Hansard

I think that the most recent attempt at awakening the chamber was more successful than your whacking the microphone earlier, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Scottish Labour is in agreement with the bill and will support it at decision time later this afternoon. As we have heard from a number of speakers during the stage 3 amendment proceedings and in this final debate, it has probably been far too long since a Parliament took a look at the issue. Thanks have to go to the Scottish Law Commission for the work that it has done—quietly, in the background, and then slightly more forcibly—to bring the bill forward. I must also thank the interested parties that supported that work and responded to the bill, including the Law Society of Scotland, the Faculty of Advocates and others.

As others have done, I thank the members of the committee and the clerks who support them for the huge amount of work that they did on the bill. In particular, I put on the record my thanks to Stuart McMillan for his work on the bill and his on-going interest in it. Conveners often go unthanked in the chamber, but I know how much experience and knowledge he has brought to the bill’s consideration. It is thanks to the Government that the bill has been improved with cross-party support. I thank Stuart McMillan for his work.

In summing up, I want to draw members’ attention to a number of matters that other speakers have hinted at. The first of those, which was raised by Bill Kidd and Oliver Mundell, is the importance of an awareness campaign. We have heard about the importance of wills and powers of attorney, and how they can ease the pressure on families if they are dealt with at the appropriate times. Money spent on an awareness campaign would be, to use that old-fashioned phrase, money well spent. As part of such a campaign, MSPs could raise their constituents’ awareness when they have opportunities to do so, but the campaign could also go wider than that. Through it, the Government could point out the importance of both vehicles—powers of attorney and wills—with a view to enabling people to make choices when they are able to do so, thereby avoiding the crises that can arise when that is done too late in the day, or so late that there are concerns about the validity of what is made. It would be nice if the minister could address that in her summing-up speech.

In the short time that I have left, I want to return to amendment 13, which relates to section 19, on which I made an intervention, and the regulations on what a good cause may be. It would be helpful to know whether the Government is considering bringing in any specific good cause identifiers by way of subsequent legislation.

It is nice to have a bill on which there is agreement across the chamber and that has been improved through the parliamentary process. As Oliver Mundell suggested, it should maybe return to Parliament for post-legislative scrutiny in less than 110 years’ time so that we can seek to make improvements.

I will leave it there. I again express my thanks to all those who have been involved.