Chamber and committees

From what you are saying, it sounds as though the Government has not considered that rough shooters need a licence to go out with two dogs because they go out with a friend. It is very rare that somebody goes out on their own, unless it is a farmer just going out to shoot a fox.

No—I am sorry. Anyone who is watching this right now will think that this is a complete mess. It is completely confusing; I do not understand what is going on. I have watched a rough shoot, as many people around the table have, and I cannot understand section 6. It is not clear. I am sorry to say that.

So, you are saying that rough shooters would look like trail hunters.

For example, could people use hounds or scent dogs to go out rough shooting, or would they use spaniels to go trail hunting?

But trail hunting does not happen in Scotland.

How would they do that?

I am none the wiser after the session with the bill team. I was grateful for their time, but there are a lot of questions still to be answered. From a practical point of view, given that there were 232 submissions to the consultation, we really should have some sort of round-table or stakeholder engagement session to get clarification on the unanswered points that we did not seem to get a grip on.

To be clear, Mr Dignon, on what basis did you form your idea of what a rough shoot is? Did you go on one? Did you seek witnesses? Did you watch a rough shoot on YouTube? Did you google it?

When you looked into what rough shooting is or formed your understanding and shared it with your bill team, did you get information that said that dogs that go out on a rough shoot day are not domestic dogs but are working dogs that are controlled by the person who takes them out?

You have looked into rough shooting. You understand what it is—you have googled it, you have watched YouTube videos and you understand that working dogs are under control in those types of shoots, so therefore you are not really worried about it.