of their possessions have been bundled into their car while they search for a rental property. Another resident had to leave their home a year ago and were due to move back in last month before being flooded again. Another family forced from their home by the floodwater faced the additional stress of the temporary accommodation being unable to accommodate their disabled children who require specialist equipment. I could go on and on with more heartbreaking stories, and sadly, these experiences are common throughout Angus and beyond. However, what would help those people now is action, both in dealing with the aftermath of the storm and also to mitigate the damage for future storms. Both are issues in their own right now, so let me deal with each in turn. At the outset, I want to express my admiration for the emergency services and local authority staff who worked incredibly hard, in treacherous conditions and at risk to themselves, to preserve life and support the most vulnerable in our communities. I also want to commend the efforts of utilities and other services to restore power systems, repair infrastructure and reopen transport links. The question now is what help will be provided to those affected who are now faced with trying to rebuild their lives. I appreciate that the First Minister has already pledged support during his visit to see the damage in Brecon. It was right that he came to see the town because Brecon was one of the worst affected. Record levels of flooding caused the local river to swell a staggering 4.4 metres above normal levels, overwhelming the recently installed flood defences and forcing the evacuation of more than 350 properties. Some residents will not be able to return to their homes before Christmas, perhaps longer, while others might not be able to return at all. Although the First Minister pledged support, he did not confirm how much understandably at that stage. However, let me be clear that this is one of the costliest weather events in Scottish history, with a repair bill that could hit £500 million. It is a fair question to ask for the detail of how much and how long support will be provided for. Those who have been forced out of their homes or counting the cost of ruined businesses face months of disruption. The fear that they have is the warm words coming from politicians will have no follow-up, and I have already heard such concerns on adaptation measures. That echoes the Committee on Climate Change's findings last year that progress on climate change adaptation had stalled with flooding amongst the worst areas assessed. To be fair, the Scottish Government has accepted the need to do more, such as the need for better evidence, monitoring and evaluation. I hope that it will show the same willingness today and listen to opposition calls to take further action to mitigate the risks from future storms. Those risks include damage to infrastructure, transport and energy systems, but with the added danger that future incidents of coastal erosion and flooding become more frequent. In the Scottish Emissions report last December, the CCC pointed out that, compared with 30 years ago, Scotland's winters have become wetter and the sea level around our coasts has risen between 10 millimetres and 30 millimetres per decade, increasing problematic places such as Montrose. October is already the wettest month on record for some parts of Scotland, with almost a foot of rain falling. At the start of the month, we saw extensive flooding across Avymor, Argyll and Perth, which I'm sure colleagues representing those areas will discuss in more detail. Then, of course, towards the end of the month, we had Storm Babbot. The same CCC report warns that further climate change in Scotland is inevitable no matter how rapidly global greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. That doesn't mean that it's not important to reduce emissions. In fact, it's vital that we do to avoid even worse climate change effects. However, we must combine our net zero efforts with adaptation measures to protect ourselves from the risks already on the horizon. An obvious start would be to look at floodplains. That wasn't fully developed in the national planning framework for, and a long-term goal should be to assess the impact of such development. River basin management should also be reviewed. Back in June, the net zero secretary stood here and declared that she had, and I quote, absolute confidence in the current plans. That was despite the CCC having pointed out more than a year earlier that there was no adaptation actions in the plan. I think that we can all agree that those plans could do with a review. We should also keep support options under review to ensure that at-risk properties can still access insurance cover. We can help to reduce insurance costs by looking at how to make home adaptations easier for people, alongside which we consider where actions such as dredging might deliver flood protection benefits that outweigh potential environmental impacts. We also need to consider what more can be done to support local authorities and partner agencies in the immediate response to those storms. Yes, there is Bellman scheme to support councils dealing with emergencies, but that is activated against the backdrop of years of cuts from the Scottish Government that have left local authority finances in tatters. I hope that ministers will give consideration for our calls for local climate resilience funds to be deployed in the event of severe weather. They could also look at how to improve provision of emergency and temporary shelters, including those suitable for people with disabilities. At the most basic level, local authorities should have a good supply of sandbags, but I have been hearing from people on the ground in Acengas who say that they were issued with just two sandbags per property. That is clearly inadequate and suggests a need for better co-ordination of resources between low and high-risk areas during an emergency. I am grateful to Mr Gow for giving away and I appreciate his speech. I wonder if he sees as part of this particular point that he is making a role for community resilience groups to be strengthened and supported to ensure that there is a formidable presence on the ground in all communities that can work collaboratively with public sector organisations in the event of such incidents? I wholeheartedly agree with Mr Gow, because it is the people on the ground that know the properties that are most likely to be affected rather than a council or another agency, and it is certainly there for communities to be resourced to help to protect themselves. It also plays into a wider concern that I have seen in local communities that there is insufficient leadership from the Scottish Government. As I touched upon earlier, there is a view that ministers turn up, listen sympathetically and then leave it to the local authority to sort things out. That cannot work because water flows and flooding are beyond the scope of any local authority or organisation. For example, is a cash strap council going to instigate measures that, while needed, only benefit communities in another local authority or at an individual level, how are householders to understand how adapting their property might affect flood impacts downstream? The best way to manage those risks is to bring together all the key players and work to a strategic plan to mitigate flood damage across Scotland as a whole. That is why we are calling for a multi-agency task force led by the Scottish Government. It could provide the strategic direction that seems to be lacking and could direct adaptations, guidance and resources to where they are most needed. I know that the Scottish Government is committed to the next flood resilience strategy bringing together new partners, so I hope that they can take that commitment to its logical conclusion with a strategic element. Any efforts to build up our resilience and adapt to future storms must involve our food producing community. They know the land, they know what works and they know just how bad it could get if we don't take action. The flooding at the start of the month had already caused millions of pounds worth of damage to crops, and storm babbit has heaped more misery on our food producers. The NFUS was already warning that some farmers will not be able to absorb the costs and wafer-thin profit margins will not allow farmers to keep withstanding future floods. I urge the Scottish Government to provide them with the direct support now and to explore what more can be done to invest in food producer-led adaptation measures that benefit us all, whether it is food producers, families or local farms. What they all want from the Scottish Government is leadership, a multi-agency task force. Yes, they need support in the here and now to clean up and repair, but they need some hope that there is a plan to make sure that the next time doesn't hit as hard. I now call on Mary McCallan to speak to and move amendment 11036.2 up to nine minutes, please, cabinet secretary. I move the amendment in my name. I am very grateful for the opportunity to respond for the Government on this most important issue today. Storm Babet was an exceptional weather event for Scotland with some terrible and at times tragic consequences. To all members in the chamber and indeed to our guests who joined us in the gallery, I want to be absolutely clear that we are committed to supporting those who are impacted by Storm Babet. As with all exceptional events, we are also committed to learning every lesson that is possible from both our response and recovery. Before proceeding to the substance, I should like to begin by offering my heartfelt condolences to the families and to the friends of the individuals who tragically lost their lives in Storm Babet. They are mourning the loss of loved one in tragic circumstances and my heart is with them. Likewise, I wish to express my continuing sympathy for those whose homes and businesses have been impacted. I know very well personally, but also on a constituency basis, how traumatic the experience of flooding is, the fright of the experience as it unfolds, but equally the stress and the uncertainty of the aftermath. Again, my heart goes out to them. I must also begin by recognising that Storm Babet was met with an impressive response by emergency service providers, local authorities, community groups and other resilience partners. Often working in extremely difficult conditions, those groups ensured that help and support was available for those who needed it. We were very grateful for their dedicated efforts, and I am sure that everyone in the chamber would wish to join me in thanking them. I expect that we will hear that echoed throughout contributions today. I am confident speaking so fulsomely about that co-ordinated and impressive response, because I was able to witness it first-hand and on an on-going basis through meetings of the Scottish Government resilience operations, which were chaired by ministers right throughout the severe weather event. During media interviews in the midst of the storm, it was in the morning following the water levels breaching, flood defences and breaking. I noted that Scotland's preparation had been early, that Scotland had been co-ordinated in response and that we would be co-ordinated in our recovery, and I repeat that commitment today. Scottish Government resilience meetings took place on the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st, and I was able to attend them all. I saw first-hand how the Met Office, how SIPA, Police Scotland, other emergency responders, our utilities companies and, crucially, our local resilience partnerships among many others were working determinately to prepare and deliver in a co-ordinated way, and always with the welfare and the best interests of our communities at the heart of their work. Of course, the storm and its impacts ended up being as severe as the Met Office and SIPA and Police Scotland had advised, particularly in that red warning area. As Maurice Golden noted last week, the First Minister visited Breakin. He met with residents, he engaged with the local community and he took the opportunity to set out that the Scottish Government stood ready to provide support throughout recovery. Subsequently, the Minister for Local Government Empowerment and Planning visited Montrose and Breakin this Monday to gain a better understanding of the scale of the impact on the local communities and how the Scottish Government can best help. My colleague, Mary Gougeon, has been visiting food producers impacted by both of October's storms. Last week, I asked when the Scottish Government would carry out an analysis to review existing and planned flood prevention infrastructure in the light of storm, but could you give us a timescale for that today, cabinet secretary? It's an on-going process. The member is absolutely right to raise it. It's an on-going process on a number of fronts, not least, I think, most of all, in respect of SIPA's flood forecasting, a very important tool, but obviously it has to be adapting to both the increasing risk of climate change and, indeed, to really practical things like the flood defence of Breakin being compromised. That work is on-going, and I'll speak more about that in today's debate. I'm grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way. I'd like to follow the point that Sarah Boyack has raised, because in the work that SIPA is undertaking to examine future forecasting levels, can I make a plea for that work? I'm certain that this will be the case, but that work takes into account the very dramatically different set of circumstances that we have all experienced in the course of the last few weeks, and it cannot be written off as some isolated incident. It has to reflect the circumstances that have to be reflected in future policy on a whole variety of different questions, flooding and planning, for example, or that we will simply be turning a blind eye to a significant change in circumstances that has affected our country. I'm very happy to give John Swinney a concrete assurance that that will not be regarded as an isolated incident. It is not wise to attribute one weather event ever to climate change, but we know that extreme weather events like that are exacerbated by climate change and that climate change is an increasing threat. It will be absolutely incumbent upon SIPA and on planning policy development across a range of matters to be cognisant of that, and I can assure Mr Swinney of that. The process of assessing the full damage caused by Storm Babette will take time. Maurice Golden reflected that further rainfall since the event has made this task more difficult. However, we know that the scale of the damage and disruption has, of course, been significant and that we are on a long road to recovery. However, as my Government colleagues have already set out, and I wish to reiterate today, we will continue to support our partners to ensure that communities can recover as well and as quickly as possible. I'm going to make progress because I'm a bit concerned about time, but I'll be glad to take points during the debate. In