 I call the First Minister. It gives me great pleasure today to move this motion in my name, seeking Parliament's agreement, to recommend to Her Majesty the Queen the appointment of a new Lord Advocate and a new Solicitor General for Scotland. Those posts have a long history, a very long history indeed. The position of Lord Advocate was established long before the 1707 union of Parliament and today they remain crucial to the rule of law in Scotland. The current combined prosecution and government advisory functions of the law officers have endured since the establishment of this Parliament under all administrations. However, as members will be aware, the Government made a commitment at the recent election to consult on whether those dual functions should be separated in future. I believe that there is a strong prima facie case to be made for that. However, it is important that Parliament considers the precise detail of any reform carefully, change depending on the nature of it may require primary legislation, including possible amendment to the Scotland Act. There are complex issues involved, but I can confirm today that the Government will take forward a consultation in due course. Wherever the outcome of such consultation, it will remain hugely important that Scotland has law officers of the very highest calibre. I have no doubt whatsoever that the individuals I am nominating today fulfil that requirement. Before I turn to those nominations, I want to take this opportunity on behalf of Parliament to pay tribute to and thank the departing Lord Advocate and Solicitor General. James Wolf has served as Lord Advocate in extraordinary times. The issues thrown up by Brexit and then the emergency legislation necessitated by the Covid pandemic have been complex and largely unprecedented. During this time, the Government has benefited enormously from his intellect and from the clarity expertise and, at all times, the scrupulous independence of his advice. James Wolf has also represented the Government at several important hearings, including the Supreme Court cases on article 50 of the EU withdrawal bill, the EU continuity bill and the prorogation of the UK Parliament. Those are among the most significant constitutional cases of recent times and will surely take their place in the history books. I also want to pay tribute to the way in which James represented the Scottish Government when defending in the Supreme Court this Parliament's legislation on minimum unit pricing for alcohol. In addition, he has worked to reduce the amount of time it takes for the Crown Office to investigate deaths and also continued its work to improve the handling of cases relating to domestic abuse and violence against women. Any of those challenges and achievements in isolation would have been significant, but, taken together, they represent a remarkable achievement and legacy. For Alison Derulo, her time as Solicitor General marks the end of 35 years as a first-class public prosecutor, including a spell as head of the national sexual crimes unit. For the last five years, Alison has served with distinction as Solicitor General. During this time, her role in establishing the expert group on preventing sexual offending will, I am sure, contribute to further improvements in the prevention and in the handling of such cases. Alison also represented the Crown Office in the Supreme Court on the highly significant Sutherland case, which concerned evidence used to convict pedophiles. For all of this and so much more, Alison Derulo and James Wolff have my thanks. Both of them have been outstanding public servants and I am sure that they leave office with the very best wishes of everyone across this chamber. I now turn to my nominations for their replacements. My formal recommendation for Scotland's new Lord Advocate is Dorothy Bain QC. Dorothy is without doubt, and I think that I can say this without fear of contradiction, one of Scotland's most senior and highly respected lawyers. She has extensive experience in both civil and criminal law and has appeared in cases at all levels, including in the Court of Session, the High Court, the UK Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. Dorothy is currently counseled to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in Scotland and chair of the Police Appeals Tribunal. She also spent nine years from 2002 to 2011 as an advocate-depute at the Crown Office. During that time, she made history becoming the first woman to be appointed as principal advocate-depute. She has conducted many complex prosecutions and appeals. Those included the first prosecution of Peter Tobin and the prosecutions relating to the operation algebra investigation, which resulted in eight men being convicted for offences relating to the sexual abuse of children. From the comments made since news of her nomination became known, it is very clear that Dorothy is also and rightly highly respected for her determination to speak up for the rights and the interests of the victims of crime. I believe that Dorothy Bain will be a Lord Advocate of the very highest calibre. My nomination for Solicitor General for Scotland is Ruth Charteress QC. Ruth is also a lawyer who commands respect rightly across the legal profession. She has been an advocate for more than 20 years. For eight of those years, she was a Standing Junior Council for the Scottish Government advising and representing the Government in a number of cases. For the past year, she has served as advocate-depute at the Crown Office. She also chairs the Fitness to Practice panel of the Scottish Social Services Council. Ruth will bring to the role of Solicitor General a valuable combination of public law and prosecution