Chamber and committees

Good morning, cabinet secretary. There were two responses to the Government’s consultation. Do you agree that that is not exactly a solid basis on which to proceed with the proposed technical amendment?

That is interesting. I was at an event with farmers when our committee survey had been sent out. Unfortunately, it was just a little bit too late. We did our due diligence, however, because we wanted to understand a little bit more. I understand that you hand picked the people from whom you sought an opinion. Is that true? Farmers were not aware of it.

It was up to those organisations to speak to their members.

Do you believe that the consultation process should have followed the detailed engagement from QMS to understand what the levy payers actually believe about the particular raising of the ceiling?

Good morning, Ms Grahame. You have just said that you have been working on the issue for six years. Obviously, in those six years, things have changed. The proposed code of practice is probably outdated now and it has shortcomings. Would you be disappointed if the Government combined the two codes?

There could be inconsistency across local authorities because of cost concerns—for example, in the constituencies that you and I represent, there might be an extra requirement for cross-border enforcement. Will you take into account the different challenges that local authorities would have to face with regard to an increase in the resource requirement?

Could we write to the minister on that specific point? There is still some dubiety in my mind about how that would work.

If the protocol covered training, including some of the training that would need to be done by the SSPCA to take an investigation further, what would be the unintended consequences if the SSPCA was given powers to investigate without the police? Currently, crucial aspects of an investigation are out of the SSPCA’s reach, and Police Scotland is slightly concerned about the change. If a protocol was set, would that be covered by the review of the individual, if they were overreaching or were not carrying out their functions to the standard that was expected? What would be the unintended consequences of that going undetected?

I am glad that there has been an explanation to differentiate between humane cable restraints and traditional snares, as they were starting to be conflated. We need to be looking at an exemption for, and possibly—as Ross Ewing has just said—an impact assessment of, the use of humane cable restraints.

However, my question is to the GWCT and Conor Kelly and is about what the minister said in her opening statement last week. She said that shooting and trapping are available to land managers. I wonder how effective shooting and trapping are and whether you—particularly the GWCT—have any information on the effectiveness of the live capture of predators?

Can you put some figures behind that?