Hansard

Good morning, everyone. I will begin with the amendments that Edward Mountain led with and then move on to the others. The effect of amendments 70 and 98, in Mr Mountain’s name, would be that a person would only have to intend to kill a wild mammal after flushing it from cover. That could create another loophole that could allow a person to prolong the hunting of a wild mammal as long as they intend to kill it, which could clearly be detrimental to the animal’s welfare. The individual’s intention is also incredibly difficult to prove. That could, therefore, create enforcement problems because, if someone is searching for or flushing a wild mammal using a dog for one of the purposes in sections 3 or 6, they cannot achieve that by simply intending to kill it at some point. It is entirely right that, in those circumstances, the law requires that a person take action to kill the wild mammal “as soon as reasonably possible”. For those reasons, I cannot support those amendments. Amendments 29, 32, 140 and 141, in the name of Rachael Hamilton, would remove the condition to kill a wild mammal “in a way that causes it the minimum possible suffering” and replace that with the term “as humanely as possible”, thus reintroducing a test from the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002. On the face of it, the amendments might not appear problematic, but we have good reason to require that the wild animal is killed in a way that causes “minimum possible suffering”, as we included in the bill. We deliberately did not use the word “humane”. We considered what that would require in practice, and we tried to be as specific as possible. To do that, we looked to the dictionary definition of “humane”, which is: “designed or calculated to inflict minimal pain”. The word “pain” is important there, because we have deliberately referred to “suffering”. The difference is important, because using “humane” would mean that we consider only the physical humaneness of the kill, whereas “suffering” also includes the circumstances that the wild mammal experiences. If we use the term “minimum possible suffering”, a person would not be allowed to put the animal through fear, stress or anguish that causes it to suffer unnecessarily prior to actually killing it. I believe that that is a higher standard and one that we should seek to use. For that reason, I cannot support those amendments. Amendments 36 to 39, in the name of Rachael Hamilton, would add the conditions to section 3 that dogs may be used to kill a wild mammal in circumstances where the animal has been injured but not killed, the animal is inaccessible and cannot be killed by shooting, or just that killing it in that way is considered humane in the circumstances. Those amendments would, in effect, allow a pack of dogs to kill a wild mammal in certain circumstances, which I think ought to be clear is entirely contrary to the principle of the bill. In fact, we have been clear from the very beginning that preventing and banning the chasing and killing of a wild mammal by dogs is the fundamental premise of the bill, and I think that those provisions could create a very obvious loophole. In addition to the fact that I cannot condone a pack of dogs killing an injured wild mammal, I am not confident that it would always be possible to establish that a mammal had genuinely been injured prior to being killed by dogs, which would, again, create the uncertainty in enforcement that we have sought to avoid. For those reasons, I cannot support those amendments. Similarly, amendments 69, 71, 97 and 99, in Edward Mountain’s name, seek to allow a pack of dogs to kill a wild mammal, but do so without any caveats at all. Under those amendments, in our interpretation, a person would only have to attempt to kill a wild mammal before they could set a pack of dogs on it. The amendments would create the glaring loophole of allowing a person to make a token gesture of searching and flushing with two dogs, shooting, missing and then carrying out a hunt with a full pack of dogs. That, again, is contrary to what we are pursuing in the bill, so I cannot support those amendments. Amendments 114, 120, 125 and 128, in the name of Colin Smyth, pertain to falconry. We rehearsed some of the discussion on this point in last week’s meeting but, to reiterate, falconry is permitted in Scotland as long as it is done in accordance with all relevant legislation. The bill is not about the ethics of wildlife management, or hunting, or falconry for that matter; it is about the regulation of the use of dogs while undertaking those activities. Some falconers will use one or two dogs to flush wild mammals to waiting birds of prey, which is why the bill contains provision to allow wild mammals that have been flushed to be shot or to be killed by a bird of prey. That aligns with the position under the 2002 act. I understand that, on welfare grounds, some people think that falconry should not be permitted. However, as we discussed last week, it would not be correct for us to use this legislative vehicle to potentially ban lawful activities by the back door. I wholly support the principle of Colin Smyth’s amendments 115, 121, 126 and 129. I have been very clear that the chasing and killing of wild mammals using dogs has no place in modern Scotland, and therefore I agree that killing a wild mammal in a way that causes it the “minimum possible suffering” can never mean allowing it to be killed by dogs. Having said that, I have one or two concerns that agreeing to those amendments in their current form could create a degree of inconsistency in the bill. Therefore, if Colin Smyth agrees not to move the amendments today, I would be happy to work with him to draft new amendments at stage 3 that would maintain the consistency of the language that is used in the bill and fulfil what I think he seeks to do with his amendments. 09:30 Finally, amendments 203, 223, 226 and 230, in the name of Rachael Hamilton, caveat the condition that, “if an attempt to kill the wild mammal ... results in it being injured but not killed, reasonable steps must be taken to kill it in a way that causes it the minimum possible suffering”, by adding the words “in the circumstances”. Those amendments are not necessary. The bill as currently worded implicitly provides that the minimum possible suffering may depend on the circumstances, because a person can act only in the circumstances in which they are in. The existing condition refers to reasonable steps being taken; therefore, the condition has already been caveated. I will try to put that simply: the bill already recognises that the reasonable steps that will be taken to kill a wild mammal in a way that causes it the minimum possible suffering will depend on particular circumstances. I worry that, by adding the wording that Rachael Hamilton has suggested, it could be perceived that those provisions allow for the use of dogs to kill a wild mammal in certain circumstances, which is something that I want to avoid. For those reasons, I cannot support those amendments.