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Those are all worthy measures, but can Mark Griffin give us a costing for them and tell us where the funding will come from?

No doubt, when Labour delivers its winding-up speech, the figures will be produced and it will state where the funding is to be taken from and whether that will be a recurring cost.

Unless I have missed something, the Scottish Government has a fixed budget—allocated when interest rates were around 5 per cent—extremely limited borrowing powers and limited taxation powers.

Daniel Johnson rose—

Can the member take an intervention?

I am using my Surface to speak from for the first time, so, if it all falls apart, so will I.

Though I am not a member of the committee, I am pleased to speak in the debate and to thank the committee and all witnesses, whatever their position on the bill, for their evidence, which has led to the considered stage 1 report. I also note the Scottish Government’s response. I add that I support the general principles of the bill but will make some general comments.

I quote from the minister’s response to the stage 1 report:

“I have tried to strike a balance between closing down loopholes … and the need for the effective protection of livestock and wildlife from predation”.

The minister is doing well in trying to strike that difficult balance when there are undoubtedly ingrained and genuine views on the edges of the debate.

I welcome Jim Fairlie’s speech, which I listened to with interest. We have often debated the matter privately.

I will mention a comment from Lord Bonomy, who chaired the review of the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002. Incidentally, the act was a member’s bill, introduced in the early days of the Parliament by Tricia Marwick and Mike Watson, if I recall correctly. It meant well and I supported it, but it was flawed, as the years have demonstrated.

Lord Bonomy has been quoted already, but it is worth saying again if anybody says this of any legislation. He said:

“It solves the problems … about the loose and variable use of language”

in the act and

“should be a great incentive for better enforcement of the law”.—[Official Report, Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee, 15 June 2022; c 41.]

Those are endorsements well worth repeating on any piece of legislation.

Another useful quotation from the stage 1 report is from animal welfare organisations, which argued that the bill is

“an opportunity to re-think the solutions to the problem of wild mammal predation on agricultural land.”

We need to do more of that, and it must be a collective effort. I agree that there are opportunities to make improvements, subject to the detail of the licensing scheme—to which I will come in a moment—and the amendments that lie ahead.

We are now eliminating, at least as far as is legally possible, the use of dogs predating on wild mammals for sport. That sport was sometimes—often, I would say—conducted in the guise of pest control. That is gone. Broadly speaking, we have the use of two dogs above ground and the use of one below. As I understand it, that is with a view to preventing pack behaviour, ensuring control and ensuring that the use of dogs is a last resort for the swift and humane dispatch of the mammal. I emphasise that it should be a last resort after other measures have failed.

Scent trails will be banned, except with an individual dog or, at most, two dogs for training purposes, such as for police dogs. I understand that, in England and Wales, experience has demonstrated that scent trails have developed as a means of continuing to hunt foxes with packs.

The 2002 act was flouted, as we know through criminal prosecutions. However, I also saw it for myself. I say to Donald Cameron that, on a dark, rainy day some years back, in the middle of the Borders hills, I unexpectedly came across folk on quad bikes, with headlights blazing, careering downwards as they followed a pack of hounds. I saw for myself what a pack does to an exhausted animal. The pack tore that animal to shreds; it was strewn across the hillsides. The parts of the animal—whatever it was—were retrieved by the people on the bikes. There was nothing humane in that. No one would be out in the wilds in that weather policing that. I saw that just by chance.

The ban on scent trails and hunting with packs is to be welcomed.

The member is asking me for a specific day—I said that it was some years back. Actually, it was on my son’s birthday, so I should be able to remember. It was on 14 January some years back. The other issue is that I could not identify the people. There was a row of Land Rovers and the people in them were watching what was happening. When they saw me—it was just by accident that I appeared there—they soon scooted up the hill and disappeared, so it was impossible to identify them.

I say to Ms Hamilton that that happened. The incident shocked me. It seemed as though that was being done surreptitiously, in the middle of nowhere, on a day when nobody would be about, except for the people who were following the hunt and anyone who might be there by chance, as I was.

I will turn to the issue of rabbits, which members keep going on about. I repeat that rabbits are included in the bill. The hunting of rabbits, as the police have said, was a device that was used by—and provided an alibi for—people who were hare coursing. I will not repeat the quotes that I mentioned earlier when intervening on Finlay Carson. However, I will mention that Police Scotland and the procurator fiscal supported the inclusion of rabbits in the bill, as it would assist in hare-coursing prosecutions. This is about having law that is detailed and effective. There are other, more humane methods of rabbit control.

Thank you very much, Presiding Officer.

The other steps in the bill include the two-dog limit and all the other things that apply to all wild mammals. If the member wants to suggest that Police Scotland has got it wrong and if it does not provide further evidence, he should take the matter up with the organisation through his committee.

I will turn to the exception to the exception—the crucial proposed licensing scheme. I note the minister’s response that that aspect must wait for the bill to move through its amendment stages. So far, I am willing to compromise on the proposed licensing scheme, but the details of that scheme are crucial. Therefore, I am pleased that NatureScot, the Scottish Government and all stakeholders, which will include farmers and gamekeepers—I meet many of them and I have high regard for them—will be fully engaged in the scheme’s development. The detail is extremely important. If some members in the chamber are compromising like I am by even accepting the need for a licensing scheme—I am prepared to go that far—we will need to see the details, to ensure that such a scheme cannot be abused. The minister said that the scheme will have a high bar, and it will need to have if the measure is to proceed. I am reserving my view on that until the details are published.

I say to my colleague Rachael Hamilton—who made me feel a bit angry—that I need no lessons in representing my rural constituents, as I have done it for the past 23 years, which is more than she has done.

I will be following the next stages of the bill with interest.

The member referred to the committee’s report, which is excellent, by the way. I noted that Police Scotland welcomed the inclusion of rabbits in the bill, because hunting rabbits can be used as subterfuge in relation to hare coursing. In addition, the procurator fiscal’s office said that that would be a useful inclusion in the bill. Do you agree?

[Inaudible.]—do you agree that these were the quotes?

Do you agree that these were the quotes from your report?

Will the member take an intervention?