Seòmar agus comataidhean

::I thank all members for their wide-ranging contributions. I note the contributions from Mr Carson, who has spent quite a lot of the debate bolstering what was a minority view in the committee, rather than the view of the majority of committee members, who accept that there is an evidence base to push ahead with a ban.

I thank all the members who have spoken in favour of the ban and my bill—Gillian Mackay, Christine Grahame, John Mason, Rona Mackay and Maggie Chapman. I thank other members who have not been able to speak but who are deeply passionate about the issue, have engaged with the evidence—unfortunately, it appears that Mr Russell has not done so—and have concluded that we absolutely need to ban greyhound racing. Their personal support for me and for the work that my team and I have done on the bill has been superb over the past few years.

I am saddened that some members still feel that there is insufficient evidence. I am absolutely dripping in evidence—evidence that has come to the committee and to the Parliament over years and years, including from the industry itself. The saddening figures that come out every year detailing the injuries and deaths represent real dogs. It is incredibly sad to see that evidence coming in. We have also had the testimony of people such as me and hundreds of others across Scotland who have rehomed greyhounds and seen the long-term impact of injury and trauma on those dogs.

It is fair to say, on the issue of licensed or unlicensed tracks, that the committee had no evidence to show that the inherent risk of racing greyhounds at an unlicensed track was lower than that of racing a dog at a licensed track.

It makes no difference to the dog who the owner of a greyhound racing track is. The laws of physics do not magically change if the dog races at a track at Thornton, Newcastle or anywhere else. The evidence is the evidence, and the minister pointed to the scientific studies that show the impact on the dogs and how it results in injury and death.

A number of members have raised the prospect of the activity going underground, but we can see a greyhound track from space. These are fast dogs that need big spaces in which to race. If the bill is passed, ministers will have the power, should they choose to use it, to define a track. Rhoda Grant’s suggestion that we will suddenly have figure-of-eight racetracks—a kind of Scalextric for greyhounds—is bizarre. I am not sure what would happen when they crossed over in the middle. That is fantasy stuff. The bill is well defined, and ministers would have the power to define a track, should they need to.

Members have spoken of concerns about dogs that are being kennelled and traded in Scotland and then being taken over the border to England.

::I do not have time—I have a lot to get through.

In addition, if we do not ban greyhound racing in Scotland, dogs will come from England, Wales and Ireland to race in Scotland, so I am concerned about those dogs, too.

We can only legislate for Scotland. I would love greyhound racing to be banned in Newcastle and Sunderland, but we are in the Scottish Parliament. If Rhoda Grant wants greyhound racing to be banned across the UK, she should speak to her colleagues in Wales, who are pushing a bill through right now to achieve that in Wales, and she should speak to her UK Government colleagues, who have the opportunity to do the same at Westminster.

The one thing that I would pick up in regard to the Welsh Government’s work on the issue is that it has made a commitment to review wider licensing of the transport, kennelling and breeding of greyhounds. That is an area on which the Scottish Government should work with the Welsh Government.

::The purpose of the bill is to tackle the nature emergency. We should be in no doubt that, sadly, Scotland is a nature-depleted country. However, the green shoots of recovery are everywhere—from beaver-built wetlands to urban meadows that are teeming with pollinators and people. I pay tribute to the communities, conservationists and land managers who have made so much progress over the years. I hope that the bill will turbocharge their future efforts.

Before returning to Holyrood, I sat on the Scottish biodiversity forum as a representative of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. At that time—more than a decade ago—I saw inertia and inaction. There were no targets. There were no action plans. I am proud that, in this session of Parliament, my colleague Lorna Slater, as a minister, rebooted the biodiversity strategy and set the wheels in motion for the bill. It is right that the international commitments that she signed us up to at the biodiversity conference of the parties are now enshrined in the bill, and I am delighted that her amendment to achieve that has passed into the bill.

Tonight, we will agree on the requirement for action-focused targets to get on to a faster track to restoring nature. That will need a degree of flexibility in how sites are designated if we are to realise the much bolder ambition of landscape-scale restoration. However, a case for the wholesale reform of regulations at the backbone of nature protection was not made by either the Government or stakeholders. It is right that the ministerial powers to amend those laws in part 2 of the bill were removed. We have seen at Westminster the threat to the environment from the watering down of nature law. That must not happen here, either now or in the future.

