Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am going to shock Finlay Carson: I agree with him.

We also have the great tapestry of Scotland at Galashiels and the wonderful building for it. The town is also the home of “Coulter’s Candy” or “Ally Bally Bee”, which was devised by Robert Colthart, a mischievous worker in Gala who got into lots of trouble. It is a wonderful story.

We also have the common ridings, which go right across the Borders and Midlothian, coal mining heritage at Newtongrange and Gorebridge and paper making in Penicuik. All that is from the past. There is the bonnie High Street of Peebles, which harks back to our high streets of yore with many small independent shops.

On promoting

“sustainable use of the natural resources of the area”,

members should think of all the cycling and walking routes throughout the Borders and extended hill walking. I am thinking of the southern upland way, the source of the great River Tweed at Tweedsmuir and the Pentland hills, which are under extreme pressure. The area is alive with a vast diversity of animal and plant life. We even have resident golden eagles in a secret place.

I could write a book on the assets of the area and may well do so when it becomes a national park. There is my optimism, which is rooted in evidence.

It is also important that the area is accessible to major populations through rail, road and bus links. Being just a few miles south of Edinburgh makes it a democratic choice for a national park. Bordering with the north of England means that it will bring tourists and, I hope, accelerate the extension of the Borders railway.

There will be challenges and concerns, as I mentioned earlier in reference to my Pentland Hills Regional Park Boundary Bill, especially from the farming community. My goodness, I understand that community’s concerns. Farmers are the front-line custodians of the landscape, but it is a working landscape, so they must be at the forefront of any consultation. However, I hope that they will see that they can benefit from the protections and economic opportunities to diversify that a national park would provide.

There you have it: biodiversity, blissful landscapes and accessibility.

I listened carefully to what my colleague Fergus Ewing said about the practicalities of a national park and the residents of the area, who deserve to be happy where they live. It is important that we learn from the current national parks and do not repeat mistakes.

However, I again say: cast your vote for the Borders and Midlothian, and if you have a second choice, pop in Galloway.

It is very gracious of you, Mr Carson. As I am going to write, with you and others, to Professor Russel Griggs of South of Scotland Enterprise, could you put it on the record that your second choice for a national park would be the Borders and Midlothian? I understand your first choice, but can you state your plan B?

Oh—that is lovely. I am pleased to speak in the debate, although it will be with a tinge of irony.

Before I press on, I advise Mr Whitfield that I will have plenty to say about the Scottish Borders.

Why do I say “a tinge of irony”? Some members who were here a couple of sessions back might recall my failed member’s bill to extend the Pentland hills regional park to cover the southern part of the Pentlands. The Scottish Government, Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberals opposed it, although I am pleased to acknowledge that the Greens gave me support. There was also resistance and opposition from the farming community and local authorities, which I understand—I will return to that.

Regional parks are just an administrative animal and far less intrusive than national parks, with the planning and other legal protections that they may bestow, so I am pleased to see the change of political heart across the chamber. From previous experience, I know some of the challenges ahead.

The debate is a bit of a bidding war between the various speakers, but I am up for a bidding war. I am confident that the Scottish Borders and Midlothian will be successful not least because of the groundwork by Mr Whitfield’s campaign for a Scottish Borders national park, which has already commissioned and received an independent feasibility study, to which he referred and which confirmed that the proposal satisfies all the criteria for a national park. I thank Malcolm Dickson for his briefing to me on that.

In passing, I have sympathy for my old hunting ground, Galloway. To be frank, I see no reason for there not to be two national parks in the south of Scotland. I am sure that they would be ably supported by South of Scotland Enterprise. However, my priority is my own patch, not for selfish reasons—heaven forfend—but for the reasons that follow.

This is the sales pitch. The advantage of the Borders and Midlothian is plain to see. As the area is close to, and under pressure from, a growing city population and the surrounding towns, pressure to expand building further into our green heritage increases. That has been accelerated by Covid, which has led many people to seek literally greener fields. The area’s landscape, history and culture are a valuable asset, but that asset needs the protection, as well as the economic advantages, of national park status.

The proposal ticks all the boxes for the aims of a national park under the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000. For example, the first aim is

“to conserve and enhance the natural and cultural heritage of the area”.

We have the Roman site at Trimontium, where 15,000 Romans were posted, and now the recently modernised museum, as well as Abbotsford at Melrose—Sir Walter Scott’s pad.

Will the member take an intervention?

Will the member take an intervention now?

I congratulate the member, who is my colleague on the cross-party group on animal welfare, on securing this debate and on the temperate speech that he delivered. I am pleased to support the motion and to endorse the principles that have been expressed by Revive, a group that includes the League Against Cruel Sports, OneKind, Common Weal, Raptor Persecution UK and Friends of the Earth—that is some coalition. Indeed, OneKind gave a presentation on those principles recently to the cross-party group on animal welfare, which I chair.

We make clear distinctions between what may be labelled pests, domestic animals and pets, yet they have everything in common. They are sentient, with distinctive means of communicating with their species and their predators, and their drive is to survive, to procreate and continue their species. We also, therefore, have also much in common with them.

Over the decades, our knowledge of the animals around us—hidden in our woods, underground, in our fields and in our homes—has grown as the media of television and film has exposed their lifestyles. Last night, watching “Springwatch”, I saw a bee, Osmia bicolor, which lives alone and builds a protective nest for its eggs in discarded snail shells. It then blocks the entrance with stones that it has carried there and, finally, upturns the shell so that the entrance is hidden. How clever is that?

