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Thank you.

To be honest, some of the questions that I was going to ask have been covered, but let me ask Sheila Voas to say something briefly about the effectiveness of different prevention measures. I am not asking you to set out a scale of effectiveness. However, you mentioned culls and other options. What are the other options, apart from housing?

Does the pattern of distribution in Scotland lend itself to making things harder or easier to control?

In that case, would you say that nothing needs to be added to the bill to make the matter clearer in your view?

Thank you.

Julie Hesketh-Laird said that the situation around the reserved EU law was strange—I think that that was her word, and I can assure you that many of us here find the idea of 4,000 or so laws pretty mystifying as well. The area that I want to open up is more how those laws might be replaced. We have already looked at how cumbersome a process that might be, but one of the issues that this committee has been considering is the idea that UK ministers would have the power in many areas to amend laws in devolved areas. The NFUS has raised issues around the restrictions that the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 202 would place on Scotland’s agency to act. Can we open up a discussion on what people feel about what the possibility that it would be UK ministers who would potentially be amending laws in devolved areas implies for parliamentary oversight and the involvement of interested parties?

I am the MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar.

The Government has offered some clarification on the proposal to permit two dogs per person on a shoot. I am curious to know what your view is of those clarifications.

In addition, as we have discussed, one of the alternatives to that is to have two dogs per shoot as a whole. Although the witnesses have mentioned this, I would be interested to know what the implications of that would be for a rough shoot. Would it be possible to have a shoot with a limit of two dogs for the shoot as a whole? Would that restrict what you do on wildlife control or would it merely restrict the shoot as a social event?

I have a brief observation. I understand the points that people are making about retrieving birds but, to be clear, the bill is not about birds—it is about mammals. As interesting and useful as those points are, the bill would not touch on them, as far as I understand.

Could you elaborate on what you have said? Is it more normal for quarry to be walked up? What proportion of rough shoots involve people walking up the quarry, rather than dogs?