Seòmar agus comataidhean

Fantastic.

I have a load of wee questions, so I ask you to bear with me. My first question is on working together. I put this to the previous panel; I do not know whether you heard it. Were you working in silos before, and are you now out of those silos? From the sound of it, you all had a reasonably good working relationship, which has grown into a team effort. However, as we heard earlier from the lad from SEPA, he is beginning to feel that the barriers are now coming back up at UK level. Do you have the same concern, or are you still working as a team?

Rachel, do you want to add anything?

I understand the point about mist netting, but what does that have to do with hunting with dogs?

Because—no, it does not matter. Okay.

Will the member take an intervention?

I am honestly not trying to be disrespectful, but the practicalities of what the member is talking about simply do not bear out in reality. The minister has put in place adequate proposals to stop the kind of hunting that we all want to be banned—we do want it to be banned. I am not trying to be rude, but the idea that someone can stop a hunt halfway through, take out two dogs and put in another two is ludicrous. That would just never happen, because the practicalities would not allow it.

I am not convinced by Mr Mountain’s arguments.

Something sprung to mind when you said that the poultry would not be able to be sold beyond 31 December. Who will monitor what will happen to the birds that have been defrosted and cannot be sold? I presume that there will be various options. They could be minced down and put into burgers and sold in that way, or they could be sold as cooked products. What will happen if there is a surplus that has to be dumped? Who will monitor that?

I am not convinced by your argument, Mr Mountain.

I will probably go slightly off piste here, which the clerks always love.

Alastair Cook, you said that more resources have been put into mental health but that demand usually outstrips those resources. Anecdotally, I keep hearing that there is more and more demand for mental health services, and you guys will be able to confirm that demand is increasing. That is not always a result of Covid, because the issue was being spoken about before the pandemic. Why? What is wrong in society that we are seeing such an increase in the demand for those services? Is it because we are better at recognising mental health issues and that we are more accepting of them, or is something happening in society that is causing mental health issues?