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I appreciate entirely the case that the cabinet secretary has laid out. Like her, the Greens support the principle of an ecocide law but recognise that there are issues that need to be resolved with the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill.

My concern is about sequencing, because the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill might well fall and, by the point that Parliament has made that decision, the consideration of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill will have already concluded. Is there not an argument for us to collectively come back to the issue at stage 3 to ensure that, at the least, amendments are made to the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill to give the Government regulation-making powers that allow us to do something in the event that Parliament cannot agree to the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill? If we find ourselves unable to resolve the issues with another bill, it would be a shame not to have the opportunity to come back under this bill and create something in a space in which I think there is broad consensus.

I understand, to some extent, where the cabinet secretary is coming from, but my comments are similar to those that Maurice Golden made a moment ago. It is frustrating for the Parliament to be asked to wait again, particularly given that, with some of my amendments, I am trying to rectify a situation that has been out of date for more than four decades now and which gets more and more out of date the longer we wait.

Some of what I propose is very specific and, I would argue, quite minor—for example, giving the marine directorate the opportunity to issue fixed-penalty notices to the charterer or the owner of a vessel, and not just to vessel’s master. Is the cabinet secretary saying that there is no way that the Scottish Government would be amenable to working on at least some of my amendments for stage 3, and that the Government’s position is that they cannot be dealt with in this session of Parliament and must be dealt with in the next session?

I am jumping the queue here, but will the cabinet secretary take a brief intervention?

I appreciate that, and I would be happy to engage with the cabinet secretary and Maurice Golden. I agree that a holistic approach would be ideal.

Does the Scottish Government have any specific issues with my proposals? It is one thing to argue that they take a piecemeal approach, but has the Government identified any problems with the amendments? If so, I would be happy to discuss that with the Government ahead of stage 3.

The argument that, as a matter of principle, we need to consider the issues holistically rather than piecemeal makes it feel very much as though the Government is kicking the issue into the long grass, even though some of the proposals are pretty minor and would involve making helpful adjustments immediately, before engaging in a more holistic exercise.

I have not yet heard an argument from the Government against any of my specific proposals.

On the basis of the cabinet secretary’s offer to have discussions ahead of stage 3 about what we can do in the space of the RRA, I am happy to withdraw amendment 299.

Amendment 299, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 300 not moved.

Amendment 301 moved—[Mark Ruskell].

I will defer to my colleague Mark Ruskell on the specifics of Douglas Ross’s amendment, but I think that he made a compelling case. This is about effective enforcement. If the vessels that are charged with enforcement are, at best, hours away and, in some cases, days away, enforcement will not happen and people will not be caught. That is one of the core issues. A lot of what I am proposing would not be relevant if we cannot get to the point where someone is caught in the act and evidence of it is gathered. Therefore, Douglas Ross makes a compelling case, but I will defer to colleagues who are on the committee on the specifics of his amendment.

On the point about updating the fixed monetary values, we, as a Parliament, need collectively to learn the lesson that we cannot keep putting such figures into primary legislation without putting in associated provisions to update them via regulation. It is almost comical that some of those figures are more than four decades out of date and have lost the vast majority of their value.

Amendment 296 seeks to address one of the most egregious features of the current enforcement system, which is highlighted by my example from Arran. As the Government has set out in answers to various questions over the years, including to Tim Eagle and me, if a fisher ignores a fixed-penalty notice or chooses not to pay it and is then charged, taken to court and convicted, the fine at final disposal is often lower than the penalty would have been in the fixed-penalty notice that they were initially offered.

Members may know—not from personal experience, I am sure—that if a motoring offence attracts a fixed-penalty notice, that penalty is always at a discount on any fine that would be imposed as a result of court proceedings. That is designed to encourage people to accept the fixed penalty in clear-cut cases and to save the courts time. At the moment, there is an incentive in the other direction when it comes to offences related to fishing; in other words, there is an incentive to ignore the fixed-penalty notice and to take the matter to court in the hope of getting a lower penalty. Of the 17 unpaid notices in the period that was covered by Tim Eagle’s question, only four led to convictions, and, in three of those cases, the fine at court disposal was below the level in the fixed-penalty notice.

Amendment 296 would, should the court convict, require a fine at court disposal to be at least 50 per cent higher than the unpaid fixed penalty. That would offer a clear incentive for people to accept the notices in the first place and avoid taking up court time.

I appreciate the cabinet secretary’s line of argument, but it does beg the question, because £40,000 is not the same in 2025 as it was in 2014. Is the Scottish Government’s position that it is content that the relative maximum penalty is weaker than it was in 2014? Surely the Scottish Government would acknowledge that there was reason why the level was set at £40,000 in 2014 and that, albeit it would not be £100,000 in today’s money, some level of uprating is needed to reflect inflation since then.

I will be relatively brief, and certainly briefer than I was in the previous grouping on marine enforcement.

