Chamber and committees

I am doing that tomorrow.

Professor Werritty highlighted some concerns. I say up front that the vast majority of estates that have grouse shooting on their moors act in a satisfactory way. To be honest, the few that have not acted in a satisfactory way are giving those other estates a bad name and a bad reputation, which is completely undeserved.

It is in the interests of those responsible land managers and estate owners that the whole sector has a licensing scheme behind it, because when their good practice can be recognised, their licences will be renewed. There will be no problems with their licences being suspended if they act in a satisfactory way. That is notwithstanding the concerns that I heard about vexatious claims and so on, but it might just bring those other estates up to the standard that we expect when working in their natural environment.

I do not have the disaggregated data in front of me, Mr Carson.

I get that not everybody in this room or across the Parliament agrees with our licensing proposals, but we always said that, if we did not feel that progress was significant enough—

I point you to the evidence that you were given by NatureScot. It was put to NatureScot that a heavy-handed approach was being taken, but I got a clear impression from it that the way in which it wants to operate with regard to the licences is that, if concerns have been raised by the public or if it has its own concerns—however concerns have arisen—it will liaise with land managers, in the first instance, on those things and give them advice to help them to rectify the issues. It will not suspend a licence unless there is a very good reason to do so, and I think that that is the right approach to take. It will not be a case of a land manager getting a letter through the door that says, “Your licence is suspended” without any communication or collaboration, and with no opportunity for them to rectify some of the issues.

I come back to what Hugh Dignon said. Because NatureScot is a public body, there are quite a lot of guarantees as far as its behaviour is concerned. People can go to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman if they are not satisfied with any decisions that NatureScot has made, and they can also challenge NatureScot’s decisions with a sheriff. I guess that that answers your question, but I imagine and hope—I certainly have this impression from hearing what NatureScot has had to say—that there would be a lot of negotiation and communication between NatureScot and land managers before any licence decisions would be made.

We will look into that. I wrote to Trudy Harrison just over a week ago—maybe not even that long ago—so we need to hear back from her.

The issue will also be on the Welsh Government’s plate, so I guess that we need also to have a look to see what is happening there. The Welsh are in the same position as us, as the Senedd has voted to ban the sale and—

I heard that witness’s testimony, and I have to say that he made a good case. I was thinking about it and spoke to my officials, who have been working on the bill for a lot longer than I have; you will appreciate that the environment brief came into my portfolio only just over a week ago. The officials had already significantly teased out a lot of the questions that I had about the matter.

The main reason why we ruled out a licensing scheme is that there is no regulatory framework in place for pest controllers. There is no accredited body, so the question is, what accreditation would someone who sells to a licensed pest controller have? Such accreditation does not exist, so how would sellers know that they were the real deal? England will have that situation, and I worry about how the English authorities will monitor and police it.

That is the main reason why we decided that a complete ban is the way to go. Glue traps are inhumane traps. I forget the name of the chap who was in front of you; he talked about using cameras and being on site. However, even an hour of being trapped in a glue trap is extremely distressing for an animal, because it is an inhumane type of trap. There is suffering involved and we feel that it is not possible to monitor a licensing scheme for glue traps in a watertight way.

I might bring in my officials in a second because, as I said, they have been working on the bill for some time.

The language around use and sale is much cleaner and clearer. My officials will comment on the rationale, on which they have been working for some time, but we could have a situation in which someone could have old glue traps in a garden shed or loft. We should not criminalise people who do not intend to use such traps but who bought them a long time ago and might not even know that they still have them.

We will stop the sale and use of glue traps. My officials will be able to give you the detail of the investigation into that aspect of the bill, but my feeling is that introducing an offence of possession could unnecessarily criminalise people who have just forgotten that they have traps. Police Scotland will be involved in disposal of any glue traps that people have, so I guess that it will do some work to ensure that people do not possess them when they should not. However, I do not see the need to criminalise people who do not intend to use glue traps.

I get where you are going, Mr Allan: obviously, there is sale of recognised brands of glue trap, but someone could make a home-made version.

Hugh Dignon is helpfully pointing out that the bill states:

“‘glue trap’ means a trap that ... is designed, or is capable of being used, to catch an animal other than an invertebrate, and ... uses an adhesive substance as the means, or one of the means, of capture.”

Therefore, the home-made version that you mentioned would be a glue trap. Basically, the provision would include that. We are not in a situation where planks of wood and tins of glue—

We have not decided on that yet.