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The Scottish Government is keen to develop the code of practice that is required by the bill, and the initial engagement with stakeholders has already begun. Amendment 14 will ensure that any consultation that takes place before the bill comes into force will count towards meeting the consultation requirement contained in the bill, so that the code can be finalised as soon as possible.

Amendments 10 to 13 will introduce greater flexibility for preparation of the code. The Scottish Government’s view is that specifying in detail what the code should include is an unusual and unnecessary use of primary legislation. We prefer to develop the contents of the code through consultation with stakeholders.

Amendment 10 provides that the Scottish ministers must have regard to the matters set out in sections 2 and 3 when they make the code of practice, and amendments 11 and 12 change the requirement that the code must include provision giving effect to those matters to a provision that it may do so. The bill retains the requirement that the code of practice must prescribe the form of a certificate for both the acquirer and supplier of the dog to sign, in accordance with the stage 1 report’s recommendations.

Amendments 47 and 48 amend section 5 to clarify that the process for developing and consulting on future revisions of the code will be the same as for the initial code.

Amendment 55 means that the bill will come into force two months after the date of royal assent, rather than the day after royal assent, as is currently provided for.

Amendment 15 increases the timescale for producing the code of practice from six months to 12 months, in line with the recommendations in the stage 1 report. The committee agreed that the requirement for a code to be made within six months of royal assent is impractical and—given the value of a consultation to inform a code—is unlikely to result in a well-drafted code that is fit for purpose. More than six months is required to allow for consultation, the development of the code and the obtaining of views on further wording or recommendations from stakeholders.

It is expected that, in addition to the content that is specified in the bill, additional guidance on other matters relating to the acquiring of a dog—such as the risks that are associated with imported rescue dogs and extreme conformations due to undesirable breeding practices—could be included in the code following consultation with stakeholders.

Amendment 16 allows for the timescale within which the code of practice must take effect to be amended by way of regulations. That amendment has been proposed in order to avoid the difficulties that sometimes occur when timescales that are fixed in legislation subsequently become unachievable. Without that power, any amendment to the timescale could be achieved only by way of primary legislation.

I have nothing further to add.

Are you finished?

I reiterate the point that we are keen to make sure that we progress to a UK-wide database that will work in exactly the way that people want it to.

I am happy to speak to the member between now and stage 3, and to give any updates before stage 3, if there are any to give at that point.

I reiterate the point that we are very serious about trying to get this done. It is not something that we are just trying to brush off.

I thank Edward Mountain for explaining the purpose of amendment 59 and Rachael Hamilton for explaining the purpose of amendment 78. Those amendments are very similar, so I will give the Scottish Government’s views on them together.

Scottish Government officials are working with counterparts in the other UK Administrations to explore the potential for a single-point search portal for all microchip database operators across the UK, in order to provide transparency in obtaining relevant information when required. That work would incorporate the information that would be collected by the review that amendment 78 would require and could address the issue that is being raised. It is felt that resource would be better spent on working with other UK Administrations than on undertaking a review and producing a report. I therefore do not support amendments 59 and 78 and ask the members not to press them.

I have not had any formal discussions with the UK Government about a microchip database. However, I attended a meeting in London on Monday and had a conversation with Andrew Muir, the Northern Irish delegate for agriculture. We talked about the problem of puppies coming across from Larne and have begun a conversation about how the bill could help to inform a UK-wide approach to creating a database to allow us to get past that problem. We are taking it extremely seriously but, at this stage, because of the resources that would be needed, we would rather work UK-wide than set up a separate Scottish database.

Yes.

Would you like to make your point now, too, Rachael?

I am, yes.

I thank Rhoda Grant for the explanation of the purpose of her amendments. The intention of the bill as introduced is recognised in the policy memorandum, which states that the intention is

“to achieve behavioural change, without placing formal legal obligations on the parties involved”.

There is a long-standing convention that codes of practice made under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 generally use the word “must”, when there is a directly enforceable legal requirement to do something, which will not be the case under the bill. Therefore, the Scottish Government’s view is that amendments 64, 67, 68 and 70 are unnecessary and potentially misleading. I do not support the amendments and I ask the member not to press them.

Amendment 54 leaves out section 12, which is the interpretation section of the bill, because the effect of my other amendments is that all the definitions are either no longer used or are moved to sit in the operational sections to which they relate.