However, if there is a case for more precise surgery on the habitats and environmental assessment regulations, it will be for a future Government to bring those proposals back to the chamber. In the meantime, the cabinet secretary’s commitments to update the guidance are welcome. That will provide the clarity that will be needed if we are to get on with the job of nature restoration at scale.

It is clear that we cannot deliver a full-scale restoration of our woodlands and peatlands without properly managing deer to finally bring their numbers down permanently. In part 4 of the bill we now have reforms that give NatureScot and land managers the best chance of delivering the action that is needed for us, at last, to get to sustainable deer numbers. However, there is still more work to be done to roll out the recommendations of the independent deer working group. We must continue to work hard to realise the legacy of Simon Pepper and his colleagues. The group did incredible work back in 2017, and I say to the minister that there is still work to be done on that aspect.

I hope that, in time, parts 1 and 4 of the bill will prove to be transformational. Thankfully, part 2 is gone. For me, part 3, on national parks, represents unfinished business. It feels as though the Government wants to keep the lid on national parks at a time when we need them more than ever if we are to deliver the right opportunities for people and nature in some of the most sensitive landscapes that we have in Scotland.

::I take the opportunity to thank the clerks of the committee, my fellow committee members, the Scottish Parliament information centre and all the witnesses who gave evidence. In particular, I thank members of Scottish Environment LINK and RSPB Scotland, which organisations bring considerable expertise and wisdom as conservationist land managers and policy specialists.

The bill has been a single opportunity to make progress in this parliamentary session to tackle the nature emergency, but we need another bill in the next session. It is clear in areas such as clean water that we are falling out of alignment with the European Union—we are way behind on that. It is also clear that in how we reform the management of our seas, coastal waters and fisheries, we are slipping behind the rest of Europe and, sadly, we are slipping behind England as well. We have seen frustrations from coastal communities being reflected in many of the amendments to the bill that have been lodged at stage 2 and stage 3.

I point to amendments from Ariane Burgess and Sarah Boyack that tried to fill a huge gap in the bill, but there was not time to unpack all that. Finlay Carson made a good point—although he perhaps did not make a good point about greyhounds earlier on—about the gap in marine management that will have to be filled in the next session if we are to have a hope of moving forward.

On deer management, at this point I am not entirely sure what the minister’s national venison food supply chain management plan will look like. There are still questions in my mind about who will be setting the ambition. Will it be NatureScot or Sainsbury’s? I am watching to see whether the plan will align with the recommendation of the independent deer working group.

On national parks, as I said earlier, the Government needs to be in a position to feel confident in leading a debate on national parks, and to feel confident in celebrating national parks, in expanding them and in designating new parks. A good basis for doing that in the next session of Parliament will be for the Parliament to review what has happened with national parks and the benefits that have been delivered over the 20 years since their establishment, and to explore some of the misinformation in the public narrative around national parks.

We should value national parks and empower them to protect our environment more and to support the communities that live in them. Earlier, we talked about lessons. There are certainly lessons from the Flamingo Land debacle, which I do not think have been fully reflected into the bill; however, those lessons will need to be learned.

We have seen progress on many individual issues in the bill. I appreciate that that was a challenge, because many of those issues were not part of the original bill, and it has been a challenge for committees to scrutinise them. On swift bricks, Holyrood showed how it can be fleet of foot. It has taken four years of trying at Westminster to get action on the issue, and it has still not achieved it. We have managed to do it in a matter of weeks through having a consensual conversation. It shows how devolution can work well to make progress on these islands.

I am pleased that my colleague Ariane Burgess got through the amendment to incorporate Ramsar sites in the bill. That will certainly be welcomed by her constituents at Coul links.

I am also pleased that the minister, Jim Fairlie, managed to finally close the loophole on grouse moor licensing. It is important that the licensed area moves beyond the narrow area where shooting takes place to where raptor species nest. I have been working on and highlighting that campaign since the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. It is great that the minister has found a robust solution to that in this bill.

Many more issues have been dealt with and many more issues have been raised, which I hope will be dealt with in the future.

The Greens absolutely support the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill at stage 3. It is an important foundation for further action to tackle the nature emergency, but there is so much more that needs to come.

