Seòmar agus comataidhean

::I have only two minutes.

If you look at it, the bill is not about an outright ban but about a ban on oval tracks, because that is where the damage is done. I do not have the statistics in front of me, but I say to Finlay Carson that the cross-party group had the Greyhound Board of Great Britain in front of us and that we saw those stats. Animals get injured. When they are no use any more, they are sometimes dumped at the side of a road or motorway so that someone will kill them. I have seen that myself in Midlothian. Some dogs get their ears cut so that they cannot be traced back to an owner. There can be unscrupulous and nefarious goings-on when a dog is past its sell-by date—imagine talking about an animal as if it is a thing to be sold.

The amending stage of the bill is still to come, but I notice that the bill says

“Scottish Ministers may by regulations modify the definition of ‘racetrack’”

which would be done by the affirmative procedure, as it should be.

Mark Ruskell is absolutely right: welfare is at the heart of this bill, which deals with only certain racetracks. The track record—I am sorry to make that pun—of injuries, abandonment and death is terrible, and we have all heard about that stuff.

I end my submission by saying that I support member’s bills. I do not want to see them undermined or attacked, and I hope that we will continue having them.

16:27

::I advise members that the Deputy Presiding Officer has permitted me to leave the chamber after the speech following mine, due to a conflicting and long-standing obligation that has arisen only because of the rescheduling of this debate. I very much regret that, as I certainly would have preferred to hear all contributions.

What I have to say initially is in no way to diminish the horrors of the Holocaust. Today, antisemitism is on the rise, and, in part, the conflict in Gaza gives some the fuel for an excuse for that. It is the elephant in the room, which I will address sensitively, I hope.

The atrocity of 7 October—the brutality when 1,200 Jewish people were murdered, more than 5,400 were injured and more than 200 were taken hostage—is without any defence. The international outrage that followed was absolutely right, but the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies in exacting revenge—ostensibly on Hamas, but in Gaza—are an outrage with every appearance of genocide. The death toll is more than 69,000, including 17,000 children, and at least 170,000 people have been injured. In the West Bank, the death toll is more than 1,000, including 200 children, and 6,000 people have been injured. Ninety per cent of Gaza’s population have been displaced, and the entire surviving population faces an acute lack of food, with the deliberate actions of the Netanyahu Government preventing access to food and medical aid. I add that those statistics are not from Hamas but from the Red Cross.

I make an emphatic distinction between Netanyahu and the majority of the Israeli population, who have demonstrated against his actions and who are also denied a truly free media. Netanyahu has blockaded not just their press and the aid convoys, but the international press in Gaza. No wonder those actions have been a fertile ground for stirring hatred of the Jewish community wherever it is. For that, there is no defence, but that connection has been fostered by Netanyahu. On 7 October last year, he said to the UN:

“Hamas carried out the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.”

I was born in 1944 and I became aware of the Holocaust from my parents. Later, I read the diary of Anne Frank when I was about 15—the same age that she was when she was eventually exposed and later executed. She hid for two years, from 1942 to 1944, which is the year in which I was born. She died in Belsen in 1945, one of more than 6 million who died in the Holocaust. The connection, given her age and mine, made her more real to me and her story more heartbreaking. Her account of her life shows her optimism on the brink of adulthood, sheltered in the attic, as well as the reality of occupation and the courage of those who sheltered her. For her, that day-to-day life was normal. Her diary is one true account among those of the millions of individuals who were brutally murdered and whose lives were lost. Not many European nations could escape having blood on their hands as the death camps industrialised that murder.

We must not allow the collective memory of the Holocaust to be diminished or tarnished by the action of the Israeli Government in Gaza. The Hamas atrocity does not permit atrocities in Gaza. Gaza atrocities do not permit antisemitism. Sadly, in this month of the bard, it all reminds me of the continuation of man’s inhumanity to man.

13:07

Will the member take an intervention?

It is only fair that I do—I have asked for costings.

I am trying to speak with my legal hat on—[Interruption.]

If Anas Sarwar is saying that certain witnesses should have been called and have not been called, that, for me, is a challenge to Lord Brodie. How can it not be?

I have said—[Interruption.]

I think that I heard something highly critical of Lord Brodie; I hope that the official report staff picked it up.

Current political commentary on whom to ultimately blame is unavoidable—I accept that—but we should not be rerunning issues.

I want to be strict, I want people to be blamed and I want the matter to be sorted, but that should happen in the inquiry and not in the heat of political debate in the chamber.

The legal framework establishes independence, and the chair is independent, so I find it disgraceful that members—not only Mr Sarwar, but others in the chamber—seem to be undermining the entire independence of the process. That does a total disservice to grieving people.

I informed the member—[Inaudible.]

I will leave it until I speak to the amendments in the group, if that is convenient, and then I will—

Please do not get overexcited about gulls, Mr Ross—

Sorry—I should know better after 27 years. I will start again. Mr Ross should at least have some idea of how to quantify the cost to the public purse on a recurring basis. There are hidden things in the bill about mitigation and so on. There might be claims for damages against the Government. There is a lot of stuff in there. It opens up, if I may use the term in the context of gulls, a can of worms.