Hansard

I am grateful to rise on behalf of Scottish Labour to wind up on the bill.

There is a huge degree of consensus on the bill. As I said in my opening speech, the bill can go forward. However, it is vitally important to say that we could go further.

I will not rehash those points, because the cabinet secretary heard them quite clearly.

I do not know whether there is some slight heckling from members at the back, telling me to get on with it. No, there is not.

I want to add to what we have heard already. It really is a privilege, for me as a parliamentarian, and for us all, to interact with charities in our work. We all get to experience, in our constituencies and our regions, the huge breadth and depth of wonderful charities that are doing amazing work.

In this place, we host charities probably more often than many places in Scotland do—on a daily basis. Every lunch time or evening in the Parliament, the place is brimming with different organisations coming to talk to their parliamentarians. Those are very often charitable organisations, which do a range of important work. There are charities that provide food parcels for older people; health charities that raise money for our children’s hospices and hospitals; and charities that support our armed forces and veterans community. As I said, it is a great honour to be able to engage with as many of them as we can.

Indeed, this evening, I will host a number of HIV charities from across Scotland to talk about how we progress the route towards the elimination of HIV in Scotland. Yes, Presiding Officer—that was a plug for my event this evening, so I hope that colleagues in the chamber will join me.

I am very happy, on behalf of Scottish Labour, to reiterate our support for the bill, and to reiterate the points that I have made previously about ensuring that we go further in the future. I also reiterate the point about how we deal with religious charities more broadly. I am keen to have further dialogue and discussion on that with the cabinet secretary—I know that she has made that offer previously, and I am sure that she will do so again in summing up.

I do not intend to detain the chamber for much longer than I need to, other than to say that I think that the bill commands support from members on all sides of the chamber, and it certainly commands the support of the regulator. The crucial test, however, will be whether it commands support for its provisions among charities across Scotland—those charities that we all know from our communities. That will be the next test, which is why it is vitally important that we get the monitoring and the post-legislative scrutiny right before we move on to the next phase of the review.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, and Scottish Labour will support the bill.