Chamber and committees

Thank you. I have a few more questions, which are on environmental protection and biodiversity. Regarding progress with the Scottish environment strategy, what work is being undertaken to identify additional indicators, and what is your view on how the strategy and its monitoring framework can be used to have a tangible impact in the context of multiple other strategies?

It is helpful to have those timescales.

We have the biodiversity delivery plan, the investment plan and proposals for a natural environment bill. How will the Government ensure that the best effort is being made for those plans to be integrated? What resources will be allocated to them that are commensurate with the scale of the nature emergency?

The panel will know that the Scottish environment strategy is a requirement of section 47 of the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021, that the act enables ministers to keep pace with European Union law and that its design ensures that Scottish environment law and standards can keep pace with EU developments. To that end, what actions are ministers and officials taking to ensure that environmental law keeps pace with EU standards, including work that is progressing on ecocide law?

Good morning to the panel. I want to start by asking about water scarcity, which is an issue that has been in the news recently and which has been discussed in Parliament with you, cabinet secretary. How will water scarcity and flood management be strategically resourced and prioritised over the summer, when we are all in recess, and what is the longer-term outlook?

About 10 days ago, I think, I read reports in the media of some restrictions in parts of England on the use of hosepipes and sprinklers in people’s gardens. Is that something that could be introduced in Scotland this year?

I am very grateful to you, convener, and to the committee, the Lord Advocate and Mr Shanks. Thank you for taking this petition very seriously and for bringing us to this point.

We have heard a lot of evidence over many months and, as you said at the start, convener, real issues of substance have arisen. Most recently, the evidence-taking session with the coroner and the pathology and radiology teams was really important and helped to set out in our minds that different practices are emerging—and, indeed, have been in place for a few years now—that still provide an effective and accurate service and system, but with people and families at the heart of things.

I am very heartened to hear the Lord Advocate’s commitment to humane and progressive practice. We all want to hear the committee’s recommendations on the matter, because, convener, you are right: operationally speaking, changes could be made to policy and practice. People need to be corralled a bit so that we can have that dialogue and direction.

The Lord Advocate is correct to say that the royal colleges play a very important role, but the Royal College of Pathologists is only one stakeholder and partner. It might want to protect the way in which things are done right now, but as we have heard, the reason for the change in practice in Lancashire—which is about 150 miles from Lanarkshire in my region, where the Stark family live—was the shortage of pathologists. There were also those who were electing to become pathologists but who did not want to do post mortems, because they wanted to do other important work.

We have heard about the opportunities to speed things up in order to alleviate workforce pressures. We do need to get the correct equipment for this work, but I would point out that what has been done in England has proved to be cost neutral, which is very important for us parliamentarians who are thinking not only about the law but about the public finances.

I appreciate the fact that the committee has been able to hear directly from the Lord Advocate today, but this issue needs to go to the top of the agenda. I am sure that health and justice ministers will be very interested in this—I note that we have not yet heard from them. I know that Mrs Stark has been busy engaging with MSPs and, indeed, has had a number of meetings since we last met. I am quite encouraged that colleagues from across the Parliament, irrespective of party politics, have been able to understand the very human issues that lie at the heart of this. No one is looking for short-cuts or is seeking to undermine the Lord Advocate’s important role or the duties that she and her team have to carry out.

I again thank the committee for its time. It is important to bear in mind what can be changed now, with very little resource required. We might need to have that change in the law, particularly with regard to the retention of tissue samples; the petitioner has set out a number of proposals in that respect and I know that the committee is looking at the issue very carefully. I am encouraged not just by the practice that is emerging in other parts of the United Kingdom but by what is happening internationally. Indeed, I think that the committee is aware of practice in Japan as well as in Australia, where there is now a faculty of post-mortem imaging.

It therefore seems to me, if we are to have the humane and progressive system that we all want, we might need to be a bit more proactive in ensuring that we keep pace with such developments. I am sure that we are doing things in Scotland that are cutting edge and innovative and that people can learn from, but we need to look outwards and I thank the committee for its efforts in doing that.

Good morning to you, minister, and to your officials.

Can the minister help the committee by explaining what competent assessment was received by the Scottish Government following the March 2023 gateway review of the Scottish deposit return scheme?

Sorry, but I am speaking to the minister. Does the minister know what the status was under the gateway review?

What recent discussions has the Scottish Government had with the Welsh Government, in light of the UK Government’s position?

Does Mr Page want to add to that?