Chamber and committees

No races are currently taking place at Thornton. I do not think that there have been any races since March this year, but I would point to what may happen in the future, particularly if the bill does not go ahead. The committee received evidence from Paul Brignal, the owner of the Thornton stadium, in response to the call for views. He indicated that, if it were not for the bill and the campaigning around it, Thornton would now be GBGB licensed. He wrote:

“the Stadium would have been racing under GBGB rules and providing part of the SIS service to betting sites all over the world, and would have been a thriving business contributing to the Scottish economy.”

The appetite is there for the one remaining greyhound racing stadium in Scotland to expand and get GBGB certification, which would mean many more races in Scotland, many more dogs racing, a higher frequency of races, more injuries and more deaths.

Partly because of the scrutiny of the committee, the member’s bill and the petition, greyhound racing currently does not exist in Scotland. However, the future may look very different. I draw the committee’s attention to the proposal to end greyhound racing in Wales that looks as though it will go through the Welsh Senedd. If the Prohibition of Greyhound Racing (Wales) Bill goes through the Senedd and is approved, investors may look to invest in upgrading tracks elsewhere in the UK. If the bill before the committee does not go through, they may well look to Scotland and decide to invest in Thornton. The future is uncertain; what happens will depend on whether the Parliament approves the bill.

I cannot see it, convener. If somebody wanted to race greyhounds around a barn, for example, that would not work. I am not sure how they could hide it. The tracks are hundreds of metres long—you can see them from space. I am not sure how effectively greyhound racing could go underground to a point where it could not be detected.

The SSPCA and local authority inspectors have existing duties under the 2006 act to investigate unnecessary suffering, alongside the police, if that is appropriate in a particular incident. If such a situation arose, they would probably already be there to look at wider aspects of animal welfare and whether the 2006 act was being breached. They would be in the mix anyway if there was an investigation. It would probably be the police, primarily, who would take responsibility for seeing who was organising the race and who was racing the dogs. It would then be for other inspectors to consider any wider welfare impacts.

I have acknowledged the position of the Government and officials in relation to bringing the bill closer to the 2006 act. If there was a way to make the bill fit more neatly with the existing powers of inspectors, I would be open to that.

Yes, the issue has been raised, particularly by animal welfare charities, which would like to see progress on greyhound welfare everywhere in the UK and an end to greyhound racing everywhere in the UK and Ireland.

The bill is very tightly drawn and creates a stand-alone offence of racing a greyhound and organising the racing of greyhounds in Scotland. It is obviously not possible for us in this Parliament to create an offence around racing a greyhound in Swindon, Oxford or, indeed, Wales. The issues around dogs that are kennelled in Scotland, whose trainers live in Scotland and that are taken to races around the UK relate to existing practice—it happens at the moment. I am concerned about some of the welfare implications of that practice, particularly around kennelling, breeding and transportation, but it is not within the scope of the bill.

There may be a case for the Scottish Government considering wider licensing. For example, is animal transport licensing currently working effectively for racing greyhounds? Are local authorities enforcing it? However, that is outwith the scope of the bill. As the member might recall, I asked that question of the minister during last week’s evidence session. I would like the Government to conduct a wider review, but that review would also be outside the scope of the bill. It may be that such a review could consider other animals and other breeds of dog. The Government might need to do a larger piece of work.

I note that, alongside introducing its bill, which will create a stand-alone offence of racing a greyhound, the Welsh Government has committed to doing a wider piece of work to review the existing regulatory framework in Wales in relation to racing greyhounds that cross the Welsh border. The Scottish Government could also do such a review, but it would not be within the scope of this bill, which is about creating a narrow offence and giving the courts enforcement powers on the back of that.

I point to what happened in Wales, which had an unlicensed track—the last unlicensed track in Wales. It sought investment, registered with GBGB and, as a result of that, started televising races around the world. The number of races went up, the number of dogs involved went up and, as a result, the number of injuries and deaths went up. That might change, if the Welsh Senedd approves a bill to end greyhound racing in Wales.

If we do not agree to the bill, the same could happen here: the last remaining unlicensed track could get licensed, and, based on the figures that come from GBGB, I do not think that that would lead to a welfare improvement. If anything, it could result in more dogs being raced, more dogs dying and more dogs being injured. That is the risk.

To what extent does case law help us to make a distinction between “significant environmental harm” and “severe environmental harm”?

I guess that it would depend on whether the harm was severe or significant, in which case the higher sentencing would be available.

How can criminal liability be established within large corporate entities and multinational organisations?

I am particularly interested in the threshold of intent and recklessness.

I want to go back to the threshold for liability. The bill requires intent or recklessness, but could it extend to negligence or provide for strict liability for organisations? That would be moving more into the territory of section 40 of the 2014 act, rather than staying purely with intent or recklessness. As Iain Batho said, that involves a much higher bar for proof, and there would then be a choice about which provisions to go for.

And short questions—okay. The panel has already touched briefly on some of the definitions of ecocide, such as severe environmental harm and harm that is widespread and long term. Can you offer some comparison with how other jurisdictions have defined ecocide and say where you see the definition that sits in Monica Lennon’s bill? Ricardo, you covered this briefly earlier. Do you want to say anything more about how those terms are defined in the bill?