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My amendment 124, along with many of the others that I have lodged, seeks to create greater scrutiny of and consultation on actions that will flow from the bill. Much of it is enabling, and it is important that secondary legislation that will flow from it will also be scrutinised.

Currently, the bill lists only red grouse as requiring a section 16AA licence, but other birds may be added to the list in the future. My amendment stipulates that the relevant committee of this Parliament must be consulted and given time to take evidence on any additions before reporting back to the Scottish Government. Thereafter, in laying its legislation, the Scottish Government must explain what consideration it has given to the committee’s report. I am trying to create a super-affirmative procedure in order to provide greater scrutiny. I believe that that is essential, given the increase in the amount of enabling legislation that comes to the Parliament.

I believe that my amendment would fulfil the aims of Edward Mountain’s amendment 17 regarding consultation. However, I cannot support his other amendments or Rachael Hamilton’s amendments. The legislation needs to be future proof, so amendment must be allowed of the list of birds that can be taken under a section 16AA licence. However, my amendment would ensure that such a change was made after full scrutiny by the Parliament.

It has been raised with me that proposed new section 16AA(8)(b)(ii) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which section 7 will insert, means in practice that a licence may be revoked due to wrongdoing by a person who is outwith the licence holder’s control—someone who is not contracted by them or an employee. An example is a farmer who is a tenant on the land. My amendment 133 is intended to make it clear that a licence may be suspended or revoked only if the licence conditions are breached by the licence holder or by somebody who is in their employment or under their direction.

I support amendment 81. The bill will make section 16AA licence holders reapply every year, which is not sustainable. Given that a licence may be revoked, I believe that a five-year licence would provide the best balance, and I believe that there was broad consensus on that.

I have sympathy with what amendment 125 seeks to add, but I am concerned that it would remove from the bill safeguards on adherence to the code of practice.

Amendment 146 is in a similar vein to Kate Forbes’s amendment 88; mine also covers muirburn on both peatland and non-peatland. The wildfire in Cannich last year highlights the need to manage fuel load on peat as well as in other areas. It seems wrong to me that we spend money on restoring peatland only for those efforts to be ruined by an intensely burning wildfire. It is sometimes the case, therefore, that muirburn is the most effective way to manage the fuel load, and it should be used as such. Perhaps there should be a duty on land managers to manage fuel load in order to mitigate the harm caused by wildfire. The problem is that the science in this area is not yet conclusive, which makes it challenging to legislate. We need to ensure that what we put down in legislation can be adapted to fit future scientific knowledge. That said, it seems clear that leaving a large fuel load on land is dangerous. Leaving it on degraded peat is disastrous, and we have heard and seen evidence to show that muirburn has caused little harm on well-maintained peatland. My amendments acknowledge the role to be played by muirburn in peat restoration and protection.

Amendment 149 ensures that any regulations that modify the list of purposes for muirburn are subject to full consultation and scrutiny by the committee. I hope that that would give members some confidence in ensuring that any changes are fully scrutinised and will be in line with the science at the time.

I get it that stakeholders are involved, but it does not say anywhere that the stakeholders have to agree to the code. That is why I am looking for better scrutiny. As with my other amendments, I would be happy if the minister would discuss that ahead of stage 3 to find out whether we can put something in place that will ensure that Parliament has some level of scrutiny so that, if there are concerns about the code, they could at least be heard.

I would like clarification. You talked about consultation that takes place regularly and said that the Scottish Government would normally publish the results of such consultation. Are you committing to doing that in the future, regardless of those amendments?

It seems to me that we are talking about things that should be funded from other budgets that the bill does not really mention. However, to come back to the bill—which, after all, is what we are looking at—I wonder whether there is anything that we can put into it that would ensure fairer funding for rural areas. Lots of the things that we are talking about today would, if we were talking about urban areas, come from a different pot of money. Is there anything that we can do in the bill to ensure fairer funding for rural areas from other pots, instead of trying to carve up this particular amount of money among the competing—but real—needs in rural communities?

The bill is a framework bill, so an awful lot of legislation will come from it. Regulations could enable changes to be made to schedule 1 in relation to who can get support under the bill. Those regulations will be subject to the negative procedure. Is that the right approach? For those who do not know, the negative procedure means that the instrument is lodged in the Parliament but that, if members are against an element of it, they have to vote it down in its entirety; they cannot amend it. It is a “take it or leave it” procedure. Is that adequate, or should that be changed to enable greater scrutiny and consultation on any changes that are proposed?

I want to follow up on what people were asking about with regard to scrutiny of the support plan. There are two legislative routes, using either an affirmative instrument or a negative instrument. With the first, we would have to vote for it; with the second, we would have to move against it. Given the importance of the plan, should we be asking for a super-affirmative procedure, whereby we ask Government to lay a draft of the instrument first so that the committee can comment and consult more widely on it, and report back to Government before it submits the final instrument? That would allow time for people to feed back. Would people support that?

No concerns about that have been expressed to us, but it could be that, when the guidance is changed in the future, we do get concerns about it, especially when there is no consultation with the committee. What would we do in that case? Would the minister appear in front of the committee to discuss those concerns?

It is good to have that backstop.