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You will be pleased to know, convener, that I will not speak for as long as the minister did on these amendments. However, I will address one or two of the key issues.

First, I turn to amendments from other members. On Dr Allan’s amendment 39, I would be grateful if the minister could explain to me how superimposing a right on somebody else’s right will not allow that new right to be challenged in a court of law. If you have sporting rights—which can be separate from landowning rights—and someone else has the right to take those sporting rights, how will that not affect your sporting rights? I am happy to take that up with the minister after the meeting in the spirit of the way in which the amendment has been discussed. If you are happy to do that, minister, I will be happy to move on.

Okay. I will turn to some of the other amendments. I am slightly nervous about praising any of the amendments in case that might be a kiss of death for them—let us hope that it is not. The proposal in Beatrice Wishart’s amendment 232, on extending deer management plans from three to six months, is a good idea. In my personal experience, one deer management plan took me more than 18 months to agree, because it was an agreement between public and private parties, trusts and charities. Trying to get everyone together to agree things took a long time. Therefore, providing a slightly longer period is an excellent idea.

I am nervous about amendment 222, on reviewing the code of practice every five years, because the code takes a long time to draw up. I was involved in the first code, which was fairly long in coming, and a lot of people fed into it. Five years is quite a short time to review it. Most of the codes have stood the test of time, but some of them have not, because of technological advances. Therefore, it is perhaps a better idea for the code to be reviewed every 10 years.

I am not convinced by Rhoda Grant’s amendment 68, because most of its provisions are covered by the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and the compensation relating to game damage that it will provide for. However, I am taken by her amendment 69, in which she requests lowland deer management plans. That makes eminent sense, because there are now just as many deer in lowlands as there are in uplands.

I am slightly nervous about Mark Ruskell’s amendment 29, because—like the minister—I believe that talking is good but ordering is bad, because that causes friction. If amendment 246 means that Mr Ruskell is again pushing for the Deer Commission for Scotland to be re-established, I think that that is a great idea. If not, I am prepared to work with him at stage 3 to come up with a sensible body to take on that role if that is not just to be SNH. I know that I am not a minister and that some would say that there is no reason to do that, but I would like to see the establishment of a public body that could help to reduce the conflict between landowners or those with an interest in land and SNH, which has a lot of responsibilities beyond deer management that might bring it into conflict with deer managers.

I think that Tim Eagle’s amendments, which mostly deal with the code of practice, are excellent. That code has evolved over time.

Emma Harper’s amendments 240 and 241 seem eminently sensible to me, and I urge members to support them. I hope that that does not damn them, because they are good amendments.

I also say that about amendment 233, from Rachael Hamilton, which deals with road safety. The point that I was making, which may accidentally have been misinterpreted, is that the lush grass on our verges, planted and looked after by Transport Scotland, combined with the road salt actually works to attract deer. It acts like a magnet, drawing them in from miles around the A9 to eat. Further, allowing vegetation to keep growing on roadsides actually increases the likelihood of accidents, because drivers cannot see deer coming. There is a balance to be struck and I would like to see a bit more work on that, because I think that that amendment could be extremely beneficial to deer management.

I will talk briefly about my amendments in this group. I came here because I believe that I have something to add on the subject of deer management, due to my 50 years’ experience. I do not come to disrupt; I come because I think that there are things in the bill that are wrong. I lodged amendment 132 because I was disappointed by a statutory instrument to remove close seasons for male deer. The minister at that time, who was not the minister we have now, failed to understand that it is not male deer who are responsible for calves. It is female deer who produce calves, so controlling male deer does not mean that you will not get calves. You absolutely will get them, because the females will travel miles to find male deer to ensure that they have calves every year.

Female deer were not controlled, because it was felt to be unpalatable to extend the open season for hinds, as culling hinds in March and April would actually mean removing foetuses from female deer and cutting their throats to ensure that they did not survive because some would have been viable. What we got instead was the—to my mind really bad—measure of targeting only male deer. We have to do more to target female deer, but we must do that in a clear and ethical way. That is why my amendment 132 is on the table.

It is important to ensure that what we are doing is clear and good management. I personally find it extremely distasteful to go to the hills and see male deer being chased and harried in February and March when some of them will probably not survive the winter because they are so thin and lacking in condition. I have a lot of experience of finding male deer that have been chased in plantations late in the winter lying dead up against the fence because they have been harried to a point where they can no longer survive. That is why I have lodged amendment 132. I do not do it to disrupt; I do it because I have a strong feeling about that.

