Chamber and committees

I, too, wish Christine Grahame a speedy recovery. On her behalf, I thank the minister for her comments and her willingness to meet Ms Grahame to discuss her amendments, and this amendment in particular, prior to stage 3. I am sure that Ms Grahame will also appreciate the comments that other members have made.

Given that, convener, I seek leave to withdraw amendment 174.

Amendment 174, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 237 moved—[Rachael Hamilton].

Last week, at our round-table evidence session with, mainly, environmental groups, we asked about the impact that the bill was having on them. They talked about a lack of resources to be able to respond to it. Isobel Mercer from RSPB Scotland said:

“the core focus at the moment is ensuring that Scotland has an appropriate and ambitious response to the nature and climate emergency. That will involve improving many of our existing laws and protections ... However, that will all become difficult if our organisations are distracted by ensuring that existing effective protections do not fall off the statute book.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 1 December 2022; c 28.]

We have been hearing from environmental organisations and the food and drink industry about how the bill is having a negative impact on their ability to move forward. You touched on this a bit in your previous answer, but what impact is there on the Scottish Government’s work to improve legislation and on the work of the civil service in Scotland?

Lloyd Austin from Scottish Environment LINK described it as “immense” pressure. That underlines what you have said.

We heard in evidence that more than 600 pieces of legislation relating to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs could be impacted, and it was reported that only three civil servants are working on that. I do not know whether that is the case, but that is a stark number, and that could have pretty negative consequences on our ability to scrutinise and ensure that we have in place all the right laws.

In your opening remarks, you said that the bill could result in deregulation and unintended consequences. You have seen the evidence from the committee’s round-table sessions. I was particularly struck by the evidence that was given by Food Standards Scotland, and I would like to hear your thoughts on it. Food Standards Scotland said:

“It carries huge risk and unintended consequences for consumers and trade.”

It went on to say:

“Deregulation that removes consumer protection is not an improvement, and this bill offers a huge opportunity for deregulation in a way that could undermine consumer safety.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 24 November 2022; c 2-3.]

That relates to a specific area, but I am interested in your thoughts on the wider impact of deregulation.

It is clear that the use of dogs underground continues to be a contentious issue and, as we can see from the wide range of amendments that have been lodged, there is quite a split between members on the best approach to take in the bill. On the one hand, we have a set of amendments that, if agreed to, would place further restrictions on the use of dogs underground or ban the practice completely and, on the other hand, we have several sets of amendments that would widen the scope of section 5 by allowing more than one dog to be deployed underground for a broader range of purposes and to control a greater number of species than the bill currently permits.

I have listened to all the evidence that has been presented to the committee up to this point, and I have carefully considered all the amendments that have been lodged by my fellow MSPs. Because of the clear welfare issues that can arise from using dogs underground, I believe that the exception in section 5 of the bill should be drafted as narrowly as possible.

The bill currently allows for dogs to be used underground to control mink and foxes. I know that a complete ban on the use of dogs underground to control those species is supported by some members of the committee, but I am concerned that such a ban would seriously curtail the ability of land managers to undertake effective fox control in certain circumstances.

As we have heard, mink are classified as an invasive species because of the danger that they pose to native Scottish birds and mammals. I agree that it is necessary to control their numbers, including by eradicating them from certain areas, but, during the course of the bill, I have become aware that the majority of mink control in Scotland does not involve the use of dogs underground. For example, the Scottish invasive species initiative does not deploy dogs underground in its mink control project. Instead, it successfully uses a combination of surveying, to confirm the presence of a mink population, followed by the setting of live-capture traps. I understand that, in the three years after the project started, it captured 371 mink from 172 sites.

Edward Mountain highlighted the issue with mink. In the Uists and perhaps in the wider Outer Hebrides, the Hebridean mink project seeks to eradicate mink from the islands and monitors North Uist and South Uist for mink activity. That project, too, uses traps instead of sending dogs underground to flush mink. As I understand it, the project started in 2001, and in 2016 only seven mink were caught on Lewis and Harris. No juveniles have been caught since 2015, but monitoring continues in the Uists.

It is clear that there are established and proven ways of managing mink that do not give rise to some of the same welfare concerns as the use of dogs below ground does. For those reasons, section 5 should be amended so that it is no longer permitted to send dogs underground to flush mink. I hope that members agree and support amendment 162 and the other amendments in my name in the group.

I want to respond very briefly to Mr Mountain’s comments. As I highlighted earlier, the Scottish invasive species initiative on the mainland, which stretches from Durness in the north to the Firth of Tay, does not use dogs; instead, it uses mink rafts with clay pieces to obtain the paw prints and then it uses live-capture mink traps.

This has been a really informative discussion, so thank you very much for that and for all the written evidence.

I turn to the practical impacts of the bill. It was interesting that David MacKenzie—I hope that I do not misquote him—talked about EU legislation being a principled creation. David McKay and David Bowles both talked about their experiences of being involved in the creation of EU legislation. I am interested from a practical perspective in how the bill will change the ability to feed into legislation and therefore impact on the scrutiny that the Scottish Parliament can do. We have talked a lot about the Executives making decisions, but how will we as the Scottish Parliament and organisations such as those that the witnesses represent be able to feed into the legislation?

I think that David Bowles said that more than 40 acts had been introduced on environmental matters over 47 years.

Animal welfare—my apologies. Clearly, if we were to undo that in such a short period, we could lose a lot of what we have gained.