experience, and I am absolutely delighted to nominate her today. Dorothy Bain and Ruth Charteress are both individuals of the highest ability and integrity, and I believe that together they will make an outstanding and formidable team. It is, I think, worth noting that if those appointments are approved by Parliament today, this will mark the first occasion on which the roles of Lord Advocate and Solicitor General have both been held by women at the same time. That would represent a further welcome step towards more equal representation at the most senior levels in the legal profession and in public life more generally. However, while that may be and I think it is a welcome additional benefit of their appointments, it is not the reason for their appointments. Fundamentally, I am nominating Dorothy Bain and Ruth Charteress because they are both supremely well qualified for the roles that they are being asked to do. They have a wealth of professional experience that I am sure will benefit the Scottish Government, the Crown Office and the justice system more generally in Scotland. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that I move this motion, that the Parliament agrees that it be recommended to Her Majesty that Dorothy Bain QC be appointed as Lord Advocate and Ruth Charteress QC be appointed as Solicitor General for Scotland. Thank you. I call Douglas Ross. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. At the outset, I want to echo what the First Minister has said and place on record my thanks to James Wolff and Alison Derulo for their service over a particularly challenging number of years. I would also like to join the First Minister in offering my congratulations and those of my party to Dorothy Bain on her appointment as Lord Advocate and Ruth Charteress as she takes on the role of Solicitor General. For the first time, both of our top law officer positions in Scotland will be held by women, which not only makes history, but provides the next generation of young women with neuro models to look up to. It is also absolutely no doubt that those appointments have been made because they are two very incredibly qualified individuals with vast experience of Scotland's legal system. As the First Minister has outlined, Dorothy Bain has conducted some of the most high profile criminal prosecutions and appeals, including that of Peter Tobin ending in his conviction and a life sentence. Dorothy Bain is clearly held in extremely high regard by her colleagues in the legal profession who have noted how highly respected she is across the entire legal system. Some I have spoken to just in the last couple of days have commented on both the appointments as being extremely strong. Dorothy Bain comes to this new role at a time when the importance of the Lord Advocate seems to have taken on even more significance in Scotland over the last few years and that is likely to continue. Before we get into the challenges facing the new Lord Advocate, let me put on record again that my party supports splitting up the role, as the First Minister mentioned in her own remarks. We have raised concerns about the dual role since devolution began and those concerns have only become more acute as time has passed. There is a serious conflict between the head of the Crown Office and the chief legal adviser to the Scottish Government. While I am confident that Dorothy Bain will handle this conflict with dedication and professionalism, the problems created by the dual role cannot be rectified by the skill and commitment of the person holding the office. The issue is systemic, it is inherent by their nature, these dual roles at times conflict with each other. The Alex Salmond scandal exposed the weaknesses for all to see. Time and again it seemed that the dual role had put people in impossible positions. They appeared destined to fail because there was no way to fulfil both roles properly. The role of the Lord Advocate was stretched through its limits and found wanting to the detriment of the Scottish public and women at the heart of that affair. Separating the roles is essential to restore public confidence in the position. While we appreciate that things cannot be rushed, there appears to be consensus in this Parliament to reform and we look forward to the Scottish Government bringing forward their consultation. While we wish Dorothy Bain great success, I hope that this is the last time that this Parliament appoints a Lord Advocate under the current dual remit. The task facing both the new Lord Advocate and Solicitor General is enormous. In recent years it is well known that the Crown Office and the Lord Advocate have become embroiled in a series of scandals. Catastrophic failings have been the focal point of press attention for a number of years and they are not going to go away. Malicious prosecutions over the Rangers case will end up costing the taxpayer a fortune. Although we still do not know how much. We need transparency over those costs first and foremost but in time we need to know what went wrong and ensure it never happens again. My party has been vocal about the problems with fatal accident enquiries and the length of time they often take. We must see action here. There is also a far wider problem exasperated by the Covid pandemic. The backlog of trials has put the justice system under severe strain and the law officers will have our support as they seek to tackle that issue. On the horizon there is also the looming shadow of a referendum bill, which this Government seems determined to bring forward. I trust in the new Lord Advocate we have someone with the experience to speak truth to power at this pivotal point in Scotland's history as we seek to ensure