I remind members of the point that I made earlier about how having 25,000 head of male deer being shot out of season has brought the venison market to a standstill. If I take a stag, buck or hind to a game dealer at that time, they just do not have the capacity to deal with it. We are killing deer in huge numbers, which may be the Government’s aim and the aim of some people, but we do not have the capacity to process them, and it will need a huge intervention by the Government to deal with that. One way that it could do that is by increasing the use of venison in schools and institutions such as prisons.

I agree with the minister that the capacity is there, but these deer end up in chillers in the backs of lorries and in game dealers, and the meat is not leaving the shelf. Some of it gets to the point where it has to be destroyed. My point about the male deer is that, over the years, we have seen an increase in contract stalkers, who move around Scotland shooting deer. Yes, they use the app, they record where the deer were shot, and, in the cases in which they were shot for Forestry and Land Scotland, the stalker gets a payment for each deer. As I said, those payments equate to about £4.8 million, which is a huge amount of money. Contracted stalkers often do not live in the communities where they are killing the deer. All that I am trying to do, minister, is to get you and others to think about taking on more staff at Forestry and Land Scotland to carry out deer management, rather than deer control, which will ensure that the associated employment happens in rural communities.

I have banged on enough about that. I apologise, but I feel passionately about this, and my passion comes from love for the animals that I believe we have to control.

Amendment 133 would stop the approach becoming about a single species. I would gently probe the minister on that and say that, in 2018, it was not all about deer. It was also about sheep, because, in 2018, Forestry and Land Scotland killed 222 sheep to protect its trees, and it accepted that sheep, as well as deer, play a part in shaping the natural environment. Amendment 133 would stop the approach being all about deer and make it about holistic management.

Amendment 142, in my name, is an attempt to make control schemes more accountable. I am a great believer in relying on, for lack of a better description, the citizen’s knowledge—the knowledge of people who have been doing this for years and years. They bring great knowledge to the table that cannot be found in books or read in magazines. That is why I want control schemes to be more accountable. Amendments 145 to 146 are all about scrutiny. We need to be careful that the people carrying out the scrutiny are not the people who are urging greater and greater killing.

I will leave my remarks there, but I am disappointed that I have been called disruptive. I am here because I have a passion; I am in this Parliament because I have a passion; and I am in this Parliament because I represent many people in the countryside who share my passion.

I press amendment 132.

I absolutely understand the level 1 exam that one takes. Are you expecting people who come from overseas to take that exam, to prove that they are fit and competent, before they can go to the hill? When I last took it, which was a long time ago, it took two days and a range day on the back of it. Will people come over here three days early to get through it? Is that right? What about people who come from south of the border? Will they have to come up and do three days of training?

The agreement between the minister and Tim Eagle to work together on what mandatory training will be required and grandfather rights is absolutely vital. I found it very odd that, having been trusted for 12 or 14 years to carry a rifle in the Army, I was not considered fit and competent to shoot deer when I came out of the Army. It seemed a strange position to be in, and there should therefore be grandfather rights.

All that I am saying is that if you set targets for forest rangers to go out and shoot 300 days a year when they work only 150 days a year, there are going to be some misses and some woundings. However, we have no information about that. I have no idea where SNH got its figures from. Has it trawled all the local estates that have been shooting deer? How did it get that information?

I would be very happy to scrutinise the issue with you over a cup of coffee, minister, to see whether the amendment is required—I will take that offer if you want to make it at some stage. However, I find that mandatory training without grandfather rights would be particularly difficult and particularly galling for those people who are already out there, doing what we have asked them to do.

One thing that I did not hear in your response, minister, was any evidence that you have spoken with NatureScot, the police authorities south of the border and the Home Office regarding the licensing requirements. I will happily give way if you can give me examples of when you spoke to the Home Office about how the bill will affect firearms licensing across the United Kingdom.

Really?

You are absolutely right—if that person lives in Scotland. If they do not, it will not be Police Scotland that decides. You should have talked to UK police forces to find out what chance they have to liaise with NatureScot on whether firearm licences that are issued south of the border can be used in Scotland by fit and competent people. However, nothing has been done.

If I were ever to introduce legislation to the Parliament, I absolutely believe that I would carry out the consultation before I did so. I will leave it there, convener.

I will press the amendment.