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Again, my question is for Duncan Orr-Ewing. The proposed licensing scheme in sections 4 and 8 would allow the use of more than two dogs to search for, stalk, flush, kill or capture a wild animal for a number of purposes related to wildlife management and environmental benefits. However, if the number of dogs was always limited to two, instead of allowing a pack of hounds, that would effectively put an end to mounted fox hunting, which is one of the big motivations behind this bill. Would a hard limit on two dogs have a significant impact on the ability of RSPB to carry out non-traditional work with dogs for conservation purposes?

Thank you.

Please say a bit more. I really do not know your world at all.

I have a couple of questions, the first of which is for Ian Duncan Millar. Thank you for beginning to describe the work with foot packs. Lord Bonomy stated that, when a full pack of dogs is used as part of hunting foxes, 20 per cent of the foxes are killed by the dogs, not the guns. However, killing foxes with dogs is already illegal. What are your experiences? As I said, you began to describe your experiences with foot packs. How many foxes are killed by dogs and how many are killed by guns?

Does it make any material difference to animal welfare whether the hunt takes place on horseback or on foot?

My second question is for Barrie Wade. In response to Mercedes Villalba’s question earlier, you started to talk about terrier work. I would like to understand more about what the dogs do to the fox underground.

You might not be able to answer the question, but I am raising the idea of our needing to look at the whole ecology and taking a larger landscape approach. With the coming agriculture bill, we also have opportunities to bring in conditionalities and look towards biodiversity. Therefore, if we are looking at a Scotland that is deeply scarred, taking an approach at a landscape scale could transform how we approach wildlife management.

Yes, exactly. Therefore, we are talking about a hunting context and what happens if dogs come into an area where there are nesting birds. We heard from farmers earlier—and we have heard in other situations—that hunting actually helps the nesting birds. I am trying to understand whether there is a different experience of that.

My question is for Barrie Wade, who is in the spotlight this morning.

The written evidence from the National Working Terrier Federation states:

“It is commonplace on a shoot day to use more than 2 dogs while flushing game from cover ... We do not believe that the intention of the Bill is to restrict, control or interfere with normal shooting practices”.

I want to get clarity on that point, because the bill does restrict the number of dogs to two for game shooting and to one for flushing foxes and mink from below ground. If you do not think that the bill restricts those practices, that is a really important point that we need to fully understand.

Okay.