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It might not be that short, convener.

If you are licensing a hunt to control a predator, surely part of the licence should set out that the hunt must have a minimum number of guns for a specific area. That could be worked out by practical land managers, and the loss of hounds or horses—or anything else—would be the penalty for the hunt failing to do that. I would have thought that, if the measures were that strict, hunts would comply with the law.

Hugh, you clearly want to come in.

I promise you that it is very short.

So, if an illegal act took place on the Queen’s land, the person who perpetrated the act, rather than the Queen, would be liable. Is that what that means?

If you do not mind, Leia, I want to go back to what you said about flushing. In paragraph 21 of the policy memorandum, Lord Bonomy is quoted as saying:

“in general 20% or more of foxes disturbed by hunts are killed in this way by hounds”.

The policy memorandum also states that Lord Bonomy

“noted that there were legitimate grounds for suspicion that the present arrangements were providing cover for the unlawful use of dogs, contrary to the intention of the 2002 Act, and that such illegality raised concerns about the welfare of foxes and other wildlife.”

It is mentioned that a fox will sometimes be killed before it has been flushed from cover.

I want to get an understanding of what you mean. If the intention is to stop foxes being chased through open countryside, does that not defeat the point? If people are finding a loophole—if foxes are being killed while they are still in cover—there is very little that you can do about that.

I will—because it had not occurred to me at all—go back to something that Ariane has just raised. You talked about recording numbers. When I had a licence to control ravens, we knew that the purpose of the bag number that we were allowed every year—which was increased—was for us to know that numbers were limited. With beavers for example, we know more or less what the national numbers are. If we are to record the number of foxes that are killed, is there concern that foxes are becoming a rare species in Scotland?

I will press you on that point. Specifically, are we talking about guys who ferret rabbits and then allow lurchers to kill them? Is that what you are trying to stop?

I will go back a bit, because I forgot to ask you something earlier. In section 24, which is titled, “Crown application: criminal offences”, subsection (1) says:

“Nothing in this Act makes the Crown criminally liable.”

What does that mean?

Thank you. I just wanted us to be clear on that point.