Official Report, Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, 6 the Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) December 2017; C 2-3.] Bill
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Meeting of the Parliament Tuesday 20 March 2018 Session 5 © Parliamentary copyright. Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Information on the Scottish Parliament’s copyright policy can be found on the website - www.parliament.scot or by contacting Public Information on 0131 348 5000 Tuesday 20 March 2018 CONTENTS Col. TIME FOR REFLECTION ....................................................................................................................................... 1 BUSINESS MOTION ............................................................................................................................................. 3 Motion moved—[Joe FitzPatrick]—and agreed to. URGENT QUESTION ............................................................................................................................................ 4 Brexit Transition Agreement (Fishing Industry) ............................................................................................ 4 TOPICAL QUESTION TIME ................................................................................................................................... 9 Royal Hospital for Children (Water Contamination) ..................................................................................... 9 FORESTRY AND LAND MANAGEMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL: STAGE 3 ..................................................................... 13 FORESTRY AND LAND MANAGEMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL .................................................................................. 116 Motion moved—[Fergus Ewing]. The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Connectivity (Fergus Ewing) ......................................... 116 Peter Chapman (North East Scotland) (Con) ........................................................................................... 118 Colin Smyth (South Scotland) (Lab) ......................................................................................................... 120 John Finnie (Highlands and Islands) (Green) ........................................................................................... 121 Mike Rumbles (North East Scotland) (LD) ............................................................................................... 122 Gail Ross (Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) (SNP) ................................................................................ 123 Jamie Greene (West Scotland) (Con) ...................................................................................................... 125 Alex Rowley (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab) .............................................................................................. 126 Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP) ...................................................................... 127 Finlay Carson (Galloway and West Dumfries) (Con) ............................................................................... 128 Richard Lyle (Uddingston and Bellshill) (SNP) ......................................................................................... 129 Claudia Beamish (South Scotland) (Lab) ................................................................................................. 130 Edward Mountain (Highlands and Islands) (Con) ..................................................................................... 131 Fergus Ewing ............................................................................................................................................ 133 BUSINESS MOTION ......................................................................................................................................... 136 Motion moved—[Joe FitzPatrick]—and agreed to. DECISION TIME .............................................................................................................................................. 137 HOLODOMOR REMEMBRANCE DAY 2018 ........................................................................................................ 140 Motion debated—[Peter Chapman]. Peter Chapman (North East Scotland) (Con) ........................................................................................... 140 Maurice Golden (West Scotland) (Con) ................................................................................................... 143 Clare Adamson (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP) .................................................................................... 144 Claire Baker (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab) .............................................................................................. 145 Tom Arthur (Renfrewshire South) (SNP) .................................................................................................. 147 The Minister for International Development and Europe (Dr Alasdair Allan) ........................................... 149 1 20 MARCH 2018 2 conduct of others. The second part was justice: we Scottish Parliament formulate general rules of moral conduct that every member of society agrees to abide by even Tuesday 20 March 2018 if they disagree. Individual conscience and social justice reinforce each other; one cannot survive [The Deputy Presiding Officer opened the without the other. Together, they allow us to meeting at 14:00] extend our sympathies to people we have never met, and perhaps even to people we have been Time for Reflection taught to fear. Today, we once again live in a changing world, The Deputy Presiding Officer (Christine but Scots are the lucky heirs not only of Smith but Grahame): Good afternoon. The first item of of all the men and women whose thought business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our contributed to the enlightenment and can still time for reflection leader today is Jonathan Ainslie, guide us today. Thank you. a school visitor from the Humanist Society Scotland. Jonathan Ainslie (Humanist Society Scotland): Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament, thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. On my way to Parliament this morning, I walked past the Canongate kirkyard, where Adam Smith lies buried. Just around the corner is the newly refurbished Panmure house, where Smith lived at the end of his life. In his lifetime, Smith witnessed industrial change, urban growth and an explosion of travel across national borders. Like many enlightenment writers, his work concerned how to live a good life in a changing world. In “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, Smith wrote that moral behaviour comes from our nature as sociable beings: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” For Smith, the key to the good life was “sympathy”: what we today would call empathy. He praised our ability to place ourselves in the situation of another man: “we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him”. The great challenge for sympathy was the remoteness of so much of the world’s suffering. If a man “was to lose his little finger to-morrow”, Smith wrote, “he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren”. The question is, therefore, how to extend our moral circle to those who are unfamiliar to us. Smith’s answer came in two parts. The first part was conscience: a virtuous person is an impartial spectator of their own conduct as well as of the 3 20 MARCH 2018 4 Business Motion Urgent Question 14:03 14:03 The Deputy Presiding Officer (Christine The Deputy Presiding Officer (Christine Grahame): The next item of business is Grahame): The next item of business is an urgent consideration of business motion S5M-11112, in question. As several members wish to ask a the name of Joe FitzPatrick, on behalf of the supplementary question, I ask members to ask a Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a stage 3 question and not tell a story, so that I can get timetable for the Forestry and Land Management everybody in before we move on to topical (Scotland) Bill. questions. Motion moved, Brexit Transition Agreement (Fishing Industry) That the Parliament agrees that, during stage 3 of the Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Bill, debate on Kate Forbes (Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) groups of amendments shall, subject to Rule 9.8.4A, be (SNP): To ask the Scottish Government what its brought to a conclusion by the time limit indicated, that time response is to the Scottish fishing industry’s limit being calculated from when the stage begins and concerns regarding the terms of the Brexit excluding any periods when other business is under transition agreement between the UK Government consideration or when a meeting of the Parliament is suspended (other than a suspension following the first and the EU. division in the stage being called) or otherwise not in The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy progress: and Connectivity (Fergus Ewing): Yesterday’s Groups 1 to 3: 1 hour 5 minutes announcement was a surprise to no one. We Groups 4 to 6: 1 hour 50 minutes warned about this happening, and so it has come to pass. The Tories have sold out the Scottish Groups 7 to 9: 2 hours 45 minutes.—[Joe fishing industry once again, and Ruth Davidson FitzPatrick] should be shamefaced about her fastest broken Motion agreed to. Brexit promise yet. On 11 March, Ruth Davidson issued a statement,