Chamber and committees

Some members of the committee went to that project earlier this year—perhaps it was last year; I cannot remember. It is a fantastic example of what can be done. It is really heartening to know that those pilots are out there so that we can get a better understanding.

I will bring in Annie Wells, who joins us online.

That would be welcome. Thank you.

Thank you.

We will continue for a bit longer. I will bring in Paul McLennan.

I speak in favour of Christine Grahame’s amendment 174.

Trail hunting was invented in England after the Hunting Act 2004 was passed. It provides a loophole for hunting with packs to continue. Police Scotland told the committee that, if trail hunting were made illegal, it would certainly limit the opportunity for fox hunting, so the Government is right to ban it pre-emptively by making trail hunting an offence. However, we must also be alive to the potential loopholes in the exception for training a dog to follow an animal-based scent for a lawful purpose.

Christine Grahame’s amendment 174 would ensure that anyone training dogs to follow a scent would need to take precautions and not allow the dogs to pursue a wild mammal. Further, they must not allow themselves to act recklessly. That is, they must not get into a situation in which they might foreseeably lose control of the dog, even if accidentally. That is crucial to ensuring that the ban on trail hunting is fit for purpose, which is crucial to helping to put an end to hunting with packs of dogs.

—for human entertainment. That is unacceptable, and I cannot support amendment 244.

I understand that that is a bit of a deviation from European Union legislation. What is the thinking in the EU that means that it does not allow meat to be sold as defrosted? I want to get assurance that you have thought through all of that.

Convener, I wish to put on the record that, on amendment 158, I would have voted no.

Amendment 159 not moved.

Amendment 210 moved—[Rachael Hamilton].

My amendments 192 and 193 are straightforward. They would simply add that, if a court convicts a person of a relevant offence and makes a deprivation order or a seizure order that affects the person’s dog or horse, any so-called “disposal” of that dog or horse

“must take into account the need to ensure”

its welfare.

I did not lodge amendments that would seek to add that requirement to the destruction option because sections 16 and 18 already state that a court cannot order the destruction of a dog or a horse

“unless it is satisfied, on evidence provided ... by a veterinary surgeon, that destruction would be in the interests of the”

animal.

I want to note on record that it is appalling that activities such as fox hunting may feasibly result in destruction being in the best interests of a dog or horse and that such activities are able to continue.

I thank the minister for offering to work with me at stage 3 to ensure that my amendments to the sections on deprivation and seizure orders would work alongside other such orders, so I will not move my amendments. I look forward to working with the minister at stage 3.

I support Colin Smyth’s amendments in this group, because it is prudent to require that reasonable steps be taken to ensure that dogs do not form a relay. As he has said, mounted hunts in England have been seen using several pairs of dogs one after the other to chase stags, and these amendments would help avoid similar practices being adopted here by making them an offence.

I do not support Rachael Hamilton’s amendments in the group. Amendment 244 defines the term “pack” in a way that excludes working gun dogs. Gun dogs are, simply, dogs that are trained to retrieve game. Apart from the problem of unambiguously defining what a working gun dog is—whether a dog is a “gun dog” and whether it was “working” at the time that it was hunting a wild mammal—that definition of “pack” would create yet another loophole, as those who are bent on hunting with packs of dogs would simply argue that they were using working gun dogs. To be frank, amendment 244 seems like an 11th-hour attempt to allow hunting with packs of dogs to continue, not in order to protect livestock or the environment but for sport and—

I have concluded my comments.