Seòmar agus comataidhean

Minister, I wonder if you could just let me finish my sentence—I love saying that to a minister.

Someone might be thinking of getting a certain breed of dog. Some breeds might have issues. For example, some dogs have squashed noses and others have been so overbred that they can hardly walk, poor devils. A vet can give advice on that, and even on whether someone’s life circumstances are such that they would be right for a particular breed. I have had many animals, and in my experience vets are excellent and will give good advice.

I like the proposal. I did not think of it myself, so I compliment Ariane Burgess on it. Minister, you should give it a bit of thought, if I might suggest that.

I have finished, but I will let the minister intervene, and then I will say a bit more. That way, it will be an intervention. [Laughter.]

What the minister says is absolutely correct. I confirmed to the committee at stage 1 that I was content to remove part 2 of the bill. It is pretty onerous and a bit clunky, and it could be financially onerous at this time.

That said, as the committee is aware, I am very interested in having a UK-based microchipping database. That would make more sense because, ancillary to that, we could put in it dog control notices and everything else that is relevant to dogs in Scotland. I have no concerns about the deletion of part 2—given that I agreed to it earlier, I could hardly change my mind now—on the basis that we will continue to look at microchipping. We will have a debate on that later, so I will save what I want to say for then.

Indeed. I know that it is hard for ministers, so I am going to be sympathetic here. They have heavy-duty portfolios, but if you do not set yourself a timescale, in tandem with the UK Government, the long grass will just get even longer. I am not saying that the minister can do this on his own; I know that he cannot. What he can do, in his discussions with the UK Government—after all, this is a good egg thing—is to say to the new UK minister, whoever they might be, “Let us get on with this, get our officials together and move towards establishing a UK dog microchipping database.” If people move their animals about the UK, that is probably the best that we could do.

In the meantime, Edward Mountain’s position represents a good first step. We should review what we have just now and see whether it is working and people update it—I am sure that they do not. As I said, I do not have a vote on the matter, but I am pleased that there is momentum behind the proposal for a microchipping database, which I have been pushing for for a long time.

Excuse me for finishing on a frivolous note, but I take it that where a single chicken is kept, as in Edward Mountain’s example, its name does not go into the database and it is simply given a number. However, if it has a name, I would love to hear it. Do not tell me that its name is Hen.

That is me concluded, convener.

Let me make progress, and I will answer the minister’s questions, too.

The minister says quite rightly—indeed, I moaned about this before to the previous Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee when it carried out post-legislative scrutiny of members’ bills—that a member’s bill gets the air of publicity when it is introduced and when it passes. Then it is left on the shelf. My view is that, in a democratic Parliament, all bills are equal once Parliament has passed them. Therefore, a member’s bill—not just mine, but any member’s bill that passes in the Parliament—should have the resources and the publicity that the Government would give to its own legislation on, say, minimum unit pricing, or to UK bills on not drinking and driving.

Obviously, the Government must consult the various charities and so on, but I would be looking at who our audience was and whom we would be targeting. We would be targeting people who click a button and see a nice wee puppy, rather like the one that I have on the picture I am holding up. He is a charming wee thing, and that is why I am against it. You never see any wrecks—you are never shown dogs that are not pretty. People see pretty dogs online. They spend longer buying a handbag; a man would spend longer buying a pair of trainers. They see the dogs and think, “Oh, that’s lovely.” The bill’s purpose is to make them reflect and ask where the puppy is from and why they are in the car park looking at one, thinking, “If I do not get that dog, it will perish.” The fact is that, if they buy it out of a crate, another puppy will come off the production line to be miserable and fill its place.

I am content to go with the Government on what should be in the bill on this issue, but my point about publicity—I have been banging on about this for ages—is that I expect appropriate publicity for all members’ bills, and that we should not just tell people about them when they are passed by Parliament or if something controversial happens. I know that there are police officers who do not know about the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010, which I brought through. I imagine that Emma Harper is aware of police officers who do not know about her member’s bill, because it was not a Government one. To me, all bills are of equal merit once Parliament passes them.

The situation is not the minister’s fault, but I have made the point to previous ministers. My message to the Government is that I want to see a change in the culture of publicising all members’ bills, and not just mine.

I welcome the amendments in this group, which will improve and strengthen the bill.

Amendment 6 agreed to.

I will move amendment 7 and speak to the other amendments in the group. Amendment 7 would delete the phrase “to keep as a pet”, amendment 9 would delete the word “pet” and amendment 56 would leave out the term “as pets”.

On reflection, the stage 1 debate made it clear to me that there could be a loophole or confusion if I tried to make a definitive difference between a working dog and a pet. We all know that some dogs are working dogs, such as dogs for the blind, police dogs, shepherding dogs and hearing dogs for the deaf. That is clear, but there are categories where there could be crossover. To include all dogs is not to malign or in a way criticise people who employ and acquire working dogs. I know that those people are very thorough in what they do. The issue is that there could be a loophole and that somebody could claim, “Mines is a working dog,” when, in fact, it is a pet.

The change will make it easier for everyone. There cannot be any dispute, because it is just a dog. In many cases, those who acquire working dogs do what is needed anyway, so there is no harm to them. The changes are not in any way an attempt to criticise those people. They have dogs that have to earn their keep, as it were, so they know about the breeding and where the dogs have come from. The convener, Mr Fairlie and Mr Mountain are farmers, so they know what I am talking about.

The bill will be simpler if it refers simply to dogs and not to pets. I hope that I have won your heart with that, Mr Mountain.

I move amendment 7.

I agree, but that is not the point. You cannot do that in this bill, but then we could—

I was generally supportive of Rhoda Grant’s amendments, but I do not have a vote.

I am glad to see that there has been some movement, because I think that the issue is terribly important. Vets are the very people who do not want disasters involving an owner and their puppy or dog, or an animal that is in poor condition.

Again, we return to something that is in the shadows of the bill: puppy farming and the importing of puppies that people buy online. People might have no idea about that. If they have a preliminary meeting with a vet, a conversation about that will open up. Although the bill does not deal directly with that aspect, sitting behind it is the current practice of people buying puppies out the back of cars, online and so on. That is the thrust of it, and I think that that makes vets the very people to be part of that information loop, if I can call it that.

That is a dangerous thing to do, but never mind.