Hansard

To have taken part in this legislative process has been an interesting and enlightening experience, even if the passing of the Public Records (Scotland) Bill will not—I dare say—go down in history as the Parliament’s most high-profile moment. Notwithstanding that, it is important to ensure that we put in place better records management. It has also been extremely encouraging that there has been almost unanimous cross-party agreement on how best to preserve and enhance the precious fabric of the nation’s heritage.

Having good-quality, accessible public records and archives is an essential part of improving the welfare of society in general, if not democracy itself. It is fair to say that such records can make a life-changing difference to individuals and families. That point was forcibly made in some of our witness sessions—Ken Macintosh has just alluded to that.

Although the main driving force for the bill was the unsatisfactory circumstances that affected many of our most vulnerable people, especially those flagged up by the Shaw review, there are other reasons why it was important to do more to improve things, particularly in order to create greater efficiency, spread good practice and keep costs to a minimum. We all accepted that all organisations receiving public money have an obligation to ensure that records are properly kept and that they are accessible and transparent.

That said, the debate was really about how to strike the right balance between ensuring that there was greater efficiency, not imposing too much of a regulatory burden on different bodies, and including more organisations under the wider net of officialdom. The latter was—and, I think, remains—a slight concern of several voluntary sector groups and organisations, without which Scotland would be a much poorer place, especially when it comes to looking after vulnerable people.

There were genuine concerns about whether a new legislative framework would be not only unnecessary but burdensome and time consuming for staff who have many other things to do, particularly when budgets in the voluntary sector remain tight. We give credit to the Scottish Government for taking on board all those concerns and for arriving at the bill we have before us today. It is good that the Government has listened carefully.

There was concern about possible overimplementation of the legislation and about increasing workloads and so on. The Scottish Government deserves credit for having responded to those concerns and giving cast-iron assurances about the language in the bill and the need to ensure that the relationship between the keeper and the authorities will be fully consultative and agreed by both parties. I am grateful to the minister for that.

It goes without saying that everyone was sympathetic to the former residents of children’s homes and special schools, and their families, who were able to put on record their immense difficulty and sometimes harrowing experiences in accessing the records that they required. Those difficulties presented a strong case for change and for addressing many of the inconsistencies in records management throughout Scotland. We have successfully addressed those issues.

Like other members, I strongly recommend that all members endorse the bill this afternoon.

11:47