that regard, I'll use the time that I have left to set out some of the immediate responses that we have taken. On Tuesday 24 October, at the first Cabinet meeting following the storm, the Cabinet discussed the impact and agreed that a Scottish Government task force would be set up to co-ordinate, for our part, the recovery phase. In furtherance of that, we met with senior officials in relevant policy areas on Monday this week to receive a SIP rep on relevant issues and to discuss the beginnings of that task force. I agree with Maurice Golden on his point about a task force and I can assure him that development of the same has been under way since last Tuesday. I'm afraid that I'm keen to make progress. We know that local recovery plans are being drawn up and are being delivered through vital partnership working. The Scottish Government stands ready to support those partners. By way of practical support, a very important first step came when the Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance agreed the activation of the bellwin scheme on Tuesday 24 October. The scheme exists to give special financial assistance to councils that are facing undue financial burden as a result of large-scale emergencies. To date, six local authorities have notified the Scottish Government of a potential claim and we will work with them to progress that. Otherwise, the Scottish welfare fund and crisis grants that come from it are also available to families and people in Scotland who are on low incomes and who have been hit by crises such as a flood. Those can be applied for through local authorities and I would encourage people to apply. Should they be looking for support in that regard, they can work with the Scottish Flood Forum, who undertake with local communities and recovery partners that really important support work on the ground. I'm very grateful for the work that they have been doing since we began funding them in 2009, but, importantly, in response to this event, members of the forum have been involved with local communities and two members of the team have been based and breakin this week, offering free advice and information to almost 100 residents already on issues such as recovering from flooding and supporting insurance claims. I've already noted how my… The cabinet secretary must conclude. I've noted how my colleague, the rural affairs secretary, is engaging with Food Producers Impact and has already committed to funding support for the repair of flood banks. I have tried to use my opening slot to set out some of that immediate operational support that we're putting in place. I'll be very glad to hear members' contributions throughout the debate, and I will try to mention, in my closing remarks, some of the strategic forward-looking work that we'll be undertaking in response to this. Thank you. Before I call the next speaker, I'd just be grateful of all members who wish to speak in the debate where to press their request-to-speak buttons, and I call Sarah Boyack to speak to and move amendment 11036.1. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Last week's statement on Storm Babbit did give us all the chance to send our condolences to the families who'd lost a loved one to thank those in our public services who worked so hard to rescue people and support communities. But, as has been observed already in the first two speeches, the floods have had a devastating impact on people's homes, their businesses, their farming communities, so we really need to do two things. Firstly, support those who've been affected because it could be months before people are able to live in their homes again, and secondly, we need to urgently learn lessons from this devastating incident. I move amendment 11036 in my name. It's an add-on amendment, as I wanted to be constructive, but to highlight concerns about the need for action. Last week, I pointed out that the briefing scheme was only built seven years ago and was designed to deal with a one in two hundred years incident. We need to know urgently from the cabinet secretary about clarity on what work is being done to review existing and planned flood prevention infrastructure, because that needs to be reflected on what worked during Storm Baba, crucially what didn't work, but what will also be done to accelerate flood resilience to support communities, businesses and farmers. It's disappointing, I think, that the Scottish Government wants to delete the recommendation for a multi-agency task force, because it is important that we have a collaborative approach, but that we also have a regional approach. The Scottish Government and local authorities to work across boundaries will be crucial given the scale of the potential change that we see. In our amendment, we highlight the fact that the Scottish Government has failed to report on progress on flood risk management plans, as required by the 2009 Flood Risk Management Scotland act. We need more political leadership, and we need that progress report. I hope that, in our concluding remarks, the cabinet secretary will give us that clarity. We need the expertise, and we need people to come together with investment and action now. I think that that means a partnership approach between the Scottish Government, local councils, businesses and farming stakeholders, but also the transport sector and environmental campaigners. We need people with experience in the room together. As the motion rightly states, we are likely to see more frequent and more intense extreme weather events such as the storms that are fuelled by climate change. That could mean forest fires, drought, flooding in urban and rural communities, as well as the impact of sea level rise. That could put people's lives and livelihoods at risk, damaging homes and buildings, vital infrastructure, agricultural land, our natural habitats and damage that could put our cultural heritage beyond repair. The Scottish Fire undress, if it is very brief, yes. Very grateful member for giving me just on the point that you made there. We know that prolonged water scarcity, particularly before the big storms, can have a significant impact on flood conditions with impacts such as soil compaction. To what extent do you think the impacts of drought should be considered within a flood management plan? It has to be a joined-up approach to tackle extreme weather conditions, because that is the experience in other countries as well. The member is right. It is floods, droughts and extended extreme weather periods. It could be storms. We need to be prepared for the combination of those impacts. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service says that one in 22 of all residential properties in Scotland are at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or heavy rainfall. By 2050, it is estimated that the annual cost that floods will have upon UK businesses could exceed £1 billion. It is a now issue. We need to do the heavy lifting now to build resilient infrastructure that protects our biodiversity, uses our natural environment to mitigate the impact of flooding and to deliver crucial adaptation projects to deal with the change that is already here or is coming. The Government's amendment states that it is intention to produce a national flood resilience strategy for Scotland. It is fair to ask why we do not yet have one. We have passed two climate acts and a flood risk management act years ago, so it feels that we are behind where we need to be. I want to finish on the second part of our amendment today. It is about having a fire and rescue service that has the resources and capability to support communities and save lives and times of crisis. The Scottish Government needs to be worried that 93 per cent of FBU members agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is not adequately resourced enough to deal with the increase in climate-related incidents such as wildfires and flooding. The firefighters I spoke to at the FBU rally last week were clear. They are already pushed to the limit. I spoke to one firefighter who said that he had to do 20 or shifts, and that is not uncommon. That is not safe for him or the colleagues that he is working with or the people whose lives he is working to save. During StormBab it alone, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service took more than 750 emergency 999 calls and attended almost 300 incidents. We have to see the acknowledgement that came in the FBU's fire storm report that water rescue sources are regularly unavailable due not to enough competent crew being available, so we need to get that investment. The SFRS stated earlier this year that a cut of £11 million from its budget, appliance has had to be withdrawn, including one at Palma D, which provided a dedicated water rescue service. That is putting us into reverse, less resilient, more prone to disasters and not taking seriously the impact of climate change. With one in 22 homes at risk, firefighters do not believe that they are adequately resourced to respond to flood and emergency events. We have a disaster waiting to happen again. We need action in its current crisis. Appliances used in times of flooding are being withdrawn now, leaving communities without protection. When the next severe flood comes and the rescue services are not just cut to the bone, they have been cut beyond repair, what happens to those communities? We need to act now, invest in our key public services, the economic, human and environmental impacts, to avoid that devastating impact that we saw last month. With one in 22 homes at risk, an environment scarred beyond repair, that cannot be allowed to happen, we need to act now and the Scottish Government needs to lead and work constructively and collaboratively. I now call Willie Rennie around six minutes. On Saturday afternoon, I met residents in Ottermuchti, who had been subjected to quite significant floods. Their houses were dirty, damp, and the smell was still pervading the whole premises. That is the reality of flood. It is fast to arrive, but it is slow to leave. I have also visited, in recent weeks, Frookie, where, twice in the past two years, residents have had to leave their properties. There is one particular resident who cannot sleep at night every time it rains for fear that our house is going to be flooded. At the weekend on Sunday, there was the high tides, which demolished a large part of the St Andrew's Aquarium, the west sands in St Andrew's, and threatened homes in Pittenweem and Anstrother. A large part of the coastal path near Ely was wiped away completely. That is the reality of climate change. If anybody had any doubt, it is here. No one single weather event can be directly attributed to it, but there is no doubt that the frequency of these events and the extremity of them is quite significant. If there was any doubt about it, inaction is more expensive than action itself, so we need to look to the long-term and provide the investment that we need, not just in mitigation, but also in meaningful climate change measures. John Swinney. I am grateful to Mr Rennie for giving way. Before he leaves the lessons of this particular weather incident, would Mr Rennie agree with me that part of what we have to understand is the enormous power and severity of the weather, which I know has affected the coastal communities of his constituency very dramatically in scenes that some of us never thought we would experience? Understanding that severity and impact is critical to recognising the scale of the challenge that we face. Mr Rennie, can you give me the time back? I think that understanding is important. I will come to that later on. With understanding, you get confidence that you are going to be safe. We need to have the understanding to in order to plan for the future to adapt much more significantly than we ever thought was possible. I have never witnessed such extreme weather events. Of course, there are individual events, but the frequency of them and the extreme nature of them are much more significant. Therefore, we need to revise our plans for the future. However, one other lesson from the last few weeks has been the ability of the emergency services to respond. There is no doubt that they deserve huge credit for what they did in Angus, Aberdeenshire, Tayside and Persia. In extreme circumstances, they came together and they made a significant impact. However, local authorities, their capacity to respond to that is really limited. I have witnessed many communities that just cannot get through to the call centres, partly through the volume of the calls, but also through the limited capacity of the teams at the other end to respond to it, but also with the fire services, which are much more limited. That is why we will support Labour's amendment today. However, I think that where John Swinney was right was the community resilience. If we have community resilience teams in areas that are able to have the expertise and the knowledge to be able to respond and work in partnership, they can act much more quickly than any emergency service. However, if they have the knowledge and understanding, they can assist in a way, too. Fraser Cotleski from Oxtermachty has called out that he has done a tremendous job over the past few weeks in supporting his neighbours. However, we need more Fraser's across the country to be able to make a real difference. Coming back to common understanding, I am a strong supporter of farmers. They are great custodians of the land, they are the experts, they know how their land works, how it flows, how it is changed, where the water flows, where it does not, how they deal with all of that. We have some brilliant advice, the best practice research guidance from various institutes. We have funding in place for special schemes such as Edelston in the Borders, in the West Sands, in my constituency. We have all those schemes. We have agricultural support that supports swales and reservoirs, but we need to have, I think, go a step further. I am not sure that neighbours next to farmland really understand where the land that is neighbouring their property has been properly managed and is adapting to the change that is coming that John Swinney has rightly highlighted. I have received reports over the weekend about dredging in the river Eden. It has not been dredged significantly for some time. The current view is that dredging is not in vogue and we should have a much more natural flowing river. However, there is anxiety in the community that the lack of dredging is holding the water back up into the tributaries and is having an effect on the ability to the water to flow freely. There is lots of expert advice on that, but the communities clearly do not understand that, and they do not understand how it applies in their community. I think that an extra job needs to be done about getting a common understanding. I am leading some work in the village that I grew up in, Shreff-Miglowe, along those very lines where I am getting the farmers together with the council and various other authorities to get a common understanding about that, but also about rewilding as well in that community. However, things like the potatoes, how are they sewn in the