 The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 11398, in the name of Alec Rowley, on the impact of mos moran flaring. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Can I ask those members who wish to speak in debate to press the request-to-speak buttons now, and I call on Alec Rowley to open the debate? Mr Rowley, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to begin by thanking those members who signed my motion to enable this debate to take place today and the Labour business manager for agreeing time for the debate. I was a teenager when planning was first sought for the mos moran petrochemical plan in Fife and when the work on the site first began. There was a view locally that many jobs were to be created not just in the construction of the site but also there was to be a great boon for the local economy on the downstream work that would follow, as well as the spin-off opportunities of new industry and agriculture being fed from the site. It is true that construction brought plenty of work and the local economy has benefited, but nothing like what was envisaged from those who were the strongest advocates of the plan in those early days. Throughout the years, there has continued to be concerns expressed about what chemicals do come from the site into the air that we breathe locally. I have worked over many years with the former area chair of the Cowmbith area councillor Willie Clark to bring NHS 5 to the table to discuss those concerns. However, I believe that it would be fair to say that, for much of that period, the community has not lived in fear when it came to the safety of the plan itself. That is until the past few years when we have seen the episodes of unplanned flaring increase at a pace that has caused major concern for the communities around the plant and, indeed, much further afield. That is the key point that I want to make today. It is the key point that I have made in correspondence to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform. Most important of all, it is the key point that local people in growing numbers are increasingly making. We have lost confidence that the plan is safe. Why has this come about? It is because every time there is an episode of unplanned flaring, it means that something has broken in the plan. For flaring is a safety mechanism for when the plan is unable to run and when it is unplanned, it means that something has gone wrong. I do not know how many people in here have witnessed the flare off Mossmorne. At night time, the pulsating orn's glow illuminates the surrounding towns. Ironically, a flare incident took place during Earth Air this year, lighting up the sky of fife, when all around the world people were turning their lights off to show solidarity with protecting our environment. I was told by someone driving past during the flare incident that they felt as if they were driving past Mordor, but it is not just the fact that the sky is lit up at night. The levels of vibration, the levels of noise, are very frightening for residents. I would refer you to the website of the Mossmorne action group where you can read a summary from 169 issues reported by local residents. Those include vibration and humming, sleep disturbance, irritable throw, eye, skin and breathing related issues, excessive noise levels, headaches and migraines, chemical smells, stress and anxiety, pain and ringing in the ears, and soot and particulate matter. A lady from Lawn Finance contacted me yesterday when she saw in the local press that we were having this debate today and wanted me to point out that the ornaments in her house visibly shake. A resident from Kelty recently described it to me as being like a helicopter landing in the back garden. Last June, on a beautiful sunny afternoon, I was in shock as I saw a thick black smoke belts from the top of a stack and form a massive black cloud that sat over the top of the houses in Lockhillie, Glen Craig, Cloris Hill, Lockhoar and Bollingerie. It cannot be right—it is not right—that people in those communities are having to go through those experiences. It cannot be right—it is not right—that people are now living with the fear of the Mossmorne chemical plant on their doorsteps. That is why I, along with many other politicians and local groups, have been demanding action. A final warning was issued by SIPA in relation to the flaring event that took place in June last year, yet, following that incident, there were unplanned flaring events in October, March and again in May. To be clear, those are not short episodes of a few hours. Those events are usually continuous and last for days on end. It is simply not acceptable for people to put up with this for this long, with little being done to address the problem at its core. One of the key questions is why does the plant keep breaking down? It is a 30-year-old plant and we need to know what the issues are and how they can be addressed. The fact that breakdowns are increasing in number and therefore unplanned flaring events increase in number as the plant gets older must be addressed. That is a question that I feel must be answered by the operator of the plant and by the public authorities and ultimately by the Government. Six days ago, SIPA announced that the operators of the petrochemical facilities, which are run by five ethylene plants by both Shell and ExxonMobil, are to face and enquire in a joint investigation by SIPA and the Health and Safety Executive. