Equality, opportunity, community: New leadership - A fresh start

A Greener, Fairer, Scotland

Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights
Patrick Harvie MSP

Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity
Lorna Slater MSP

The Bute House Agreement brought Green MSPs into government for the first time anywhere in the UK. Our commitment to working collaboratively on the policies within the Agreement over the first 18 months has sown many seeds of reform and progress. That is why Scottish Green MSPs were proud to back the new First Minister and new Cabinet, following a unanimous vote of support by our Party Council for continuation of the Bute House Agreement, and we look forward to working with colleagues over the next three years to build a fairer and greener Scotland.

Many of the policies set out throughout this document reflect the priorities in the Bute House Agreement:

• To ensure that Scotland leads the way in tackling the climate emergency – in how we heat our homes, travel day to day and use our land.
• To embed fairness in how workplaces are managed, how the housing market works and in how some of the most marginalised people in our society are treated.
• To reverse decades of damage to the natural world on land and sea by helping nature fight back.
• To reshape the way decisions are made – setting out a new relationship with Local Government and offering new opportunities for communities to control their own futures.
• To build an economy which harnesses the enormous potential which Scotland has in natural resources, skills and talents.

Within government we will continue to lead directly on delivery of some of that work – a Housing Bill to deliver a national system of rent control and wider rented sector reform, including giving tenants a greater right to personalise their homes and keep pets; a Circular Economy Bill to revamp how we use resources and deal with waste; transformation of the active travel landscape; a new National Park; consult on Heat in Buildings proposals for climate-friendly heating; and other programmes which lie directly within our ministerial portfolios.

We will work closely with colleagues on shared priorities – from improved rights for transgender people and ending conversion practices, to delivering Fair Work within a wellbeing economy, to meeting our overarching climate targets.

These are the policies which are in the Bute House Agreement. But the Agreement is much more than a policy digest. It is a commitment to a way of working which seeks common ground where there are shared aims, and which builds trust and good faith as core principles. We look forward to seeing those ideas and those ways of working flourish.