Minister backs ecocide Bill as environmental crime ‘important to public’

The Climate Action and Energy Secretary has expressed support for a proposed ecocide Bill as she said environmental crime is “extremely important to the public”.

Speaking at a Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on Tuesday, Gillian Martin said she agrees with the general principles of the legislation.

The committee met to take evidence at stage one on the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill, which has been proposed by Scottish Labour MSP Monica Lennon.

Ms Martin said: “I wanted to acknowledge the role that Monica Lennon has played in raising the profile of the importance of preventing serious damage to the environment and to say that her consultation on the Bill showed again that environmental crimes are extremely important to the public and it’s absolutely right that we analyse whether we’ve got provision in law to reflect the seriousness of those crimes.”

Ms Lennon brought forward the Bill in the Parliament in May, saying it would introduce strict new legal duties on company executives and government agencies.

Ms Lennon’s policy objectives in introducing the Bill are to ensure environmental offences which meet the definition of ecocide are treated as criminal offences, and to deter companies and individuals from acting in ways that may cause ecocide.

The Bill would create a new criminal offence of ecocide, with maximum penalties of a prison sentence of up to 20 years and an unlimited fine.

Ms Martin continued: “There’s an opportunity here for Scotland to be one of the first nations to have an offence of ecocide in criminal law and I’m supportive of the general principles of Monica Lennon’s Bill.”

Ms Lennon has said the Bill would bring Scotland into line with the EU, which has an environmental crime directive. It would also follow formal moves by small nations such as Vanuatu, Samoa and Fiji to add ecocide to the mandate for the international criminal court.

Ms Martin said she was initially satisfied provisions in the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 would already cover environmental harm.

Section 40 of the Act establishes an offence for causing or being reckless about causing significant environmental harm.

However Ms Martin said: “I am supportive of the proposal to introduce an offence of ecocide as properly understood as being the most extreme wilful and reckless cases of harm.

“I was satisfied that the provisions in the Regulatory Reform Act were appropriate and that did form part of my discussion with Monica Lennon initially. We suggested that the Regulatory Reform Act would have the same outcome. But I was particularly seized by the international campaign for the adoption of ecocide as an offence.”