Chamber and committees

Do you accept that it can be quite a prospect for a crofter or a common grazings committee with a piece of land that has peat of wildly varying depths to identify how much of the land is relevant?

So, NatureScot will not have to work on some kind of precautionary principle whereby, if people do not know how much peat there is, it will assume the worst.

Section 16AA licences or wildlife trap licences can be suspended or revoked, and we have heard evidence from various stakeholders about whether there is a greater risk in relation to grouse moors. Will you say a bit more about section 16AA licences, why the provisions have been drawn in the way that they have been drawn, and whether they have been framed to cover issues other than raptor persecution?

Will you elaborate on the point about use and how the police will deal with that? I might be recalling this wrongly, but I think that someone indicated to the committee that a glue trap could, in many circumstances, be literally a plank of wood and a tin of glue. Are the proposals adequate to deal with home-made traps? Do they fall within the scope of what you intend?

So, it is about intent, is it?

My question is along similar lines. Can you say a bit more about the reasoning behind the distinction between peatland and non-peatland? I know that several of us on the committee have asked questions about that previously. Does the distinction relate to the release of carbon from a carbon sink directly, or is it about protecting and maintaining the type of vegetation that is found on pristine peatland? For the crofters and farmers who are having to identify, on mixed land, what is peatland and what is not, it would be helpful to have an idea of the rationale for the distinction.

I will address this question initially to the police and the Law Society, but anyone else can chip in. It is about the list of relevant offences that are set out in the bill for which a section 16AA licence might be revoked or suspended. What do the witnesses think about that list of offences? Is it too short or too long? What should be in it? Is it workable?

As David Lynn is sitting next to me, I will start with him.

Ashley McCann, on that point about the standard used and the penalty, which you described as “draconian”, do you have a view on the evidence to the committee given by Professor Werritty, who said that he could not see a way to deal with raptor persecution other than through a licensing scheme?

Most of my areas have been covered.

It was an ideal moment to introduce controversy—we have all have to go. I am happy with the approach as long as we draw that distinction and make it clear that we are not trying to suggest that a bill has been shown to third parties.