The proposed right was intended to help ensure that people's health, wellbeing and human rights are better protected from environmental harms, including pollution, nature loss and the impacts of climate change. Campaigners have argued that enshrining the right in law would give people stronger protections and help hold public bodies accountable for decisions affecting the environment.
The move comes amid growing scrutiny of the Scottish Government's climate record, following its support for scrapping the Energy Profits Levy, backing for the Jackdaw gas field, and the approval of a new gas-fired power station at Peterhead. It also comes just weeks before Ministers are expected to attend the UN’s international climate talks in Türkiye, COP31.
Katherine May, Head of Oxfam Scotland, said: "Dropping the right to a healthy environment in a written answer on UK Budget day is a major retreat dressed up as a procedural update.
"Alarmingly, this is part of a broader unravelling of Scotland's climate credentials. The pattern is becoming difficult to ignore; championing policies that prolong the crisis while abandoning measures designed to tackle it.
"What's particularly striking is how out of step this is with the Scottish public. As we see our streets flood and our national parks on fire, people rightly expect our political leaders to strengthen climate action and environmental protections, not quietly row back on them.
“At the very moment the climate crisis is accelerating, Scotland appears to be stepping back from the very climate leadership it once championed."
/ENDS
For more information and interviews, please contact: Rebecca Lozza, Media and Communications Adviser, Oxfam Scotland: rlozza1@oxfam.org.uk / 07917738450
