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Yes. How would the Government know who had produced a plan and who had not?

No—sorry, I mean yes.

I will come in now, convener. I am not surprised that people want to contribute to this part of our scrutiny, because the land management plans are an important part of the bill and we took a lot of evidence on them at stage 1.

I take issue with the way in which Tim Eagle has framed the issue. On the one hand, we are hearing about the benefits of land management plans and the fact that many landowners, especially larger landowners, already make them, but we are also hearing that it is burdensome and could be very expensive. We did not really get evidence at stage 1 that backed up the suggested higher costs of £15,000. There is a contradiction in Tim Eagle’s arguments that, on the one hand, land management plans are good and lots of people do them but, on the other hand, we do not want them to be in the legislation.

I agree that we have to take care that land management plans do not become overly prescriptive. I do not think that that is the Scottish Government’s intention, but I will leave that to the cabinet secretary. However, does the convener agree that the benefits of land management plans have been well argued in our scrutiny? This is about improving accountability and transparency and, as Mark Ruskell says, engaging with communities, which can add value to the process for everyone.

I am really interested in the points that Tim Eagle is making. He said a moment ago that perhaps the Government should have targeted those who do not produce land management plans.

I support Jackie Baillie’s amendments and the other amendments in the group. This has been a long time coming and it is really important that we get it right.

I join colleagues in paying tribute to Anne Duke’s family, including Campbell Duke, who is in the gallery and is one of my constituents from East Kilbride, and to members of the care home relatives Scotland group, including Cathie Russell and Alison Leitch, who are also in the gallery. This has been their fight, and it has been a fight for all the people in Scotland who did not have a voice during the pandemic. We hear a lot about having to learn the lessons of Covid-19. The care home relatives Scotland group has had, I think, more than 150 meetings with the Scottish Government. Its members have made Scotland proud, and we all owe them a debt of thanks. [Applause.]

There have been delays in getting here, but it is right that we get the details right, so I listened with interest to the points that Brian Whittle and Sandesh Gulhane made. This has always been about human rights, dignity, love, human connection and all that was lost during the pandemic. No one ever dismissed concerns about safety, but what happened during the Covid years was unsafe and destroyed people’s mental health. People such as Anne could not have time with their families in their final days of life. I listened to Natasha Hamilton, Anne’s daughter, on the radio at 6.45 this morning, before I came to work, and she made a very strong case for Anne’s law to be passed.

There has always been cross-party work in the Parliament on the issue, including by Paul McLennan, Miles Briggs, Alex Cole-Hamilton, Gillian Mackay and many others, and the Government has a mandate, because Anne’s law was a very prominent promise in the Scottish National Party’s 2021 manifesto.

However, today is not a day for politics; it is about getting Anne’s law over the line. I remind colleagues of what I said in the chamber back in February 2021:

“I hope that we get to a place where the Parliament can unite and support Anne’s law, which would ensure that people never again have to spend a year in isolation without access to their loved ones.”—[Official Report, 16 February 2021; c 56.]

I hope that today is the day that we can give effect to Anne’s law and learn those lessons.

In an earlier discussion with Mark Ruskell, Mr Lumsden made reference to net zero. I hear the distinction that he makes between public interest and community interest and his point that they might not add up to the same thing. However, in the current climate, some politicians use slogans such as “net stupid zero” and there is a lot of misinformation flying around.

Does Mr Lumsden agree that it is really important that decisions are rooted in evidence and in science, and that sometimes community campaigns can be distorted because of misinformation? I hear the points that he is making, but does he recognise the concerns of some decision makers that, although sometimes community voices can be quite loud, they do not always reflect the public interest and the genuine community interest?

The proposed ecocide (prevention) (Scotland) bill would make it a criminal offence to cause widespread, long-term or irreversible environmental damage, with penalties of up to 20 years in prison for individuals and unlimited fines for organisations. Ecocide law was pioneered by trailblazing Scottish lawyer the late Polly Higgins. The EU and many countries worldwide are acting to deter and punish such devastating crimes, and this is Scotland’s time to act. Does the First Minister agree with the bill’s aims? Does he welcome this vital opportunity for Scotland to become the first UK nation to criminalise ecocide?

