Chamber and committees

I, too, send Jim Fairlie my wishes for a speedy recovery. Just following up on his question, has the Government developed or built up any evidence on the effectiveness of some of the alternatives?

Minister, you are absolutely right that a suite of measures is being used—that was certainly the evidence that we got during the passage of the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011. However, even then, as Jim said, the argument was made that, in certain terrain, snaring was seen as the only effective, viable option. In a sense, it is a last resort rather than a first resort. My understanding is that live-capture traps have been deployed and their effectiveness in capturing foxes is debatable. I appreciate that there is a suite of measures, but I wonder whether you or your officials have built up an evidence base on that.

Good morning, minister. I was on the predecessor committee that scrutinised and helped to pass the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011, which introduced licensing tags on snares. At that stage, the feeling was that that would give us visibility on the effect of snares that were being set legally and in accordance with the legislation, as opposed to those that might be set by poachers, as the convener was suggesting. If that level of granular detail is not available, I would have real concerns.

I understand that the BVA, of which I am an honorary member, and other organisations have long campaigned for the banning of snares. However, as a Parliament and as a committee, we should be concerned about how effective any ban is likely to be if we are simply banning legally set snares, which are not causing welfare problems, but leaving poachers to continue snaring, which is what they will do. As you said, minister, there is no way to ban the means of making snares, and the Government is not proposing to do so, so it is fairly safe to assume that those home-made snares will continue. If we do not have granular detail on the snares that are legally, as opposed to illegally, set, that will have an impact on animal welfare, which goes to the very heart of what we are discussing here.

As Rhoda Grant has said, the SSPCA has closed its rehoming facility in Caithness, and there has been widespread conjecture about the financial situation that it is in. Orkney has been without an SSPCA inspector for some time now, and I know from speaking to local vets that that has given rise to serious concerns about animal welfare issues.

I appreciate what you have said about the SSPCA insisting that these additional powers do not necessarily require additional resources, but there is some anxiety about there being a patchwork in this respect, with some areas having inspectors who have been well trained to take on the additional powers while, in other areas, the SSPCA has not been able to resource that sort of thing. I think that that will likely have an impact on the public’s confidence in the SSPCA taking on these roles. In your discussions with the SSPCA, have you been able to ascertain the extent to which it believes that, in the challenging financial environment, it is going to be able to meet the expectations that are being placed on it across the full gamut of animal welfare?

I was not suggesting that. If you have a situation where shooting is being deployed more routinely because snaring is no longer an option, you are potentially undertaking it in terrain where it is not felt to be ideal. It is not the skill set of the people who are undertaking the activity that is being called into question; it is simply that the amount of shooting would be greater than it is at the moment. I wondered whether a risk assessment had been carried out on that.

That is very helpful. On shooting, I know that, in relation to goose management, for example, and some of the issues that have been faced in places such as Orkney, anxiety has been raised about the potential risk from having more people shooting across more types of ground. Has the Government done any analysis or assessment of the potential risks from increasing the level of shooting and how those could be managed?

It feels as though I am rolling back the years. It is nice to be back in the Criminal Justice Committee, having served for five years on the predecessor committee. An issue that exercised that committee was the size, scale and extent of the remand population in Scotland’s prisons and the effect that that was having. If memory serves correctly, it was the subject of our first inquiry at the start of the previous parliamentary session. It is accepted that that is still an issue, so I welcome the broad thrust of the bill and what it seeks to achieve. However, as ever, there are ways in which it could be improved.

Similarly, I welcome the move to involve criminal justice social work in informing the decisions that courts take on sentencing and bail. I echo Katy Clark’s and Pauline McNeill’s concerns about resourcing for that. The criminal justice social work service is already under real pressure and, at the moment, the added responsibilities that are being placed upon it and the timescales in which we would hope it would be able to respond give rise to legitimate concerns.

The Law Society of Scotland expressed those concerns in its briefing for the recent stage 1 debate. Nevertheless, the input of criminal justice social work is exceptionally important and will improve the quality of the decisions that sheriffs and judges are able to make. That said, it could go further, which is the purpose of my amendments 50 and 51. I am grateful to Victim Support Scotland for its support in lodging those amendments.

My amendments aim to augment what is already in the bill, ensuring that the decisions that are taken are as informed as possible. Undoubtedly, criminal justice social work will bear the heaviest responsibility in that respect. However, amendment 51 would allow for information that is relevant to public safety to be provided to the courts by the complainer or by victim support organisations on their behalf. That would allow the courts to make decisions that are in the best interests of both public safety and victim safety while respecting the rights of the accused.

I am interested in hearing the Government’s views on that additional provision. It would not, in any way, dilute what is there but would broaden out the information that is available to the courts in making the decisions that fall to them to make. Therefore, it can only enhance what the bill seeks to achieve overall. I look forward to the debate on that issue.

There is no obligation on criminal justice social work or on local authorities to provide input about any individual case, but the concern is that, where there are funding restrictions, any decision on whether to make an intervention or a contribution may be informed as much by those restrictions as by whether there is a valid contribution to make.

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention on that point?

I very much share Jamie Greene’s view on the ability to convey the information to the court in a way that does not compromise the victim’s safety or public safety but does inform the court’s decision. I note the cabinet secretary’s comments about engaging in further discussion and I am happy to do that. On that basis, I will not move amendment 50.

Amendment 50 not moved.

Amendment 29 not moved.

Amendment 51 not moved.

I have a final question. Obviously, one of the drivers for the move to remote towers was concern about recruitment and retention of air traffic control staff in certain airports. I and others expressed concern that that was not necessarily an issue at some airports. HIAL has a track record of recruiting and retaining staff very successfully when it has embarked on local recruitment exercises, but when it tried to recruit ready-made air traffic controllers from Sweden and elsewhere as a short-term option, it ended up reaping the whirlwind, because those staff were always going to leave.

Is there an assurance from HIAL that, in going forward with the new model, there will be a return to recruiting from local communities? Not just for HIAL, but across the public and private sectors, that approach has demonstrated itself to be a far more effective way of identifying people. They might be people for whom you might need to provide additional training, but they are far more likely to remain within the organisation for the medium to longer term.