Seòmar agus comataidhean

I will hand over to Murdo Fraser.

I suspend the meeting for 10 minutes; I ask members to be back for 10 past 11, please.

To help us steer through that, I have a few questions. Both of you engage with technology and run technology-based companies. As you think about AI and what that means for how you go about your day-to-day work, how does it shape how you organise around a problem, how you organise your businesses and how you seek to arrange things to meet your customers’ and your clients’ demands? I think that we all probably have a very 20th century model in our heads about what a business looks like—there is a chief executive and he or she has four to six vice-presidents or whatever the latest job title is, and they all have a column of people who report to them, and there might be some horizontals. To my mind, that goes, because that is throwing people at an information problem. When you think about your business, how should we be thinking about organising and organisations? What should those principles be if AI is in the mix?

Likewise, Leo Fakhrul, if you were to explain a 21st century company that embeds AI, what would you say were its organising principles? It is not about functional silos based around information, because the AI will do that for you. What do you think the organising principles are for an AI-based company?

Fantastic. We have definitely run out of time, although we have certainly not run out of questions. I thank both our panels for validating my degree choice, given that I am a philosophy graduate. With that, I thank you both for your time this morning. It has been extremely useful. We have a lot to think about and I am now worried about how we will pull this together in a single report. We might have to use some AI ourselves to do that. Thank you so much. I draw the public session to a close.

I thank the minister for that answer about the economic value. Are there any practical or other considerations?

I will be speaking to three sets of amendments in this group. Amendments 260, 282 and 286 are in Michael Marra’s name, amendments 18 and 19 are in my name, as are amendments 271, 272, 14 and 15. I should say at this point that I have spoken to more amendments in my colleagues’ names than I have in my own. Members should intimate to them rather than to me whether that has been effective—it would be simply upsetting if they did so directly.

Michael Marra lodged amendment 260 with a view to the resource implications of implementation of the bill. The amendment is modelled on amendments that have been tabled in the Lords to Kim Leadbeater’s bill, which is proceeding through Westminster. The aim is to ensure that there is robust financial oversight and scrutiny before the act is implemented.

As we have seen throughout stage 2, should the bill pass into law, it will establish a number of duties, considerations and undertakings in respect of the many individuals and services that might be involved. Members are also very much aware that those self-same services are not always overburdened with finances and resources. Indeed, in many cases, they are stretched. It is therefore important that we look at what the impacts will be on public services, such as the health service, local government and social services. Amendment 260 seeks to establish those duties for making those assessments and for the Government to provide a report on the findings of that review. Amendments 282 and 286 are consequential to amendment 280.

Amendments 18 and 19 seek to set up a commission to provide oversight of the implementation of the bill, were it to become an act. Again, there has been much discussion about what it is right and proper to put in the bill and to what extent things should be left to practice, procedure, training and guidance. Quite rightly, many of those details are a matter of judgment and practice and it is right that much of the implementation should be left to that sort of approach.

However, as has just been alluded to, the bill is not a normal bill and it is not normal public policy. Some of the detail, subtlety and nuance is incredibly important. We in this place know that scrutinising, let alone amending, anything that is in the form of guidance or secondary legislation is incredibly difficult. Amendment 18 would therefore require the setting up of a cross-party commission, to sit independently, that would provide oversight and guidance to Government when it is drawing those things up. It would not provide a veto, but it would provide a mechanism whereby there is oversight of those important details in the legislation, which is particularly sensitive in that regard.

My amendments 271, 272, 14 and 15 relate to the creation of a sunset clause. I note that the committee recommended that such a sunset clause should be considered during the amending stages of the bill. I think that it should be an important feature of the bill. I do not normally have much time for thin-end-of-the-wedge arguments, but it is very important that, in such important legislation, we provide some guarantees to people that, should a situation arise where the legislation ends up leading to unforeseen circumstances or expanding in ways that we had not intended when passing it, there is an emergency break, or in other words, a release valve.

That said, I was not entirely clear on precisely what length of time would be appropriate. The original amendment 14 sets a time period of five years, but I recognise that that might be too short, so I have tried to create a set of options for the committee. In terms of sequencing, amendment 271, which provides the option of a sunset clause set at 15 years, should be taken first; followed by amendment 272, which would set it at 10 years; and then finally by amendment 14, which would set it at five years. Amendment 15 would apply the affirmative procedure, in other words, that there would have to be a Parliamentary vote in order for the legislation to continue. That would be a one-off decision by the Parliament; it would not reoccur or repeat. I hope that it would provide the Parliament with the ability to have a say, to ensure that what was intended is what has come into effect, and to provide reassurance to people who have concerns about what effect the bill might end up having in future years. I will close my remarks there.

Forgive me, convener. I move amendment 7.

I have nothing further to add.

Amendment 7, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 112 not moved.

Although I very much appreciate having a group entirely to myself, I think that, in some ways, these amendments should be considered with the amendments in the previous group.

To my mind, there are two hugely important elements to the bill. The first is the judgment that will be made by medical practitioners as to whether an individual meets the criteria set out in the bill: that they are terminally ill and unable to recover. In those circumstances, they would meet the criteria for assisted dying.

The other really important element is that individuals will have to fully consider all the options that are available to them. To that end, the 14-day period is doing an awful lot of work, and I am not sure whether it provides a sufficient safeguard. It is an arbitrary time period. It is neither short enough, if death is imminent, nor is it long enough to provide a genuine period of reflection if an individual’s death is not imminent and they are planning ahead of time.

I will not move the amendments, which are probing. I wanted to draw to the committee’s attention the fact that the 14-day period is doing an awful lot of work. There need to be more safeguards to ensure that the individual makes a clear decision. Facing the end of life is clearly going to be difficult and, as human beings, we often find it difficult to make fully rational judgments.

I note that the committee has rejected a large number of amendments that seek the provision of additional information. This is an area that needs to be considered at stage 3 to ensure that people have full information, can reflect and can make a careful and considered decision.

I will not move the amendments at this time.