that we rebuild from the Covid pandemic and focus on that more than anything else. The challenges are numerous and I applaud Dorothy Bain and Ruth Jarter for agreeing to take them on. My party will support them in their efforts to improve Scottish legal system as they seek to restore public confidence at this crucial moment in our history. Thank you. I now call on Anna Sarwar. Presiding Officer, can I join Nicola Sturgeon and Douglas Ross in thanking James Wolfe and Alison Derulo for their dedicated service to our country? Both highly respected in their professions, both working through really challenging times our entire country owes them a great debt of gratitude. Part of the joy of devolution in this Parliament is the chance to reimagine how Scotland looks, sounds and feels. Historians may disagree on who exactly was the first Lord Advocate but perhaps the strongest claim to that title is Sir Ross Grimley who in 1483 served as a legal adviser to King James III. The Scotland will welcome this new Parliament in 1999. It would have been unrecognisable to Sir Ross in almost every way. The post of Lord Advocate despite having changed purpose and character in those 516 years was still in a few respects have been familiar to him. Most obviously it was almost always held by or always held by a man. In fact, even with the green shoots of a new type of Scottish politics sprouting in 1999 it took another eight years before the first women would hold Scotland's highest legal office. When this process is over most senior legal offices will be held by women not based on tokenism but based on merit an important moment to remark upon in a profession which much like politics still has a long way to go before it looks like the people it claims to serve. Looking at the careers of both Dorothy Bain QC and Ruth Chartres QC it is clear to me that Scotland will have in post fierce defenders of human rights and the champions of victims voices. Their colleagues speak of two individuals who are driven by empathy and a desire for justice. We all in this Parliament and indeed this country need and want them to succeed. There will of course be times when people in this place express dismay with slow and too often what may appear to be cruel and impersonal wheels of justice. We will call like in the cases of Emma Caldwell or indeed of Millie Mayne and far too many others for the new Lord Advocate to act with compassion and purpose to ensure that the law is not only followed but that justice is done. Such interactions between the politicians and the courts are inevitable but what is at stake is often to the core of our sense of values and fairness in our country. None of that would be a reflection on the good characters, good values and good judgments of the two holders of that office. However, it is clear that we do need to look at the reform of the role of Lord Advocate, as has been said by both the First Minister and Douglas Ross. In fact, while much more in Scotland would be alien to Sir Ross the closeness of the chief legal officer charged with conducting Scotland's public prosecutions to the nation's political leadership might just be all too familiar. Since then there has developed a legal principle that in matters of legal judgment what matters is not just whether there was in fact bias but the possible appearance of bias too. A more recent history has tipped that issue out of the seminar rooms of law schools and onto the front pages of our newspapers. That is why we need to have serious discussions in this Parliament about the separation of power between the person who is in charge of prosecutions in Scotland and the chief legal adviser to the Government. We will proudly support Dorothy Bain and Ruth Charteris in taking on these vital roles in Scotland's public life and also calling colleagues across this Parliament to make it contingent on us to reform the officers going forward. In doing so, we will all play a small part in changing the tone and tenor of Scotland's long history. We cannot lose sight of the injustices that still remain in our society, in our country and the work of building that more perfect nation is one that is a collective duty for us all. Thank you. I now call on Maggie Chapman. Thank you, Presiding Officer. On behalf of the Scottish Greens, I am pleased to support the nomination of both Dorothy Bain QC as Lord Advocate and Ruth Charteris QC as Solicitor General. Last week I spoke in this chamber about how our justice system should exist to correct imbalances of power. How our justice system should not be used disproportionately by the rich and powerful against those who are marginalised, behind and powerless. Those appointments, I hope, will allow us, as a nation, to shift the power imbalances that exist that are deeply embedded in our justice system. In the same way as this new Parliament better reflects the diversity of our country than ever before and promises to be a more progressive voice for Scotland, so I hope that those appointments today of two outstanding women will allow us to look afresh at our justice system and reform it for the better. Last week I talked about the need to redress the power imbalance in our justice system and institutions that result in the woefully low rate of prosecution of men who rape and sexually assault women and the lack of trauma-informed support available to traumatised survivors. Of the fact that British and minority ethnic people are shamefully over-represented in prisons and are subjected to a different standard often by our police and court systems and often disproportionately the victims of hate crime that our prisons are being overwhelmingly used to incarcerate the poor while substantively failing to