Today, as I drove through the constituency, twigs flew up from beneath the bonnet and I realised that the pigeons had returned to nest in my Acer Drummondii tree—they build their nest in the same place each year, just above my car, and toss unsuitable building material on to it. The mice, which run between the cottage walls in the winter, have migrated back under the shed and into the small dyke. Mr Smokey, using all his ancient feline instincts and skills, keeps them at bay—now, that is what I call justified control. In the morning, before daylight, our resident blackbird wakes everyone—and every roosting sparrow in the holly tree—with his glorious song, and the early lone grey squirrel raids the bird feeder.

During the early months of Covid, we were put in our place. As a result of the fear of that possibly deadly virus, there were no cars on the streets and the wildlife around us soon reasserted itself, taking over those deserted streets. That small living organism, Covid, bypassed them and went straight for us. We, as a species, are not invincible. Why say this? Because we are privileged to hold the fate of these insects, birds and animals in our hands, and some of these hands lay snares, set traps, shoot and poison—and, sometimes, they do that to protect creatures that are bred solely for sport, usually for the other privileged.

I cannot support that in principle. In practice, we have the poisoning of birds of prey that are hunting for food to survive and feed their young; we have animals that are horrifically trapped in snares, tearing at their own flesh to escape; and fox hunting continues.

I turn to three of the principles that have been mentioned. First, is there a justification for control? I cannot see a justification for breeding animals just for sport. Secondly, does the method of control prioritise animal welfare and cause the least harm to the least number of animals? The use of snares does not do that; it is indiscriminate. Thirdly, is the decision to control based on the situation or simply the negative characterisation of the target species? That applies to, for example, the culling of deer when their welfare is a concern, so I can support that.

Applying those principles is in our interests. As the highest species of animal, we are only custodians of the wildlife around us. It is also in the interests of the diverse, intriguing and essential variety of wildlife that surrounds us every day, and which we often fail to see.

Will the minister take an intervention?

The question is brief, and I do not want to put the minister on the spot, so I would appreciate getting an answer later. What is happening is all very laudable, but policing is a huge problem because most of the activity takes place in far-flung places in the hills and woods, where there is nobody about. The minister knows that already. Can consideration be given to additional policing for wildlife crime?

A vulnerable constituent, who is a young man with Asperger’s syndrome, rents a small cottage on a farm in Peebles. His predicted electricity bill was £35 per month, but he is actually being billed £1,500 a month. Technicians have advised that he is probably receiving bills from the farm, so he is now sitting with a so-called debt of nearly £4,000. Despite the efforts of my office to get E.ON Energy to respond, and even to get in touch with its chief executive, we have had radio silence. Does the Deputy First Minister agree that, with all the bad publicity surrounding E.ON’s profits and its recommendation that customers should get in touch if they have financial difficulties, that does not inspire confidence?

We disagree about that, but I will talk about the press coverage at the time and how the press behaved.

The sinking of the General Belgrano, an ageing Argentinian cruiser, caused the loss of 323 Argentinian lives on 2 May 1982, after it was attacked as it sailed either to or out of the 200-mile exclusion zone. I do not know the ins and outs of what was correct, but the matter is certainly still disputed. There was retaliation two days later, of course, with an attack on HMS Sheffield, which was sunk off the coast of the Falkland Islands, killing 20 men. There was no going back after that.

I recall—before even one British ship had sailed—the increasingly feverish warmongering, which was fuelled, in particular, by a circulation war between The Sun and the Mirror. The Sun had a bloodthirsty stance from the start, which included inviting readers to sponsor Sidewinder missiles and offering free “Sink the Argies” computer games. It never relented. The Sun splashed with the poster front page, “We’ll Smash ‘Em”, printed over pictures of Winston Churchill and a bulldog. Finally, there was the infamous “Gotcha”.

The Sun became increasingly frustrated with politicians who were attempting to negotiate a settlement—I agreed with them—to avoid a “shooting war”, as it was called. At one point, the US Secretary of State, Al Haig, was accused of

“standing in the way of war”

because of his efforts to avoid bloodshed. The paper even urged the Government to reject an offer of peace talks from the Argentine military regime, with the headline “Stick it up your junta”, which became its catchphrase for the war.

Not all the press was like that, of course, but, for good measure, The Sun described the BBC and the “pygmy” Guardian as “traitors in our midst”. The Mirror was a “timorous, whining newspaper”. The Mirror retaliated by saying that The Sun had

“fallen from the gutter into the sewer”.

That language worried me at the time. I was worried about how we were considering the dangers, in particular the dangers that we were putting our troops into in war. Very few politicians have experienced the front line of war, excluding my colleague Keith Brown. Those who speak about it speak very differently of conflict, including at Westminster, and I always listen to them.

Dr Johnson, in seeking to prevent an earlier Falklands conflict, said:

“It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game”.

I return to the lives lost and damaged. They must not be forgotten—I have not forgotten them—but I have also not forgotten how the loss of those lives might have been prevented, with intelligence and diplomacy being tried first and tested to its limits before putting our armed forces into conflict. Some 1,000 died, and thousands more were injured. We owe it to them and their descendants, and to our armed forces today, to exhaust every diplomatic international avenue before ever resorting to the brutality of war.