Chamber and committees

—and communities turn up in good faith, without proper representation or a detailed understanding of the law. To be fair, I think that the reporters do an excellent job in trying to level the playing field. I have seen people in my own community turn up and talk about businesses that they have had for a lifetime and how they serve tourism; landowners, farmers and other local people talk about their knowledge of the hills and the water; and others talk about the impact of light at night on their residential amenity, why they moved to a particular area and what makes it special.

People certainly do not move to many of these remote communities for the bus service, for access to a general practitioner, or in order to be able to go to the cinema. They move there because there is something special about the landscape, and then people who are paid a small fortune come in and tell them that that is nonsense. They humiliate them; they make them feel small; and they make them feel as if those things do not matter.

It is plain to those who live in these communities. You cannot build hundreds of turbines that are 200m-plus tall, with red lights that flash at night, and then tell people, “It’s not going to affect how you feel about where you live” or “It’s not going to have an effect on your home.” However, that is what developers do to try to convince the reporter that they are right and that the community council and all these local people are wrong.

But if the reporter can look only at effects that are beyond the local, or at things that have been set out under the planning terms, they are not able to listen to the community’s concerns. They say, “We’ve gone through these land units, and some experts have said that they’re not of national significance.” The units might be of regional significance, and there might be pockets within them that are worth protecting, but the reporter has to take that broader look—and that, in effect, means discounting local views. Those local views do not have a place in the process, because of the rules that have been put in place.

In order for engagement to be meaningful, there has to be the potential for the developer to walk away at an early stage. That is the problem. Ultimately, many developers engage, get an answer that they do not like and then keep going. Do you recognise that there are occasions when developers should walk away? There are examples of developers lodging repeat applications, which have been knocked back, even by the Scottish Government energy consents unit. The same developers then come back a few years later with a slightly different proposal for the same land, and the process starts all over again.

Yes. They swoop in with teams of 10 or 15 people and spend what I think would be hundreds of thousands of pounds to push these applications through—

Would the time to do the review not have been before the legislation was introduced? We have known from the plan that such a review has been needed for a while. It feels as though the minister’s announcement has come after the event.

When we make a promise, we are telling somebody that we are definitely going to do something and that it will definitely happen. It is not an ordinary political pledge, a policy or a statement of ambition. It is, by its very nature, different. It says that nobody and nothing will get in the way. It is a personal guarantee that the commitment will not ebb and flow and that it will not be watered down.

In making the promise that all of Scotland’s children and young people would grow up loved, safe and respected, so that they can realise their full potential, this Parliament collectively made a commitment of that character. However, I am deeply concerned that, in taking forward the bill, we will, in effect, be breaking that promise and putting the 2030 deadline at risk. That is not politics; it is the reality.

Of course, the argument can be made that the bill is better than nothing and that it takes some important steps forward, but, when put to the test, the promise that was made has been broken because, ultimately, the bill falls short of what it could have been.

Far too often, when it comes to care-experienced young people, we are able to justify poor delivery or outcomes on the basis that it is better to be doing something than nothing, or, to use the minister’s words, it is the best that it can be.

In our heart of hearts, we must be willing to acknowledge that the bill is an incomplete shadow of what it could have been, and that it has been pushed into the final stages of this session, despite its importance and necessity being known.

I doubt that the former First Minister will thank me for saying this, and I know that my remarks do not neatly fit with what she has just said, but what Willie Rennie said earlier is right—the absence of Nicola Sturgeon in this area has been felt. The current minister has a personal interest in the subject, and I do not doubt her conviction, but it is manifest that there has been a step change in the level of priority and care around the issue at the highest levels of Government. The sense of urgency and the pace have just not been there, and the level of ambition has dropped. Beyond the purely legislative dimension—which is only one part of the story, as other members have referenced—it does not feel as if, across the Scottish Government, its agencies and the public sector as a whole, the will is there to make the Promise a reality.

Legislation in itself will be ineffective if we cannot bring about the necessary mindset shift, and too much time has already been wasted. It will be for others in the next parliamentary session to address many of the concerns that have been raised and to confront the reality that is fast coming down the track, that we are running out of time. Due to slow progress, the task that we will be leaving behind is now herculean, and I am not sure that the bill captures the scale of what is truly required.

There will, of course, be opportunities at stage 2 to strengthen the bill, but the real question is why more was not attempted up front. For me, the alarm bells rang when we heard Fraser McKinlay of The Promise Scotland say that he felt that the bill was “locked down”, and we heard key stakeholders such as Jim Savege highlight—as Douglas Ross referenced—the unusual position that there was no joint working or collaboration on the development of the bill. That seems a truly odd approach in this instance, where there is so much consensus. The only explanation that I can reach is that the Scottish Government knew that, by opening up the conversation, it would be raising difficult and unanswerable questions.