field? If you go up and down the field rather than across, what difference does that make? Apparently, the machinery only allows it to go up and down. Neighbours get really concerned that the drills go up and down because they think that the water is going to go right into their houses, and in some cases it has. How do you deal with that? Do you grow potatoes next to certain properties? All of that needs to be properly explored, and I am not sure that it is. I am grateful to Mr Rennie. I think that Mr Rennie is making a really important point here, but would you also extend it into the issue of forestry harvesting, where significant removal of trees—which is commonplace around many parts of Scotland, very significant in my constituency—creates potentially new channels for water to go places much faster than it would normally go had the trees been there in the first place. Does that need to be strengthened in the forestry management approach? Mr Rennie, you do need to be winding up, please. I have so much more to say. The riparian trees are important to hold the banks together. It is incredibly important to make sure that we have that understanding, but also to make sure that we adapt policy to reflect that. All of that means that we need to have a look at our policy and educate, inform, debate and discuss to make sure that neighbourhoods have confidence that the right plans are in place and that the land is managed properly. Thank you, Mr Rennie. We now move to the open debate. I call Liam Kerr to be followed by Kevin Stewart in six minutes. Storm Babbit was a powerful reminder of the perilous position that many of our river and seaside communities in particular are in. We saw devastation at homes, businesses, farms and communities across Scotland. In the north-east, in places like Peter Cooter, St Cyrus, Mary Kirk, Montrose, Monty Feith and, of course, Breakin, whose flood defences were simply swept aside, as Maurice Golden statistics bear, repeating here, the south-esk rose 4.4 metres above normal and 350 homes were evacuated. The north-esk park settlement was evacuated and the lower north-water bridge is still closed because of major erosion to its support. I was struck, as I think we all were, by the bravery of our emergency services, the resilience of our communities and the response from our local authority officers in particular. But the Scottish Government's planning and preparedness for the scale of the flooding and the recovery has been found wanting. It's not like they weren't warned, given what Storm Frank brought to Ballater in December 2015, or when homes in Port Elphinston and in Verruri were evacuated a month later when the Don and the Eithan burst their banks, or just two years ago when Storm Arwyn left tens of thousands without power and made winds of more than 100 miles an hour. That is why the sheer complacency expressed in the Government amendment, where it talks of establishing a ministerial task force and to engage on and develop a strategy, is breathtaking. Yes, Kate Forbes. I understandably hear the member's concern on behalf of constituents who faced a devastating situation. What does he suggest, and I mean this in genuine good faith, what does he suggest the interventions should be that make the biggest difference? I'll say in my own speech what has made a big difference in Dingwall, but in terms of Brechen, who could have envisaged four metre rises? That's quite remarkable. I think we've already heard some really important solutions from the likes of Willie Rennie, the likes of Maurice Golden, but one of the key things, and this is the point that I was making to the chamber and to Kate Forbes, is that actually we need to heed the warnings. Where I'm going with that is that I raised the issue of flooding and coastal erosion in Montrose shortly after my election in 2016. I worked with the council, the Montrose links, the ports and others to help raise awareness and get action. There was a petition. There were parliamentary questions with soothing answers such as, and I quote, studies will be done. I even teamed up with former Lib Dem MSP. May I make some progress, Mrs Swinney? I will try and come back. I like rumbles to invite the then Cabinet Secretary, Rosanna Cunningham, to see for herself. She declined, but we eventually persuaded her to a community meeting and she heard from John Adams, the links convener of Montrose, that either you spend £25 million now, or you spend £100 million in five years, or you put Montrose under water. All the right noises were made, something must be done, but it wasn't. Instead, the buck was passed to the underfunded, underresourced Angus Council. Six years later, there was a £350,000 award from the Nature Restoration Fund for an options appraisal, but it turns out that physical works will probably cost 10 times that in 2016 prices. John Swinney? I am grateful to Mr Kerr for giving way. I do not want in any way to sour the tone of this debate, but I may end up doing so. Mr Kerr indicated that he believes that there is a need and a necessity for action, but will Parliament forgive me for pointing out that, when the Government brings forward measures to try to tackle climate change, Mr Kerr and his colleagues resist them and there is no need for Mr Kerr to shake in his head, I would rather he address the point that I am making. I think that I can address that point by simply saying that I am afraid John Swinney, that is absolute nonsense. I say that from a position of authority as the former shadow cabinet secretary for net zero energy and transport. As for the second part of the amendment's promise, to continue to engage with and support local mechanisms and bring together key partners, well, let's stay in Montrose because at the beachfront there is devastation. There is a major breach in the sea defences opposite the coast guard station, which itself has been closed. Chunks of the promenade have collapsed as part of the road. The famous William Lam minesweeper statue is at risk of falling into the sea. What was the Scottish Government's response? They dispatched Joe Fitzpatrick. Now, Presiding Officer, as people in the north-east have said to me, it is difficult to conceive of a problem to which the most immediate solution is to send Joe Fitzpatrick. But in any event, far from bringing together key partners, he met with invited SNP councillors. Dedicated local councillors, democratically elected to serve the people of Montrose, Ian Gall and Tommy Stewart, were not invited. People tell me that what they think concerns the SNP was less Montrose and more of a photo shoot, and if you need any evidence of that, look around the chamber for Joe Fitzpatrick now because he ain't here. Ultimately, Presiding Officer, let's talk about how we go forward. The courier reports are repairable of about £500 million, and the question that the Government needs to answer is where is that coming from, because Humzae use of pledged support to breakin after local councillors like Gavin Nicholl demanded it, but he declined to say how much or when it will be available. Presiding Officer, from Montrose to Monifeth, Ballater to Breakin, Peter Cooter to Port Elphinstone, the people of the north-east have had enough. Scotland's local authorities are already looking at gaping holes in their budgets, thanks to brutal SNP cuts, and they need support now for repairs and rehousing. That is not the first storm disaster that we faced, and it will not be the last, so this Government must work collaboratively to build better local resilience and co-ordination to prepare for future extreme weather, as well as setting up local climate resilience funds. Above all, it will cease its complacency when it comes to storms and the north-east. I now call Kevin Stewart to be followed by Claire Baker up to six minutes, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Let me first take this opportunity to recognise the tragic impact of storm Bebet, and I would like to extend my sympathies to all of the families and communities that have been affected. I would also like to pay tribute to the first class response by LRPs councils, community groups, emergency responders and SIPA. Both the D and the Dawn in my constituency have flooded in recent years at Market Street in the harbour. In this occasion, Aberdein got off relatively likely from storm Bebet. That is despite severe flooding only a few miles away from my own seat. I will make some progress first of all. The pattern of storms that we are enduring is the reality of climate change. More violent and more focused rain, where one place gets hit hard but next door is often missed. Climate change is not just going to give us more rain, it is also going to give us less rain at other times. A joined-up water management strategy is key. Flood defences are an important part of that. I am sure that others will speak to that, but a holistic whole of Scotland approach is needed with a focus not just on where the water ends up but upstream in our fields, our hills and our mountains where the rain falls. We need to restore our land's ability to hold, to slow down and to retain water. That dampens the effect of surging winter storms, but it also improves our water supply. The Scottish Government has provided £500 million to the Just Transition for the North East Fund. That is not only about transitioning to a net zero economy and ensuring that our oil and gas industry can transition to renewable energy. A Just Transition is also about the two pillars of adaption and resilience to climate change as well as environmental protection and restoration. I do not disagree with the comments that Mr Stewart is making, but just to point out that the Government has not invested £500 million in the Just Transition Fund. It is only actually invested about £75 million today. Mr Kerr well knows that the Just Transition Fund is £500 million over a decade. We have invested in this early stages a number of things. In this first few years, that includes work that has begun in Aberdeen, thanks to a £7.2 million award to the world-leading James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, to set up the Just Transition Hub. The Just Transition Hub will be a world-class state-of-the-art innovation hub and has the capacity to be a global centre of excellence. With funding from the Government, the hub will place the north-east scientific resources at the heart of innovation, nature-based solutions and a green recovery. Three of the hub's areas of work will be peatland restoration, carbon sequestration and flood management. Peatland restoration is critically important to dealing with increased rainfall from climate change. We took action in the last planning act around about peatland restoration. I play tribute to former member Claudia Beamish, who did a lot of work in that front with me when I was planning minister. Peat is a giant sponge capable of absorbing huge amounts of water and then slowly releasing it again. In the past, peat was more widespread and restoring that peat will allow the land to absorb vast amounts of the rain that today simply rose off the land, first into burns and streams and eventually into rivers, causing the flooding that we have seen. Peat restoration is one of the answers, as is carbon sequestration, because I have a lot more to say, Mr Carson. Modern farming techniques, as Mr Rennie and Mr Swinney have already alluded to, have been vital in feeding the world's increasing population, but that has come at the cost of soil loss and soil degradation. The degradation of our soils has been a major factor in increased flooding risk. As soils have got thinner and less rich, their ability to hold water is decreased with water quickly running off into drainage ditches and then into rivers carrying soil and crops with it. Carbon sequestration is about increasing the amount of organic matter in the soil, making our soils richer and more able to hold water and resist the ravages of rainfall. With climate change, those land restoration strategies aren't going to be enough. There will still be flooding and the hubs work on flood management will be important too. We need to understand, Presiding Officer, Scotland field by field and we need to know what can be done field by field in terms of land restoration and flood management. Our rural folk will know the James Hutton Institute well. It is the home of the Macaulay land capability for agriculture system. The long-standing system maps every field and hillside in Scotland, including rainfall, the type of soil, the depth of the soil, the slope of the land and the drainage. By funding the team to develop the Just Transition Hub, we are building on the Hutton's expertise and knowledge of every field and burn in Scotland. We can do much more in ensuring a much better future for our country. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. I now call Claire Baker to be followed by Karen Adam, around six minutes, Ms Baker. