Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you. Sorry—I was reading my notes as you were speaking.

Okay. My final question is this. If the Government imposed a housing order, would that in itself protect the free range status? I will clarify my thinking here. If you do not mandate an order to house birds, but producers choose to house birds, they would lose their free range status after a few days. If you mandate producers to house the birds, would they maintain their free range status?

You can go to Rachael first, convener, because I am keen to hear from other people.

We have just touched on exactly the questions that I was going to ask. The legitimacy of what BASC, the SGA and so on do is not in question here; the issue is the people who come behind them and see a potential loophole in the proposed legislation as it stands. Robbie Marsland is absolutely correct to say that there never used to be such a thing as flushing to dogs or guns in fox hunting, but now there is. There is a potential loophole in that respect.

My question is for the guys on the panel who are involved in shooting. If the Government’s position remains and the limit is two dogs, will you still be able to rough shoot?

That kind of gets to the point of it, does it not? Rough shooting would still be allowed if more than two dogs were used, as long as those dogs did not form a pack and each person had no more than two dogs under their control. How would that sit with you, Ross?

However, it is not the average member of the public that you would have to convince, but an officer of the law, who would be there and would have a specific understanding of what you were trying to do.

But if you were subject to a vexatious allegation, and Billy Telford and his crew arrived and ascertained very quickly that you had not done anything illegal, what would be the problem?

I fully accept that, but we need to be clear that the bill team stated last week that the bill is not about curtailing people’s ability to hunt—people should still be allowed to hunt.

I would rather hear what other folk have to say, convener.

I would have thought that laws were always made on the basis of those who would abuse them rather than those who would keep them.

I also ask the same question of the SGA and Jake Swindells. Would you be able to have a rough shoot with a two-dog limit?