Before I speak to and move my amendment, and because there are new committee members, I would like to make a declaration of interests in line with those that I have made before, so that people are aware that I am a member of a family farming partnership and the joint owner of a wild fishery. Both roles require the controlling of some species of wildlife, including stoats, weasels, mink, rats, mice, foxes and corvids, which include crows, rooks and jackdaws. I have been controlling and managing wildlife to manage environments for more than 40 years. I use licensed firearms and spring traps.

I make it clear that I do not own any hill ground, but I have been involved for more than 40 years in muirburn and burning to manage grassland and farmland and protect it from invasive species such as gorse and broom. In the past, I have supervised muirburn and have contributed to muirburn consultations and management plans. I hope that what I have said is sufficient for the committee to understand that I have a relevant interest in the matter.

Convener, I will speak only to the amendments in the group that are relevant to me. The reason why I lodged my amendments is to ensure that training courses are relevant and that there is consultation with interested parties and land managers when it comes to setting them up. In my experience in the countryside, I have found that, once courses have been set up, they tend to expand in time. For example, a deer stalking certificate 1 course that could have lasted two days now extends to four days. It concerns me that a whole industry is building up around these courses. I believe that they can be limited in time to make sure that they are short and relevant.

The other thing that I have found is that courses are becoming increasingly expensive. There may be up to eight to 10 people on a course, with each being charged £500 to £600 for it. It can work out as £3,000 a day for one instructor, which seems an extremely high figure. I seek to limit the cost of the courses to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to take them.

I do not propose to speak to the other amendments in the group yet. I will listen to the arguments that are made on them and comment at the end. Thank you for your time, convener.

I move amendment 180.

We, in this room, all recognize that every part of Scotland is different. I am sure that the convener and Colin Smyth would argue that the Borders is the place to be, and Kate Forbes and I might argue that the Highlands are the place to be.

I thank the member for giving way. From the data that she has gathered, what moorland ground-nesting bird is nesting on 15 March?

I am asking about 15 March in the Highlands.

Minister, I am sure that you will accept that things happen at a different pace across Scotland. As a farmer, you will know, for example, that grass will grow quicker in Perthshire than it will in the Highlands. That affects all wildlife, as far as seasons go, because things may take longer when it is colder and darker for longer. That is why I am asking for allowance to be made for geographical variance across Scotland. To treat Scotland as being all the same seems to me to be somewhat strange if we are trying to control management and put it on a level at which we get the best possible outcome for each environment.

I am not seeking a meeting—I seem to be the only member who has not had, or has not been offered, a meeting with you, minister. Will you accept, nevertheless, that there is variance across Scotland and that it would be worth considering geographical variance to take into account latitude and conditions?

With the committee’s indulgence, I will comment briefly on Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 63. The reason for asking for the time period to be extended from five years to 10 years is purely that the period will have a huge effect on whether a business is viable. I do not think that anyone really understands that buying just an Argocat, without a sprayer on the back, is probably going to cost you £35,000. Buying a Land Rover or another vehicle to get round the land that you are managing will add another £30,000. When you add on the costs of the traps and the rest of the equipment that you will need, the cost of going on the training courses and the cost of providing a house for the employee, you are probably looking at an investment—just to start up with one employee—of north of £150,000, and the yearly running costs for these places are exceptionally high.

The point of having a 10-year licence is that it would give some surety and security, most importantly to the people who are employed there. There is a real fear that jobs that are here today may be gone tomorrow, and a five-year licence could bring that about. Everyone knows—I am sure that Ms Forbes knows this—the fragility of the rural countryside and of jobs for gamekeepers on upland estates when it comes to management. Protecting their jobs and giving investors some surety is therefore important, which is why I support the period being changed to 10 years.

I am slightly concerned about Colin Smyth’s amendment 131. He wants every single animal that is killed or taken on the land to which the licence relates to be recorded. We would have long lists of rats and mice and every other species that we could possibly record, and I am not sure what benefit would accrue from that at the end of the day. There might have been a way in which the amendment could be supported if it was targeted at species excluding rats and mice. It might have been important to include animals whose spread we want to keep track of that are being killed. An example is mink, which there is encouragement to remove as they are an invasive species.

I urge the committee to support Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 63 and not to support Colin Smyth’s amendment 131.

I believe that the member’s amendment is important for those reasons, but does he accept that carrying out muirburn on grassland could also have the benefit of removing problems that cattle and crofters face with ticks? That could help to limit the spread of Lyme disease, which is a serious problem across the Highlands.

Some people will think that my amendments in this group are wrecking amendments, but they are absolutely not, because I am seeking to get the minister to explain why the code is needed. I have been involved in muirburn since I was 18 years old and, without embarrassing myself, that was 44 years ago and I have done a considerable amount of it.

