Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Official Report 385KB pdf

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Petition

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Game Bird Hunting (Licensing) (PE1615)

Agenda item 4 is consideration of PE1615, by Logan Steele, on behalf of the Scottish raptor study group, on a state-regulated licensing system for game bird hunting in Scotland. I refer members to paper 4 and I seek their views on the action that they wish to take on the petition. The options include inviting the petitioner to give evidence to the committee, inviting oral evidence from a range of interested stakeholders and combining the above options into a single meeting, so that the committee would first take evidence from the petitioner before hearing from a panel of interested stakeholders such as RSPB Scotland, the Scottish Gamekeepers Association and Scottish Land & Estates. The committee could then agree to any subsequent action. Do members have thoughts?

I am keen on the third option that you highlighted, convener, with the petitioner being given a choice as to whether to give evidence. That may help the committee’s deliberations.

Okay. We have a proposal. Does anyone else want to comment?

I am happy to back that, convener, and I request that we also invite Scottish Natural Heritage to speak to its reports on international comparisons of game bird licensing systems. That would be very useful. I hope that our consideration of the petition will not just relate to issues of wildlife crime but look at the totality of game bird management systems in place in Scotland. In particular there is the issue of muirburn, which we have seen signs of in the skies around the east coast of Scotland in the past few weeks, but there are other environmental considerations as well.

Do you see SNH being part of the second panel?

I would leave it to your discretion to decide where it would fit in best. It could be part of the second panel or it could be in a panel on its own.

Are there any other views?

I concur with Mark Ruskell. I, too, am keen to hear SNH speak to the evidence that it has found on operations in other countries.

Given that there is pressure on our time because we have so much to deal with, I suggest that it would be sensible to include SNH in the second panel that I proposed. Thereafter, we will be able to take whatever decisions we wish to take. Are we content with that approach?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you, that is useful.

The committee’s first meeting after the Easter recess is expected to be on 18 April. As agreed earlier, we will move into private session. I ask that the public gallery be cleared.

10:55 Meeting continued in private until 12:46.