Chamber and committees

You mentioned childcare. Through this project, and in other areas of its activity, the Government is putting a lot of effort into childcare. I have one comment, which I am sure is not unique to my constituency. In huge swathes of that constituency, there is not one childminder available for anyone in the community at all. I know that I keep going on about that, but some of that is related to demographics and to the fact that there is no housing that people who might want to do that job can live in. Is it likely that policy will focus on some of the demographic problems that have an impact on childcare?

I want to ask a wee bit more about the question of duplication in the code. Do sections 2 to 4 of the bill place any new legal obligations on buyers and sellers? I think that Gilly Mendes Ferreira touched on that. Are we dealing with something that is purely advisory or will people have new obligations as a result of it?

A number of you have identified problems with how the trade operates. Will you say a bit more about whether the code is the answer to that and whether it will have a potentially deterrent effect on people who are responsible for bad practice?

On a technical point—this is perhaps for the Law Society but perhaps for others—the bill sets out, to an extent, what the code should and should not contain. Is that normal practice in legislation? Does anyone have comments on the approach that the bill takes to that?

Regarding unlicensed litters—I am building on the point that Karen Adam made earlier about one-off litters—is there a need for a sort of de minimis provision that recognises the difference for low-volume breeders or, on the contrary, is there a need for more regulation of low-volume breeders?

I think that I know what a register of unlicensed litters is, but, to many people out there, there will be an inherent contradiction in the idea of registering someone who has not licensed themselves. How do you do that? I think that I know what it means, but can you understand why, to many people, it seems a strange idea?

Yes.

Some of the arguments around the instrument have focused on animal welfare. Will you say a bit more about the animal welfare evidence that you have considered? I am thinking of—this has been alluded to—the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission’s finding that

“Providing the normal requirements for high standards of public safety and animal welfare are adhered to ... there is no need for a close season for males”.

What animal welfare evidence has been considered?

Please say a wee bit more about the extent to which the Scottish Government could be said to be following scientific advice on the decision, and how that compares to, or contrasts with, the position taken by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in England.

Aside from the environmental consequences that you have mentioned, is there also an animal welfare consequence to not intervening here? The prospect of malnourished deer or deer in poor condition has been raised. Would it be fair to say that one of the big reasons for deer being malnourished and in poor condition, to the point at which many cannot successfully leap a fence, is because in many places there are too many of them and they cannot survive in the habitat in which they have multiplied?

Minister, can you say a bit more about the reasons and the context for all this? You mentioned a doubling of deer numbers. Would it be fair to observe that, in many parts of the country, deer numbers are out of control?

I am thinking, for instance, of a public meeting that I attended in my constituency, where debate raged over whether 100 per cent of the deer on South Uist should be killed or merely 90 per cent of them. Nobody spoke up for anything less than 90 per cent. I do not pretend that that is typical of all areas, but would it be fair to say that deer numbers in Scotland are out of control?