When the bill process started, there was an unacceptable situation, which the legal profession reported directly to Scottish ministers. It was absolutely absurd and threatened the independence of the judiciary. The bill that we are debating and voting on today is not the one that existed at the start of the process.

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission’s consumer panel is clear that the bill will make the current regulatory landscape even more complex and difficult to understand. We had an opportunity to overhaul that landscape, but the bill simply tinkers around the edges of a byzantine system.

Secondly, there has been considerable debate on who should regulate the legal profession. The Roberton review concluded that there should be a single independent regulator and a single streamlined complaints process. I note that, in its stage 3 briefing on the bill, Consumer Scotland echoed that call.

There is huge concern that consumers have been forgotten in the bill. What is your view on that?

I have nothing further to add, other than that I am pleased to hear that the amendment is supported on a cross-party basis. I will press the amendment.

Amendment 137 agreed to.

After section 88

My questions have been asked, Presiding Officer.

The independent regulator should report directly to the Lord President, definitely not the Scottish Government.

It is to the minister’s credit that ministers’ powers to intervene were removed at stage 2, following calls from the legal sector and the Scottish Conservatives. At stage 3, our overriding concern is that the bill fails to decouple the complex complaints process from the system of self-regulation by the professional bodies. That was a recommendation of the Roberton review, as well as the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee at stage 1.

I note comments from the SLCC’s Consumer Panel. It said:

“We are concerned ... that most of the attention and concessions in the debate so far have been given to the views of the legal profession, while there has been limited engagement with the views of consumers or consumer groups.”

The reality is that, for consumers of legal services, it is not always clear where self-regulation ends and self-interest takes over. The view among consumers is that it feels like David against Goliath.

The complaints process is overly complex, impossible to navigate and glacially slow. At stage 2, I lodged probing amendments that proposed using the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission’s existing infrastructure to investigate all conduct and service complaints.

My key point is that the bill merely tinkers with the status quo. The changes do not go far enough, which is why the Scottish Conservatives will vote against the bill later today.

I speak today on behalf of my constituents who rely on the energy sector for their livelihoods. The job losses at Harbour Energy are the tip of the iceberg. Why? Because the SNP and Labour are directly harming the industry with a presumption against new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and a punitive fiscal environment. Hostile left-wing politicians are presiding over the industrial decline of Scotland’s oil and gas sector.

Russell Borthwick of Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce is right: if the SNP Scottish Government and Labour UK Government do not change course, recent lay-offs will be

“just a tiny fraction of what’s to come”.

The so-called just transition risks becoming a jobless transition. It will not be fixed by gimmicks such as Great British Energy. Even its chairman, Juergen Maier, said that it would take 20 years to deliver the 1,000 jobs that have been promised. That is an utter sham.

SNP ministers tout a clean energy future, but they will not even define what “clean” means, scaring off the investment that we need for an affordable transition. The SNP Government ploughed ahead with a ScotWind gold rush, selling off vast swathes of the sea bed on the cheap with no real plan for grid infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks wants to puncture our prime agricultural farmland and rural landscapes with monster pylons up to 230 feet tall, leaving residents feeling betrayed and disenfranchised. Their mental health is already suffering and they are fearing the health impacts, lost livelihoods and plummeting property values from the explosion of that new energy infrastructure. The bottom has dropped out of their world.

Farmers are ringing alarm bells over serious safety concerns about overhead lines and farming machinery.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will undertake a review of Historic Environment Scotland before the end of the current parliamentary session. (S6O-04643)

Just a few weeks ago, it emerged that Historic Environment Scotland was propagating that trans women are women. It had no policy regarding the provision of single-sex spaces and suggested that excluding people from bathrooms and changing rooms is transphobia.

When my colleague Rachael Hamilton demanded that the cabinet secretary intervene, the cabinet secretary said that it was

“an operational matter for Historic Environment Scotland.”—[Official Report, 19 March 2025; c 2-3.]

Following the Supreme Court’s judgment and the Parliament’s swift action to comply with the ruling, will the cabinet secretary stop washing his hands of the situation and ensure that the organisations that fall under his remit immediately comply with their legal obligations to women?

I am sorry, but I have only four minutes.

They are, rightly, worried about the loss of agricultural productivity and the impact on their businesses, the health and safety of their animals, the crop yield and overall food security. It is environmental vandalism, and this is just the start. It cannot be the vision of a so-called just transition. To rub salt into the wound, the SNP and Labour have been pushing to muzzle the voices of communities by removing the right to a public inquiry.

Countries such as the Netherlands and Germany are undergrounding cables to great effect and Denmark is developing energy islands to act as an offshore energy base. We undergrounded the pipes in the 1970s—why can we not do it again?

The Scottish Conservatives’ commonsense plans balance the needs of today and those of tomorrow. We recognise that we will need to use our oil and gas for years to come. We know that Scotland’s oil and gas workers and renewables ambitions can go hand in hand. That means scrapping the ban on new oil and gas production and embracing innovation in order to cut emissions while preserving jobs. It also means listening to communities and pursuing alternatives to monster pylons and huge substations.

I urge my SNP and Labour colleagues to see sense before it is too late.

To go back to the issue of employment, is there no role for the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service Scotland?