reduce re-offending. I am hopeful that the appointments today will allow us to act on these injustices. I know that Dorothy Bain QC has a strong track record of prosecuting sexual offences and has done considerable work often pro bono on cases which have pushed forward the rights of women complainers in sexual crime cases. I am also aware of her determined work in support of victims of racially motivated violence as exemplified by her support for the family of Shekibayo who was, as I am sure we all know, died after being pinned down by police in custody. The choice to then smear and criminalise him after his death compounds that initial injustice. Her compassion, empathy and desire for justice for the families of those who have completed suicide in custody are exactly the qualities we want in our Lord Advocate. We will, later on this afternoon, be discussing how we tackle Scotland's drugs death crisis. I very much look forward to engaging with our two new senior law officers on a care-based approach of support and treatment rather than one of criminalisation. I hope that we as a country will see what is genuinely in the public interest as regards the drugs death crisis. Gillian Mackay and I will elaborate on this later on today, but I hope that the new Lord Advocate will agree to roll out as soon as possible pre-arrest diversion schemes that do not result in a criminal record and therefore stop wrecking people's lives with those criminal records. We need a deep change in our approach to justice. We need to keep survivors of sexual and domestic violence safe. We need to recognise that black lives matter. We need to approach substance misuse as a public health and social justice issue. I look forward to working with our new senior law officers. Thank you. I now call on Willie Rennie. Next month it will mark six years since the tragic death of Lamara Bell and John Yw on the M9 motorway. You will recall the circumstances despite calls to the police it was days before they responded and despite numerous promises of fatal accident inquiry the family are still left without answers. The tragedy of their deaths has been compounded by the snail's pace of the Crown Office. This is no way to treat anyone not alone. There is a long list of delays. Warm words are wholly inadequate. Reform is long overdue and that must be led by the new Lord Advocate. Scotland has the worst drug death rate in Europe the developed world and in fact in the UK as well. In the UK it is four times the rate in Scotland here compared with the rest of the country. In March this Parliament backed our motion to divert people gripped by drugs into treatment and cease prosecution and imprisonment. We need a new approach from the Crown Office another huge responsibility for the Lord Advocate. I wish to thank the outgoing Lord Advocate and Solicitor General for their personal service and commitment to the country that has been quite remarkable. It is worth remembering that the problems faced by the Crown Office on fatal accident inquiries and drugs as well as other long-standing issues reached back well before the current incumbent was in post and the Lord Advocate is appointed and acts within the policy framework of this Government. The Scottish Government cannot shrug their shoulders. They too bear a heavy responsibility of reform in the Crown Office. There is one specific reform for the First Minister. The role needs to be split to end the apparent conflicts of interest. It is no longer appropriate for the Lord Advocate to act as both a prosecutor and the politician sitting around the Cabinet table. This is not new. In the latter days of the last Parliament the conflict of interest between those duties fell into sharp focus. Even the impression of a conflict undermines the integrity of the role. Separate positions with an independent director of prosecutions to run the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal Service could bring both focus to the task of recovery and justice as well as a healthy separation of powers. Finally, I have been a supporter of confirmation hearings for top roles in our public bodies. The confirmation hearings would enable MSPs to question and debate the challenging issues, many of which I have already mentioned for the new post holder as well as their suitability for the position. I think that we should have had such hearings for the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General today rather than the rush process that we are engaged in this afternoon. It may even have been helpful for the nominees today to face such a hearing, but that is not open to us today. We are fortunate, very fortunate to have such respected and talented nominees in Dorothy Bain and Ruth Charteris. They are widely respected in the legal profession and beyond. I wish to thank them for their contribution so far. I wish them well today and I look forward to working with them in partnership as we proceed over the next few years. Thank you. I will now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion 406 in the name of Nicola Sturgeon on appointment of law officers be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed. Before we go on to the next item of business, I will remind members that social distancing measures are in place in the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. I ask that members take care to observe those measures including when entering and exiting the chamber. Please only use the aisles and walkways to access your seat when moving around the chamber. The next item of business is a debate on motion 400 in the name of Angela Constance on tackling drug-related deaths. I will give a couple of minutes to rearrange their seating positions.