Chamber and committees

My second question is for Barrie Wade. In response to Mercedes Villalba’s question earlier, you started to talk about terrier work. I would like to understand more about what the dogs do to the fox underground.

You might not be able to answer the question, but I am raising the idea of our needing to look at the whole ecology and taking a larger landscape approach. With the coming agriculture bill, we also have opportunities to bring in conditionalities and look towards biodiversity. Therefore, if we are looking at a Scotland that is deeply scarred, taking an approach at a landscape scale could transform how we approach wildlife management.

Yes, exactly. Therefore, we are talking about a hunting context and what happens if dogs come into an area where there are nesting birds. We heard from farmers earlier—and we have heard in other situations—that hunting actually helps the nesting birds. I am trying to understand whether there is a different experience of that.

My question is for Barrie Wade, who is in the spotlight this morning.

The written evidence from the National Working Terrier Federation states:

“It is commonplace on a shoot day to use more than 2 dogs while flushing game from cover ... We do not believe that the intention of the Bill is to restrict, control or interfere with normal shooting practices”.

I want to get clarity on that point, because the bill does restrict the number of dogs to two for game shooting and to one for flushing foxes and mink from below ground. If you do not think that the bill restricts those practices, that is a really important point that we need to fully understand.

Okay.

Thank you for joining us. It is good to have your perspective.

We will move on to the theme of local food growing strategies. I know that Sinclair Laing has talked about this issue quite a lot already, but I have a general question on it. I think that Aberdeen City Council has such a strategy—indeed, all the councils represented today have them—but what has been your experience of creating them? How have you brought allotments or food growing spaces into those strategies and your thinking?

Sinclair, I will start with you, as you might have more to add to what you have already said, and then I will bring in Marina Curran-Colthart and Sandy Paterson.

Amy, I do not want to put you on the spot, but I am aware that you have to leave so, rather than invite you to respond to a specific question, I would like to give you a little bit of space to tell us about anything that you want to make sure that we are aware of from the perspective of Scottish Borders Council.

Just to clarify, in Fife, do you provide a shed for people?

We have another panel, and I will organise that. Can we just keep the focus on where we are?

That is great. It is important to provide that hand holding and an initial introduction in order to understand where people are at. From what has been said, I guess that we might need to think more about starter plots. People clearly have the desire to put seeds in the ground and grow food and to have that connection. We might need to look at the issue in another way. That has come through from the community garden movement, too.

I will touch on two other issues before I bring in colleagues to ask their questions. Peter Duncan said that he has found that barriers have started to be removed, with colleagues in local authorities recognising the importance of allotments. Which departments are allies in relation to allotments coming to fruition?