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Showing 20 of 2,354,908 contributions. Latest 30 days: 0. Coverage: 12 May 1999 — 25 Mar 2026.

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

It is fantastic that the Scottish Government is supportive of the general principles of the bill. For a number of years, we have had discussions about the direction of travel with ecocide law internationally, particularly given the decision that has been taken by the EU. I am ...

Monica Lennon (Central Scotland) (Lab) Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Good morning. I welcome the opportunity to give evidence on the general principles of the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill, and I thank the committee for the extensive scrutiny that it has undertaken so far. Scotland must be more ambitious and effective when it comes to environmental ...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Absolutely: I have looked at everything. I have considered the current legal framework and the number of prosecutions and convictions under the RRA. I return to the point that, although it is of course possible to amend the RRA to increase the punishment, that would not fun...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I will pick up on the policy intent first, because I hope that that will be helpful. The intention behind my bill is to prevent mass environmental damage and destruction through crimes of ecocide. One way in which I am trying to do that is by having strong punishments to act a...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I do not think that I accept that the bill will cause a huge amount of legal uncertainty. We heard good evidence from the Law Society of Scotland, from King’s counsel and from a number of stakeholders that the bill will sit at the apex of environmental law. I know that the mem...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I am confident that the Parliament has time to progress the bill if it goes beyond stage 1. As we know, it is for any member to lodge amendments and, as I have said to the Government, I will work with any member and will listen carefully to them. If there is significant eviden...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Yes. I am not sure what the question was, but I will push back a little, because there were a number of assertions in there. The parliamentary timetable is not a matter for me—we are in the hands of the Parliament. If people have minds that are closed to the bill and want to b...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I can reassure the committee that I considered that at the drafting stage. That is not covered in the bill, but the constructive points made by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and by the Government have been helpful. A number of statutory provisions already allo...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Stepping back from some of the more legal and technical points, I heard from the expert advisory group and many other stakeholders that, when ecocide is discussed internationally and with corporate organisations, it brings to people’s minds the risk of being prosecuted for eco...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

As I said in my opening remarks, I am not trying to invent something new here. That is why we see similarity with the RRA in terms of definitions. It is positive that the Scottish Government is saying that it accepts the definition in the bill. There are, rightly, questions ab...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I want to be clear about the starting point, which should be to ascertain what harm has been caused. That may involve SEPA investigating and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service then looking at the evidence as to what caused the incident to happen and what the intent...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I want to reinforce the point that, under the bill, the ecocide offence would not be a strict liability offence, unlike the offence of significant harm in the RRA. Under the bill, a person would commit an offence if they intended to cause environmental harm or were reckless ab...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

That was given detailed consideration during the drafting process. It was recognised that all three possibilities—consent, connivance or neglect—are provided for in the RRA, but neglect is not provided for in some circumstances. The rationale is that consent and connivance bot...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Thank you for your questions, today and throughout the evidence at stage 1. Those has helped to improve people’s understanding of what the RRA already does, and have brought into the discussion the important role of planning authorities and others in the consenting regime. 11...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Sure. I have set out these points in earlier answers. The bill seeks to introduce a criminal offence of ecocide, and for a successful prosecution to happen, there has to be evidence that there was intent or reckless conduct. There is a distinction with those organisations that...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I bring you back to the policy aim of the bill. I seek to prevent environmental destruction. That is the motivation. We are trying to prevent ecocide-level crimes. Every day, planning authorities, for example, assess environmental impact. They look at potential harm. If an ele...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Planning authorities make decisions based on current legislation and the policy of the Scottish Government; they also consider local circumstances. They will be informed by environmental impact assessments. If a private developer is responsible for a project, it will have to p...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

I remind the committee that the consultation on the proposal for the bill started in November 2023 and ran for 14 weeks, so some of the questions and issues that you have raised are not new. Perhaps people are saying those things now because the committee proactively wrote to ...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Again, the principal aim is for the bill to have that deterrent effect—up to 20 years in prison is a very serious punishment. In order for the bill to have the maximum deterrent effect, it had to go beyond the current penalty under the RRA, which is up to five years. There are...

Monica Lennon Lab Committee

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Careful consideration has been given to all those matters. The bill includes provisions to ensure that SEPA’s existing investigatory powers can be used and it anticipates that SEPA will use existing processes and procedures to investigate any reported cases of ecocide, includi...

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Committee

Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee 09 December 2025

09 Dec 2025 · S6 · Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Item of business

Ecocide (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Lennon, Monica Lab Central Scotland Watch on SPTV

It is fantastic that the Scottish Government is supportive of the general principles of the bill. For a number of years, we have had discussions about the direction of travel with ecocide law internationally, particularly given the decision that has been taken by the EU. I am very aware of the Scottish Government’s policy to keep pace with the EU.

We wanted to explore how the current regulations work and whether simply amending the RRA, if that were possible, would be sufficient. My position is that that would not be sufficient. As I touched on in my opening remarks, the RRA includes a strict liability offence, whereas, as I hope the committee has learned through this process, when we talk about ecocide offences, we are talking about events that cause the most severe environmental harm, which would probably happen only once every 10 to 20 years.