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to maintain its policy aim of keeping pace with the EU on environmental protection. (S6F-04140)

The bill is important to people across Scotland, including my constituents, and I am grateful to everyone who has contacted me about it.

Assisted dying already exists for people who have the financial means to access it, but that choice is not available to most Scots. Denied access to safe and legal assisted dying, hundreds of terminally ill people in the UK end their lives each year, and many more attempt to do so.

Robert Easton was a retired firefighter from Hamilton. Dying with pancreatic cancer, Robert desperately wanted choice. He considered Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal, but cost and other barriers ruled it out. That led him to research ways to end his own life.

Some of the methods were brutal, says Robert’s daughter, Joanne Easton, who has come to Parliament today. Joanne told me:

“Dying people should not be forced to consider going into the woods with a length of rope. They should not have to think about stepping in front of trains. It took him three weeks to die, in hospital then hospice. It was so drawn-out. I thought; I need to get him drugs. I would have done anything for him. But it was too risky; I didn’t know what would happen.”

I was moved to learn that, before he died, Robert sold his motorbike and gave the money to the hospice.

Like this bill, his story is not about palliative care versus assisted dying; it is about choice, dignity and person-centred care at the end of life. Joanne says that she will regret for the rest of her life that her dad was not given the choice that he wanted.

Sadly, even with universal access to hospice care in Scotland, hundreds of Scots a year would still suffer with immense pain as they die. Four in 10 Scots have seen a loved one suffer in that way.

I believe that the status quo is unfair, unsafe and unregulated and that it is failing dying Scots. Therefore, I agree with the bill’s policy memorandum that

“an individual’s personal autonomy to decide on their medical care, and how their life should end in situations of terminal illness, should be protected in law”.

In a compelling letter to MSPs, Rhona Baillie, chief executive officer of the Prince and Princess of Wales hospice in Glasgow, explains her view that, rather than being a replacement for excellent palliative care, assisted dying is a potential addition to the options that are available to those who face terminal illness. This position is not one of advocacy or opposition, but of commitment to patient-centred care. I agree with Rhona Baillie that the discussion around assisted dying should focus not solely on clinician opinion but on ensuring that people have informed, compassionate choices at the end of life.

There is a solid majority of public support in every constituency, including among disabled people, for a compassionate assisted dying law, so should the bill not be allowed to proceed to the amending stages for further scrutiny?

Liam McArthur has prosecuted the case for the bill in a respectful and collaborative manner, and I hope that members take the opportunity to work with him at stage 2.

I support Liam McArthur’s proposal to amend the bill to raise the minimum age to 18 and I welcome the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee report’s recommendation for clarity on some matters.

The bill rightly contains provisions that would make it an offence to coerce or pressure a terminally ill adult into an assisted death. I agree with Hospice UK that nobody should ever feel that they have to choose an assisted death because of a real or imagined fear of not receiving the care that they need. Whether or not the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill proceeds, I support calls from Marie Curie Scotland for the recognition and delivery of a right to palliative care. End-of-life care must be properly funded, and charitable hospices must be financially sustainable.

I do not know whether I would choose an assisted death for me, but I do not want to deny others that choice, and that is why I will vote for the bill tonight.

Thank you very much, convener, and good afternoon. I begin with a heartfelt “thank you” to you, convener, and to all the committee for your extensive and thoughtful work. You have been considering the petition for quite some time. On behalf of the petitioner, Ann Stark, who is here today with her husband, Gerry, I want to record the family’s gratitude to you as well as my thanks to them for the personal sacrifices that they have made in pursuing the petition—as always, inspired by their much-loved and much-missed son, Richard. From your summary, convener, it is clear that the progress that has been made would not have been possible without the petition and the committee’s work, so I offer a genuine “thank you”.

I know that a lot of work has happened behind the scenes, but I think that there has been significant progress since the last meeting at which the petition was discussed, in May last year. Some real movement has occurred. However, it is quite an honest reflection from you, convener, that we are now at a difficult crossroads in relation to both the time that we have left in this session of Parliament and, given the complex nature of the matter, the fact that, although we have had some clarity, we still do not really know who in Government is taking the lead on the issue and where responsibility for it lies. In your letter to the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health last year, you told her that the committee had been quite

“struck by the lack of clear ownership over policy, direction and decision-making across postmortem services in Scotland.”

