Seòmar agus comataidhean

I want to talk about the interpretation part of the bill. We are all talking about peatland, but the only thing that we have on interpretation is in section 18(1), where it says:

“‘peatland’ means land where the soil has a layer of peat with a thickness of more than 40 centimetres.”

I appreciate that you can change that through regulations under the affirmative procedure. However, under section 10, “Application for muirburn licence”, the applicant can say, “I can do muirburn here, because the land to which this application relates is not peatland,” or they can make an application where the land is peatland. I do not know this, so you are going to have to tell me: how do you know what is peatland? You have given a definition of depth only, not acreage or anything else.

I am talking about acreage. I might have a piece of land the size of this room that has peat to a depth of 40cm and complies with your definition. Is that peatland? Can I burn it? Which application do I come under? Who is going to tell me?

Therefore, there is already something in operation that has designated what is and what is not peatland.

I will ask about training in relation to muirburn. Section 10 is on “Application for muirburn licence”. Subsection (3) says:

“An application under subsection (1) ... must be made ... to the Scottish Ministers, and ... in such manner and form as the Scottish Ministers may require”.

Would you consider including in that application a requirement that someone who is applying to carry out muirburn on peatland should confirm that they have undergone training?

You would consider that.

That is good. Thank you.

I am quite happy. I am looking at section 7(2) and proposed new section 16AA(8) and at the suspension that takes place whether or not the relevant authority is satisfied. I am looking at that and, in my view, you do specify. The bill talks about and defines an “official investigation”, talks about a “relevant authority” and then defines what a “relevant offence” is. A number of other statutes are referred to.

If I am right, it would be a pretty dramatic circumstance if a relevant authority such as NatureScot suspended a licence there and then. Something pretty dramatic and obvious would have to have happened. I think that I am also right in understanding that that could be taken straight to appeal.

I have one thing to ask, although you may be unable to answer. How quickly would an appeal be taken? Would it be like an interim interdict, which can be repealed and removed the next day? Would it be quite quick, depending on circumstance, or would someone sit for months waiting for a criminal prosecution and with their licence suspended or amended? Because of its impact, could the process be accelerated by the sheriff? That is what I am trying to find out. That would be a better way of looking at it. It would depend on the circumstances, but I think that that is an important thing to know.

To ask the Scottish Government what support it has provided to cultural activities in the Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale constituency. (S6O-02428)

I very much welcome the Scottish Government’s investment in the great tapestry of Scotland in Galashiels.

Is the minister aware that former Galashiels weaver Robert Coltart was the author of perhaps a world-first advertising jingle, “Ally Bally Bee”, to sell his Coulter’s candy? No singing, please. Would the Scottish Government be supportive—I am not seeking cash, so the minister can relax—of a small and humble museum dedicated to that intriguing and mischievous man, perhaps near where we already have an excellent statue of him, in Galashiels?

The Conservative and Labour amendments allude to or promulgate the proposition that a written constitution is an abstract that displaces the real and current issues for the people of Scotland such as the economy, the cost of living crisis, free access to healthcare at the point of need, a warm affordable home, a decent living wage, the right to withdraw labour, the right to be free of weapons of mass destruction and the ability to provide a sanctuary to those who are fleeing from persecution. A written constitution is the framework and foundation of a just society in which human rights, the rights of our children, the rights of the vulnerable, the rights that I have just referred to and—I say to Willie Rennie, who is not here—the rights of my constituents are fundamental and protected. It is a contract with the people, who are sovereign and have remained so despite the union in 1707. In 1953, MacCormick v Lord Advocate, session case 396, on appeal to the Inner House, Lord President Cooper, obiter dictum, said that

“The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle”,

and this was restated in the claim of right, which was signed on 30 March 1989 and said:

“We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.”

Yet the UK Parliament has placed what is, to all intents and purposes, a permanent veto on the Scots exercising their sovereign right through a referendum.

I remind the unionists in here that, in 2014, the Scottish people were told that, if they voted yes to independence, they would be thrown out of the EU. We voted 62 per cent to remain and we were dragged out against our will.

Given that there is no written UK constitution, Westminster has free rein to undermine and even erode basic human rights, especially those of the vulnerable: the rape clause; the bedroom tax; providing a haven in Scotland for nuclear weapons; and, for those seeking sanctuary, the irony, given its imperial past, of a reverse slave trade, involving paying for the shipping of desperate migrants to Rwanda, whose own breach of human rights the UK has questioned. We, in this Parliament, find that our protection of those rights is restricted and is being eroded in the context not only of a majority of members whose parties’ manifestos are committed to an independent Scotland but of a majority of Scottish MPs: 45 SNP to six Tory, one Labour and four Liberal Democrat.

Independence with a written constitution would mean that no Scottish Parliament could unilaterally remove or amend the rights of the Scottish people that were embedded in that constitution. To do so would require the consent of the people, who are sovereign. That is not what the Westminster Parliament does, day in and day out. Such a constitution would be pragmatic in its implementation, giving rights and remedies to the people of Scotland should any Scottish Government default. Those rights are the stuff of fact, not fiction.