Sorry, can I just push a wee bit on this, just so I understand it? I will give an example. Let us say that an aquaculture company wants to use a chemical that has been approved by the veterinary medicines directorate to be used to kill sea lice in salmon pens. The company applies to use it, and uses it as per the permit that is issued by SEPA for an on-use licence for the on-use use of the chemical that has been approved by the veterinary medicines directorate. However, all the starfish, prawns, lobsters and crabs in the area are killed because they are affected by the chemical. Who becomes liable for that? You are sort of saying that no one is liable because if something has been done under permit, everything is hunky-dory. However, in my example, everyone knows that that is what the effect of that chemical has been. I am trying to give you a real example, which, to my mind, raises questions. It seems to me that if the chemical has killed off a substantial number of sea creatures, that could be ecocide in the locality concerned. Does anyone want to pass comment on that? Would you prefer to follow it up in correspondence? Murdo, do you want to comment?

Science does change all the time, but when the offence is known about and it continues, it would be reckless. We could end up like Australia. They introduced cane toads, which was thought to be a great idea at the time, but cane toads are now considered one of the biggest pests because they destroy every bit of natural wildlife in Australia, and everyone is encouraged to destroy them at every opportunity. I am worried that the bill does not address some of the things that are of concern.

Murdo, do you want to come back in? I thought you were taking a breath.

Welcome back to the meeting.

I inadvertently and wrongly missed out saying that we have received apologies from Bob Doris, who is attending another committee meeting for a stage 2 consideration. For those who noticed that he is missing, that is the reason why.

Our second panel on the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill will focus on the international context. I welcome Dr Ricardo Pereira, who is a reader in law at Cardiff University, Dr Suwita Hani Randhawa, who is a senior lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of the West of England, and Dr Rachel Killean, who is a senior law lecturer at the University of Sydney law school.

I will start off as I did with the previous panel. I will ask the easy question and give you each a chance to answer it. What are the key drivers in other countries of the development of ecocide laws? Is it because their law is lacking something? Why are they being driven to legislate?

Who would like to go first? That is a bit of a rhetorical question because I will go to Ricardo first. Would you like to start on that?

Very commendable. Thank you. Suwita, do you want to say anything?

Thank you very much. I am going to move on. Douglas Lumsden has a few questions.

Sorry, but I am going to interrupt here. Ricardo, you are in danger of getting me into trouble with my fellow committee members. You have given a long and full answer, with a lot of facts in it, but I have to impress on everyone the shortness of time—otherwise, I will have to allow only a certain number of people to answer questions, which will upset the witnesses. I am asking you, please, to be as brief as possible.

As one of the few members in the Parliament who has written muirburn plans and actually undertaken muirburn in fighting wildfires, I am shocked by the Government’s long-term plan to shorten the muirburn season. Wetter springs and higher winds mean that that is absolute madness.

Surely, in the light of the fires that we have heard about, we should be undertaking more muirburn over a longer period, without affecting nature, to ensure that we do not have fires that damage people’s houses and threaten people’s lives.

I agree with Mr Mason on that point, which I will come back to in a minute.

In the second of my sessions in the Parliament, I was on a committee of seven people and found it to be an easy one to get round. It is really important to me as a convener that a committee is not too big. I like to talk to members before meetings to find out their views and ascertain their direction of travel, because that makes it far easier then to reach decisions.

I agree to some extent that members cannot always leave party politics at the door, but, in my time as a convener, I have seen committees being whipped over decisions. During work on the bill that became the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, I was told that members would vote in a certain way. However, it then became clear that that was not the party way and members changed their views, which I thought was incredibly sad. I have also found it quite sad to have evidence of questions being leaked to ministers prior to evidence sessions with a committee. At one point, we had a private session on aquaculture, but when I left I found myself being doorstepped in my office by a journalist who asked me about something that had been said in that private session. That means that I am not keen on questions being shared ahead of meetings and that I always encourage committee members to make up their own minds.

I am not used to bill committees. However, I note that the majority—or potentially the whole—of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee’s deliberations between now and the end of the current session will be on the climate change plan, even though there are other matters that we must consider, including a member’s bill and other important issues that fall within the transport portfolio. Therefore, I can see that there might be an argument for having bill committees.

In session 5, there was a chance for our committee to be far more independent in relation to the work that we could undertake. I remember working with the current Minister for Parliamentary Business and Veterans, who at that time was the convener of another committee, on an aquaculture inquiry that was conducted by two committees. In that session, we had the ability to do that. As a convener in the current session, I have felt a bit like a dog who is thrown a ball and chases it all over the place. Whether it be in relation to land reform or the climate change plan, the committee has had so little time in which we could consider matters outwith the legislation that has been introduced.

I absolutely believe that electing committee conveners is the right way forward, and I hope that the Parliament will consider doing so. I would have no problem with standing up and trying to justify why I should be a convener. It might be that a convener should be a member of a particular party, but I do not think that it is right for the party leader to decide who they will be. Although I am a beneficiary of the current system and have enjoyed every moment of my tenure, I think that the approach is ripe for change.

It is also important for conveners to stay in post. As I alluded to earlier, there is nothing wrong with a member being a parliamentarian and concentrating their career within the Parliament. If a member is a convener or leading member of a committee, they should be applauded for that, because it is important.

On conveners being paid, I do not want extra money, but I would have liked some additional staff budget to assist me with getting ready for meetings. Conveners are ably assisted by committee clerks, but when we have to read all the papers and delve down into findings it would sometimes be extremely helpful to have someone to look over them and flag things up.

As always, Mr Carlaw thinks through the issue and comes up with a justification for a decision that I think is the right one.

On witnesses, in my time as convener of the REC Committee and the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, I have seen the same old people coming in and giving us almost the same old evidence. I know that the clerks sometimes struggle to find people to appear, and I applaud them for their efforts, but sometimes we need to go further afield. That is why it is important that committee members should get out of the Parliament and visit other areas. For example, the REC Committee went to Mull and various other places to hear from people on the ground.