Chamber and committees

The main thing that has been put to us by the cohort of individuals and organisations that would like to retain snaring has not been about their having to do more shooting and the risk associated with that. The argument that has been put to us is that shooting will take more people, so it comes from an economic or business point of view. That is the main reason why they want to retain snaring. It is not about a risk associated with more shooting; it is that it will require more people to be out shooting foxes if they cannot go round the estate and set snares and then go back in eight hours’ time or whatever, which is less labour intensive.

I will bring in Hugh Dignon, because he has been working on the drafting of the proposed amendments and he did some work on that area before the bill was as it is at the moment.

I do not think that any such charges have been brought.

In Scotland, we are proud of our regulations on animal welfare, and we are a nation that cares very much about animal welfare. So, when you point out that we are one of only six countries that still have snares, it is clear that we are lagging behind. There has been a debate about the issue for a long time and we have not taken action on the complete banning of snares, although we have obviously had regulations in place and we have had reviews of them.

We have reached the point at which we need to be in line with most European neighbours. A lot of those nations have big economic sectors around hunting. I mentioned Germany, in particular, and regions such as the Black Forest have adapted to banning snares by ramping up the other methods of predator control, particularly shooting. It is worth remembering that those countries probably have more predators, but we can learn from what they have done, which I think gives us a bit of comfort. Other nations that have significant economic activity associated with hunting and shooting have been able to adapt to the use of other methods effectively.

There will be partnership working. The powers that I have just outlined are to deal with the problematic gap in evidence gathering. However, from discussions with the police and the procurator fiscal’s office, in particular, we have decided to limit those powers in the way that I have described.

There will be partnership working between the three agencies. There already is partnership working between them. If the bill is passed, protocols will be put in place between the police and the SSPCA on how the new functions in the powers should work, including what reporting mechanisms there will be and how the agencies can work together effectively. That will ensure that there is partnership working. It might not be exactly to the letter of what the task force said or the partnership working that it advocated, but there will still be enhanced partnership working between the police, the procurator fiscal and the SSPCA, in line with the powers that I have outlined.

I heard those concerns in June, when I came to speak to you about what will constitute an investigation that might trigger action with regard to a licence. I think that some of those points were well made. It is incumbent on the legislation to make clear what constitutes an investigation.

We are looking at a few options, but I am currently minded to make that when something has a crime number. I take the concerns that were raised very seriously. What is an investigation? NatureScot needs clarity on that and so do stakeholders. Legislation should provide clarity. One of the options that I am looking at—and I am leaning towards this—is that an investigation may trigger a suspension of a licence or whatever by NatureScot when it has a crime number associated with it.

That goes back to having confidence in the approach. The SSPCA will assist the police in relation to evidence gathering but, when it comes down to it, an investigation will be a police investigation.

I am working to arrive at a definition that I am happy with. I have maybe given you a little more information than I should have given at this stage, because we have not settled on that, but we will settle on something that will be a definition.

I do not know whether Hugh Dignon wants to comment.

I will add that to the list, convener.

Forgive me if I do not want to tell you to the letter everything that I have not already decided on. We are deliberating on that. I think that you were one of the people who outlined your concerns about the definition of an investigation and whether it is an SSPCA investigation or a police investigation. I am more minded that it be a police investigation. The whole point of giving the SSPCA the extra powers was to make sure that evidence could be gathered in a timeous way that would assist the police and that we would not have a situation in which evidence was available to the SSPCA but it could do nothing but walk away from it. That is the gap that we are filling here.

That is why we have to be absolutely clear. That is right up there on my priority list.