17:49

::The big lesson is that we need political leadership, and I am not just talking about from whoever happens to be the minister at the time. We need leadership on the ground, and we need people who back national parks in their communities to stick their heads above the parapet and say, “This is going to be good for our communities.” I live in a national park area, and I see its advantages every day.

There was clearly an appetite from communities across Scotland for more parks, and there was a quiet confidence that we were going to get them. That is not going to go away, despite NFU Scotland’s campaigning. All politicians need to recognise that.

In my closing remarks I will turn to some of the amendments that have strengthened the bill. For now, though, I say that Scottish Greens will be very happy to vote for the bill at stage 3.

17:27

::I need to make progress.

There is unfinished business in that regard. Although that is not part of the bill that I have introduced, which is narrowly drawn, the Scottish Government must certainly do work on that.

To answer Tim Eagle’s point about the existence of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, I would say that that has not been effective. It has been extremely difficult to prosecute for “unnecessary suffering”, because greyhound racing is an inherently lawful activity. He points to licensing being the way forward, but licensing is the problem. We have licensed greyhound racing at the moment, and injuries and deaths are happening on licensed tracks as well as on unlicensed tracks. It is just not the case that licensing will be a solution.

I see that time is moving on, Presiding Officer, so I will conclude. There is an opportunity for MSPs to be on the right side of history tonight. If there are members such as Rhoda Grant, Davy Russell, Finlay Carson and Tim Eagle who want to see a resurgence of greyhound racing in Scotland, with all the resultant injury and death to dogs, they are free to vote against the bill and to send a signal for racing to start up again and expand in Scotland. I point to the comments of the owner of the Thornton greyhound racing track, who has said that the only reason why he has not expanded greyhound racing at the track is because of the campaign and the bill. Those are the only things that are preventing greyhound racing from expanding in Scotland.

For the rest of us, who want to end the suffering of the dogs, let us vote for the bill at stage 1. Let us get the ban over the line before dissolution.

The purpose of the bill is to tackle the nature emergency. We should be in no doubt that, sadly, Scotland is a nature-depleted country. However, the green shoots of recovery are everywhere—from beaver-built wetlands to urban meadows that are teeming with pollinators and people. I pay tribute to the communities, conservationists and land managers who have made so much progress over the years. I hope that the bill will turbocharge their future efforts.

Before returning to Holyrood, I sat on the Scottish biodiversity forum as a representative of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. At that time—more than a decade ago—I saw inertia and inaction. There were no targets. There were no action plans. I am proud that, in this session of Parliament, my colleague Lorna Slater, as a minister, rebooted the biodiversity strategy and set the wheels in motion for the bill. It is right that the international commitments that she signed us up to at the biodiversity conference of the parties are now enshrined in the bill, and I am delighted that her amendment to achieve that has passed into the bill.

Tonight, we will agree on the requirement for action-focused targets to get on to a faster track to restoring nature. That will need a degree of flexibility in how sites are designated if we are to realise the much bolder ambition of landscape-scale restoration. However, a case for the wholesale reform of regulations at the backbone of nature protection was not made by either the Government or stakeholders. It is right that the ministerial powers to amend those laws in part 2 of the bill were removed. We have seen at Westminster the threat to the environment from the watering down of nature law. That must not happen here, either now or in the future.

However, if there is a case for more precise surgery on the habitats and environmental assessment regulations, it will be for a future Government to bring those proposals back to the chamber. In the meantime, the cabinet secretary’s commitments to update the guidance are welcome. That will provide the clarity that will be needed if we are to get on with the job of nature restoration at scale.

It is clear that we cannot deliver a full-scale restoration of our woodlands and peatlands without properly managing deer to finally bring their numbers down permanently. In part 4 of the bill we now have reforms that give NatureScot and land managers the best chance of delivering the action that is needed for us, at last, to get to sustainable deer numbers. However, there is still more work to be done to roll out the recommendations of the independent deer working group. We must continue to work hard to realise the legacy of Simon Pepper and his colleagues. The group did incredible work back in 2017, and I say to the minister that there is still work to be done on that aspect.

I hope that, in time, parts 1 and 4 of the bill will prove to be transformational. Thankfully, part 2 is gone. For me, part 3, on national parks, represents unfinished business. It feels as though the Government wants to keep the lid on national parks at a time when we need them more than ever if we are to deliver the right opportunities for people and nature in some of the most sensitive landscapes that we have in Scotland.

