Chamber and committees

I am pleased to speak to the amendments in my name. I will be careful when I speak to the issues and will not add too many old stories in respect of them. I remember that, when I was much younger, I told my grandmother how to do something. She replied, “Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.” That is the point of amendment 10.

Amendment 10 is in two parts. The first says that, if someone has completed a training course, the authority must give them a licence. The second part seems to have caused a huge amount of consternation. It is based on an amendment that came about in spraying legislation many years ago. I am not sure that members here will remember it. It conferred what were known as grandfather rights in that people who had been practitioners of spraying were allowed to continue without a requirement that they sit a training course on it. That seems entirely reasonable. For members’ information, I set the figures in the way that I did because I thought that a 40-year-old would probably be around halfway through their career, and if they had done 10 years of practice they would probably know what they were talking about.

I am afraid that the minister misrepresented my point. It is about having a combination of the two factors. The requirement is that people must have been born before 31 December 1983 and have been practising the use of traps for 10 years.

It is a difficult situation, because everyone wants to send people on a course. I certainly remember that, when I left the Army, I was sent on a deer stalking certificate course, for the purpose of deer control. It was a full-day course. It was pretty expensive but pretty informative, and I was given a shooting test at the end. I know that the person who ran the course had less experience in deer management than I had, because they had been on the planet for fewer years than I had been practising that skill. That made it difficult for me to understand the reasons for my having to do the course. The shooting test, which involved spending an interesting day on the range, was more complicated for me to pass, and so to qualify to shoot four-legged animals, than my annual weapons test in the Army, which had allowed me to shoot two-legged animals.

This is my point: we are taking people to one side for training but we are really teaching them to suck eggs. We are impinging on their knowledge and being rude to them. If I were to introduce a bill that required every single member of the Parliament to complete a course in order to be a politician here, someone who had been here for a considerable time—perhaps even the First Minister, or the minister sitting at the table—would have to be taught the basics of being a politician. That would not be right.

That is why I lodged amendment 10, which is a simple amendment. I think that it is wrong for the minister to have said that, under my amendment, someone who was born before 31 December 1983 would obtain a licence. No, they would not. They would also have to have 10 years’ hands-on experience, with dirt under their fingernails from actual work—not dirt on their fingers from reading books. It is dangerous for the Parliament to get to the stage of teaching people to suck eggs.

Amendment 11, in my name, would allow the minister to vary the provision on evidence if it proved to be unsatisfactory. It would be a stopgap for the minister.

As for the other amendments in the group, I will listen with interest to Rachael Hamilton’s comments on amendment 10 and why she thinks it appropriate to remove the age requirement.

I also think that it would be dangerous to put amendment 113 through. We accept that wild birds are used for sporting purposes. I understand that Colin Smyth is against that, and I respect his views on the matter, but it is a fact of life that such activity is allowed, and while that is the case, we must give people the legal tools to carry out their job.

You cannot stipulate the number of traps that will be needed, as that would just be overbearing. That is why I think that amendment 115 does not work. As for amendment 116, I agree with the minister that 10 years is sufficient for refresher courses. All you will do if you make the period five years is spawn a whole industry to run tests and examinations.

I would have some sympathy with amendment 117 if Mr Smyth could tell me what the number in question would be used for. If he can tell me why he needs to know, say, the number of rats that have been killed in a specific trap in a specific place and how that information would be used to benefit the natural environment, I might be able to consider the amendment. Until he does so, though, I do not see the reason for it, because it would just result in another list of figures that would disappear into the archives of NatureScot, never to see the light of day again.

Finally, I turn to amendment 118. I have already made it clear that I do not believe in teaching people how to suck eggs. Does the member honestly believe that people who use traps do not take their responsibility seriously? Does he honestly believe that that sort of thing is not done to the highest welfare standards? As I have said to the committee before, I have never met people who go out there just to be cruel and barbaric in how they do these things. Frankly, if I ever do meet them, I hope that they feel the full force of the law, and I will make sure that I take part in their conviction. However, it does not sum up the people who use traps—gamekeepers and so on.

Will the minister give way?

Can I just finish, minister?

Once the appeals process had been exhausted with the person or the organisation that had refused the licence, I would be concerned if the only outcome was judicial review.

I am happy to give way to the minister.

I thank the minister for clarifying that. I have been involved in appeal processes against NatureScot or Scottish Natural Heritage, not only as an individual but through representing constituents in the Parliament. The system and the reasons around it are fairly opaque, so if that is the way that the minister goes—

Yes, I will.