We have already discussed some of the issues with fine and penalty rates being set in primary legislation and, as the years go on, their relative value being eroded. I therefore propose taking a similar approach to the maximum fine rate that is set for significant environmental harm offences in the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014. There are two options: amendment 299 could be agreed to now, while I consider amendment 300 to be a probing amendment. I am interested in the Government’s position on amendment 300 and, if the Government was amenable to it, I would certainly go beyond probing to move the amendment.

Amendment 299 would increase the maximum fine from £40,000 to £100,000, in recognition of the fact that the £40,000 figure is now more than a decade out of date. As it says plainly, amendment 300 would replicate the penalties that were set out in a recent European Union directive that sets the maximum levels for fines as a percentage of the total worldwide turnover of the legal person concerned. That would make sure that the fine is proportionate. If, therefore, an individual or a small business commits serious environmental harm, they will still receive a financial penalty, but it will be proportionate to their ability to pay it. If, however, a large multinational corporation was to commit a serious environmental offence in Scotland, it is only right that any financial penalty that it might face should be far higher and proportionate to its ability to pay.

I lodged the amendments partly because of a Scottish Environment Protection Agency investigation in my region. I will not talk about it in detail as it is on-going, but, as a result of it, I began to look at what the penalties could be. I came across this area as another example in which fines, penalty rates and so on that are set out in primary legislation have simply eroded in value and there does not appear to have been any effort or on-going process to update them.

As I said, amendment 299 could be agreed to now, while I lodged amendment 300 because I am keen to hear the Government’s view, particularly given its welcome general position of attempting to maintain alignment with EU regulations.

I move amendment 299.

Amendments 294 to 298 would variously amend the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984, the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act 2007 and the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010.

I am grateful to the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust and the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation for their support in developing the amendments on the basis of their considerable insight and experience in the area. Between them, the amendments seek to update and future proof our approach to marine enforcement, particularly around fines and forfeiture when fishing laws are broken.

I am not proposing anything brand new here; I am just seeking to fix what has not worked in practice or what is now badly outdated as a result of the legislation having been passed some decades ago.

I have a particular regional interest in that I am very proud of Arran’s Lamlash Bay no-take zone, which is a great example of marine restoration. It is locally led by the Community of Arran Seabed Trust. However, in November last year, a skipper was caught illegally harvesting scallops in the no-take zone. He was issued a £10,000 fine by the marine directorate but he refused to pay it, so he went to court. He pled guilty to the offence at that point, but, astonishingly, he was then fined only just over £4,000, despite the estimated retail value of the scallops that were illegally fished and sold at market being £15,500. He made a profit of more than £10,000 by breaking the law.

At the risk of sounding like my colleagues to either side of me, I do not think that crime should pay. Inadequate fines and forfeiture mean that the risk of being caught breaching our existing marine conservation efforts is really just the cost of doing business for bad actors. They can afford to take that hit.

The amendments are a package of measures that are designed to rectify that situation and prevent it from happening again. Previous acts have set out fixed pounds-and-pence figures for fines and monetary penalties, but, the moment a bill is passed, those figures begin to go out of date. Inflation erodes their relative value. For example, the £5,000 fine that is set out in section 4 of the 1984 act should be £16,500 in today’s money to maintain the value that was agreed by MPs at that point. Instead, it has lost more than two thirds of its relative value and, therefore, more than two thirds of its effectiveness.

For consistency, amendment 294 would bring such fines into line with the £50,000 limit set for equivalent offences in the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. It would also fix the infamous enforcement issue when someone is caught illegally fishing and with catch on board. Currently, the burden is on the prosecution to prove that all the fish were caught illegally, but amendment 294 would flip that. If someone was caught fishing illegally and with catch on board, it would be presumed that it had all been caught illegally unless they could prove otherwise—for example, through remote electronic monitoring data.

Amendment 298 would extend the imposition of fines for breaches of the 2010 act from just the master to include the owner and, if relevant, the charterer of a vessel. The decision to fish illegally within MPAs is often made at a more senior level than a vessel’s master, but fines are typically imposed solely on that master. Amendment 294 would disincentivise owners of vessels from encouraging or, at the very least, condoning illegal fishing.

Amendment 297 follows the same approach as amendment 298 with regard to disposals, but, in this case, it would extend fixed-penalty notices to the vessel’s owner and charterer, if applicable.

Amendment 295 would uprate the maximum fixed penalty associated with the 1984 and 2010 acts from £10,000 to £13,000, given that it is now more than a decade out of date, having last been updated in the 2010 act. More important, the amendment would require ministers to review the maximum at least once every five years and to take into account matters such as inflation in uprating the maximum via regulations.

The minister will be glad to hear that I will be very brief.

Amendment 191, in the name of Lorna Slater, would simply change “may” to “must” in section 17(4). The effect is that it would require ministers to issue guidance to the council regarding the composition of the apprenticeship committee and its functions, closing off the possibility of ministers not issuing that guidance. I hope that the amendment is therefore seen as straightforward and that committee members will agree to it.