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Storm Babette brought huge damage across the country and I pay tribute to the hard work of our emergency services and local communities in their response. I also send my condolences to those who have lost loved ones in terrible circumstances. It is clear to us that storms like these are increasing and so the importance of proper investment in resilient infrastructure continues to grow. We must ensure that we are better prepared and able to deal with them. The impacts of climate change are evident and are expected to worsen and we must make sure that we are prepared for extreme weather events to become more common. The reality of that is compounded by recent comments from the UK Committee on Climate Change, which underlines mis-targets and, in their words, glaring gaps in the Scottish Government's climate plans. That has to be about the remedy and the cure. What we have seen in recent weeks and in similar events in recent years is that our current flood resilience and defences need to be bolstered. Part of that has to be ensuring that councils and areas affected and at risk are properly resourced to deal with those events. It also means investment in transport resilience, in infrastructure and in the front-line responders in our emergency services. Yesterday's members' business debate that Katie Clark led went some way to highlighting the importance of our fire service and protecting our communities, not just from fire but also in response to events such as flooding. The rescue aspect of the fire service is vital to our response to extreme weather events, which can often lead to additional related incidents to respond to, such as traffic collisions and fires. The additional pressure that we put on our emergency services at these times is huge and we must ensure that they are able to respond as best they can. The way to ensure that that is with adequate investment in the service, the workforce and the fire estate. The Scottish Government must heed the warnings from the FBU that the service will continue to struggle to respond to extreme weather events without improved funding. In my region, Perthyn Cynros was included in the red weather warning ahead of Storm Babette. Rail services were cancelled on a number of routes and people were advised to avoid travel where possible. The last time a red warning for rain was issued in Scotland was 2015, and it means that people have to take action to keep themselves and others safe from potential impacts. As those types of events increase individual and community awareness of what to do in those situations becomes more important, I have been heartened to read off the many examples of how local businesses, NHS staff, volunteers and others have gone above and beyond to help others through the worst of the weather. In the aftermath of the storm, Perthshire continues to experience days of rainfall and the closure of road and rail routes. The current priority is investigating the extent of the flooding and why it happened, for the longer-term work of repairing the damage begins. For the communities affected, the impacts will be wide-ranging. Communities and households have to be assured that infrastructure will be restored and that they will be supported to rebuild their lives, their businesses and their communities. However, there have been other significant floods, and we have to ask whether enough has been done since then, and enough has been done from the lessons that should be learned. Just a couple of years ago in August 2020, torrential rain and stormy conditions wrecked havoc across large parts of Scotland. In Glenrothes, it was estimated that 20 million litres of water fell in a night. A landslide at Petticure Bay holiday park in Kinghorn saw around 200 people evacuated from their beds as caravans slid down the hillside, including 27 who had to be rescued by fire crews. Around 450 mobile homes at the park were at risk of sliding into each other. The same weather that year saw a number of staff vehicles parked at Victoria hospital in Cercodi submerged and carried by the flood, suffering extensive damage. Another landslip block part of the railway line and roads were closed because of flooding and potential collapses with schools and nurseries closed. Willie Rennie talked about the on-going challenges in Fife, where we have many coastal communities that make us even further exposed. Although the storms passed, the consequences for homes, businesses and communities can be long reaching. For those displaced from their homes, for farmers, dealing with flooding on their land, for transport routes and other local amenities, the time and financial investment needed to repair and rebuild can be huge. We do need to ask whether local authorities are in their position to be able to do so. There must be strategic and a long-term approach adopted. We also need to ensure that there is better planning, regulation and resilience preparation, including more investment in transport resilience. We need to see the review of existing and planned flood prevention schemes brought forward and look at how we can improve and accelerate flood resilience to protect our communities, homes and businesses. As the cabinet secretary knows, the economy and fair work committee did a recent inquiry into a just transition for the Grangemouth area, and it highlighted some of the problems for local authorities in terms of the cost of flood defences. The proposed Grangemouth flood prevention, sorry, protection scheme is the largest flood defence project in Scotland and one of the biggest in the UK. Although Grangemouth has fortunately avoided significant flooding in recent years, it has high priority, given the potential huge costs of an extreme flood event were to incur. The proposed final scheme is expected in 2024, but the scale of the scheme, at a cost of around £600 million, means that the local council has expressed doubts whether it can contribute 20 per cent of that. Falkirk's council predicament is of a significant scale, but local authorities across the country are having to increasingly plan a response to flooding. If they can have support to become more resilient with adaptation investment being made available, the amount of money needed for any crisis response can be hopefully reduced. The devastation that households and communities can be reduced, and the worst of what people have recently experienced, can be avoided. I express my sincere condolences to those who lost loved ones during recent storms. As a representative of the north-east, I am deeply aware on a professional and personal level of the devastating impact that extreme weather events such as Storm Babette and Storm Irwin before it have had on our communities. One of the first major events as an MSP that I faced was when Storm Irwin hit in late 2021 and I had to make the decision as an office that we stopped work on everything else and just focused our efforts on solely helping those in the constituency affected by the storm. What was most apparent is that the help that so many people wanted was actually to be supported to help others, to be signposted and have access to resources. So many individuals, businesses and community groups were reaching out to offer everything that they had. Whether that was a place to say or a hot meal or transport to get to safety, for example, they pulled together to support the many people in need as the storm left thousands of homes across the north-east without power. I put on record today my heartfelt thanks to all those who showed us the best of humanity with their selfless acts in recent times. The way in which I saw communities, particularly on the ground in Bampshire and Bucking Coast, working together and supporting one another through that storm made me really ponder what resilience actually means in practice. Does it mean flood defences and electricity generators? Yes, but what it really extends to is empowering people on the ground to be resilient and supporting them as the first on the scene in many cases, as my colleague John Swinney mentioned earlier in his intervention. One of the most concerning issues that was brought to my attention by constituents during these storms was access to essentials. The bear supermarket shelves were a real worry and last week in chamber I raised this issue. We can see that those extreme weather events pose a threat to the marketplace itself, including the delayed arrival of everyday essential goods, and those disruptions can sometimes last for several days. Food security is one of the most pressing aspects of the extreme weather events, which are only going to get more frequent and more intense. I would ask us all to prioritise this topic and embed it into all and any conversations on resilience. It is not just the marketplace that we see this vulnerability in our food chain. Those storms have directly affected agricultural yields, fish catches and highlight the vulnerabilities within our food production systems. Flood power outages and crop spoilage all contribute significant risks to our food security. As the cabinet secretary alluded to, there is no single storm that can be attributed to climate change, but we know, as I said earlier, that impending increase in strength of these extreme weather events presents a significant threat to our supply chains. Therefore, our efforts to build resilience must focus on mitigating the threats of floods and power outages to our food production sector in the first instance, which emphasises the pressing need to address climate change and its consequences. The motion that we are debating today is right to raise concerns of farming communities and highlight the particular impact that storms and floods have had on the north-east. However, I would have liked to have seen the motion go further in detail in a number of areas. It goes without saying that we are, and I quote, concerned by the potential for more frequent and more intense extreme weather events fuelled by climate change. Perhaps, further detail on what climate action looks like for the Scottish Tories would have been a helpful addition. Maurice Golden First of all, it is as basic as meeting the targets that the Scottish Government has set. You have failed eight out of your last 12 emissions targets, you have failed on your recycling target for 2013, you have failed on your peatland restoration targets. The member should concentrate on meeting the targets, which we very much support. That is the point. There is no action or support there to help deliver that. The last time I checked, the Conservative UK Government has backed fracking for shale gas. I want to know if Ms Adam noticed, as much as I did, that, in the intervention from Mr Golden, there was not a single solution offered to the challenge posed by Ms Adam in her original comments. Does she not think that that is a matter of regret? I absolutely do. I thank John Swinney for that intervention, because my point was that there was no detail on how to tackle it. They are all about the problems and never about the solutions unless they are creating the problems. The last time I checked, the Conservative UK Government has backed fracking for shale gas, reduced subsidies for solar energy, voted against more ambitious carbon emission reduction targets, provided financial support for fossil fuel projects to name but a few, and it was little over a month ago, too, that the Conservative Westminster Government U-turned on its plan to ban new petrol and diesel cars by 2033, watered down its plan to phase out gas boilers and scrapped the requirement for energy efficiency upgrades to homes. On those rollbacks, I have to say that I have respect for Maurice Golden MSP, because he said that it is a regressive move that is not only damaging environmentally but economically and socially, too. It drags net zero into the territory of culture wars. The way the changes were framed and delivered will polarise communities and create a binary environment where either for climate change initiatives or against them. I could not agree more with him and I thank him for speaking up on that. The climate crisis that we are facing and the communities most affected by flood that will become ever more common deserve better than petty culture wars. They deserve our unwavering support and commitment to tackle root causes of climate change and mitigations against the worst of the impacts. I note the work of the Scottish Government, a £500 million just transition fund, supporting a move to more sustainable and renewable energy, crisis grants from the Scottish welfare fund, funding for the Scottish Flood Forum and flood protection schemes, the Scottish climate change adaption programme, the national flood resilience strategy and a commitment to establish a ministerial task force to supplement the activities of local mechanisms. Those are just some examples of a clear indication of the Scottish Government's commitment. Presiding Officer, in conclusion, I am by no means saying that we cannot go further, but the unwavering dedication by the Scottish Government to tackle climate change and the face of critical opposition is a very clear message to our young people, the future stewards of this planet, who we are all ultimately responsible for. Thank you very much, Ms Adam. I now call Rachel Hamilton to be followed by Maggie Chapman up to six minutes, Ms Hamilton. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Storm Bebet sadly received the first red warning in Scotland for eight years. It was the wettest day on record in Angus since 1891. It ruined homes, damaged roads, destroyed infrastructure. Most tragically, it cost lives. My thoughts and the thoughts of my colleagues are with those families who are in mourning. They must somehow cope with the grief from losing a loved one so soon. I am also thinking about those people who have been displaced across Aberdeenshire, Angus, Dundee, Persia and Tayside. Some of them will not be back in their homes by Christmas. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to look at the devastation caused on your own home, your own town, your own community. This Parliament must give recovery efforts its full attention and not allow itself to become distracted by small fair political issues, as has just been demonstrated. This storm was extraordinary, but freak events like this are becoming more common as the climate changes. The Government's planning for events like this must also become more common. Attention cannot only turn to communities likely to be affected by adverse weather when disaster strikes, as others have articulated. More preparation needs to happen at an earlier stage, so when exceptional events do occur, the Government is fully ready for them. What can the Government do? Flood defence plans and infrastructure investment plans must receive more focus. They should be updated annually to account for the ever-changing circumstances that we face. The current infrastructure investment plan has earmarked £150 million for local authorities to spend on flood prevention schemes. So far, just £31 million of that has been allocated. Surely this storm shows the pressing need for the rest of that funding to be accelerated. The Government is working on a new flood resilience strategy. Of course, that is welcome, but the current timeline is for the final version to be published in autumn 2024, a year away. That seems a very long time to wait for something that is so essential. Had it been in place before storm bobet, it would not have stopped the damage, but it may have helped to limit it. Every week and month waiting for the new strategy is potentially a lost opportunity to keep our community safe. The Government must also use their wider budgets wisely and consider carefully which services they will need to rely on when the storm hits. Whenever an event like this happens, it is our police officers, our firefighters and our emergency services workers who also run towards danger and help to protect lives. If the Government insists on going ahead with budget cuts, particularly to Scotland's police and fire services, how will they be able to respond as swiftly as they want to to storms like this in the future? How will they have the capacity to go and help all the households in need? The answer is simple. If the SNP cuts their budgets, they will not be able to maintain the same standards of response to national emergencies. There will be greater risk to public safety. The SNP's on-going cuts to council budgets must also be reconsidered and reversed. For more than a decade, local authorities have been told to do more with less by the Government. Is she aware of the severe damage done to North Berwick's 400-year-old harbour wall this weekend when huge sea swells left behind a five-metre trail of damage and destruction? Will she join me in urging the Minister to free up emergency financial support for the clear-up and relief efforts, rather than, as the Scottish Government does all too often, forcing our councils to fund these important repairs? I totally agree with Craig Hoyt. Obviously, the harbour wall is an integral part of North Berwick, and the work that the trusts do, primarily by volunteers, is also incredibly important. They should be supported not only from a safety point of view but by this Government in terms of preventing and investing in future issues with that particular wall. There has never been