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I might disassociate myself with the rationale behind that, but I certainly think that we should close the petition.

This suite of amendments has been lodged following discussions with the minister and in response to the committee’s stage 1 report. Concerns were raised at stage 1 about the burden that the reporting requirement would place on bodies, and some considered that an annual reporting requirement would be overly onerous.

I have listened to those concerns, and I am seeking to amend section 4 to provide for a one-off reporting requirement after three years and to allow the level of information that is required to be reported to be reduced to the numbers of cases, prosecutions and convictions. There is nothing preventing the report from including information that was previously set out in section 4, however.

Under section 4(3), the Scottish ministers may add “other information” that they “consider appropriate.” However, ministers are now not required, for example, to report on the number of cases that are prosecuted under common law or the number of cases that are prosecuted under summary or solemn procedure.

I will turn to my individual amendments in the group. Amendment 11 clarifies that the information that the report is to contain is to relate to things that have happened over the course of the three-year reporting period. Amendment 12 amends the information that is required to be reported on. Amendment 13 is a technical amendment to ensure that the bill is clear that the reference to “length of sentence” in section 4(2)(g)(ii) is to a custodial sentence as opposed to, for example, the period of a work requirement imposed under a community payback order. Amendment 14 removes the requirement to report on cases of dog theft prosecuted under the existing common-law offence of theft. Amendment 16 is a consequential amendment and amendment 15 is a minor and technical amendment.

Although I strongly believe that good data collection and reporting to the Parliament are important, I want to balance that with proportionality, allowing bodies such as Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to get on with their jobs. I have listened to concerns that were raised at stage 1.

I was therefore happy to lodge my amendments in this group, which I believe strike an appropriate balance, and I thank the minister and her officials for their constructive engagement in helping me to develop them.

I thank Rachael Hamilton for lodging her amendments 24 to 28. As with her other amendments in relation to working gun dogs, I remain to be persuaded of the need to include them in the bill. I would have no objections to the report that is required under section 4 providing information on working gun dogs. However, I am not sure that specifying that in the bill is necessarily helpful, as it would mean making a separate case for working gun dogs.

I have just spoken about amendments 10 to 16, which would reduce the amount of information that was required to be reported on. I lodged those amendments following discussions with the Scottish Government, in which there was recognition of the need to balance good data collection and reporting mechanisms with proportionality. My fear with amendments 24 to 26 is that they go against that approach and would place overly burdensome duties on bodies in relation to a very specific type of dog.

Amendments 27 and 28 define a working gun dog in two alternative ways. As mentioned earlier, I have a concern about amendment 27 in respect of the way it conflates breeds and training.

More broadly, I am encouraged by the fact that Rachael Hamilton will engage with the minister following stage 2, and I believe that they will be able to reach a consensus that will allow the issues in Ms Hamilton’s amendments to be addressed.

I move amendment 10.

I have nothing further to add.

Amendment 10 agreed to.

Amendments 11 to 13 moved—[Maurice Golden]—and agreed to.

I am happy to do so. Ultimately, the amendments would not affect the aggravation’s operation in relation to assistance dogs. Amendments 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8 would replace the references to “assistance dog” with “helper dog”. Amendments 3 and 4 would slightly reword section 2 to make it clear what a helper dog is—namely, an assistance dog as defined under the Equality Act 2010 and

“a dog of a category prescribed by”

ministers in regulations.

The suite of amendments is about providing an opportunity for flexibility to broaden the definition and allow, perhaps in due course through the work of experts and ultimately with the decision of Scottish ministers, for the broadening of that definition. That speaks to many of Rachael Hamilton’s amendments.

I have a number of concerns with the amendment. First, I am not entirely clear why a specific fund would be created to upgrade the security of kennels housing gun dogs and not other dogs. It would seem to create an inequity between those dogs and other working dogs, assistance dogs or, indeed, dogs generally. I am not clear why those dogs should receive protection that is not afforded to other dogs.

Secondly, the amendment appears to carry with it significant cost, and that causes me concern. Currently, the bill is relatively inexpensive. If agreed, amendment 23 would potentially change that and the benefit would be experienced by only a small proportion of dogs and owners. My bill already creates an offence for the theft of all dogs, including working gun dogs. Furthermore, the amendments in my name that the committee has agreed to mean that the Government could create an aggravation for the theft of working gun dogs via regulations, should it choose to do that. Amendment 23 goes significantly beyond that. Ultimately, the proposal is potentially expensive, it is too specific to a particular type of dog, and it is fraught with unintended consequences.

