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Why have you not had any meetings with the UK Government?

I go back to my previous questions. I understand your frustration at hearing about the implementation of the new legislation through the BBC, because, as an MSP, I know that it is frustrating to hear announcements through the BBC rather than through a Scottish Government ministerial statement in the chamber. All that you did was write a letter to the UK Government on 14 November. Other than that, you have chosen not to engage at all with the UK Government.

If you were not concerned about the safety concerns when the UK Government was introducing its legislation, what changed between then and now for you now to be implementing legislation here? Do you have figures for how many dogs have been brought into Scotland?

There have been regular weekly meetings of officials. Minister, how many meetings have you had with the UK Government?

Good morning. The UK Government announced the ban in September, and it came into force in December 2023. Why has it taken the Scottish Government so long to implement what seems in effect to be the same ban?

The subject is obviously really important for a lot of people, especially people who own XL bullies. Did you not think that it would be good for you to have a meeting with UK ministers to ask for the rationale?

You said that six weeks is a tight timescale, but we are being asked to put the order in place in less than four weeks. Do you—

Can you clarify something that you said earlier? Groups such as rehoming centres are concerned that, come Friday, they will need to have dogs put to sleep. However, when you spoke earlier, you said something about rehoming centres being able to seek an exemption for the dogs in their care. Does that mean that, come Friday, rehoming centres will be able to keep the dogs that they have and not put them to sleep?

So, we do not have any figures at all: we do not know if it is 10 dogs, 100 dogs or 1,000 dogs. We do not have anything at all.

I take your point about learning opportunities, but is it common practice for people in public bodies in Scotland to pay that amount of money to go abroad for a training course? I am wondering about that because the commission classed it as “an oversight”. An oversight would be, for example, if you were going to get authorisation but you just forgot to get it. Is it common practice for people to go abroad?