sustainable, but it is now impossible for the funding that I was talking about for councils across Perthshire, Tayside, Aberdeenshire and the north-east that now must rebuild infrastructure and put more investment towards planning for future floods. I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene. The member is right to narrate the exceptional work that our emergency services did throughout Babette. Of course, we go into planning for next year's budget continuing to support them, but I wonder if she can reflect in all candour the impact that her colleagues in the UK Government have had on the exceptionally difficult financial circumstances that we are in, not least through 14 years of austerity, a mishandled Brexit pursued in the middle of a pandemic and an exceptionally mishandled pandemic at that. Before calling Rachel Hamilton, we have exhausted whatever time we had available, so interventions will need to be brief from here on in. I can give you that time back, Ms Hamilton, but not an awful lot more. I am sure that Mary McCallan would like to reflect on 16 years of SNP austerity. The immediate priority must be to get people back into their homes and help communities to recover swiftly. During the cabinet secretary's statement last week, she repeatedly said that there would need to be an assessment of repair costs for both flood defences and rebuilding efforts. I am keen to know what timescale the Government is putting on those efforts, what assessments have already happened and when will others take place. A tracker should be collected and published to ensure that those assessments happen swiftly in every community and that the Government's efforts must be scrutinised. One group that has been overlooked is the farming community. It can be the solution to supporting the Government's lack of effort to prevent the preventative solution towards mitigating against future floods. They have sustained heavy losses and rasby and forage aid have been fantastic in stepping up and picking in the pieces where this Government did not intervene. However, we must ensure, as John Swinney said, that their voices are also heard, particularly food producers, suppliers and understanding the impact that that has had on food security, and that they should be added to the flood resilience partnership review. I could go on, but I will close there. Ms Hamilton, as I said before calling the next speaker, we have exhausted all time that we have available, so members will have to stick to the speaking allocations and accommodate any interventions within that. I call Maggie Chapman to be followed by Christine Graham up to six minutes. Storm Bebet brought devastating consequences to communities up and down the north-east. It is the latest extreme weather event that must be taken as a serious wake-up call for all of us elected to serve our communities. The climate emergency is here and it is our responsibility to support measures that will address the impacts and mitigate the risks for people and our share of the planet. That the Conservatives have alighted on this issue for today's debate, however, smacks of hypocrisy. Let us not forget that this is the party that, a decade ago, vowed to cut the green crap, contributing to increased climate emissions and soaring energy prices, and just a matter of weeks ago scrapped its support for a raft of policies required to deliver on net zero. The Conservative party is not fit to grapple with the climate challenges that we face today. Their anthropogenic causes are the threats of tomorrow. According to Met Office statistics, Storm Bebet brought the wettest day Angus has experienced on record since 1891, and this is part of an emerging trend. Four of the last 10 wettest days in the region occurred within the past five years. The Met Office is clear in its findings and I quote, these statistics are illustrative of the expected increases in rainfall extremes as the UK's climate continues to warm. That means more years where crops are destroyed in fields, people's homes are damaged, transport links disrupted and most distressingly lives lost. A party that has resolutely turned its back on the policies we badly need to deliver climate resilience infrastructure, emissions reduction and nature-based solutions cannot be trusted to protect our communities from those threats. Others have outlined the work done by the Scottish Government, its agencies and its local partners to develop flood prevention strategies and deliver public support. We must recognise and value the multi-level and cross-partner work already in place to tackle flooding and its aftermath, but it is clear that we must also do more. As the national flood resilience strategy is developed, I hope that it will recognise that east coast floods are different to those seen in the west. The differences in geology and watershed patterns require different mitigation methods to be put in place. A standard approach Scotland-wide will not work. Breakin's defences were clearly not adequately future-proofed when constructed just a few years ago. It is now the time to review the processes that are in place for assessing the suitability of flood defences that currently exist. What the aftermath of the bet has also made clear is the importance of not only physical infrastructure and emergency response in times of disaster, but also the need for strong communities that can support each other in times of crisis, as Karen Adam has already discussed. Policies across Government portfolios need to support community resilience, taking a holistic approach to placemaking through planning, health and local economic policies. Community groups such as Perth Community Food Aid are providing up-to-date flooding information to local residents and investing funds into local flood protection and water-level monitoring, but there needs to be co-development of long-term strategies with such communities by local authorities and any cross-partner task forces that are established. I want to say a little about the need to bring in nature-based solutions to adapt our communities to heavy rainfall and flood flows. Flooding is a part of an actual cycle. It cannot be entirely prevented, but there is plenty more we can and must do to adapt our ways of living to safely manage the risk. Investing in a range of nature-based solutions can increase our resilience and diversify our approach to managing extreme weather. Catchment restoration, letting water courses move freely, increasing vegetation along banks and removing old infrastructure such as weirs, increases the catchment's natural capacity to absorb excess water and reduce further risks downstream. Establishing wetlands, flood plains and woodlands can all act as natural buffers during storms, as well as increasing biodiversity throughout the year. Thriving coastal habitats and dune systems likewise mitigate against the impacts of tidal surges during extreme weather. That is why the Nature Restoration Fund is providing vital investment in locally-led projects, such as the work by the Cairngon's National Park Authority to restore the D and Don catchments. That includes restoring the flood plain at Breymar, removing artificial embankments to establish new wetlands in the catchments. Funding has also been given to projects improving natural flood plains in Glengluney, Marlog and Tarlund. Changes to wider land management practices are also needed to mitigate future flood risks. Peatlands can be vital upland buffers, with a healthy peat bog effectively acting as a sponge for excess rainfall. However, when a peat bog is cut, drained and its vegetation set a light, its ability to act as the natural flood defence is diminished if not destroyed. That is why we must see control of burning of our meolins and recognise the peatlands vital role in climate and nature emergency and encourage management measures that prioritise the health of peatlands. The reintroduction of the beaver has also been an important step in increasing our natural flood defences. Nature's engineers—this keystone species plays an important role in adapting their environment in ways that manage flooding risks. These nature-based solutions can be implemented alongside some more traditional grey infrastructure, but we must ensure a balance of approach, and that natural solutions are considered in particular in upland areas to mitigate consequences downstream. I look forward to the future discussions about the role of nature-based solutions in the development of the national flood resilience strategy. I now call Christine Grahame to be followed by Katie Clark up to six minutes. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. To be subject to flooding, either at your home or business is horrible and heartbreaking. The borders in past times, once dependent on the rivers and waterways to power the mills, has seen many parts of its communities flooded. I recall several incidents in my early days here when I visited homes in Hoik, Selkirk, Stow and businesses in Galla, where all worldly goods were heaped outside in a sudden pile and the floors and cupboards of homes were warped by the flood water and stopped damage beyond recovery. What images on the news cannot tell you is the stench that quickly follows the receding waters and, in summer, the invasions of flies. Borders learned the hard way, how to deal, how to coordinate responses and what preventative measures were needed and could be taken. Both simple such as accessing sandbags, monitoring electronically through sensors waterways, particularly upstream, and linking this data directly to fire and rescue as an early warning, and more fundamentally dealing with water flow upstream. Today, of course, the fallout that we reap from global warming adds pressures on communities living by waterways, in particular where more are vulnerable as flood risk areas spread. In any area, as I have said, is the historic economy was founded on the wool and weaving mills where machines turn through the power of the river, though many of the mills have long gone, the risk from rivers and spate remains. I am impressed with the systems in place by Scottish Borders Council supplemented with Scottish Government funding for flood prevention schemes. I therefore consider that, in the borders, having developed skills and responses over decades, learning from bitter experience and with excellent interagency emergency communication, there is no need for an additional bureaucratic layer. The council already has a multi-agency functioning task force. For example, in the borders, here are some of the category one responders, including the council such as the police, fire, ambulance, health boards and integrated joint boards. Of course, there are several phases to an emergency, prevention, and I will speak about that later. Preparation with pre-warning much is improved with local detailed forecasts these days through the Met Office. Enabling preparations such as where you can access sandbags, opening rest centres or simply putting staff on standby in readiness to respond. Recovery, flood water subside, help and assistance have to be provided to the communities to get people back into their homes and businesses, clear up debris, signpost residents to funding and other support. Care for people is key in the event that floods manage to invade private and commercial properties. In preparation, emergency accommodation must be in standby. You must be prepared to provide food, water and other necessities. Transport. Utilise the voluntary sector for assistance, Red Cross, Salvation Army, financial assistance and so on. In my regard, much of this is already in place in the Scottish Borders, as I say, having learned over the decades from bitter experience. Several flood protection projects have also been completed or planned for towns across the Borders. Those include, in my constituency, the Gala Shields flood prevention scheme that was completed in 2014. Next on the list is Peebles in a Leatham, Broughton and Erlston, who are currently having flood studies to gain understanding of the flood mechanisms to appraise mitigation options. Upstream for Peebles, for example, mentioned by Willie Rennie, there is already functioning the Edelston Water Project, which I visited several times, where the Edelston Water, a tributary of the tweed, has been reshaped to make its route wind more, with planting of suitable vegetation at the water's edge, all to slow the water flow downstream into Peebles and to protect, in particular, the vulnerable tweed green, which is right at the banks of the tweed. To date, as much has been successful—and I hope not to tempt the rain gods when Gala Shields on Bank Street, where shops and businesses were once flooded when upstream the tributaries burst their banks and flooded down the bray past the volunteer hall—this has been prevented through interventions and early warning alerts to agencies to unblock any blockages in their intervening and divert a build-up of water. Low-lying parts of Stow, which used to be flooded by Gala Water, but its course and depth have also been altered, and so far all that's flooded is the park, protecting all properties and businesses roundabout. Those are just some examples where I've seen and visited flooded properties in the past and seen remedies which work. So much progress with local government taking the lead supported by the Scottish Government and SEPA with funding and with other national mechanisms for emergencies such as Cobra and the Scottish Resilience Room, I don't see a need for more bureaucracy. What works in the Scottish Borders could work elsewhere. Thank you. Thank you, Ms Graham. I now call Katie Clark to be followed by Kate Forbes up to six minutes, Ms Clark. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and it's a pleasure to follow Christine Graham and the contribution she made about some of the positive work that's already going on. Today's debate on mitigating flooding impacts and increasing the resilience of communities is particularly important in light of Storm Babette. I welcome the points made both by Morris Golden and by Sarah Boyack in their opening contributions. As Claire Baker has said, three people tragically lost their lives in the storm and I associate myself with the condolences that she sent. I also pay tribute to our emergency services, the affected communities and local authorities for their efforts in responding to the storm. Unfortunately, however, as Willie Rennie made very clear, it is unfortunately not a one-off extreme weather event. The reality is that extreme weather events are becoming more common and are going to occur more frequently as the climate emergency worsens. That means that we must be better prepared to deal with this changing climate. The warnings from organisations such as the Climate Change Committee and Audit Scotland cannot be ignored, because they have been very clear about the lack of progress that is being made on climate adaption measures. Last year, the Climate Change Committee warned that progress in delivering adaption had stalled. It highlighted a lack of clear targets and monitoring to determine what progress is being made by the Scottish Government in delivering climate adaption measures. Audit Scotland also published a report back in April, which highlighted that adaption was an area where least progress was being made by Scottish ministers. Despite the Parliament declaring a climate emergency in 2019, it would appear that not only is the Scottish Government failing to make significant progress in meeting its own emission reduction targets, but it is also failing to deliver vital climate adaption measures. As has been said, the Climate Change Committee and Audit Scotland made a number of recommendations, including the need for clearer adaption targets and improved oversight of their delivery. I would be grateful if the minister could give an update today on whether those recommendations are now being acted upon. It has also been revealed that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has faced funding cuts of 26 per cent in real terms since 2010, and two former sea power chief executives have warned of the damaging impact that those funding cuts will have on the ability to protect Scotland's environment and respond to climate-related risks. I held a member's debate yesterday on the cuts that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has had a 22 per cent cut in real terms—that is £64 million in real terms over the past decade. 