Hansard

I agree with colleagues that the bill is landmark legislation. It has been a long time in coming, and a tremendous amount of work has been done not only by members and by parliamentary and Scottish Government staff but by all the national and local organisations that have given important expertise and given their time to participate in discussions to ensure that the bill is a decent piece of legislation.

The Labour Party's key objective was to ensure that we came out of the process with a robust bill that would help to promote healthy seas. That is fundamental, as we have the responsibility for stewarding an incredibly complex set of ecosystems. I believe that the bill will help future generations to benefit from our seas.

In previous discussions on the subject, we have talked about the fact that the bill must encompass around 80 previous pieces of marine legislation. I congratulate colleagues on taking a mature and hard-working approach to the bill, which is all the better for it.

Massive opportunities will come from the bill, including the opportunity for joined-up thinking on interests that can sometimes conflict but which add to the health of our economy, such as fishing, leisure, shipping, renewables and wildlife interpretation. Those all have their place in our marine environment, but the key thing is that we act in a transparent and sensible manner.

Liam McArthur mentioned the massive expansion in the new generation of renewables. I hope that the bill will help that process in a logical, joined-up way that puts sustainable development at the heart of it. I hope that we now have a coherent approach to marine planning and marine conservation, and I look forward to the network of marine protected areas being designated and put in place.

There have been major changes to the bill that was initially proposed, which have resulted in the bill that is before us today. That is testament to the hard work not only of parliamentarians but of people who have lobbied us from outside. Labour members have seen the opportunity to strengthen the bill, and we have been keen to work constructively with stakeholders throughout Scotland. We have also been keen to work with other parties and colleagues on all sides of the chamber and in the committee. We may not always have agreed with one another, but we have teased out some of the difficult and complex issues very well.

I hope that we can now consider the implementation of the bill. I remember being struck at a meeting last year by how much we do not yet know about the marine environment around our country. Much of the work in relation to research needs to be pushed higher up the agenda.

Like Karen Gillon, I will enjoy reading the Official Report of today's debate, in which we can relive the moment when Richard Lochhead gave a speech in favour of one position and then minutes later voted entirely the opposite way. There have been some light-hearted moments today, and some interesting choreography around the chamber.

The key thing, however, is that we have improved our marine environment. A raft of amendments have been made to the bill today, and I pay tribute to my colleague Elaine Murray for her hard graft in ensuring that we get better protection for seals. I also thank the cabinet secretary and Robin Harper for making us debate the issue in detail at stage 3; I would like to have done that earlier, but we have at least done our jobs of scrutinising the legislation.

I hope that the licensing powers will be used sparingly and transparently as a last resort, and I note the clause that states that we will review the measures within the next five years. That is crucial to the effectiveness of the bill, as everybody needs to know that the Parliament will be watching to see how the legislation is implemented.

We look to the future, and to the implementation of the bill. Labour members are very keen now to talk about marine and coastal national parks. That was one of the issues that we logged with previous ministers—we got a commitment from Mike Russell that, once we had passed the bill, we could move on to consider marine and coastal national parks, which we want to do very swiftly.

We also want to help to promote the work of the regional partnerships throughout the country, which have done fantastic work to promote nature conservation, tourism and local economic development opportunities. The bill gives us a platform and a fantastic framework in which to do that.

I hope that we can all unite and support the bill tonight. There have been many disagreements along the way, but we will now have fantastic legislation that will join up with legislation across the UK, and we should all welcome that today. The hard work has been done to put the legislation in place, but the next bit is crucial. As with the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, we need to put the legislation into effect, and I hope that we will all work hard to do that.