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I will come in again briefly, because this is my only chance to do so. Nobody has mentioned the little certificate that is covered in section 4. Would the minister accept that putting that simple requirement in the bill will provide confirmation that both the person who is transferring the animal and the person who is acquiring it have read and understood the commitments that lie ahead?

I do not want to embarrass the minister, but I advise her that I have agreed with the DPLR Committee that the code can come forward for parliamentary scrutiny. I do not know whether this committee has seen that. It is a shame that you do not have it either, minister, because that issue has already been resolved.

I have no further questions, convener—well, I have a lot more, but I am taking up a lot of time.

What would precede that is compliance with the code that I am trying to put into primary legislation, which involves people considering whether they have got the right breed, et cetera. That would all have to be done in advance.

I refer you to paragraph 80 of the policy memorandum, which says:

“Scottish Ministers will be able to make provision regarding public or other access to the register.”

I will not read out the whole paragraph, but further on it says:

“It is envisaged that specified third parties such as animal welfare officers and animal welfare organisations might be given access to the register information in order to enable them to fulfil their enforcement roles.”

It is seen as almost a two-tier thing.

Somebody may pretend that they have a litter of puppies because there has been an accident with their bitch, but if there was a sequence of numerous unlicensed litters, alerts would be put out. Do you accept that it would be possible to have some limited information available to the public—I understand the need to protect people—and for legitimate charitable organisations such as the SSPCA, the Dogs Trust and Blue Cross to have access to another level of information in order to enable them to detect whether there is covert criminal activity?

I turn to the final thing that I want to raise. Thank you for your tolerance, convener—you are well known for it. How bloody condescending of me to say that! I do not want to patronise you. [Laughter.]

It is interesting that the minister mentioned the multiple providers of microchipping information. That has been a bugbear of mine for a long time. Why is it that we have come so far down the road but we do not have a central Scottish register of microchipped puppies, even though that has been promised? If we had that, we could add the registration information that we have been discussing and also whether owners have been issued with dog control notices under the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010. It seems to me that this area is begging for a joining up of the dots, to use the minister’s favourite phrase.

Will you pursue the creation of a central Scottish database with the minister who is responsible, whether it is the Minister for Victims and Community Safety or another minister? The information is out there. It is just not centralised.

Thank you, convener. I promise that I will not give evidence, although it is terribly tempting to do so. I shall have my day.

I want to challenge the minister on one or two things—you knew that I would. You said that the existing code of practice is functioning. If that code is effective, how is it that so many people are still buying online and puppy factory farms are still very successful?

Do you accept that my intention with the bill is to try to tackle the very supply that you have named through education? Do you accept that that is what the bill is about? If we can educate people through provisions such as those in section 2, we will at least have a better go at preventing the misery that some puppies go through than by trying to do it by catching those individuals at the other end of the process.

Codes of practice are not primary legislation, but, by putting such a code in primary legislation, you can bed it into the public conscience that it is, to put it in common parlance, the law, whereas people do not see codes of practice as the law. Do you accept that?

Thank you, convener. That is very kind. Do you accept, minister, that I have, from the previous bill that I proposed but did not proceed with because of the pressures of Covid, moved from providing for a mandatory regulatory scheme to making it a discretionary chance for the Government to introduce it? That is explained in the explanatory notes. With current inflationary pressures and everything else, I understand that we do not want to burden national or local government, so the scheme is discretionary.

I will move on. I accept that you can have a register, but the bill tries to specify some things in that register. Section 8(3) states:

“The Scottish Ministers may by regulations make provision”.

It is fairly flexible for Government and leaves it in the current context.

I accept the data protection issues, and have thought about all that. The wording of section 8(4)(g) is:

“provision for or in connection with public or other access to registration information”.

Do you accept that the Government has far more resources at hand than I have to consider the legal requirements for a register to give data protection cover, if I can put it in that way, to the transferrer and the transferee?

The only reason that I raised it, convener, is because the minister raised it.