Seòmar agus comataidhean

I want to get some clarity on what Andrew Crawley said. Part 2 of the bill includes various sections, but the section that he talked about—section 13—is about eligibility criteria, payment entitlements, amount, conditions, enforcement and administration in relation to support. Those are technical things, but the fact remains that part 2 in total is subject to the negative procedure. Cabinet secretary, are you saying that you would be open to amendments that separate the sections of part 2, which would allow some technical amendments to be subject to the negative procedure and others to be subject to the affirmative procedure, based on the committee’s recommendations?

Looking at it from the other point of view, stakeholders have expressed concerns about why the code of practice is there at all and what it actually means. How will the Parliament scrutinise its direct or indirect benefits and its impact on climate change targets? The Government sets the rules. If farmers are being told to comply with conditions set by the Government, and if they are unable to access funding if they do not comply, surely all the power is held by the Government, even if the direct or indirect impact of the code of practice is being scrutinised to see whether it is working.

I will go back to amendment 16, if you do not mind. Obviously, it is a very practical amendment. The Scottish Government often co-designs schemes with practitioners. I am very happy to support the amendment, and I do not see why the Scottish Government should not consider that, on the basis of the experience and knowledge that practitioners have.

As was articulated by Edward Mountain, the bill should remain focused on the remit of red grouse shooting. Part 1B currently includes only red grouse. However, the bill empowers the Scottish ministers to add further birds to the section 16AA licensing regime, if they think that it is appropriate to do so, via secondary legislation. The consultation preceding the bill did not signal an intention to regulate other species, so that broad enabling power is likely to come as a surprise to rural stakeholders without grouse interests, as that change could have a significant downstream consequence for the sector more broadly.

The bill’s policy memorandum says:

“The purpose of the ... scheme is to address the on-going issue of wildlife crime, and in particular the persecution of raptors, on managed grouse moors.”

The committee agrees with that. The policy memorandum continues:

“It will do this by enabling a licence to be modified, suspended or revoked, where there is robust evidence of raptor persecution or another relevant wildlife crime related to grouse moor management”.

What else would you like me to do, convener?

That is it. Thank you.

Minister, section 7 confers a significant enabling power. The bill is about creating a licensing scheme to tackle raptor persecution on grouse moors specifically. As Edward Mountain said, the enabling power means that, in the future, country sports that involve released game birds could be targeted. What would be the trigger for the enabling power being used, and what would be the threshold for monitoring raptor persecution in other country sports?

I am just trying to compare like with like.

I have a question on that. If someone was suspected of committing an offence, would they not automatically get their licence suspended?

Thank you, convener.

I will press amendment 183. In closing, I want to add that I am shocked by the minister. I do not know whether he has been grasped by the civil servants since he has become a minister, but he has done a complete U-turn. He now supports amendment 102 but, when we debated the bill in the chamber at stage 1, he clearly suggested to Ariane Burgess that the muirburn season should be curtailed earlier. I would like the minister to explain why he has done that huge U-turn.

I do not know whether I went into a parallel universe, but I thought that the minister was going to address the point on which I tried to make an intervention. He said that he was going to address the training issue and the Government’s aspiration, given that hundreds of people will be coming forward to get a licence. Closing the season on 31 March will put that training aspiration at a complete loss.

Yes, but how long would that take, through an investigation?