I think that, in the fullness of time, and after the expert working group has been consulted, working dogs and working gun dogs should be defined as helper dogs if the expert advisory group and Scottish ministers choose to go down that path. However, amendment 20 is, in my view, too restrictive and prescriptive. Amendments 1 to 8 would enable the policy intent behind amendment 20 to be achieved in any event. Ultimately, any regulations would be subject to scrutiny by Parliament—not by me.

Amendments 21 and 22 would create new sections after section 2. Their effect is similar, albeit that amendment 22 is specific to working gun dogs while amendment 21 relates to working dogs more generally. The amendments would provide for an aggravation in respect of those dogs. In relation to both amendments, I reiterate my earlier point that my amendments 1 to 8 would provide ministers with the regulation-making power to designate different categories of dogs, which could include working dogs or working gun dogs, as helper dogs.

I understand that ministers would develop regulations in concert with their expert working group. Therefore, it would be prudent to allow the working group and ministers the time to consider whether such aggravations should be applied to, for example, working dogs or working gun dogs.

I move amendment 1.

I will speak to my amendments 17 and 18. I am acutely aware that, in its stage 1 report, the committee recommended that section 5 be removed from the bill. The minister, too, has made her position clear. Following discussions with ministers and officials, I agreed to lodge amendment 17 to remove section 5 from the bill, to give effect to the policy of removing the requirement for review. Amendment 18 is consequential to that and would remove from the long title the reference to a review.

I thank the committee, Rachael Hamilton, the minister and her officials for constructive discussions throughout stages 1 and 2.

This has been a helpful debate on group 2. I have nothing to add.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Amendments 2 to 5 moved—[Maurice Golden]—and agreed to.

Yes. Assistance dogs would be treated the same; the change is that other categories could, potentially, be included in that definition. That is what amendments 1 to 8 seek to achieve.

Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 20 would require regulations that were made under section 2(2)(b) of the bill to

“include working gundogs and other working dogs as a category of helper dog.”

Although I recognise the policy intention behind that amendment, it is my view that, if Parliament provides ministers with a regulation-making power, ministers should have an element of discretion in exercising it, albeit that the exercise of that power is subject to parliamentary procedure at a future juncture.

I will start by speaking to Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 19. The emotional impact of the theft of a dog should be recognised in law. That is the main purpose of the bill. I also recognise that there are situations in which there will be an operational loss or loss of earnings for a person who owns a working dog.

Although I do not want to jump ahead to the debate on a future group, I point out that amendments 1 to 8, in my name, open up the possibility of the aggravation in section 2 being widened by regulations to include working dogs and, potentially, working gun dogs, although that would be a matter for the Scottish ministers.

Amendment 19 would place a specific type of dog—a working gun dog—at the heart of the section 1 offence. I understand Rachael Hamilton’s policy intention in seeking to ensure that the impact on owners of working gun dogs is fully taken into account in the criminal justice system when such a dog is stolen. However, in my view, singling out working gun dogs over other dogs in section 1 would give a pre-eminence in statute to the theft of those dogs over the theft of other dogs. It would also single out the theft of such dogs for special treatment in sentencing. I am not sure where that would sit alongside the aggravations in section 2, although I note that Ms Hamilton has lodged amendments to that section as well.

The theft of an assistance dog is not singled out in section 1 in the same way that amendment 19 seeks to single out the theft of a working gun dog. The particular issue in relation to working gun dogs did not explicitly come up during the committee’s stage 1 scrutiny of the bill, and, before changing the law on the issue, I would want there to be consultation on and scrutiny of such matters.

All the amendments that I have lodged have been developed following discussions with the Scottish Government, and I thank the minister for her engagement with that. At the outset, I want to express my appreciation for the support that I have received in developing the amendments that are before the committee today in a very short period.

Amendment 9 was lodged following careful discussion and feedback from the committee’s stage 1 report. I believe that the emotional and welfare impact on the owner and, indeed, on the dog itself should be taken into account when a sentence is handed down. However, the Parliament has recently legislated to provide for victim impact statements in solemn cases. I accept that, if we were to make provision through the bill for such statements in summary cases of dog theft, that would create a precedent that the Government and stakeholders such as the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service might not welcome. Therefore, having tested the issue, I am prepared to accept that there is no appetite to include victim statements in the bill. That is why I have lodged amendment 9 to that effect. Nevertheless, I believe that the emotional impact of a dog being stolen should be taken seriously.