The big lesson is that we need political leadership, and I am not just talking about from whoever happens to be the minister at the time. We need leadership on the ground, and we need people who back national parks in their communities to stick their heads above the parapet and say, “This is going to be good for our communities.” I live in a national park area, and I see its advantages every day.

There was clearly an appetite from communities across Scotland for more parks, and there was a quiet confidence that we were going to get them. That is not going to go away, despite NFU Scotland’s campaigning. All politicians need to recognise that.

In my closing remarks I will turn to some of the amendments that have strengthened the bill. For now, though, I say that Scottish Greens will be very happy to vote for the bill at stage 3.

17:27

I need to make progress.

There is unfinished business in that regard. Although that is not part of the bill that I have introduced, which is narrowly drawn, the Scottish Government must certainly do work on that.

To answer Tim Eagle’s point about the existence of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, I would say that that has not been effective. It has been extremely difficult to prosecute for “unnecessary suffering”, because greyhound racing is an inherently lawful activity. He points to licensing being the way forward, but licensing is the problem. We have licensed greyhound racing at the moment, and injuries and deaths are happening on licensed tracks as well as on unlicensed tracks. It is just not the case that licensing will be a solution.

I see that time is moving on, Presiding Officer, so I will conclude. There is an opportunity for MSPs to be on the right side of history tonight. If there are members such as Rhoda Grant, Davy Russell, Finlay Carson and Tim Eagle who want to see a resurgence of greyhound racing in Scotland, with all the resultant injury and death to dogs, they are free to vote against the bill and to send a signal for racing to start up again and expand in Scotland. I point to the comments of the owner of the Thornton greyhound racing track, who has said that the only reason why he has not expanded greyhound racing at the track is because of the campaign and the bill. Those are the only things that are preventing greyhound racing from expanding in Scotland.

For the rest of us, who want to end the suffering of the dogs, let us vote for the bill at stage 1. Let us get the ban over the line before dissolution.

I thank all members for their wide-ranging contributions. I note the contributions from Mr Carson, who has spent quite a lot of the debate bolstering what was a minority view in the committee, rather than the view of the majority of committee members, who accept that there is an evidence base to push ahead with a ban.

I thank all the members who have spoken in favour of the ban and my bill—Gillian Mackay, Christine Grahame, John Mason, Rona Mackay and Maggie Chapman. I thank other members who have not been able to speak but who are deeply passionate about the issue, have engaged with the evidence—unfortunately, it appears that Mr Russell has not done so—and have concluded that we absolutely need to ban greyhound racing. Their personal support for me and for the work that my team and I have done on the bill has been superb over the past few years.

I am saddened that some members still feel that there is insufficient evidence. I am absolutely dripping in evidence—evidence that has come to the committee and to the Parliament over years and years, including from the industry itself. The saddening figures that come out every year detailing the injuries and deaths represent real dogs. It is incredibly sad to see that evidence coming in. We have also had the testimony of people such as me and hundreds of others across Scotland who have rehomed greyhounds and seen the long-term impact of injury and trauma on those dogs.

It is fair to say, on the issue of licensed or unlicensed tracks, that the committee had no evidence to show that the inherent risk of racing greyhounds at an unlicensed track was lower than that of racing a dog at a licensed track.

It makes no difference to the dog who the owner of a greyhound racing track is. The laws of physics do not magically change if the dog races at a track at Thornton, Newcastle or anywhere else. The evidence is the evidence, and the minister pointed to the scientific studies that show the impact on the dogs and how it results in injury and death.

A number of members have raised the prospect of the activity going underground, but we can see a greyhound track from space. These are fast dogs that need big spaces in which to race. If the bill is passed, ministers will have the power, should they choose to use it, to define a track. Rhoda Grant’s suggestion that we will suddenly have figure-of-eight racetracks—a kind of Scalextric for greyhounds—is bizarre. I am not sure what would happen when they crossed over in the middle. That is fantasy stuff. The bill is well defined, and ministers would have the power to define a track, should they need to.

Members have spoken of concerns about dogs that are being kennelled and traded in Scotland and then being taken over the border to England.