Meeting of the Parliament 05 February 2026 [Draft]
The point that I am making is that there has been talk in briefings that we have received about unintended consequences. The overarching purpose of this bill is absolutely crystal clear, which is why we should pass it at stage 1.
For me, this modern question of ecocide is part of an old socialist tradition that goes all the way back to William Morris, whose concern for the natural world was integral to his philosophy of socialism. He warned, a century and a half ago, that commerce and the pursuit of profit would
“blacken rivers, hide the sun and poison the air”,
not least because of the unequal distribution of wealth and power—an inequality of power that we still have to address.
For the avoidance of doubt, this ecocide bill before us is not intrinsically anti-capitalist or anti-business or anti-development—it is simply about justice; it is about corporate accountability. This is about establishing a principle of absolute liability. The whole point of the legislation is not that it will be a stick, but that it will be a carrot that will deter bad behaviour; that it will not be an incentive for judicial action, but a disincentive for criminal behaviour.
So to those who are opposing this ecocide bill, I am bound to ask, “Which side are you on?”, because you cannot be on the side of nature, conservation and the common good and be an ally of the polluter and the corporate criminal at the same time.
Of course we need proaction, not simply reaction. Of course we need prevention, not simply criminalisation. Of course we need global co-operation. Ecocide laws are being adopted across the world.
We already know that much damage to our ecosystem is irreversible, that it is threshold dependent, that it can have a long gestation period and that when our ecology becomes overloaded over time, it snaps. That is why, in my view, this ecocide law should, rightly, address long-term harms that are cumulative.
Let us all be clear that we are talking about creating a law that would be additional to existing laws—one that the Law Society recognises as distinctive—and that it is needed. When we are told that there have not been many prosecutions under current law, such as section 14 of the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, I say that just because there have not been many prosecutions, that does not mean that there have not been many environmental crimes committed.
So I welcome the proposed ecocide law as a proportionate and dissuasive measure. It is a great privilege to speak in this debate this afternoon, because now is the time and now is the hour.