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, this has been welcomed across the communities of Fife, but we need to know that there will be transparency. SIPA has said and I quote, compliance with Scotland's environmental rules is simply non-negotiable. The people of Fife need the confidence that this is the case and the confidence in the safety of their surroundings and the place in which they live. Thank you, Mr Rowley. I call David Torrance. I would also like to thank Alex Rowley for bringing this motion to the chamber today to discuss the impact of Mossmorran flaring on our environment and our local communities. Mossmorran is one of Europe's largest ethylene plants. The plant, which opened in 1986, was the first to be specifically designed to use natural gas liquids from the North Sea as feedstock. The Fife ethylene plant in Mossmorran is an extremely important asset to the community and the wider Fife area, as well as an asset to Scotland's energy industry with an annual capacity of 830,000 tonnes of ethylene and a contribution of more than 20 million a year to the Scottish economy. It is also one of Europe's biggest and most modern ethylene plants. It is among Fife's largest employers, with 178 employees and 50 core contractors. Its highly skilled apprenticeship scheme has seen many ex-apprentices go on to join the workforce. When you consider that more than 70 per cent of the employees live within six miles of a plant, the economic benefits returned to the local area from a highly skilled workforce at Mossmorran are obvious. I would also like to take a moment to highlight the long-standing and extensive programme of community support and engagement from the Fife ethylene plant, including sponsorship of the Safe Drive State Alive Roadshow, attended by more than 30,000 pupils, various theatre and lunch trips for some 1,000 senior citizens and invaluable support for energy arts in Scotland. However, we are here today because of recent flaring incidents that have impacted greatly on local communities, the effects of which should not be underestimated and cannot be ignored. Although flaring is a vital feature that ensures the on-going safety of the plant, the noise, vibration and bright light emitted during those unplanned incidents, which have increased in frequency over the past year, has caused much alarm and distress among local residents. A light from the elevated flare can be seen for many miles from a plant. Fife ethylene plants seek to minimise the occurrence of these incidents as much as possible and set about making serious improvements following the elevated flaring in June 2017. Improvements in maintenance programmes, continued investment in new technology, and research on improving improvements to the flaring system through the use of best technology have all been undertaken with a view to alleviating the issues of unplanned flaring. Regrettably, those problems will not have been solved overnight and we have seen it recently when further incidents occurred. For this reason, I welcome recent extensive discussions between local residents, politicians, environmental groups and regulators, and I am pleased to see a continued engagement from Exxon Mobile and Shell, as I believe that the solution to those problems will only be achieved through a true multi-partnership working. In conclusion, I would like to once again thank our rally for bringing this motion to the chamber this afternoon, as well as those involved in the efforts to reduce the impact of flaring incidents. First, I must mourn an action group for rallying the local community together, organising extremely well-attended meetings, informing residents on developments, taking on their concerns, ensuring a continued high profile of the issue raised and in so doing so putting pressure on regulatory bodies to investigate. CEPA and the Health and Safety Executive for a commitment to a joint investigation, I must mourn if we apologise to myself and to the local community, is very much appreciated. I am extremely pleased by the co-ordination between relevant stakeholders in responding to incidents. Co-operation from all groups is crucial at this point to mitigate the environment and social impacts of unplanned flaring, as well as to prevent future incidents, any further incidents in the future. This plan has seen a consistently high safety and health environment performance and a long-standing history of compliance. I am confident that, by working together, we can find a solution for his problems. Thank you very much, Mr Torrance. I call Alexander Stewart to follow by Claire Baker. I am delighted to take part in the debate, and I congratulate Alex Rowley for having us the opportunity to do this this afternoon. The most modern community has lived alongside the plan for decades, but there seems to be concerns over the past three years where the safety of the plan is becoming more problematic. I am delighted that, last week, the most modern chemical plan is now to have a top-level joint investigation by the Health and Safety Executive and also by SIPA. The inquiry has focused on SIPA's issues when it had to produce a final warning, and that was to do with the flaring that took place 12 months ago. SIPA, at the time, indicated and described that as preventable and unacceptable. We have had a flaring that is preventable and unacceptable. Residents from a huge radius around the complex are obviously very distressed that that flaring lasted for nine days. As individuals have said, it sounds like a jet engine going off living next to it. We do acknowledge and understand that flaring is part of the safety issue and part of the safety programme, but many residents have been kept awake and are very anxious about what is happening in their community. We have already heard from Mr Rowley about the noise, the pollution and the problems that individuals are having to deal with. They are not able to sleep, the distress that causes to children, the distress that causes to animals who live around about them. The plant monitoring itself is limited. The air quality that is happening in the surrounding area has been talked about in the past. There is a real level of concern, because there is not the whole idea about what kind of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other pollutants adjacent to the plant are being dealt with when flaring takes place. More importantly, we have seen that, for a short and long term, for adults healthcare, NHS Fife has been actively involved as one of the partners to see what is happening in the community, but there are concerns about the development of some of that. SIPA has acknowledged that we have to work together to try to resolve that. We have already heard that flaring has taken place a year ago, and there have been