A FRESH bid by an Australian to decriminalise incest in Scotland has prompted MSPs to defend a quirk in the Scottish Parliament’s rules which allows attempts to change the law by people living anywhere in the world.

Richard Morris has revealed he is ready to make a fourth attempt to amend the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, which forbids men and women who are blood relatives from having sexual intercourse.

The Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee (PPC) has blocked three previous bids by Morris, who claims the criminalisation of adult consensual incest (ACI) is a “worldwide social injustice problem”.

PPC convener, Johann Lamont MSP, said: “The Public Petitions Committee welcomes issues from the widest possible range of people, and members will examine any petitions submitted, even if the idea originates from outside the country.

“Someone who lives outside of Scotland may wish to raise an issue based on personal experience in Scotland or may have a suggestion that would be beneficial when applied to Scotland.

“It is then at the committee’s discretion to examine the merits of a petition and to decide if the action called for in the petition is something that it would like to take forward.”

Morris told The Herald on Sunday he has launched a fresh bid to change the law on incest because closely related couples “haven’t done anything to hurt anyone, they have just fallen in love with someone who they happen to be a related to”. Morris has always refused to discuss his own relationships, claiming it would be “inappropriate”.

He said: “It is lucky for me that the Scottish Parliament has an e-petition system and a Public Petitions Committee devoted to vetting petitions in the way that it does. At least some important matters are debated at the committee stage and some do get to make their way higher.

“In Australia, one has to find a MP willing to lodge the petition with parliament for you, and few are so courageous in my case, when political margins are so narrow … in some American states, as in the UK Parliament, a large quota of signatures has to be provided before a petition is even looked at.”

Anyone can petition the Scottish Parliament to change legislation providing the law is within the powers of MSPs to change. People from outside Scotland have petitioned the Parliament since 1999. A petition is only inadmissible if a similar petition was closed less than a year earlier.

Morris’s last petition was closed in December 2017, meaning he can make another attempt to change the law in a matter of weeks and it will again come before the committee, likely next year.

Brian Whittle MSP, who sits on the PPC, described Morris’s petitions on incest as “vexatious” and said it’s “probably the exception that proves the rule”.

“I can’t think of another one that’s come outside of our shores with those connotations,” said Whittle. “We could shut him down and say you’re not allowed to come back again, but would that give him the chance to play the victim? I don’t know. None of us want to see that petition in committee but if you have an accessible committee you have to be prepared for that.”

Whittle compared the Scottish Parliament’s petitions committee to the equivalent Westminster committee, which requires 10,000 signatures for a Government response.

He said: “Our committee has a better way of doing it than Westminster, and we’ve had people from other countries coming here to see how ours works because it is very accessible. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But it has a very good reputation. So, I would be reticent to make any changes, even though this petition (on incest) is the one we all wish would go away.

“I certainly don’t want to take any evidence, that’s for sure.”