1,200 firefighter jobs have already been lost, and it is believed that a 780 further is threatened if the planned reductions in budgets go ahead, along with reductions of dozens of further appliances. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has a statutory duty to make provisions for flooding, and the service has identified that the threat of flooding is going to become more frequent and severe in its climate change response plan. The service has also highlighted that 1 in 22 of all residential properties in Scotland are now at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or heavy water fall. They said that that places specialist resources such as flooding response stations and swift water rescue units are at greater risk of flooding. However, in a firestorm survey published last week by FBU Scotland, it found that 93 per cent of fire brigade union members were involved—about 1,500 members—to the view that the fire service was not adequately resourced to deal with the increase in climate-related incidents such as wildfires and flooding. That is why FBU Scotland is calling on the service to increase its capacity to deal with the predicted increases in incidents of flooding, along with an increase in incidents such as those that have been observed in Scotland over recent years with wildfires. As of 20 October, the fire service responded to almost 70 weather-related incidents across Scotland, including rescues from homes and floodwaters as a result of storm babbit. Ultimately, it is clear that we need to do more if we are going to respond to an increasing threat. Therefore, I repeat my call from yesterday and Scottish Labour's call for an emergency funding package for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to deal with the challenges that the climate emergency poses. Thank you very much, Ms Clark. I now call Kate Forbes to be followed by Runa Mackay up to six minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Like many other members, I have communities in the highlands that faced the challenges of severe flooding, not just once but several times over the course of the past few weeks. However, I want to start on a positive point. In previous years, another part of my constituency has faced particularly severe flooding. However, this year, although there were threats and concerns, it did not see the same level of extreme flooding that it had in previous years. I recall visiting a number of families in the town of Dingwall a few years ago who were absolutely devastated. We met in one of the affected families homes. The entire house was ruined. There were no carpets, no floorboards, the water had flooded in. One lady described it as though it had bubbled through the floor and devastated their home. They had been affected by flooding in the past, which had made it particularly difficult to get insurance, so they were left high and dry by the latest flood. A few days ago, I visited a conservation biodiversity project, which is upstream of that very same river that, in previous years, had devastated families. I met with two environmental consultants, based near Dingwall, who undertook last year a large-scale river restoration project. They had acquired funding through NatureScot's Nature Restoration Fund, and they had invested it in improving biodiversity upstream. Critically, they had invested it in a slightly different way to reduce the risk of downstream flooding in Dingwall. The success of the project can be seen online. It produced a very short video of that work, but I was absolutely blown away because, too often, there is a complete disconnect between our investment in environmental initiatives, our investment in reaching net zero and the pressing reality that faces families up and down the country. However, the project revealed that, in investing in biodiversity, in conservation and in ways that will avoid a flood risk downstream, they were completely transforming the lives of those families who I did not have to visit a few weeks ago because they had not been flooded. It is critical, when we are looking at how to ensure that this does not happen again, that we think broad. I think that speeches across this afternoon have adequately captured the level of devastation. I could go on to talk about the families and the households and the businesses that were affected a few weeks ago in my constituency, in Avymor, in Canussy, in the fact that communities were affected in Fort William and Malig on account of train services being off and public transport being off elsewhere. I can tell you about roads being shut between Salon and Kilchawin and closed elsewhere because of the risk of landslips. I am not in any way downplaying the absolute devastation that many saw a number of weeks ago. I pay credit to council workers, council officers and local community groups, as well as some of our front line responders in Network Rail, Police Scotland, SEPA and Scottish Water. They had to respond. However, if anything is to come out of the most latest experience of devastation, whether it is in Breakin, in Avymor or in other communities that have been referenced, what we need to do is to think differently. I heard a report the day after some of the worst flooding in Breakin, which said that if we build a wall that is two metres high, thinking that that will stop the flooding, what happens when it is three metres high? If we build something that is three metres high, what happens when it is four metres high? We could build something, a flood defence that is now over four metres high, but that is just responding by looking backwards. We need to think a lot more creatively and holistically. That must include investment in biodiversity and investment in conservation to deal with the root cause rather than just the symptoms. I close by paying credit to the families that have been affected greatly in the most recent flooding. I cannot begin to imagine the upheaval and the worry that they are currently enduring. However, let us pay credit by ensuring that it does not happen again. That is an important debate. We have heard powerful and passionate speeches across the chamber on the issue of support and mitigation of all two frequent flooding issues. Extreme weather is something that we are all having to cope with, not just in Scotland, but UK-wide and globally. The effect of climate change is well and truly here, and we are literally in the eye of the climate change storm. We have to face up to that with practical and efficient solutions. I found Kate Forbes' speech particularly fascinating with some of her contribution. The Scottish Government is taking action across agriculture, transport, forestry, water, industry and planning sectors to integrate flood resilience measures. Crucially, we are developing a national flood resilience strategy to tackle on-going problems. Although no country can mitigate the risk of flooding entirely, the Scottish Government has committed an additional £150 million over the course of this Parliament to deliver improved flood resilience. As the member says, there is £150 million being allocated, but, as I understand it, only £31 million has been put out. I am finding it very difficult to find out where it has gone. Can the member enlighten me? In a word, no, but I am quite sure that that money is there ready. I cannot speak, I am not in the Government, but I am confident that that money is there ready to be put into use. Crucially, we are developing a national flood resilience strategy to tackle on-going problems, because there is no doubt that measures must be put in place now to protect and prevent more catastrophe to our communities. It has been heartbreaking to see people lose everything as their homes are destroyed by filthy water, and to see landmarks such as the Harbour at North Berwick and many other places mentioned today crumble under the pressure of the crashing waves. However, in truth, in my constituency and where I live, seven miles from Glasgow, we experience very little of the devastation that colleagues have described. Very heavy rain, high winds and some flooding in low-lying areas was my experience, but no lasting damage that we have been hearing about this afternoon. That said, like in every community, there are certain areas with a long-standing problem of flooding in houses in the surrounding areas. An area in Beir's Den south was particularly badly affected during Storm Babette, and the residents already suffering sky-high insurance quotes can't see light at the end of the tunnel. When people tragically die during these extreme weather episodes, as happened during Storm Babette, it is time for urgent action and resilience planning. As has been said, the weather warnings from the Met Office, local authorities and politicians were accurate and timely, but nature is a force to be reckoned with. As the motion says, the efforts of the emergency services, local authorities and others to preserve life must be commended. Once again, we saw how much we rely on the professionalism and bravery of those services to support the most vulnerable and restore services as quickly as possible. The responsibility for development and delivery of flood protection schemes rests with individual local authorities who are best placed to respond to local resilience needs. Since 2008, the Scottish Government has made available £42 million per year to local authorities, and a commitment is in place for another £150 million, as I mentioned previously. We are already developing a new flood resilience strategy for Scotland, with communities at its heart. Throughout the flood risk management plan, the efforts of all organisations that work to improve flood resilience are co-ordinated, helping us to target investment where it is most needed. A joint Scottish Government COSLA working group is considering funding arrangements for flood risk management actions. That answers the call for the multi-agency task force, called for in the Conservative motion. We know that reducing flood risk will become even more crucial as climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of flooding across Scotland. For households, the Scottish Flood Forum can offer advice, information and support to help those flooded, including advice on managing insurance claims, drying your home, finding a builder and protecting your property from future flooding. Crisis grants are available through the Scottish welfare fund to families, and people in Scotland have low incomes and have been hit by crisis such as floods. People can apply for a grant through their local authorities, as we heard the minister outline. Help is at hand, and we must always plan ahead to mitigate and protect communities from the destructive force of climate change that we are currently experiencing. Thank you very much, Ms Mackay. I now call Stephen Kerr to be followed by John Swinney up to six minutes, Mr Kerr. Presiding Officer, I just want to begin by offering my thoughts and sympathies to everyone in Scotland who has been affected by flooding, the recent flooding. We have had quite a lot of flooding right across Scotland recently, and of course lives were lost. I send and add my condolences to those families who have been so cruelly and shockingly impacted. I also would like to add my voice to those who have paid tribute to our first responders, to those who work in our local authorities, who put everything on the line to serve the communities that they live and work in. I am particularly mindful of the people that live in the vicinity of River Street in Brechen, because quite a few of the people that live in that street are seniors, and they have lost their homes and cherished possessions. Some of them will be out of their homes for some time, some of them may be out of their homes. In fact, some of them may not actually return to their homes. I learned that earlier today, which is very sad. I also would like to say that I am really disappointed and surprised that, given the relevancy of this topic to the members of the people who live in my constituency, particularly in the Falkirk range mouth area, that none of Falkirk's MSPs have come to the chamber to listen to this debate. I am perhaps even more surprised that none of the Angus MSPs have come to the chamber to listen to the debate, because I think it was a timely and appropriate issue for us to be discussing as a Scottish Parliament. I think that the people that live in those areas will be confused, as I am, as to why their representatives, their constituency representatives in particular, did not come to this debate. Now, climate change is a reality, and these changing weather patterns that we have been talking about are here to stay. I actually agree with what John Swinney said in his opening intervention in the debate. These are not really events now that can be easily categorised as exceptional. As a Parliament, there are two important lessons that we need to learn. There are some significant things that we need to take on board. The first is the need for improved flood defences in vulnerable areas. I agree. I think that Kate Forbes gave a very impressive speech on that subject, and I compliment her on that. The second issue is the need to increase the immediate support that we offer those who have suffered from flooding. I think that Liam Kerr made the very important point that the SNP Government apparently, clearly in fact I would say, were not better prepared to deal with these flood events. The communities and local authorities impacted by this recent storm should not have been left wondering if the Scottish Government was on hand to give them the necessary help that they needed, but that is the reality. I read the other day, for example, on the courier, that Angus Council has had to take money from its reserves, because they cannot be sure, presumably, that they are going to have money available to them from the Scottish