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

First of all, I thank you for your kind words, Ms Grant. We have worked together for many years on a parliamentary and personal level, so thank you for that. I support what you say—I think that we need a consolidation act—

I whole-heartedly congratulate Mark Ruskell, because I know how tough it is to bring forward a member’s bill. You have to be resilient, negotiate and stay the course—which is not meant to be a pun. I have done it myself, having had two successful members’ bills and one that failed.

I say to Rhoda Grant, who thinks that members’ bills can be random, that my Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 brought in the ideas of the deed, not the breed, and blaming the person, not the animal and was pioneering. My Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2025 included the idea of bringing in a code for what happens before people get a dog and tried to cut demand, because the supply of dogs is coming from puppy farms and we cannot make laws to deal with matters outwith our jurisdiction.

I say to Tim Eagle and to anyone else that, unless there is a change to the standing orders, every member of Parliament is entitled to bring forward two members’ bills per session. I do not see why the Government, whoever that is, should have its own way on legislation all the time. It is far better to keep Parliament democratic.

I will make another point in my short contribution.

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 beg your pardon. I am always doing that, convener. I mean Presiding Officer. It has been a long week.

I agree that we need a consolidation act, because anybody who is trying to enforce the legislation wants to find it in one place, not higgledy-piggledy here and there.

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

The recent successful prosecution case against the Hamiltons, who are part of the cruel puppy farm trade, concluded after a five-year investigation by the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Thirty-three puppies were found in dreadful conditions.

The case was taken as a summary action. Although I fully respect the independence of the prosecution service and the courts, I am concerned that that approach may not be sufficient for such cases—the source of which are often serious organised crime—and that they should be brought under solemn procedure. All that happened in this case was that the Hamiltons got community service and were banned from having more than one dog for five years, which are minor penalties in my book.

First of all, I thank you for your kind words, Ms Grant. We have worked together for many years on a parliamentary and personal level, so thank you for that. I support what you say—I think that we need a consolidation act—

I whole-heartedly congratulate Mark Ruskell, because I know how tough it is to bring forward a member’s bill. You have to be resilient, negotiate and stay the course—which is not meant to be a pun. I have done it myself, having had two successful members’ bills and one that failed.

I say to Rhoda Grant, who thinks that members’ bills can be random, that my Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 brought in the ideas of the deed, not the breed, and blaming the person, not the animal and was pioneering. My Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2025 included the idea of bringing in a code for what happens before people get a dog and tried to cut demand, because the supply of dogs is coming from puppy farms and we cannot make laws to deal with matters outwith our jurisdiction.

I say to Tim Eagle and to anyone else that, unless there is a change to the standing orders, every member of Parliament is entitled to bring forward two members’ bills per session. I do not see why the Government, whoever that is, should have its own way on legislation all the time. It is far better to keep Parliament democratic.

I will make another point in my short contribution.

The recent successful prosecution case against the Hamiltons, who are part of the cruel puppy farm trade, concluded after a five-year investigation by the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Thirty-three puppies were found in dreadful conditions.

The case was taken as a summary action. Although I fully respect the independence of the prosecution service and the courts, I am concerned that that approach may not be sufficient for such cases—the source of which are often serious organised crime—and that they should be brought under solemn procedure. All that happened in this case was that the Hamiltons got community service and were banned from having more than one dog for five years, which are minor penalties in my book.