Seòmar agus comataidhean

Will the member take an intervention?

Labour can respond when it winds up.

The Labour Party simply cannot come here and, in order to mitigate Tory policies, make uncosted demands and mislead the public as to what can and cannot be done by the devolved Government without it plundering the existing and allocated budgets for our public services.

As the minister has already said, this Government has taken unprecedented steps to help the most vulnerable people. Those measures include the rent freeze, the Scottish child payment, free school meals for all children in primaries 1 to 5, free bus travel for under-22s and over-60s, free prescriptions and free personal care.

I am reminded of the wonderful Mark Drakeford’s reply to the Tory leader in the Senedd, in response to his criticisms of the state of the Welsh NHS. Addressing Mr Davies, Mr Drakeford, trembling with anger, said:

“It is shocking. It is absolutely shocking to me that you think that you can turn up here this afternoon, with the mess that your party has made of the budgets of this country, of the reputation of this country around the world, and that you promise those people that there will be more to come ... And you think you can turn up here this afternoon and claim some sort of moral high ground. What sort of world do you belong in?”—[Record of Proceedings, Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament, 18 October 2022.]

I could not have said it better myself.

I say the same to the Scottish Labour Party: what sort of world does it live in? Stop demanding that the Scottish Government clean up a Tory mess. What is it thinking? Mitigating Tory polices might be good enough for Labour, but it is not good enough for me or for Scotland.

The Tory amendment tests the definition of “brass neck” by attempting to delete any reference to the economic vandalism of the Liz Truss mini-budget, which crashed the economy and led to the Bank of England having to buy Government bonds to prevent us from losing international borrowing that has been sustaining the UK economy for decades—all to prevent the economy from plummeting into a death spiral. Those are polices that the Tories here urged the Scottish Government to adopt.

As it is, the damage was done—interest rates zoomed to 10 per cent plus, and what was already a bad situation under the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, got worse. He refused to restore the additional £20 per week to universal credit: by the way, 38,000 veterans and 3,000 people who serve in the forces are on universal credit. He failed to commit to the triple lock on pensions and failed to ensure that benefits will rise with inflation. Today at Prime Minister’s question time he refused again to do those things, although he claims that he will be compassionate. I am not holding my breath. I ask the Tories to write to the most recent Prime Minister to commit to the state pension triple lock, to upgrade benefits in line with inflation, to restore the £20 a week extra universal credit and, as a grand finale, to cap bankers bonuses. While they are cc-ing in the chancellor, I ask that they copy me in, too.

I turn to the Labour motion, which is, like the curate’s egg, good in parts. For example, it recognises the folly of and fall-out from Trussonomics. However, let us consider the calls in the motion for the Scottish Government to take further action. I asked Mark Griffin to provide costings for those actions, but he sidestepped my question.

The motion refers to many good things, including

“the cancellation of school meals debt”.

What funding would be required to action that? It also refers to

“increased funding for money advice services and a top up to the welfare fund”.

How much would those cost?

To those actions, we can add the legitimate calls for quite understandable wage increases across the public sector, including for staff in the health, police, justice and education sectors, to meet the 10 per cent plus inflation rate. Those calls are a result of the catastrophic rise in interest rates, fuel costs and food price inflation. Has that been costed?

Daniel Johnson rose—

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?