Seòmar agus comataidhean

As Sarah Boyack just said, I have a couple of amendments in the group to section 3 of the bill, which is “Publication and laying of strategy”. The bill says that

“Ministers must ... publish the circular economy strategy ... and ... lay a copy of”

it “before the ... Parliament” within “2 years” of section 3 coming into force. In my view, that displays a lack of ambition and a pace of working that really should have no place in Government. It is real life-in-the-slow-lane stuff and it is not good enough. I am sure that the minister who is now in charge of the bill would agree with me on that—I hope so.

Amendments 2 and 3 are alternatives to each other. They would reduce that rather ponderous timescale to either one year or six months and I invite committee members to take their pick. Committee members could, if they wish, revert to the old Lorna Slater timetable, or they could choose to turbo-boost the bill under the dynamism of Gillian Martin; I hope that she proves me right on that.

Clare Adamson made that point powerfully, and it is why she should move her amendment 211—or, if she does not, why somebody else should move it. We must do better on e-bike batteries and the second-hand market. It is not just about fire safety. That is important, but there is also the question of how we reuse products. I cannot say strongly enough that Clare Adamson really should move her amendment. I know that she is probably not going to, but somebody else should, because it is so important.

Will the member take an intervention?

The problem is that I am not clear what the policy intent is behind Bob Doris’s amendment. I really am not. I am pretty sure that other committee members who have been listening as closely as I have will also be unclear about that. However, we can be clear that, were we to agree to the amendment—I am pleased to hear that Mr Doris is minded not to move it, but we will discover that later—we could end up in a situation in which ministers have a huge list of people and a long list of countries across the globe with which they are expected to consult. I just think that that would be completely impractical. I am pretty sure that the minister would say that as well. Hopefully, Mr Doris will not move amendment 187.

Just for clarity, I point out that Maurice Golden’s amendment 151 would not require ministers to set up a new body; the actual wording is that they must “designate” a body as an advisory body. I have heard what the minister has had to say, but is she against the principle of having such an advisory body?

I am curious to know what you mean by “regions”. Do you mean regions in Scottish parliamentary terms or are you referring to the old-style regions that we used to have in Scotland? I am just not clear. When we have something in law, we need to be clear about what we mean.

My second question is on the same theme. What do you mean by “communities”? That could mean different things to different people.

Will the member take an intervention?

I am glad that Mr Doris has finished there. I think that the most important thing is the language that we use when we lodge amendments. If someone is going to lodge an amendment that includes phrases such as “the Global South”, I would suggest, convener, that they really ought to know what they mean by that. It is not really good enough for Mr Doris to say that it is all down to SCIAF and that he does not really know what “the Global South” means.

I say to Monica Lennon that that is why I have provided the committee with a choice of six months or one year.

Thank you for inviting me.

You will be aware that I have a member’s bill proposal going on. There are three elements to it, one of which is recall. We will not talk about that today, because it is quite complex. There are two other elements, one of which is around what we do with MSPs who fail to turn up for work for a certain period of time. At the moment, how we deal with MSPs is different to how we deal with councillors, so I am trying to make it the same.

In relation to the bill that we are discussing, the Government’s policy memorandum deals with what happens when councillors are jailed for a certain period, as opposed to what happens when MSPs are jailed for a certain period. Currently, the law is that if an MSP is jailed for more than 12 months, they will lose their job. That very useful policy memorandum raises the issue that there is a difference between that situation and the situation with councillors; it appears that the time period for councillors is more than three months, rather than more than 12 months. The memorandum asks whether that should be dealt with, possibly at stage 2.

The proposal that I make in my bill, which you will not have seen yet—the bill is being drafted at the moment and I expect that it will be ready before the summer recess—is to reduce the period for MSPs to six months. That would still leave a disparity, so should we deal with that issue in the bill that we are looking at today as opposed to dealing with it in my bill?