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I have figures in front of me about things such as the amount of convictions associated with the issue, but I do not have that granular detail. With the greatest respect, if I had it I would tell you. That does not mean that it does not exist. We will have a look into that and will report back to the committee.

Quite a lot of snares can be made from materials that are not necessarily bought. I understand that there is an argument for banning the sale as well, particularly when we take into account that some of the people who have been in touch with me wanting to have a licensing scheme are advocating the use of snares that they call humane cable restraints. Those are not snares that people make; they are professionally produced and they are bought.

At the moment, our position is that we will ban the use of snares, but it is early days. I will be interested to see what the committee recommends in that regard and whether it thinks that banning the sale of snares is something that it would usefully want to see.

The evidence is that a lot of snares are made rather than bought.

We have spoken to NatureScot, but you are asking a very specific and focused question about whether NatureScot has said that banning the use of snares would improve biodiversity. I do not have a one-sentence answer for that, because I have not posed that question directly to NatureScot. Perhaps you might want to do that.

You talk about my many conversations with gamekeepers. The gamekeepers I have spoken to have advocated for the retention of snares and have made the point that the other traps that are available are not as effective as snares. Nobody is saying that there is a trapping method that is as effective as snaring, but the reason why we are introducing a ban is that snaring has significant animal welfare concerns attached to it. We are not proposing the banning of snares for no reason or to make life difficult for people who are working hard to manage their land. We are proposing it because, over many years, there has been a great deal of evidence to suggest that snaring is inhumane and causes unnecessary animal suffering.

Ms Hamilton, nobody is saying that any trap of the type that you are alluding to is going to capture foxes; we are saying that the majority of foxes that are killed are dealt with by shooting. That method is available. Traps are available for other species where they are more effective. A range of options is available to people, which, if the ban goes through, will not include snares for the reasons that I have outlined, which are mainly animal welfare considerations.

Thank you for inviting me to give more evidence on the bill. I wrote to the committee in August, saying that I intend to introduce amendments at stage 2 of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill to ban the use of snares. I also intend to lodge amendments for a limited extension to the current powers of the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to investigate wildlife crime. Scotland already has strict rules governing the use of snares. However, I cannot ignore the weight of evidence that snares can and do lead to high levels of suffering. Their indiscriminate nature also means that non-target animals are frequently caught, including protected species such as badgers. I do not believe that further regulation would address those fundamental issues, and I believe that a ban on the use of snares is needed. I have, however, only very recently received proposals from land management groups for a licensing regime. I think that that came in on Monday night—I have not had time to consider that proposal fully but will respond in due course.

Regarding the SSPCA’s powers, my amendments will allow inspectors who are already investigating animal welfare offences to use their existing powers to seize and secure any evidence of related wildlife crimes. That will aid the detection of offences by allowing evidence to be gathered without delay.

To be clear, Police Scotland will retain primacy over the investigation of all wildlife offences. These are important issues but they are also very emotive and I have not made those decisions lightly. I have listened closely to stakeholders and have carefully considered all available evidence, including the independent reviews of snaring and the SSPCA’s powers.

Thank you, Mr Fairlie. I hope that you feel better soon. It sounded like that was a struggle.

I can outline the different types of predator control that will be available if snares are banned. The appropriate method of control depends on a number of factors, including the legal status of the predator, the topography of the land and the kind of livestock that is being protected. Mr Fairlie was absolutely correct about that.

The method most used at the moment is shooting, including at night—that is the predominant method for controlling foxes in particular. Trapping is also available, including live-capture traps. Dogs can be used to flush foxes to guns for the protection of livestock, as per the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023.

Farmers and land managers can take other steps to protect their livestock, including a lot of the things that they do already, such as housing their livestock during vulnerable periods; using fences, including electric ones, to protect their livestock; and diversionary feeding if they have an issue with a particular predator. Those are the non-capture and non-lethal methods; the humane lethal method that is used is shooting.

Mr Fairlie asked what other countries do. I cannot remember exactly what happens in every country, but I have been given a helpful list. In Europe, snares are banned in most European Union countries; indeed, Germany, which is a big hunting nation—it is probably second only to Scotland for game shooting—has banned snaring. A couple of countries including Spain and France have not yet banned snares, but the majority of EU countries have. Of course, Mr Fairlie will also be aware that our colleagues in the Welsh Parliament and Government recently banned snares completely.

I think that I was given this portfolio in mid-June. The day after I appeared before the committee to give stage 1 evidence, I met with Scottish Land & Estates and agreed to give it and other stakeholders that are involved in land management, particularly on shooting estates, an opportunity to have a round-table meeting with me, specifically on humane cable restraints. That round-table meeting took place in St Andrews house at the end of September. It lasted for a good hour to 90 minutes, during which time stakeholders were able to put forward quite a lot of detail with regard to what you are talking about. I have been in touch with those stakeholders and I have been able to have meetings with them whenever they have asked for them.

On engagement prior to that, I have a list of the ministerial meetings with stakeholders on the bill and I can forward that to the committee, if the convener would like that. I met with Scottish Land & Estates on 28 June and with RSPB on 20 July. I had a round-table meeting on humane cable restraints on 26 September, which included quite a lot of stakeholders. I met with the British Association for Shooting and Conservation on 3 October, NFU Scotland on 17 October and OneKind on 24 October, and I had a further meeting with RSPB Scotland on 20 September. I have made myself available to any group that wants to advocate one way or the other with regard to snares and working practices for groups such as RSPB Scotland, gamekeepers or anybody involved with the management of shooting estates.

I hope that all those bodies would say that I have made myself available. I have watched the evidence that this committee has taken—I watched it very thoroughly before my first appearance at the committee—and I have continued to engage with all those groups. However, well before I was given this appointment, in June, my officials were working on the bill and with all those stakeholders.

I gave a commitment to SLE and other partners off the back of the round-table meeting, at which they were advocating for a licensing scheme and the use of humane cable restraints in some situations. I offered them the opportunity to provide me with the detail of what they would want to see in a licensing scheme. I got that detail only on Monday night—48 hours ago. Given that I made the offer to them to look at what they proposed, it is incumbent on me to do so, and I and my officials are still looking at it.