Muirburn may have changed during those 44 years, but the reasons for doing it have not. You need to manage vegetation, because if you do not it becomes rank and of low value to flora and fauna and certainly shades out the pioneer growth that comes underneath. For me, muirburn is about creating a mosaic, and there is a careful way of doing that to ensure that we have mixed habitats across moorlands where we have pioneer communities. Those communities may be as low as individual grassworts or plagioclimax, which is short heather and bluebell heather, or they may be climax vegetation, which is the longer rank heather. All those things have a part to play.

Pioneer communities are particularly important for hares and similar species. Plagioclimax communities are important for ground-nesting birds in allowing them to move around with small chicks and get insects, and climax vegetation is important in allowing nesting sites for more apex predators such as hen harriers. Therefore, each of those communities provides a niche of habitats for different species. Diversity is the key to this.

Controls have been placed on deer because they are blamed for damaging the hills, and I would sometimes agree that they do. However, that is because they are delving into the pioneer and plagioclimax communities, which provide the best grazing for them. They do not touch the old rank climax vegetation; in fact, very few species do. They are there, and I am trying to ensure that we have diversity.

Muirburn is about burning vegetation. Some people are under the misapprehension that it is about burning peat, but it is certainly not about that. It needs to be understood that it is about removing the vegetation to allow new vegetation to come through.

It is not random. It has never been randomly carried out on the hills but is very carefully managed. I say to members of the committee that it ain’t easy. Anyone who has done it will know that there are huge effects that can make muirburn difficult; whether it is rain, wind or snow, it all plays a part.

It is important to understand that carrying out muirburn requires a skilled practitioner who understands what can be safely achieved within a period. Burning a slope can be easily controlled if the wind is in the right direction; if it is in the wrong direction, however, you will have problems.

The plan, at all stages, is to burn rotationally. I will spend a wee moment on that, because it is really important. People who have been up and looked at heather habitats know that heather regenerates at different speeds. I could certainly take you to bits of hill where heather will regenerate such that you would have no idea that burning has taken place five to six years after it has been done. I could also take you to other bits of hill where it would still be noticeable 12 to 15 years afterwards.

The fallacy of the bill is the fact that we are talking about burning on peat depth. If you go up into the high montane, where you should not be burning, there is very shallow peat depth where there is a schist underneath it, which means that to burn it would be dangerous. It is bad for that montane. In some ways, burning where there is a more equal peat depth is far more sustainable. I do not like the fact that the bill talks about narrowing it down to peat depth.

I have no idea how you can look at an entire burn area—where you are going up and doing 100 or 200 square metres—and work out the peat depth across that whole 100 or 200 square metres to work out whether you can burn it. I think that that is dangerous.

With these amendments, I want to understand where the minister is coming from and where he believes that the current muirburn code is wrong—because, if implemented, the current muirburn code is correct. Of course, I would say that, because I worked on the muirburn code when it was first brought out. However, I am confident that if you read through all the muirburn code guidance, which is a very straightforward document, you would feel confident that, if muirburn was carried out in line with that guidance, there would be nothing wrong with it.

My plea is for the minister to explain to me why licensing is required when we have a decent code. We do not need to introduce licences, but rather to enforce the code that we have, and to rely on and use the skills and experience of those people who are on the hills and who understand the hills that they—and perhaps their fathers and grandfathers before them—have worked on perhaps all their lives. We need to understand that they have a real argument to bring to the table about why the management of muirburn is best done under the code and not under a licence system.

I am interested to hear what the minister says to the arguments that I have raised and why he thinks that a licence is more appropriate than a properly enforced code.

I move amendment 22.

I listened carefully to what the minister said. It is clear that he understands that, when I lodged those amendments, they defined what is not moorland—that is, improved grassland. I am not sure how the minister could think that improved grassland would include people’s gardens, or that land suitable for cropping would impinge on people’s gardens. The amendments try to define it in more detail than Gillian Martin’s amendments did when she lodged them.

I am happy that my amendments are correct, and I am not convinced by the minister’s argument. I urge committee members to vote in favour of my amendments to ensure that there is no dubiety, which I believe there is at the moment. I will press amendment 181.

Amendment 32 is a very simple amendment, which I am sure the minister will whole-heartedly embrace, because there is no point reinventing the wheel if the wheel is already there. My suggestion, under the amendment, is that

“the Muirburn Code produced for the Scottish Government by Scotland’s Moorland Forum and published on 22nd September 2017”,

which was adopted by the Scottish Government, be the first code. It seems to be an extremely good and workable document, and it has been endorsed by NatureScot, whose staff would no doubt be the people who would draw up the new code.

Rhoda Grant’s amendments in the group set out to prepare a muirburn code. Her amendment 163 would be irrelevant after my amendment had been accepted, and the rest of the amendments would be overtaken by the extremely sensible suggestion of using the code that already exists. That is all.

I move amendment 32.