Seòmar agus comataidhean

Some stakeholders have raised concerns that the purpose of using muirburn to manage wildfire risk on peatland will become a loophole. How will the need for muirburn to manage wildfire risk on peatlands be assessed?

To follow up, the muirburn season outlined in the bill runs until 15 April, which overlaps with the start of the breeding season for many moorland bird species, such as curlew, whose nests could be threatened by muirburn. Has the Government given consideration to bringing forward the end date of the muirburn season—for example, to 15 March—to protect threatened species?

I am specifically asking about horticulture. What are your thoughts on that?

Thanks for confirming that.

I have a follow-on question, which is about less favoured areas. I get contacted by crofters who are concerned about inflation having an impact in less favoured areas, where they farm sheep and cattle. One opportunity that we have with a change in policy is in the diversification of what they can do. I am interested in hearing whether you can confirm that farmers in less favoured areas will be supported to access funding for projects such as the forestry grant scheme so that they can diversify.

Do you think that people in the sector and in general really understand the shifting baseline syndrome in our fisheries and the level of decline that we are facing? We have legal obligations to manage our fisheries to good environmental status. There are the indicators, and we understand from one of them—I think that it is number 11—that the sea bed is severely damaged, which is one of the reasons why we need to bring in more protections. It is all connected, and, if we want fishing for the future, we have to bring in those protections. However, I get the sense that people maybe do not fully understand that we are dealing with a very degraded situation and that, if we do not do anything now, there will not be anything to bring back.

It is not just the stocks; it is also the sea bed. When I bring this issue up, the discussion goes to stocks, but the sea bed is the critical factor for fisheries, for bringing the fish stocks back and for the ecosystem that we need in order to see our waters flourish.

Picking up on that point about training, the requirement for trap operators to complete training is similar to the approach that the Government has implemented for the use of snares. Some respondents noted in their evidence that more than 3,000 individuals have undergone the training to operate snares and that only three have failed. How will the legislation ensure that the training programmes are robust and effective at ending bad practice?

Can you give any examples of the kinds of cases with which the SSPCA has usefully assisted Police Scotland in the past?

I have questions for you now, Fionna Kell, and, as I said, you can pick up on anything else that we have covered previously.

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government wrote to the committee in March 2023, stating that agreement on the safer building accord could not be reached as there was

“an unwillingness of developers to accept the need to work to legal Scottish Building Standards.”

I am interested to know whether that is correct and, if so, how the dispute was overcome.