Chamber and committees

The financial memorandum says that the cost of enforcement work relating to the bill would be £1,500 per local authority—well, no, it says that enforcement costs for all local authorities would range from £60,000 to £90,000 a year, or £1,500 per full-time equivalent role. Glasgow City Council has made the point that, with the additional demands, that amount might not cover it. It is difficult to top up any additional resource costs that a local authority may need to pay to ensure that enforcement is carried out. You are also asking them to do things that are additional to what they are currently doing, and a lot of them are concerned that that is going to be a burden to them.

Although we know—I have forgotten what I was going to say. No, it is fine. Although microchipping is not part of the bill, we know that, as Christine Grahame said, it could be. However, including something about that in part 2 would be a new thing, which has not been consulted on. Although some stakeholders mentioned microchipping, as did the minister, and you have now written to ask the minister to clarify some of her comments, if such a provision were to be added, would you have to go back to stakeholders to consult them?

The minister understands that a number of microchipping databases are in operation, as Rhoda Grant said, but they do not include some of the information about breeders. How can the bill add those parts to databases that are operated for commercial interests?

Ms Grahame, you mentioned the cost and the pressure on local authorities with regard to enforcement. After all the conversations that we have had, do you think that the costs might exceed the estimates in your financial memorandum? How did you come to those figures?

Would it not have been better to ask QMS to do detailed engagement prior to the consultation process, so that QMS levy payers could have understood that the issue was coming up and we could have had a broader understanding of what they felt about it?

I am thinking about the answers that you gave the convener about looking at the technical raising of a ceiling in the past 13 years. Is it a coincidence that this is occurring now or is it related to the inflationary cost burden on QMS?

Does the Scottish Government have any oversight? QMS is a Government-funded organisation. Do you know whether the levy will be increased or whether an increase will be consulted on? Will any extra revenue be used for operational activities, taking the inflationary burden into account, or will it be directly correlated with marketing activities to promote Scotch Beef? A lot of farmers are concerned about that.

I just want to clarify one other thing. QMS found itself with a shortfall of £1 million for its activity as a result of how things worked out in relation to the levy. Did it raise that with you when it asked you to make this technical change?

Thank you.

On that point, if somebody went to a dog and cat home and there was a sheepdog puppy that someone said that they could not cope with, how would your bill support the individual who wanted to rehome the puppy if the puppy had difficult behavioural issues, needed specific conditions or had specific requirements?