Government. In my constituency, the Grangemouth flood protection scheme is of local and national importance. I am very grateful to Clare Baker, who in her speech made the case very clearly in terms of the importance of this particular flood protection scheme. However, since I became an MSP in 2021 for Centre Scotland, I have become increasingly frustrated at the snails pace that the project has been moving at. The first hurdle is the debate about funding. Another one of those very difficult decisions that ministers get paid a lot of money to make around political priorities. The stark truth is that Falkirk Council cannot hope to fund a £700 million flood defence project. Asking the council to deliver this would essentially bankrupt the council. Bearing in mind the importance of Grangemouth to Scotland's national economy, can the minister please adopt a common sense business and state that the Scottish Government will fully fund that particular flood defence scheme? The second hurdle is that there is too much talking and not enough action. I was intrigued by the cabinet secretary's description of what the response of the Government was in relation to the first Cabinet meeting after the flood occurred, when what they did was set up a task force. In response to the immediate needs of the people in Brechen, the cabinet secretary then went on to talk about how they could make applications to all these different bodies—not at all well and good—but the people that lived on River Street do not need to be told that they need to go online to fill an application for men. Why is the Scottish Government not able to agree in that Cabinet meeting that a designated fund, an initial fund of money, would be made available to the people who are the victims of the flooding in Brechen? Instead, it is making an application online. That is really not what people want to hear. When the people read about this debate in the courier tomorrow, they will be astonished that that is as little as the Government is prepared to concede when it comes to giving practical support. Time is running away from me, as usual, but the second hurdle is that there is just too much talking and not enough action from the SNP Government. I am glad that John Swinney agreed with that, because what they do is that they go on a perpetual cycle of reviews, consultations, published results, more consultations, more working groups and nothing ever gets done. No metals are ever grasped. How will that go down in Brechen? There is a startling contrast between the considered contribution of Morris Golden to open this debate, which has been a thoughtful rehearsing of serious issues. The type of commentary that we have just heard from Stephen Kerr who said that nothing ever happens. In 2002, when I had the privilege to represent the people of the city of Brechen, I walked through River Street and experienced the sorrow and the hardship that those individuals had faced. As I have faced in other parts of the constituencies, I have had the privilege to represent over the years. What happened as a response to that flood? The SNP Government put up the money to build the flood defences in Brechen, so Mr Kerr has just been demonstrated to talk palpable nonsense to this Parliament this afternoon. To make the miserable political speech about those issues that Mr Kerr has just made, it does no service to the people whose lives are turned upside down by flooding. In my experience, I think that flooding is the most upsetting and distressing thing to people's lives other than bereavement, because it affects everything. Walking into houses where wedding photographs have been positioned in frames on the floor and they are ruined. Those are moments that people never ever forget. It inflicts trauma on people, so to present them in that fashion is, in my view, wholly unacceptable. I have seen, in the course of those events, significant impacts in my constituency, flooding of homes in Invergowrie, in the city of Perth, on Monday. I was visiting two families who live at the confluence of the River Islay and the River Erracht, who have been flooded on countless occasions in recent years, when very robust flood banks that have been in place for many years have been overtopped by the severity, the extremity of the watercourses that we are now experiencing. I have also stood with farmers, and I agree very much with the point that Willie Rennie made, who are trying their level best to grow crops in land that has always been able to be cultivated right up until December, but it was not this year when they have lost crops. 42 acres of a field that I stood in the other day there with the President of the National Farmers Union at Dauley, 42 acres utterly destroyed by flood water, with huge financial implications for that farmer. There are new and more extreme circumstances. I visited another farm at Ballan Lohan, near Trochry, near Dunkeld, on Friday, where the Ballan Lohan burn, which is the most meandering little trickle down from the hills, is now a monster with huge land erosion, and what we need in that, and I'll be appealing to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, is for some pragmatic thinking about how that farmer can restore the land in his farm, which will enable him to service his livestock and other projects on the farm, which is an essential necessity. I'd be grateful if the Minister would give an encouragement to SIPA to engage pragmatically on those questions. Resilience is everybody's business. Our flood incident is not just the responsibility of individuals, or a council, or the Government, or the responder agencies, it's everybody's business, which is why I'm so grateful to resilience groups in my constituency in Aileth and Aberfeldy, who have had their fair share of flooding problems in the past, but the community has responded to those flooding incidents by developing the capacity and the capability to withstand flooding incidents. On those very difficult conditions, Aberfeldy and Aileth were largely able to be protected by the diligence and the activity and the energy of local volunteer groups, and I pay warm tribute to them. I would ask the Government to give consideration to whether very modest sums of money could be made available to support more of those community groups to establish more of that resilience capability. I'm sure Christine Grahame will be familiar with it in her border's constituency to make sure that we can address those issues. Members have talked this afternoon that I have made my contribution on the extremity of the climate change issues that we face, which is why it was absolutely correct for my friend and colleague Karen Adam to make the blunt point to the Conservatives that it's all very well having a debate about flooding and coming here with complaints, but we all know that it's coming as a result of climate change, so we've got to do something about it and we've not got to put obstacles in the way of some of the measures that are necessary to tackle that. I'll give way to Mr Kerr since I've raised his contribution. Mr Swinney was the finance secretary for many years whilst I was campaigning to get the very obstacles that are required in Montrose. Precisely how much money did he, as finance secretary, give to do that reinforcement? John Swinney. What I would say to Mr Kerr is that there is a process of agreeing schemes between local authorities and the Government agreed through the convention of the Scottish local authorities, and Mr Kerr knows that as well as I do. I'm going to close my contribution by returning helpfully to the question of money. In this debate today, the Conservatives have called for more money for local government, fire and police. They have got to wake up and smell the coffee. There is not a limitless sum of money, not since the destruction of the public finances by the Conservative Party. Hard choices have got to be made. The Government is prepared to make them, but we know that the Conservatives are incapable of doing any of that on any occasion. We move to winding up speeches. We've heard today from Sarah Boyack of the real terms, a 22 per cent cut to the Scottish fire and rescue service budget over the last 10 years. We've also heard how 15 per cent of the workforce has been lost and another 780 jobs are currently at risk. In the face of our climate emergency, this is not sustainable. In just the first two days of Storm Babette, the service received more than 750 emergency calls and attended almost 300 incidents, including rescuing people from homes and vehicles. Our fire and rescue workers put themselves on the front line for us every day, yet they are having to fight for the fundamental resources they need to do their jobs. The Scottish Government may argue that the reduction in rescue workers shouldn't concern us, that the Government is reducing the risk to life from flooding in other ways, and even that these jobs are no longer necessary, but all the evidence suggests otherwise. As the Minister acknowledged in her statement last Wednesday, and as has been emphasised again today, our changing climate is bringing more extreme weather events with increasing risks of flooding. In 2015, SIPA described the event of 100 homes being flooded in the Breakin area as a one in 200 chance, but it happened just eight years later. And in 2021, SIPA estimated that hundreds of homes and businesses in Breakin would be evacuated by floods in the 2080s due to climate change. Just two years later, hundreds of my constituents have had to be evacuated. Climate change is affecting our environment vastly more rapidly than we have been prepared for. While we hear time and time again about the steps being taken to protect communities, clearly they are not enough. The Scottish Government might argue that it aims to tackle the risk of flooding at source by tackling climate change. We heard from Rona Mackay how we are in the eye of the storm of climate change. We know that climate change is global and that the effects are likely to cascade, triggering more and more extreme events such as storm Babette at home and across the world. However, dramatic action and leadership still have the potential to make a huge difference, so we cannot afford to keep missing our emissions targets. Yes, we are over halfway to net zero, but our emissions reductions have been slower than planned, despite the significant drop in travel during the pandemic. That means that Scotland is continuing to contribute to climate disasters both at home and globally, with little sign of them reducing any time soon. The decisions we make here impact people everywhere because our climate is connected. We must act now to risk endangering more lives. The good news is that we are not powerless to save our climate, and there are lessons from nature that we can learn. We heard from Maggie Chapman about natural flood management solutions. Those can be hugely effective and offer a way to increase resilience while also meeting biodiversity, carbon capture and other environmental goals. Willie Rennie spoke about the benefits of riparian woodlands that can slow river flows, cool water temperatures, improve water quality and increase biodiversity. Our abundant peatlands can act as a natural sponge to prevent rainfall in higher areas overflowing rivers downstream. That is why it is so concerning that the Scottish Government has missed its woodland creation targets for the last five years and that 80 per cent of our peatland is in a degraded state and that the Scottish Government has missed its target for peatland restoration for five years in a row. Today, we have heard how targets to reduce climate change are not being met, how targets to create woodland are not being met, how targets to restore peatland are not being met. We have heard how the Government has failed to report on flood risk management plans, how it has failed to adequately fund our fire and rescue service and how it has all failed communities like Breakin. We know the problems that we are facing from climate change. They are well documented and we know the solutions needed for climate adaptation. They are within reach. What we are lacking is a Government that is willing and able to rise to that challenge. I call on Mary McKellen to wind up. Thank you very much to all members who have contributed to today's debate. I think that we have had some positive contributions. First, I would like to welcome how, consistently, members across the chamber put right at the forefront of their remarks the individuals and the families who have been so much affected by storms a bit, of course, but equally earlier storms in October, I think that that is absolutely right that they should be at the forefront of our minds and of our remarks. I was also very keen to stress the need for collaboration in my contribution and I was really pleased to have that echoed back by a number of members in their contributions. I stress that because we need collaboration, this matter, driven by climate change and our responsibility to respond to, it has to go beyond party politics. The people who are suffering, who we have all included in our remarks, require that of us. In particular, there was a theme that emerged a number of times. Yes, of course. I am very grateful and genuinely in that spirit. The question opposed to Rona Mackay, can the minister tell me which local authorities has the 31 million from the infrastructure investment plan gone to and in what proportions or can she tell me where I can find it? Cabinet Secretary? Yes, absolutely. The £150 million, which is on top of the £40 million per annum, has been allocated to the local authority capital grant and is agreed on an annual basis according to distribution. I can tell him that in 2022-23, £21 million was allocated. I do not have the distribution between local authorities in front of me just now. I shall be glad to provide it to him in writing. What I was going to go on to reflect on was a theme that had come up from a number of member's contributions that I particularly appreciate. That is flood risk management as a whole-catchment practice. Willie Rennie raised that really fulsomly in the context of food production and the impacts that he has seen from flooding in his constituency. He mentioned dredging. He questioned whether it was in vogue or not. Respectfully, I do not think that it is a case of that. I think that it is a case of close examination on a case-by-case basis of whether it is appropriate. Of course, experts at SEPA can do that when applications are made. I say that in an entirely neutral way. We just need to assess it on a case-by-case basis. John Swinney contributed to that by mentioning forestry and how important forestry is being a dominant land use in Scotland and having an impact on water table management. He is absolutely right to do that. Kevin Stewart and Mercedes Villalba mentioned peatlands and how vital and important restored peatlands are to managing the water table and to offering that equilibrium in the water table. Thank you to the minister for taking that intervention on peatlands. In 2018, the Scottish Minister said that the Government would restore 20,000 hectares of peatland as part