We have had a better understanding of the Lord Advocate’s role, which is unique, but it is still clear that no one organisation is taking responsibility for addressing concerns or leading on improvements. In fact, at one point, the Lord Advocate passed the matter back to the committee. The petition is relevant and essential—that remains the case.

I will touch on some of the progress that has been made. Your summary was very helpful, convener, so I will not repeat those points. I have become aware, through Ann Stark’s direct meetings with the Lord Advocate, that there will be a visit to the coroner’s office in Lancashire next Friday, 2 May, which is really good news. I am not sighted on the detail of who will be included. Ideally, the committee would have been represented, but I do not know whether that is still possible. I think that that is a bit of a breakthrough, because we have always felt that Scotland has been lagging behind and has been an outlier—not in a positive way—in relation to the choice and modernisation that we have seen in other parts of the UK and the world. The committee could ask for an update on the scope of that meeting.

We also believe that a pilot scheme involving the use of scanners is about to be embarked on. We understand that the Lord Advocate was going to update the committee, but I am not sure whether that has happened ahead of today’s meeting. It feels as though there is more work to be done on that.

Beyond the work of this committee, the Criminal Justice Committee has taken a keen interest in the issue. The annual report for 2022-23 of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland made a number of recommendations, and—similarly to your work, convener—it reflects the fragmented nature of pathology services in Scotland.

Let me bring us back to why that matters. Ann and Gerry Stark have had a terrible loss, which was made worse by the trauma of having to deal with the system and the services, of which there are many. There was a lack of communication with the family and a lack of compassion around sample retention, as it was a journey of discovery to have Richard’s samples returned to the family. It feels as though we are making progress on scanners, although there is work to be done.

The committee could do further work on the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006. I do not think that the Scottish Government has given proper reasoning for its not supporting any change to the law. Why is it that next of kin in England and Wales have choices, including about reuniting samples with the body prior to the body being released for funeral and about samples being returned to the family for a separate funeral at the appropriate time, but those choices are not available in Scotland? There has been progress in Ireland during the past couple of years. I do not think that the minister, Jenni Minto, has given a proper reason for that in her response, so it would be useful to probe the matter further.

It is for the First Minister to organise his Government and ensure that there are no gaps in ministerial responsibilities. The minister told the committee that she has responsibility for hospital-arranged post-mortem examinations, and I believe that the First Minister has said that there will be a light-touch reshuffle due to circumstances, so the issue could be considered by the Government at that point. However, it is not clear whether all of the work on the co-design of what the future of pathology in Scotland should look like sits within Ms Minto’s portfolio or whether there is a role for Angela Constance, as part of her portfolio. The Government needs to put that in writing to this committee and to the Criminal Justice Committee.

This continues to be a matter of importance not just for Ann and Gerry, but for all of our constituents. When I checked earlier this morning, more than 3,400 people had signed Ann’s petition. It was good that the convener was able to raise it with the First Minister at the recent meeting of the Conveners Group. I noted the First Minister’s answer and the follow-up letter. It is good that Government is beginning to engage, but there is still a lack of detail.

That convinces me that it would be helpful to keep the petition open, given that we are coming into the final year of the Parliament and there is interest among a number of MSPs and at least one other committee, and given that the Scottish Government is beginning to show interest and understands that there needs to be change. The Government has been quite vague and non-committal about what that change should look like, and, if more written and oral evidence could be taken, the committee is well placed to do that.

I will conclude by saying that we have not had a full update on the visit to the coroner’s office in Lancashire or what the scanner pilot scheme would look like. If the Lord Advocate has not written to the committee on that, the committee could follow that up.

We want to send a signal to people across Scotland that, where there are gaps in legislation or policy, there is a place in the Parliament where people can come and have their experiences heard and change can happen. We have made a lot of progress, but there is still a bit of a journey ahead. I would be grateful for the committee’s on-going interest in the matter, because there is more to be done.