other ones that took place in October and March. As I have said, 33 years of that plant has been at that location, with not having had that much breakdown or elements in the community. However, in recent times, we have seen things progressing. As I have said before, the flaring has to be considered. We have been told that it was a pump that caused some of the flaring over the past few months and over the last year, but that is potentially down to maintenance. The maintenance of the plant is now being questioned, and individuals are right to do that. Is the company involved in cutting corners? Questions are being asked. We have had public meetings. The very first public meeting that I went to, the plant did not even send representatives, and that has absolutely enraged the community. It was right to do so. The most modern itself, ExxonMobil and Shell, has worked in the community—that has already been talked about—but it has been up to individuals from the action group, councillors, MSPs and MPs who have got this whole thing up and running in the past few months. I pay credit to all of them who have achieved that. Without that, we would once again be quite tight-lipped with what was going on in the facility, and no-one was aware of what was going on. In conclusion, I am delighted that SIPA is carefully investigating and looking, and I am delighted that the health and safety executive is now taking some more interest in the plant itself, because the community deserves nothing less. The community has seen cross-party support, and that cross-party support has and will protect them in the future. That is what we are here to do to ensure that they are protected, but the community is fearful, and it is up to all of us to ensure that that is not the case, and we protect them in the future. I thank Alex Rowley for bringing the opportunity to the chamber. I acknowledge the consistent interest that Alex Rowley has taken in this issue over the years, as well as other members around the chamber. I would also like to recognise the work of Helen Eadie MSP, who was elected in 1999 to represent Cowdenbeath, a member whom we all still miss, and Helen did work hard to endeavour to represent the concerns of her constituents over the Exxon Mobile and Shell UK plant in Mossmorran, particularly the issue of unplanned flaring. I would also like to recognise the work of local people, the relevant community councils and the action group in raising concerns, as well as working with the operators with SIPA, with Fife Council and other partners to try and address concerns. As the motion identifies, the past year has heightened concerns. I welcome the joint investigation by the Health and Safety Executive and SIPA following the recent unplanned flaring incidents at the plant. They have a crucial role to play here. It is very concerning that SIPA has served final warnings on the operators' Exxon Mobile and Shell UK and has described prolonged flaring in June last year as preventable and unacceptable. In response to this, the Health and Safety Executive will be serving operating permit variations next week, requiring the companies to strengthen controls, which will hopefully have an impact on the noise and vibration coming from any future flaring. Those measures have been long awaited by residents around the area who have complained of increased disruption that they have experienced from the site. Some are saying that the noise levels, the vibrations and the light pollution is keeping them awake at night, and concerns have also been raised about the impact on health, in particular on those with existing health conditions, such as lung conditions or chronic illness, which can be exacerbated by interrupted sleep and aggravation from air pollution. Communities have withstood unplanned flaring in October last year, in March this year and again in May. I am pleased that the Health and Safety Executive and SIPA are saying that they are listening carefully to community calls for a routine branch review, which will examine issues at the plant. In response to that, it is important that the work that they undertake—the joint investigation with HSE and review of operating permits—is robust and transparent, so that the local community can rightfully be informed about what happened with the flaring incidents in October, March and May. There is also still the potential for enforcement action in relation to those recent incidents, which remain under investigation. The recent joint meetings that are organised by a Leslie Laird MP with key stakeholders and, including many of the MSPs in the chamber this afternoon, as well as representatives from ExxonMobil and Shell, SIPA, local politicians and community groups has been a positive development. The meetings have been an opportunity to discuss concerns over the plant, make clear our concerns to operators and work towards solutions. Alex Rowley has covered many of the key issues, but there are a few areas that I would like to highlight. First, it opened in 1985 that there are issues with the age and condition of the plant, but that cannot be an excuse. SIPA, in its final warning letter in April, said that there were failures and maintenance practices leading to extended periods of flaring. That is not good enough and the plant must be brought up to a higher standard. In the recent meeting, Shell said that they were investigating the best available technology. This work must be prioritised. Exxon said that they were preparing an action plan with a timescale for elevated flaring to end. That must be expedited. Those issues must be addressed if the plant is of a future. Secondly, communication with the local community must be improved. Over the years, the plant has had a working group with community councils, but they need to recognise that communication and engagement methods are changing, and there needs to be more proactive communication with the impacted communities. Thirdly, I support the calls for greater air quality monitoring. I recognise the level of compliance with applicable laws and regulations, but we must not be complacent and vigilant and thorough. I