Hansard

I suspect that that is the case only in Murdo Fraser’s household. The rest of us are watching Aberdeen Football Club and more worthy causes on our mobile phones. I suspect that we all spend far too much time on our smartphones.

When I learned during the progress of the bill—as, I am sure, other members of the Parliament did—that hundreds of thousands of Scots own crypto assets, it brought home to me just how quickly the world is changing. Perhaps I have a lot more to do to keep up, as do others. That was a startling statistic, and there were others.

All that changing technology has implications for commerce, which the bill will help to address. It also has consequences for the environment in energy use and water use, as Lorna Slater and Sarah Boyack mentioned. We do not understand the consequences of all that yet, but we have to start thinking through and preparing for them. The more technology we use, the more processing power is required. That, of course, means more energy and electricity, so we must get the balance right by protecting our planet while taking advantage of new technologies as they come along.

I listened to the comments that members made about the need to keep all those issues under review and ensure that our law is kept up to date with fast-changing technologies. That was also discussed at stages 1 and 2, as we touched on some of the areas that we need to return to. Work is also taking place in the rest of the United Kingdom on some of those issues, and we will listen to what the expert groups elsewhere in the UK say about what needs to be done in future legislation.

I put on the record my thanks to members of the expert reference group for giving so generously of their time. That applies particularly to the group’s chair, the Rt Hon Lord Hodge, and Professor David Fox of the University of Edinburgh, who continued throughout the project to be most generous in sharing their enormous intellects with my officials, the committee and everyone else who was involved in the process. That is very much appreciated.

I also thank the Economy and Fair Work Committee for its thorough scrutiny of the bill. It is a short bill, as we have all said many times, but it is not simple. It is better for the careful attention to the technology and legal issues with which it grapples that it got from the committee, which was most ably assisted by its clerking team, whom we thank, SPICe and the committee’s expert advisers from the University of Aberdeen: Professor Burcu Ripley, Dr Alisdair MacPherson and Mrs Donna McKenzie Skene.

I thank all the stakeholders from the areas of law and technology in Scotland who submitted their views to the various consultations and responded to the Scottish Government’s consultation as well as the committee’s call for evidence.

I say a special thank you to members of my policy team, who are sitting at the back of the chamber, and members of the Scottish Government’s legal team, who are also here. More than with any of the other bills that I have worked on that I mentioned earlier, I had to depend a lot on their advice—even for pronunciation. They helped me out greatly throughout the process.

This is not my farewell speech, but, as I look to my post-politics life, I now feel partially qualified as a Scottish lawyer. I do not know whether that profession is morally upstanding enough compared with politics, but we will find out in due course—perhaps Murdo Fraser can give us some advice on that.

I thank all members for their contributions, and I commend the motion in my name to the Parliament.