Meeting of the Parliament 17 February 2026 [Draft]
I thank all members who have contributed to the debate this afternoon, whether I have entirely or partially agreed or disagreed with them.
Richard Leonard made a typically passionate and thoughtful speech. There is no doubt that we will miss Richard in the next parliamentary session—or, rather, the Parliament will miss him; like him, I will not be here. However, the answer to his question about why we could not progress the bill to a conclusion in this session was provided a few moments earlier by the convener, who talked about the need for further consultation on key aspects of the proposals, the speculative nature of the financial memorandum and concerns about the creation of an offence of the deliberate destruction of information.
There is simply not the time to properly work on the bill. It is easy to say that we should find the time, but finding it is a completely different matter. Are members suggesting that we should scrap other business to facilitate the bill and deal with it as a committee of the whole Parliament? What business should we scrap? Are members suggesting that the Parliament should somehow order the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee to drop everything else that it is currently doing? I suspect that the convener might have something to say about that.
We have certainly heard a change of position from two parties that are represented on the committee. In its recommendations, the committee made it clear that the bill’s general principles should not be supported at stage 1 because it did not
“consider this Bill to be the most effective vehicle to deliver the necessary change”
that is desired. It also recommended that the general principles should not be supported due to the lack of time that is available for the necessary policy development to be completed.
The Government has followed the committee’s recommendation not to support the bill at stage 1 based on its report. However, Sue Webber has taken the unusual step of lodging a reasoned amendment to point out the lack of time. Therefore, I am slightly confused as to what the Conservative and Labour parties—which are both represented on the committee—want to do. They now seem to want to agree to the bill at stage 1, but they acknowledge that there is insufficient time for the bill to be developed in the way that is necessary. To be clear, if we agree to the bill at stage 1, it will go forward to the next parliamentary stage.