support calls for increased air quality monitoring around the surrounding area. Presiding Officer, I thank Alex Rowley for bringing forward the debate. I would like to thank the Most Moran Action Group, who has given a strong voice to communities who for decades have lived in the shadow of the plant. It is about time that we listened and acted. Over the years, there has been a collective failure of Fife Council, SEPA and NHS Fife to fully recognise the suffering of communities and then hold the operators to account. Why has it taken years for noise monitoring inside homes to be carried out? Why is it acceptable that families face sleepless nights with only the cold comfort of an excuse that flaring is a safety measure? There has been no effective representative voice so far. It is all very well having a community liaison group handing out a wee bit of charity funding, but not at the expense of proper scrutiny. The air pollution monitoring group's remit is too narrow and has been hampered by a lack of robust data. Anyway, air pollution is only one part of the problem. It is the multiple effects of noise, light, vibration and air pollution together that are destroying people's quality of life. I welcome that the Minister for Public Health has now written to SEPA after our recent meeting, asking it to monitor noise, vibration and light pollution inside homes. There has at least been an acknowledgement of this issue now from SEPA. However, I am not impressed with the response from NHS Fife this week to my letter asking it to investigate the health impacts of flaring. They are passing the buck, claiming that it is not their responsibility, saying that the sample size around Moss Moran is too small to investigate. We will try to tell families that are kept awake for days on end that their suffering is not statistically significant. I asked the Scottish Government to take leadership on this, commission a body that can study those impacts, and I am sure that there are many others living in the shadow of other plants in Scotland that would boost the sample size. In recent months, I have spoken to a number of former employees of the Exxon side of the operation at Moss Moran. They have all told me of a corner-cutting culture at Exxon, stuck in the 1990s, yet a different approach at Shell seems to be in place, one that goes beyond simple legal compliance. It is clear that the increase in flaring has happened because Exxon will not shut the plant down for longer periods to allow for proper maintenance and investment. Their objective of keeping the plant running at all costs at all times is leading to problems. It is tripping out safety systems during maintenance, which then leads to longer, more frequent flaring incidents. Exxon is in effect externalising its maintenance shutdown costs on surrounding communities. Sleep is being stolen to pay for shareholder profit. I demand that SEPR and HSE, in their joint investigation of the plant, look at the critical issue of planned shutdowns. Disruptive flaring can and should be minimised. If it requires a rebuild of the flaring infrastructure, the operators should see this as an investment in the future of the plant. SEPR must give communities confidence that a final warning is just that. It should do what it says on the tin. The operators must get the message that they cannot just rack up environmental breaches like parking tickets. Repeated breaches are not a simple operational cost to be absorbed. This is about consent, and communities do not give their consent to having their lives ruined. There needs to be action. Mostmore needs to be shut for proper maintenance, or it needs to be forced to shut. The last speaker in the open debate, Ms Smith, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. May I echo the thanks to Alex Rowley for securing this debate and to the other MSPs and MPs who have been assiduous in their responses to the local community, many of whom, as we have heard, remain very concerned about what the future will hold. Whether you live in the immediate vicinity of Mossmorran or in the other areas of Fife and Cynrosha, or across the water in Edinburgh, Mossmorran is well defined as the very large gaseous ball of orange in the sky, or as Alex Rowley commented, sometimes heavy black smoke. It is an alarming sight at times, which, notwithstanding the recent announcement of a joint investigation by SEPA and the Health and Safety Executive, remains the principal focus of concern for many communities across the area. There are several members in this debate who have much more experience than I do of recent public meetings, but of those constituents who have written to me, the majority of sighted transparency is the main issue. They want to know the details about the aging plant, most especially about whether there are fundamental failings within the plant structure, why the pump failed, what tests have been undertaken with regard to air pollution and possible health risks, what the results were and who knew what when in terms of the decision-making. Those are perfectly understandable and legitimate questions. For example, when SEPA says that there is an unplanned flaring incident that is preventable, we need to know exactly what evidence supports that view, why the two companies were unable at the time to deal satisfactorily with the concern and why, since then, it appears to have taken considerable length of time for more facts to emerge. This obfuscation has only served to heightened tensions. Likewise, the arrival on occasion of several emergency vehicles gives local people little cause for comfort, nor does the noise and the air pollution that has been spoken about by several other members. For me, it is full transparency that should be the priority, and we need it as soon as possible. We need it not only as an independent, comprehensive investigation into what has gone wrong in the past, but we need safety assurances about the present and, most especially, about the future. I have no doubt that there is a delicate balance to be struck between ensuring that there is a safe production environment and ensuring that