In relation to the gravity of the harm and of the penalties, the bill differs from the RRA because, under the bill, it must be proven that the guilty party had a guilty mind when carrying out a guilty act. That is not the case under the RRA in relation to strict liability. Under the bill, it must be proven that someone acted with intent or recklessness, and it is right that there should be that test, because we consulted on the punishment being up to 20 years in prison, which the public have said that they support.

For other reasons that the committee is aware of, the Government or the Parliament could amend the RRA to increase the penalties, but that would not fundamentally change the offence—it would still be a strict liability offence.

I prefer to think of this as a regulatory pyramid, which has been mentioned by other stakeholders, including the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland. It is not about having one or the other. I hope that having an ecocide offence at the apex of the pyramid will strengthen the RRA. Obviously, I will consider the amendments that are lodged, but, fundamentally, we need both a stand-alone bill on ecocide and the RRA to operate properly. I know that people have concerns about the enforceability of provisions in the RRA, given the low number of prosecutions. However, the need for a separate offence has come through in the consultation and in a lot of the evidence on the bill.

In the same item of business

The Convener Con

Welcome back. Our fifth item of business is an evidence session on the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill with the member in charge, Monica Lennon. I welcome Monica’s c...

Monica Lennon (Central Scotland) (Lab) Lab

Good morning. I welcome the opportunity to give evidence on the general principles of the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill, and I thank the committee for the extensiv...

The Convener Con

Thank you, Monica. I am glad that you made your opening statement, because it negated some of my questions. I will go to the questions that I am still keen t...

Monica Lennon Lab

There was a 14-week consultation on the proposal, which started in November 2023 and ran until the beginning of February 2024. There was a significant respon...

The Convener Con

You have heard during the evidence sessions, which you have attended, that there is some concern about an overlap between section 40 of the RRA and the bill....

Monica Lennon Lab

It is fantastic that the Scottish Government is supportive of the general principles of the bill. For a number of years, we have had discussions about the di...

Douglas Lumsden Con

You said that it is not about having one or the other. If there was not enough evidence to go down the ecocide offence route, the Government could switch to ...

Monica Lennon Lab

During this parliamentary session, I have had regular discussions with the Scottish Government about how we can give effect to an ecocide law in Scotland. Th...

Douglas Lumsden Con

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service was concerned that, if prosecutors went down the ecocide offence route and someone was proved to be not guilty...

Monica Lennon Lab

I can reassure the committee that I considered that at the drafting stage. That is not covered in the bill, but the constructive points made by the Crown Off...

Douglas Lumsden Con

I am trying to understand how the bill could be amended to incorporate the alternative conviction provision. I guess that the Government might bring forward ...

Monica Lennon Lab

The question is fundamentally about the power to convict under alternative offences. It is a matter of ensuring that that discretion still applies to the Cro...

Mark Ruskell Green

I want to ask you about the stand-alone offence of ecocide. Is there something quite different if somebody is convicted under the heading of ecocide? Leaving...

Monica Lennon Lab

Stepping back from some of the more legal and technical points, I heard from the expert advisory group and many other stakeholders that, when ecocide is disc...

Mark Ruskell Green

We have received some evidence on the bill’s provisions being a deterrent. Will you expand on that? I am interested in what has been put in place in the Euro...

Monica Lennon Lab

It is difficult to quantify that. When something has not happened, it is hard to prove why it did not happen. However, on your point about whether it is chan...

Mark Ruskell Green

That sounds pretty concrete. If corporations are putting ecocide into their risk registers, that goes right to the top, to board level, and it cuts across th...

Monica Lennon Lab

Some of the submissions to the original consultation picked that up—I am not certain whether it was in the responses to the call for views, but organisations...

Mark Ruskell Green

Thank you—that is helpful. I think that it adds to the evidence that we have taken already. Before other colleagues come in, I will move on to briefly discus...

Monica Lennon Lab

As I said in my opening remarks, I am not trying to invent something new here. That is why we see similarity with the RRA in terms of definitions. It is posi...

Mark Ruskell Green

You might have seen that we took evidence from NatureScot in which it suggested that 12 months is not an ideal definition of “long-term”, because it is very ...

Monica Lennon Lab

The issue of the definitions of “widespread” and “long-term” has come up a few times. The definition of long-term damage comes from the expert panel internat...

Mark Ruskell Green

Bob Doris SNP

We are reading over the evidence on what we mean by ecocide. Is it a catastrophic single incident that causes widespread and obvious damage? Is it a course o...

Monica Lennon Lab

I will pick up on the policy intent first, because I hope that that will be helpful. The intention behind my bill is to prevent mass environmental damage and...

Bob Doris SNP

That is helpful. I know that there is a threshold that would apply to whether the test for the criminal offence has been met. However, you have talked about ...

Monica Lennon Lab

I want to be clear about the starting point, which should be to ascertain what harm has been caused. That may involve SEPA investigating and the Crown Office...

Bob Doris SNP

That is helpful, Monica. I will not push further, other than to ask for a tiny bit of clarity. What you have said previously about operating under a licence ...

Monica Lennon Lab

I think that I understand your point, but I bring it back to the questions of what harm has been caused and what harm has been investigated. What does the ev...

Bob Doris SNP

That is helpful. A number of witnesses have suggested to the committee that an ecocide offence should explicitly cover omissions or failures to act, as is th...