Chamber and committees

We have to be careful not to open up to too wide a range of stakeholders. However, the stakeholders that have been mentioned are key. We have covered veterinary concerns, the police, the greyhound industry, Fife Council and the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission, which are some of the most fundamental stakeholders in the argument. When we get responses, we can make a decision on how to proceed.

I assure the petitioners and those who are watching online that we are not kicking the issue into the long grass. We absolutely appreciate that we are a year behind where we should be, and I am sure that I speak on behalf of the committee when I say that we are concerned about animal welfare and that we strive for the highest animal welfare conditions. We are not going to kick the issue into the long grass, but we need to work to timescales, and the timescale will probably depend on the response from the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission.

One of the decisions that we had to make today was on whether to close the petition or continue looking into the issue. I think that we have agreed that the next step is to write to the main stakeholders and get back more information. We will then decide whether to do a full inquiry or a report or ask the Scottish Government for further information, for example. We can make that decision after we get initial responses to the letters that we will write.

I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a changeover of witnesses. We will resume at 11:10.

I thought that you raised it.

That completes consideration of the affirmative instrument. I thank the minister and her officials for attending.

Agenda item 5 is consideration of consent notifications for two UK statutory instruments. I refer members to paper 3, from page 16.

As there are no comments on the instruments, do members agree to the Scottish Government’s decision to consent to the provisions that are set out in the notifications being included in UK, rather than Scottish, subordinate legislation?

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes our business in public.

I am afraid that only members can contribute at this point. I am sorry.

I am afraid that we are running over time, so I ask members to keep their final questions as brief as possible. I am sure that this will not be the last time that the witnesses appear before the committee.

Thank you very much for that detailed presentation.

We are pleased to welcome to the meeting Mark Ruskell, who was previously a member of the ECCLR Committee. He is here to support the petition. I ask him to say a few words.

We move to questions from members. I will kick off. My first question is for Mark Ruskell, but I would like Gill Docherty to come in on the back of it.

You wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands, Mairi Gougeon, back in March this year, and she suggested that the provisions in the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 are adequate. Are the laws that are in place not being enforced, or does the appropriate body not have the capacity to intervene and act? Where is it going wrong? Do you have any idea? Why does the Government think that the 2006 act is fit for purpose, when you and Scotland Against Greyhound Exploitation are suggesting that it is not?