Official Report 375KB pdf
16:51
The next item of business is consideration of motion S6M-20748, in the name of Shona Robison, on a financial resolution for the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill.
The Ecocide (Scotland) Bill is a member’s bill. Parliament supported the bill’s progress at stage 1. I acknowledge the challenges that the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee faces in completing its work on the bill and on other matters in its work programme before the end of the session. I have, at all times, sought to do what I can to give the committee what it has requested of the Government in all areas of scrutiny, including in relation to the bill.
In response to a request from the convener, I lodged amendments to the bill early—last Tuesday, in fact—and I have written to the committee twice since the stage 1 debate with the detail that it requested. It would not be appropriate for the Government to frustrate Parliament’s will, expressed in the vote after the stage 1 debate, by failing to introduce a financial resolution. The timetabling of future stages of the bill is, rightly, a matter for the Parliamentary Bureau, not the Government.
I turn to the content of the financial memorandum. I believe that any costs that will arise from the bill can be absorbed within existing budgets. There will be some costs in adapting to a new offence, but that is in the context of existing investigatory and enforcement activity to protect the environment from harm. I remain confident that there is a route to address the legitimate concerns about the provisions in the bill that the committee has raised ahead of stage 2. We have already made good progress with many of the issues.
I move,
That the Parliament, for the purposes of any Act of the Scottish Parliament resulting from the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill, agrees to any expenditure of a kind referred to in Rule 9.12.3A of the Parliament’s Standing Orders arising in consequence of the Act.
The question on the motion will be put at decision time.