of the climate action plan, yet the latest figure, as of today, is only 7,000. I am not sure that there was a question in that comment, but I am very pleased to make two points in response to it. First, we have set aside £250 million over a number of years because we recognise the importance of restoring peatlands. It is an industry in its infancy, and we are turning all of our minds to how we can go from building it from an industry in its infancy to one that is the natural thing for landowners to do, and we will keep working on that. I just want to close on the point of whole catchment management, but Maggie Chapman narrated it really well. Christine Grahame was absolutely right to mention the Edelston water project that I have been able to visit myself. I really appreciated Kate Forbes' very practical example of how the impacts of that can be positive for people in their communities. Another positive contribution was from Karen Adam, who was absolutely right to stress how, in times of difficulty, Scotland's communities are often at their very best. I should want to see them able to avoid the need to do that, but there is no doubt in my mind from my interaction with them that that has absolutely been the case. I regret the attempts, principally by Conservative members, to politicise this event. I hope that they know that, as they criticise the response across Scotland, hundreds of workers across Scotland are listening to their criticisms, and we will be taking it very hard, indeed, because I said that we need collaboration. Liam Kerr used the phrase, found wanting, without going on to substantiate in any meaningful way the extent to which that was the case. Truly, I am not even going to waste time rating anything of what Stephen Kerr said, because it was so baseless and unhelpful, particularly in the face of a serious issue that is affecting people up and down the country. Of course, Mr Swinney was right to point out the irony that the Tories have failed to support action on climate change time and time again. Just on the point about Montrose, Liam Kerr is absolutely right to mention that that is an important adaptation issue. He spoke of his experience in 2019. In my short time alone in this role, I have continued to seek to develop the dynamic coast project and assess the movement of our coastline. I have worked to try to distribute funds from that new £12 million capital grant for coastal adaptation. I have visited Montrose Port Authority and have been taken up and down the water to see the erosion for myself. I have offered to chair a meeting with Montrose Port Authority, the council and others to see that we can shortcut solutions and make progress in that regard. I am really conscious that I am— I do not want to take away from your rulings, but I have been trying to listen very carefully to what the cabinet secretary has been saying here. All I can hear is Mr Kerr shouting sanctimonious. There is nobody more sanctimonious in Mr Kerr in my humble opinion, but I would really like to hear what the cabinet secretary has to say. Mr Stewart, you will be aware of the fact that it is the case that members are required to respect the authority of the chair. The person in the chair is best placed to decide where and when to intervene. I have already asked members to ensure that we can hear the cabinet secretary and indeed any member who has the right to be on their feet one at a time. I would suggest that there would be a very good way of focusing on that for all members. I would remind all members of the need at all times to treat one another with courtesy and respect if they would like to continue. I am conscious that time is against me and I do not want to eat into other members' time. I just wanted to use what I have left to stress the fact that, in that strategic forward look, as well as all those immediate operational interventions that we have made, we are undertaking that strategic forward look. Of course, that includes working with SEPA to reassess, on an on-going basis, continually challenging ourselves to reassess flood risk in the light of climate change, which is exacerbating it and which, of course, we have to continue to adapt to. Responses on that front I will be seeking through the new Scottish Government task force to deal with the recovery phase. John Swinney stressed the devastation of flooding and the seriousness of it, and the serious approach that is needed to manage it. I want to close by saying that the Scottish Government stands with our effective communities, with all the seriousness and the commitment that is required. I call on Tess White to wind up the debate. My heart goes out to the people in Breekin and the north-east affected by Storm Babette, especially to those families who have lost their homes and their loved ones. Just before I begin, Mr Stewart, what a waste of a point of order for a cheap political point pot kettle. I would like to thank those in the gallery who have come today from Breekin to hear what the SNP Green Government is doing to help right here and right now. They want to hear, and that's why they've come today. Many north-east residents listened to Angela Constance last week in dismay and disbelief. Here was the Home Affairs Secretary hailing the SNP's forthcoming flood resilience strategy, not even published, which will look ahead to 2045. This crystal ball approach is more than wearing thin. Communities in Angus, Aberdeenshire and Dundee just want to know what's happening to help them get back on their feet. I say to Mr Swinney and Ms McAllen, yes, people are listening today. The Breekiners were told by former SNP Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham that the town's £16.3 million flood prevention scheme would protect them for generations to come. Just as regards the flood events, I wonder if the member will acknowledge, as others have, that those events were built to withstand a one-in-two-hundred-year event. That points out how exceptional the rainfall event was with Storm Bibet and equally how much that latter point that I was making about SIPA considering changes is important. The final point that I just wish she would acknowledge is that, even though it was compromised, it provided vital time to allow people to evacuate. I hope that she'll thank the workers who were involved in that. I come later in my speech to Stonehaven and the huge difference between what happened in Stonehaven and what happened in Breekin, and I'd just like to refer to Ms Forbes' comment that if it's two feet it needs to be three feet. So I would challenge that intervention. Seven years later, and that comment was made about generations to come, seven years later, the town was in the eye of Storm Bibet. Flood waters raged through River Street and beyond, destroying homes and endangering lives and livelihoods. The farming community who sustained huge losses and residents don't want words, they don't want rehashed rhetoric and they don't want recycled policy pledges from this SNP green government. They want to know what happened, they want to know why it happened and how it can be fixed. They want to see leadership, but the SNP green government doesn't have a coherent plan in place on how they will help these communities recover. Council budgets cannot stretch to provide the financial support needed. Funds from the Belwyn scheme once they're mobilised are welcome, but won't touch the sides of what's required. Local authority areas have already had to cut so much cloth because year-on-year cuts to their general revenue budgets by the SNP government. In Angus, there were reports of sandbag rationing with homes and businesses having just as little as two per property as we've heard today to keep out two months' worth of rain. This led to some, it led to a grey market with people selling sandbags on social media, something that shouldn't be happening if a council is properly prepared and properly funded. Angus council has pledged £250,000 of its rapidly disappearing general fund to help with the aftermath, but when it's gone, it's gone. And this is just a small drop in the ocean of what's needed in the days and weeks ahead. In Breakin, I was shocked by the widespread damage and devastation I saw locals distraught as they tried to salvage what they could from their homes. Two elderly people, one with a chest infection, returned to a damp flat with mud and it wasn't just mud because we all know what's in the mud still on the floors. They had a dehumidifier churning away but had little impact on the damp, the smell and the decay. A home sweet home sign was discarded on the street with other ruined household items for the council to collect. Children's fridge magnets stuck in the pavement mud and the pathos not lost on those walking past. The heart-wrenching human cost of Storm Babette has been considerable. The financial cost will run into tens of millions of pounds and homeowners who do have insurance have been speaking to assessors and feeling like they're on a merry-go-round of phone calls and frustration. Others haven't got insurance because the flood risk and the sky-high premiums because insurers didn't account that 16 million pound flood defence would protect the residents and they can't afford to refurbish or rebuild. And one resident whose ground floor was completely flooded told me she had no contact from Angus council before or after the storm. Unfortunately her power didn't cut out because if she wasn't online at the time she would not have known to evacuate her property and it was dangerous. What happened was dangerous she said. Other residents have issued desperate pleas to dredge the river in targeted areas questioning whether measures to protect marine life are having an impact on human life. As councillor Gavin Nicholl, who's here today as urged, environmental protection should take a backseat when human cost is so high. And some also question the water and landscape management further up the glens and the role of SIPA, which has taken a long time to get back to full functioning after the serious cyber attack three years ago. Katie Clark today talked about the huge funding cuts to SIPA. And in the gallery today the gallery, the people in the gallery and watching will see that the questions on peatlands, peatlands in its infancy, peatland management is thousands of years old and I was really disappointed and I'm glad that the people of Breakin could see in the opening speech from from the minister. She didn't even take a single intervention. Well she did she took it from her own side and that is another example of the SMP batming down the hatches and another ministerial task force really miss Adam another ministerial task force a hurdle is as Peter as Steven Kerr pointed out and that's a that is a case in point there is too much talking and not enough action does that sound familiar we've have a review then a consultation then results are published then reports gather dust the process repeats itself more taxpayers money washed away no nettles grasps mary mcallan says she's absolute absolutely committed to learning learning and why don't we believe her I would actually say get on with it questions have arisen to about why stone havens knew a flood defences held when breakings were overtopped the climate change allowance factoring in changes in peak river flow and I do hope you'll listen miss mcallan rather than talking because this is the point that actually coming back on your question talking to your colleague sorry presiding officer the climate change allowance in answer to your question factoring in changes in peak river flow and rainbow intensity is a key consideration I understand that stone havens allowance is higher than breakings and that's a result of updates to guidance from seaper and stone havens newer scheme as work gets underway to repair breakings flood defences it's vital that they are future proofed seven years is a short shelf life for a 16 million pound project that was designed to provide a one in 200 years standard of defense and there are lessons here for the for other flood defense schemes across scotland we do need innovative thinking presiding officer our councils are woefully underfunded while the smp government is poorly prepared for adverse weather events like these and one of my colleagues said today that this smp government couldn't run a bath I say to mr swinney this smp government is throwing millions at reserve matters foreign embassies doomed legal cases a botched census and failing ferries morris golden highlighted that this was one of the costless weather events in scotish history with a repair bill that could hit half a billion pound and enclosing presiding officer the farmers the people of breakin and the northeast need to know that this smp government has not forgotten them the smp constituency msp mary gujon was mia seeming to only appear for photo ops with her boss presiding officer the people of breakin want to feel safe and protected in their homes we've got a long way to go before they do thank you thank you that concludes the debate on supporting communities to mitigate flooding impacts and increase resilience it's now time to move on to the next item of business which is consideration of business motion 11045 in the name of george adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a business programme and i call on george adam to move the motion thank you presiding officer and moved thank you no member has asked to speak on the motion therefore the question is the motion 11045 be agreed are we all agreed the motion is therefore agreed the next item of business is consideration of business motions 11046 on stage one timetable for a bill and 11047 on a stage two timetable for a bill and i ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to press their request to speak button and i call on george adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move the motions thank you presiding officer and all moved thank you minister no member has asked to speak against the motions therefore the question is that motions 11046 and 11047 be agreed are we all agreed the motions are therefore agreed the next item of business is consideration of parliamentary bureau motion 11048 on approval of an ssi and i ask george adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move the motion moved presiding officer thank you minister and the question on this motion will be put at decision time as i'm minded to accept a motion without notice under rule 11.2.4 of standing orders that decision time be brought forward to now and i invite the minister for parliamentary business to move the motion and then presiding officer moved thank you and the question is that decision time be brought forward to now are we all agreed thank you there are four questions to be put as a result of today's business and the first is that amendment 11036.2 in the name of mary mcallan which seeks to amend motion 11036 in the name of morris golden on supporting communities to mitigate flooding impacts and increased resilience be agreed are we all agreed the parliament is not agreed therefore we'll move to a vote and there'll be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system