Chamber and committees

I thank the minister for that intervention and for his commitment to meet the workers. I will pass that on. The invitation was extended to every MSP in Parliament and I raised it at First Minister’s question time. I even gave the time and place. I can only apologise if the minister was not paying attention that day.

Where is the fairness in low pay, in casualised contracts and in the pension cuts that university staff in Dundee and across Scotland now face? How can it be right that universities that receive so much public funding are able to defy the Scottish Government’s fair work principles without being held to account?

The growing marketisation of higher education has involved universities prioritising profit over people. We must think bolder and transform our education system in the way that we transformed public health with the creation of the national health service. That means aspiring to have a national education service that is universally available from cradle to grave, that provides well-paid, secure and unionised jobs for its staff, and that makes lifelong learning a reality for all.

Now that we have had an opportunity to review the written evidence that we received last week—there was a significant amount—I, too, have some outstanding confusion after today’s session with the bill team. As long as we have a balance of groups coming in, I think that it would be beneficial to have a round-table session.

I have two follow-up questions about the number of people and the number of dogs on a shoot. First, the convener said that, on a rough shoot, dogs are typically—or might be—managed by beaters or others who are not shooting. Is that a practice that you accept is part of a rough shoot?

In circumstances in which dogs are managed by the shooters—as I understand it from Ms Fitzgerald’s response to Beatrice Wishart—shooting wild mammals that have been flushed by someone else’s dog or dogs would be an offence, and the shooter’s dog does not have to be their personal dog. At what point during the shoot does that need to be decided? This might come up in relation to enforcement. It strikes me that someone could very easily say, “That’s my dog for the purposes of this shoot,” and that that could be changed to suit them.

That sounds slightly different to what Leia Fitzgerald was saying. I understand that it is related to the activity, so that shooting a wild mammal that has been flushed by no more than two dogs would not be an offence. I understand from what Amy Hogarth is saying that if a shooter had brought dogs but other dogs flushed the mammal to them, that would be an offence.

I want to follow up on Jim Fairlie’s question. I understand that addressing animal welfare concerns is a motivator of the bill. How is it that multiple sets of one or two dogs flushing to guns leads to higher animal welfare outcomes than a single pack of more than two dogs flushing to guns does?

There might be five sets of one or two dogs flushing in close proximity to one another on a rough shoot. If a fox or a wild mammal is in that area, how will that lead to higher animal welfare than if there were the same number of dogs working as a pack?

Is sport predator control?

Could there be a sort of relay flushing, with one dog flushing to another dog, then to another dog and finally to the shooter? How would you keep track of that mammal and know that it had come into contact with only two dogs?

I have a follow-up question. I am concerned that the exemption in section 6 of the bill, which includes rough shooting, will undermine the wider purpose of the bill because, essentially, it allows for more than two dogs to be present during an activity that involves flushing wild mammals, whereas that is not permissible for flushing foxes.

The rationale seems to hang on the idea that, on a rough shoot, groups of more than two dogs can be prevented from forming a pack. I am interested in hearing a bit more about the evidence base for why that is possible in rough shooting circumstances but not when foxes are being flushed. Why, in one instance, is it believed that the level of control over dogs will prevent them from forming a pack, losing control and potentially killing the animal whereas, when foxes are involved, the claim is that it is not possible to control dogs and prevent a pack from forming? To an outsider—I have not been on a shoot—it seems that foxes and rabbits are wild mammals. I am not clear on the distinction and the rationale behind the exemption.