Seòmar agus comataidhean

Group 5 is on the review of the act. Amendment 29, in the name of Rachael Hamilton, is grouped with amendments 30, 31, 17 and 18.

My question goes beyond rehoming. This is a piece of legislation that is going through the Parliament. Given that your views are now based on animal welfare, how many greyhounds in Scotland will be affected by the ban?

Thank you, Mr Ruskell. That brings us to the end of this part of the meeting, and I thank the minister and his officials for attending.

I am going to suspend the meeting until 10.45. However, given that we are running ahead of time, I propose that we then move into private session for 15 minutes, until 11 o’clock, before moving on to our consideration of the Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill at stage 2.

Welcome back. Agenda item 4 is consideration of the Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill at stage 2. I welcome Maurice Golden, the member in charge of the bill, who is supported by officials from the Parliament’s non-Government bills unit, and Siobhian Brown, Minister for Victims and Community Safety, who is supported by Scottish Government officials. We will shortly be joined by Rachael Hamilton, who has lodged amendments on the bill. Parliament officials who are seated at the table are here to support the member in charge but are not permitted to speak in the debate on amendments.

I will briefly explain the stage 2 procedures for members of the public—and to bring myself up to speed, to be honest. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. I will call the member who lodged the first amendment in that group to speak to and move that amendment and to speak to all the other amendments in the group. Members who have not lodged amendments in the group but who wish to speak should catch my attention. If the member in charge has not already spoken on the group, I will then invite him to contribute to the debate.

The debate on each group will be concluded by my inviting the member who moved the first amendment in that group to wind up, and I will then check whether they wish to press that amendment to a vote or withdraw it. If they press it, I will put the question on that amendment. If they wish to withdraw the amendment after it has been moved, they must seek the agreement of other members to do so. If any member present objects, the committee will immediately move to a vote on the amendment.

If any member does not want to move their amendment when called, they should say, “Not moved.” Please note that any other member present may then move such an amendment. If no one moves the amendment, I will immediately call the next amendment on the marshalled list.

Only committee members are allowed to vote. Voting in any division is by a show of hands. It is important that each member keeps their hand clearly raised until the clerk has recorded the vote.

The committee is required to indicate formally that it has considered and agreed to each section of the bill, so I will put a question on each section at the appropriate point.

No members are participating remotely. We move to the marshalled list for stage 2 amendments.

Section 1—Dog Theft

The Government’s position has changed from being potentially pro-licence to being pro-ban. Was there not more scope to have a broader impact on the welfare of greyhounds with licensing rather than with what the bill will deliver—which, from what you have just told us, will not impact any greyhounds? The Government had it in its powers to introduce licensing, which could have been more encompassing and had a bigger impact by looking at things such as kennelling and dog transport. Your position has changed from licensing to a ban. What has changed since the last evidence session, in 2024, that has made you side with a ban rather than licensing?

A couple of times, you have said that a certain aspect is maybe not for the bill, but it sounds as though it has a lot of potential unintended consequences. You talked about someone needing to offload 100 grand of profit and how they could do that. If I was a tax adviser managing someone’s affairs and I was looking at this session, I would be thinking, “Okay, we’ve got this bill coming in and it’s not going to make changes, but they will probably do that in the next five years, so I’ll send a leaflet to all the crofters and say, ‘I will buy your grazing shares,’ because that’s investable, or the risk is worth taking.” We then might be here in five years’ time, saying, “Do you know what? The horse has bolted, because we have a whole lot of absentee owners of grazing shares that we’re just not going to get back without fighting through the courts.”

You say that the bill is not the place to deal with the issue, but does it need to go further? I was going to ask this next question at the very end of the session. Does the bill need to go further to address some of the loopholes and put safeguards in place now, rather than highlighting those loopholes and allowing them to be exploited over the next four or five years until a new crofting bill is introduced?

Do you want to come back in, Josh?

Donna Smith, you touched on safeguards.

Thank you. That brings us tidily to our next theme, which is the enforcement of crofters’ duties, and questions from Alasdair Allan.

Does Donna Smith want to comment?