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With every piece of legislation that asks more of our public bodies, we need to take into account what resources they would need to carry that out. That is a normal part of government, and it is done through budget negotiations. Every portfolio that has responsibility for public bodies will put those arguments forward to the finance secretary.

You raise some important points, and you have gone through some of the issues that I discussed with Ms Lennon when she brought forward the bill around the purpose of having a stand-alone offence for the most severe incidents.

There is also a general point about the sentences that are associated with the 2014 act, and that aspect may also need to be looked at. If the bar for ecocide is—rightly—very high and ecocide is not provable at that stage, the 2014 act becomes the vehicle by which to secure a prosecution for a significant event. If the sentences under the 2014 act are indeed “lagging behind”, the existing law may not give a judge the leeway to impose penalties that are commensurate with the gravity of the offence. That may be an issue.

Initially, I was keen to discuss with Ms Lennon whether we could amend the 2014 act to include such an offence and to make the penalties more commensurate with the severity of the offence. Regardless of whether the bill is passed, I think that we need to look at that. We do not want prosecution of an offence under the 2014 act to be seen as having a much lesser penalty associated with it. We may be looking at an event, or a series of events, that has caused huge, long-term environmental damage, with huge associated costs, which may not be reflected in the sentence. You make a very good point in that regard.

Obviously, I would listen to anybody who has a different proposal on reporting to see whether the Government would support that. I do not agree with the reporting requirement in section 10 as it is—I think that it is disproportionate. I do not think that it is in line with the financial memorandum, and I am not entirely sure what it adds.

I am always very aware of capacity and resources, which Sarah Boyack has just been talking about. That relates to the Government and the civil service. We are putting more burdens on the civil service to create reports that might not do anything or have much in them. That is capacity that I am taking away from something that does have a purpose. That would probably be my bar for that. What is it adding? What is the report doing? Is it necessary? Is it proportionate? What is it adding? Is it worth the time that it takes for the civil service to produce the report? That is something that we all have to think about whenever we ask for reporting provisions in any bill.

If you want to put that in an amendment, I would be happy to look at it.

I am not avoiding the question, but I wonder whether that is less a question for me and more a question for the member in charge of the bill. Obviously, Ms Lennon has said that there is a reason for introducing the bill. I also point to the views of Professor Hendry, who gave evidence on 4 November. She said that there was merit in a bespoke bill of this type in the sense that there is a deterrent effect with higher penalties being associated with ecocide. Ecocide would be discussed out there in relation to Scotland going first in acting on ecocide. I cannot find the exact quotation, but it is obviously in the Official Report.

I think that you are talking about emotion here, not legislation. I understand why you put that question to me. However, if a Government bill or a member’s bill does not progress beyond stage 1, the committee and the Parliament will have their reasons why that is the case. If the bill progresses, it must be fit for purpose and address a lot of the issues that have been mentioned. It is not enough simply to say, “Oh, that sounds like a good idea.” The proposal must be workable in law and not have unintended consequences.

Let me take the emotion out of that. If Scotland is able to pass a bill that we are confident does not have unintended consequences, is workable and has the support of all the bodies and people that it affects, we will have a good bill. It is important to pass a good bill rather than simply signal support for something that has flaws in it. I hope that everyone agrees with me on that.

I do not think that we can quantify that yet. You asked that question of academic legal experts—

Yes. I keep going back to the definition of “environmental harm”. The definition in the bill is the same as the definition in the 2014 act. Obviously, that is a point that committee members will want to speak to Ms Lennon about.

May I turn to Charles Stuart Roper on that? I believe that the issue is the extent of the harm—its significance—but my officials will correct me if I am wrong.

I have seen some of the evidence from people who want the bill to cover omissions and failures to act. We do not believe that there is a case to expand the bill’s scope to cover omissions, beyond the extent to which they are already covered. We believe that omissions are already covered by the offence of ecocide as it is set out. The offence is of causing severe environmental harm intentionally or recklessly, so harm can be caused by omission already. We do not see that there is a case for including a further provision in relation to omissions.