most morning's position as Europe's largest ethylene plant can be maintained and enhanced, not least because it is important to support the delivery of the maximum potential in North Sea resources. It is clear, very clear in recent months, that that is where the tensions have lain, and where they have not always been clear lines of responsibility and, just as importantly, the clear lines of accountability. While both ExxonMobil and Shell claim that they are working very hard in this regard, including the provision of daily updates, there still appears to be some mistrust within the local community. Addressing that is perhaps the most important priority, and I think that it will come down to clarity over legal responsibilities and exactly what obligations the two companies will have in the context of SEPL's final warning. SEPL seems content that the new operating permit variations, which will be served on ExxonMobil and Shell, will be the necessary means of enforcing those renewed legal obligations on the two companies. That is good, but there remains the statement from both companies that they already believe that they are complying with these legal requirements, and of course that begs the question about what would happen and who would be proven to be correct should that matter be taken to the courts. Deputy Presiding Officer, this is a deeply worrying issue for all of the local community, not just because of the safety concerns, but because hitherto not all the relevant answers have been forthcoming. That has to change, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I hope that this debate will pursue that. Thank you very much, I call Rosanna Cunningham to close with the cabinet secretary. Can I start by thanking Alec Rowley for initiating this debate on a matter that I know has been of significant concern to local residents and, indeed, to the constituency MSP Annabelle Ewing? Can I also just acknowledge Claire Baker's mention of Helen Eadie? I was convener of the health committee 2003 to 2007, and Helen Eadie was a member of that committee. I can absolutely assure members who perhaps weren't here at that time that Helen was an absolute terrier when she took up issues and the Parliament is the poorer for her absence. A number of other members today have highlighted specific areas of concern in connection with this particular topic. I think that Alec Rowley rightly highlights the concerns and, indeed, fears of residents themselves. I recognise the significant impact that incidents such as those can have on the quality of people's lives. The level of disruption that people have experienced is simply not acceptable. I think that it is important to acknowledge that from the outset. As David Torrance laid out, Musmorran is, of course, one of Scotland's largest and most important industrial sites. It makes a significant contribution to the economy, but it should operate in a way that is sustainable and that minimises the potential for adverse impacts on the local community and the environment more generally. The site is regulated under the pollution prevention and control regulations. That means that the plant requires a permit to operate and the permit sets strict controls on a whole range of environmental issues. Regulation of sites such as the Musmorran complex is, of course, as everybody knows, a matter for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. SIPA is an independent regulator that grants and varies permits based on expert analysis and guidance. I am reassured by the strong and consistent message coming from SIPA that compliance with permitting conditions is an absolute requirement, not simply an option. As Alec Rowley flagged up, SIPA issued final warning letters earlier this year. SIPA has committed to reviewing the permits of both ExxonMobile and Shell at the Musmorran complex. Permit variations are due to be served on both operators today. Analysis of the information gathered during recent flaring events will be considered by SIPA when deciding what course of action to take. It would not be appropriate for me to prejudge what action SIPA should take in relation to enforcement, but I think that it is reasonable for residents to expect SIPA to take effective action to address non-compliance when it occurs. I am aware that the SIPA chief executive, Terri Ahern, met with local partners last week to set out face-to-face the action that it is taking. I know that that was a welcome development. That includes launching the joint investigation mentioned by members with the health and safety executive into the issues that have arisen at the plant. That will allow for co-ordinated action to address the causes of the flaring problem. Mark Ruskell mentioned the meeting that he had with Aileen Campbell, the Minister for Public Health and Sport recently. That was a meeting to address specific concerns in relation to the public health impacts of flaring. The minister has subsequently written to SIPA's chief executive requesting further information on the work that is being done to assess those public health issues. A previous independent modelling study carried out on behalf of SIPA, did assess the impact of emissions during flaring and concluded that the long and short-term predicted concentrations of pollutants were well within air quality standards for protecting human health. However, I appreciate that the noise and vibration issues remain a particular concern to local residents as well. As I have already indicated, the Minister for Public Health has written now to SIPA to seek reassurance on those public health issues. In conclusion, today I think has shown the gravity that the Scottish Parliament attaches to environmental performance at industrial sites. I would like to re-emphasise to members that the Scottish Government has set a strict framework for the regulation of industrial sites and takes the recent situation at Mossmorran extremely seriously. Parliament can be assured that we will continue to work closely with SIPA to understand the steps that it is taking to ensure compliance at the site and to address the concerns of local residents.