It gets worse, because when we look at what is included in the bill, along with its associated documents, we see that it is not satisfactory. We are left in a position where we are supporting a bill that is less than it should be. We should not be at this stage; these are not unknown questions.

Troubling for me is the unconvincing cost. We all know what that means—after 10 years in the Parliament, I certainly know what that means. All too often, it means underresourcing.

We need to strengthen children’s rights now. We should not hide behind legal complexities and duplication. If we are serious about the UNCRC, we should not, as one stakeholder described it, be “hollowing out” its protections. We should get on with it and accept that there will need to be a consolidation bill and a decluttering. We should deal with that later and think more about the message that we are sending to young people when we leave them without any enforceability of their rights. That is a poor show.

Also, where is the clarity on aftercare eligibility? I could go on.

Good intentions will not deliver the Promise, and they do not alone make for good legislation. If they did, we would not be looking at the bill before us. Time is short, but there is still some time to get those issues right, although we must be much more ambitious and much more open to confronting the challenges that the bill presents.

That does not mean that no parts of the bill are good or that there are no good provisions in it, but we cannot accept second best. We have made a promise and we must keep it. It is depressing and shameful that we end this parliamentary session not with the clarity and ambition that are needed to keep the Promise alive, but with blame, deflection and future assurances that take us no closer to doing what we said we would do.

Will the member take an intervention?

I am not trying to draw the cabinet secretary into a discussion of individual schemes. However, given the points that Willie Rennie and others have made about changing weather patterns and the need for wider systems thinking about whole-river catchments, is the cabinet secretary not concerned about the fact that the various schemes that have existed for a long time and have been kicked about through various processes have not themselves adapted to the change in the weather patterns and the change in thinking and are not looking at the broader picture? Money will be spent on those schemes and they might not be effective.

I do not disagree with the general point that Lorna Slater is making, but does she recognise that there are other mechanisms to protect the type of individuals whom she is talking about? For example, there are consumer rights, so there might be other mechanisms to address the issue.

I am grateful for the clarification on time, Presiding Officer, because Martin Whitfield told me on the way into the chamber that he was planning to speak for 30 minutes, and it frightened me that I might not get my lunch.

With that to one side, I associate myself with the kind words that have been said by many members in relation to Lady Paton. She has done an excellent job and has played a significant part in the fact that five Scottish Law Commission bills have proceeded during the parliamentary session.

Although today’s debate is in the graveyard slot and there is not a lot of controversy around it, we should not allow ourselves to mistake that for saying that the bill is not important. Parliament is not just here for headlines or to provide social media clips. The fact that we have waited almost a quarter of a century in the devolved era for this legislation to come forward poses some questions about how we do our business. Today’s debate is perhaps not the place to get into that, but there is room in a new parliamentary session for new thinking about further enhancing the processes that allow such bills to come forward and for allowing committees in general to introduce legislation.

Credit is due to Graeme Dey for pushing the process forward and for recognising the work of the DPLR Committee and the enthusiasm of its members, which is evident even today, just before Christmas. Credit is also due to Stuart McMillan in particular for making the time to look at the bills in such detail and with exactly the same consideration as would be given to any other legislation. As a past member of that committee, I know how well that has worked and how well the committee is supported by its clerks and the Parliament’s legal team.

As we have heard, there is little question about members’ support for the bill’s general principles. The only substantive opposition and concerns appear to have come from those who retain a romanticised attachment to common law and the institutional writers of ages past. When we look at the modern world and at some of the legislation that makes it on to the statute books, it is perhaps easy to see where such views come from. However, as other members have referenced, the world has changed and, if only we still had a reliable postal service to fall back on, things might be different.

I get that there is an attraction to maintaining traditions and distinctiveness in our legal system, but that has to be balanced and tempered by reality, both commercial and social. Predictability and accessibility in the law matter, and law does not exist in a vacuum, nor are its impacts confined exclusively within the bounds of Scotland. I think that that makes a strong case for careful and gradual codification in areas where uncertainty has emerged. It is important to recognise that that uncertainty has not emerged on purpose but through the absence, age and specific nature of case law.

In a number of key areas, the bill will make processes easier and will provide, as other members have referenced, a backstop or a starting point for contract formation. That is surely a good thing.

In closing, as we have already heard from any doubters, there will always be the opportunity for those who do not like the bill and its provisions to opt out and agree on alternatives. Those who stand to benefit most are the very individuals and small businesses that rely most on the law to establish fairness and balance. I therefore look forward to the bill moving forward to stages 2 and 3.