I am grateful to the minister for clarifying the position, because that might get around the concerns that members of the committee have raised.

Just to clarify, without talking any more, I will press amendment 179, but I will not move amendment 18 at this stage. I will bring it back at stage 3, once it has been amended to address the minister’s concerns.

I am looking forward to fruitful discussions with the minister. Therefore, I am not moving amendments 6 or 7.

Amendments 6 and 7 not moved.

Section 3 agreed to.

After section 3

In some ways, I am actually encouraged by what I have heard this morning, but I would still like to make a few comments in response to what the minister has said.

First of all, amendment 176, in my name, clearly limits the use of glue traps and makes them subject to a licence. As a result, the general public could not get access to them; instead, those who could get access would be considered to be professionals and would have completed the course to get the licence. There is a way of doing that, and I am sure that the industry would work with the minister to ensure that a professional qualification was in place that would allow that to be identified.

I do not share the minister’s view that banning glue traps is the only way of limiting sales. There are other ways of limiting sales to professionals, and in that respect I would highlight the example of phostoxin, a gas that can be sold only to those who are qualified to use it. In fact, no one can sell it to them. The place where they get it must have a register, and the person who signs that register to allow the gas to be used or sold must be convinced that the person who wants it is properly qualified and has the necessary equipment.

I understand the concern about glue traps being cruel, but invariably what we are talking about here is putting traps out for a short period at night. I would also suggest that other means are not appropriate for use in, say, schools, hospitals or restaurants. Indeed, no one would want poison to be used in a restaurant—I certainly would not want that, and I would not want it to be used in hospitals or schools either. Moreover, as I have explained, traps in themselves do not necessarily guarantee that the animal will be caught.

I am not convinced that amendment 107, in the name of Colin Smyth, is required, for the simple reason that I do not believe that anyone will be told or ordered to do this sort of thing. The people who use these traps and other means fully understand the law and will not be prepared to break it, even if instructed to do so.

In summary, I do not believe that amendment 176 gives the right for glue traps to be sold to the general public. I believe that the licensing system does work, and it is vital that we have the ability to use glue traps in schools, hospitals and restaurants.

That said, I am slightly caught between two points. If the minister were prepared to work with me on these amendments before stage 3, that would give me some indication that I could withdraw or not move them and then bring them back at the next stage, hopefully with ministerial support. However, she did not convince me that that was going to happen. If she were to do so now, I would consider withdrawing and not moving my amendments.

On that basis, with the hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel, I am prepared to work with the minister to see if my amendments can be reviewed to make them more workable and more acceptable to her.

Amendment 176, by agreement, withdrawn.

The purpose of amendment 177 is to rectify what I perceive to be an error. If the minister wants to contradict me, I would be grateful to her for doing so, but I am not sure that there are any legal traps for killing wild birds available in Scotland. I do not think that there is a trap that allows you to do that. It is against the law to kill a bird in a trap, and rightly so. Amendment 177 seeks to remove the word “killing” in relation to the use of traps for wild birds, and amendment 178 seeks to ensure that “killing” applies in the context of the use of traps for mammals.

With amendment 109, Colin Smyth seeks to include in the bill a provision that would allow the trapping of all live mammals as part of the licensing scheme. I am not sure that my wife, who, contrary to my better judgment, believes in trapping mice alive and releasing them outside the house after they have been caught, would welcome having to be part of a licensing scheme or to apply for a tag or an identification to go on her trap. I am not sure that Colin Smyth has thought through his amendment, because it would affect more than just people who use traps in the countryside. It would also mean that people who use traps to catch live animals such as mice, squirrels, rabbits and even rats—I do not fully understand the principle behind live rat traps—would have to go on a course and fit a tag to their traps.

Therefore, I am not entirely convinced that amendment 109 is sensible, but I look forward to hearing Colin Smyth’s arguments and to my being able to go home and convince my wife.

Amendment 55 is highly important and entirely appropriate, and I am glad that the minister has lodged it.

Amendments 57 and 58, in the name of Rachael Hamilton, appear to be proportionate and sensible, and I look forward to hearing the arguments.

Amendment 78 appeals to me in that the Government needs to be open, honest and transparent about how it comes up with its decisions. I am sure that that will chime with the general public and that the amendment will therefore gain the support of the committee.

I move amendment 177.