Chamber and committees

Yes.

All my amendments in the group—amendments 152 to 155—are to do with the requirement to be fit and competent to shoot deer. There are significant concerns in the sector about the firearms licensing implications arising from section 28. I understand that the Scottish Association for Country Sports has written to and spoken with the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity about it. The bill as drafted would require anyone who is shooting deer in Scotland to be entered on a new register of authorised persons once they have been assessed by NatureScot to be “fit and competent” to shoot deer. Although paragraph 182 of the explanatory notes describes it as a straightforward process for applicants, many issues remain unresolved, including the criteria for satisfaction and how the new test would interact with the existing firearms licensing law.

Self-regulation has served the sector effectively for many years and has maintained high standards voluntarily. There is no scientific or peer-reviewed evidence to support claims that mandatory training is needed for deer welfare. The deer working group said that wounding rates might be 6 to 17 per cent, rather than explicitly confirming whether that was the official evidence. There is no official study into the wounding rates or second shot data that would suggest that mandatory training is required. In fact, I recently submitted an FOI request to Forestry and Land Scotland, asking about its wounding rates. It responded to say that it does not record mis-shots or wounded deer, which I find amazing. Therefore, I wonder on what evidence the Scottish Government is basing the apparent need for mandatory training. The imposition of mandatory training would deter entrants to the sector and reduce the pool of active stalkers at a time when higher culls are being expected and are called for. There is no consideration of grandfather rights for practitioners in the bill—the fact that I have 50 years’ experience does not absolve me from having to be trained by someone who may have only days of experience.

Firearms licensing is wholly reserved to the UK Parliament. Under section 27 of the Firearms Act 1968, police forces must be satisfied that an applicant has good reason for keeping each firearm that they seek to possess. For deer stalking rifles, the good reason is normally demonstrated by a person’s intent and lawful ability to take deer. However, the bill would make it unlawful to shoot deer without being on the authorised register, which would create a direct dependency. If an individual is not on the register, they cannot lawfully shoot deer and, therefore, they may no longer meet the good reason test for possessing a suitable firearm. Therefore, the bill risks undermining the established Great Britain-wide firearms licensing framework, which has just been reviewed by the current UK Government. We would be left with the inevitable chicken-and-egg situation of what comes first, the firearms certificate or being found to be fit and competent? You cannot have one without the other. The two pieces of legislation do not work together, and that will place an unnecessary burden on the chief of police. Police Scotland processes around 9,000 firearms and shotgun certificates annually. Without a robust, streamlined information-sharing mechanism, the proposed system would require up to 8,000 additional checks with NatureScot each year to verify whether an applicant’s status is authorised on the register.

The impact, of course, would not be limited to Scotland. Many certificate holders in England and Wales regularly stalk deer in Scotland, but the 43 police forces in England and Wales currently have no information-sharing protocol with NatureScot. Each case, therefore, would require direct verification of an applicant’s authorised status on a Scottish register, which would place an unsustainable burden on both sides. I do not know how the imposition of those regulations would impact on foreign deer stalkers.

Those pressures would, to my mind, inevitably delay licensing processes, reduce capacity and create significant inconsistency across the UK. The Home Office has already been made aware of the bill in its current form, and I believe that the guide on firearms licensing law would require amendments to address the new Scotland-specific requirements.

I would be delighted if the minister could explain to me what engagement has been had with Police Scotland, the Home Office and NatureScot around that issue, whether the three parties have talked together under his guidance and how people will travel to Scotland from the rest of the UK to manage deer, either professionally or recreationally as a country sport, if they are not on the register in Scotland.

My amendments 152 to 155 acknowledge that fitness to hold a firearms certificate is already demonstrated under the Firearms Act 1968. Given that NatureScot recently wrote to the regulatory committee to say that it already has high standards of training and expertise among practitioners, there does not seem to be any need for the insertion of mandatory training in the bill.

My experience tells me that people travelling from overseas who have gone through tests such as the Jagdschein test, which is a mandatory test in Germany to shoot deer, are no better qualified than somebody like me, who has not been tested. Will they be fit and suitable people? If you have a Jagdschein or a European accreditation for shooting deer, will you be considered fit and competent to shoot deer in Scotland? If not, why not? Where would it put us as far as the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act is concerned?

So many questions have not been sufficiently answered. My view is that my amendments should stand and that, if you wish to do something different, minister, you should lodge amendments at stage 3 to prove how you have considered firearms licensing across the UK in relation to the requirement for mandatory training. I find no evidence to show that it is required.

I move amendment 152.

Before we go any further, I will make a brief declaration, which is that I am a partner in a farm in Moray. I will give a fuller declaration when we come on to discuss deer management.

I am interested in the point that the cabinet secretary makes. The cabinet secretary well knows that, while some matters are reserved, the Scottish Government controls the development of power distribution, as it holds the levers of planning.

The cabinet secretary said previously that she is not prepared to separate out individual items, because she cannot see the rationale for it. SSSIs are the underpinning of the legislation that protects Ramsar sites, special protection areas and special areas of conservation. That is fundamental for Scotland, and Scotland does have control over it. The problem is that, if we continue to develop in SSSIs, which are frighteningly small in Scotland, we will probably affect birds and other nature matters in those critical areas. I am unclear in my mind why the cabinet secretary is not prepared to give SSSIs greater protection. They underpin everything that the Government does and can do in Scotland when it comes to nature conservation. Perhaps she could explain that to me.

My point about going back to the days of the DCS is that people who were managing deer felt then that they had a specific organisation that could listen to them and that heard and related to their views. A lot of the members of the Deer Commission for Scotland were stalkers whom the DCS employed. The problem is that that experience has gone since the function has moved to NatureScot or Scottish Natural Heritage. My experience, and the experience of many people across deer management in Scotland, is that NatureScot does not understand the problem.

On that basis, if the minister is not prepared to support the amendment, would he at least support the fact that deer management in NatureScot must be done by people who have taken part in deer management? They must have walked the miles in the boots to be able to tell the boots which direction to go in. Is that not fair?

One of the issues with deer is that, in the winter—especially along the A9, for example—they move down to the road to eat the lush grass on the edges of the roadside and to scavenge for the salt that is there. In addition to controlling deer, therefore, we could identify areas that need additional fencing in order to improve road safety, in the same way that we identify where crash barriers are needed in areas where people could move from one side of the road to the other. Does the member think that that should be considered as well?

The reason that I have come to the committee is because I would like to add to it, and I feel passionately about the subject.

The next-door neighbour who has too many deer is being asked to control them to allow somebody else to achieve an end. What about the next-door neighbour who has far too many sheep, which come across because there is no boundary fence? Will you ask them to remove the sheep from the hill and destroy their farming enterprise? Are you happy to do it just on deer?

I am not doing that.

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.