I rise to speak to the two amendments in my name. Amendment 22 would remove mink from the scope of the bill, and amendment 23 would remove rabbits.

I will talk first about mink, but before I do so, I remind members that when I talk about controlling both those species, I have no intention—I have never had any intention in my life—of increasing suffering in dealing with a predator or an animal that needs to be removed. That must be done in a humane way.

Let us look at mink. Mink is a non-native invasive species. For members who may not remember this, I note that mink were introduced for mink farming, and when mink farming became no longer viable, they were released into the native, pristine environment of Scotland.

As such, mink are a danger to our flora and fauna. They are an aggressive animal, and members who have seen them operating on the banks of a stream, river or burn will have seen that they destroy birds and voles. Birds that they could destroy include ducks and important ground-nesting birds such as oystercatchers, sandpipers and redshanks. We need to protect those birds. Should mink ever get into a domestic environment, they would certainly kill every chicken in a pen. It is as simple as that.

Across Scotland, it is accepted that mink are not something that we should welcome. I remind members that the Cairngorms National Park Authority had a mink eradication scheme whereby it encouraged landowners across the national park to destroy mink. It provided mink rafts and, in some cases, traps to allow them to do that. That project was supported by Scottish Natural Heritage at the time and I believe that it is still in place.

The danger of not controlling non-native invasive species was demonstrated in Orkney—as you will know, Presiding Officer—when stoats got there in 2010. It is unacceptable that we allow that to happen in those environments, and sadly there is no way of being able to eradicate stoats. Why oh why is the Parliament considering making mink more difficult to eradicate when that species is destroying our native flora and fauna?

I also want to talk about rabbits. I have a real problem with rabbits being included in the scope of the bill. I listened to the minister speak at stage 2, and she said that rabbits should be included for a couple of reasons. The first was that they could be used as a cover for hare coursing. That is absolutely not the case. Rabbits and hares are significantly different; people who live and work in the countryside know that they are different and can identify them. People who seek to use rabbits as cover for an illegal activity should really have the book thrown at them, but rabbits do not need further protection.

The minister gave another reason for rabbits needing further protection. She said that they feel pain in the same way that foxes do. However, in the same breath, she is not protecting rats in the bill, because she does not feel that they are as good as rabbits or foxes. My problem is that, in most cases, if a constituent saw a wild rabbit come into their house, they would probably usher it out, but if they saw a rat come into their house, they would be straight on to the local council to demand that it be killed and that a rodent control officer be sent round.

I have heard no evidence that there is any difference. The only difference is that rats are not cuddly.

Rabbits present a real issue when it comes to land management. I am sure that I do not need to remind the minister of the expression “breeding like rabbits”. One doe rabbit can produce 100 kits a year. If we multiply that number throughout the year, we can see that we are talking about a huge number of rabbits.

When I managed a Scottish site of special scientific interest in relation to wild grassland and Scottish pinewoods, we had to resort to killing more than 10,000 rabbits a year for four years to allow the habitat to recover. We needed all the legal tools that were available to us to control rabbits. We engaged in shooting the rabbits, and we used long nets, which I have mentioned to the minister. That involves using dogs to flush rabbits, when they are away from their holes, into nets before they are culled, so flushing from cover when taking on rabbits is particularly important.

The minister said that she is concerned that people will say that they were flushing rabbits as a cover when they were hunting hares. I found that to be an odd contribution, because I am sure that she knows that hares and rabbits live in very different habitats. Hares live mainly in open fields, whereas rabbits live in closed vegetation so that they can go from one hole to another and can seek protection, so they cannot really be confused.

It is important that we are not squeamish about dealing with animals that need to be removed from our habitat. I am sure that I do not need to remind members that Scottish Natural Heritage sanctioned the killing of ruddy ducks—an invasive species—which were mating with our native ducks in Scotland, and the removal of hedgehogs from Barra.

In relation to native species, work is also being done to control deer. I question some of the headlines that members will have seen about controlling deer, but it appears that deer do not need the same protection. I have seen hinds that were heavily pregnant with calves being shot by Government agencies and, in some cases, by organisations that said that they were doing that in the public interest. I question that when the animals are left where they are shot.

However, we should not be squeamish about controlling animals if we do it in the right way and format. Therefore, I ask the Parliament to allow land managers to be able to kill mink—an invasive non-native species that is destroying our flora and fauna without control—and to give its approval for the removal of rabbits from the scope of the bill, because there is no need for them to be in it, just as there is no need for rats to be in it.

I move amendment 22.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I have been extremely encouraged at the number of interventions that members have allowed me this afternoon. I am grateful for that, and I will always allow members to intervene on me. During the afternoon, Ariane Burgess has spoken quite a lot but has not taken one single intervention. I know that that is her choice but, Presiding Officer, will you confirm that there is no time limit—

I state again that we surely must all want to ensure the humane dispatch of animals, and my amendment 36 seeks to do just that. When one gets into thick cover, it is sometimes very difficult to track down a wounded animal—Mr Fairlie used that example during committee debates.

I ask the cabinet secretary about animals that have been injured. For example, it might be possible to follow a deer with a broken leg over open ground, although one would have to move quickly. However, in closed ground, where the deer could move around within, say, bracken or rhododendrons, following it would be virtually impossible using just two dogs, despite the fact that the deer would be moving on only three legs. When a deer has a broken jaw—that does happen, sometimes, because a shot has gone astray or the deer has been injured in a road traffic accident—it is virtually impossible for two dogs to keep pace with the deer in cover. That is why I would like more dogs to be available to deal with injured animals.

That came home to me at the weekend, when I went over to Gairloch. I saw a stag on the edge of the road that had been struck by a lorry or a car. Its antler was lying on the road and it was standing on the edge of the road with a broken leg. In this case, because it was snowy and open hill, it was possible for the stalker I contacted to come out and dispatch the animal. If it had been a woodland setting, a stalker going out with two dogs could have spent days—literally days—looking for that animal. That is why I support people being given the opportunity to catch up with an injured animal and dispatch it as quickly as possible, and it is why I support not only my amendment 36 but Rachael Hamilton’s amendments.

There is a misconception in Colin Smyth’s amendment 34 that falconry results in the prolonged suffering of animals. I have never seen this in real life, but I know for a fact that golden eagles often hunt in the winter. They separate younger calves from their mothers and harry them until they are driven over a cliff face and killed. The eagles then eat the carrion down below. That is not what we are talking about. What we are talking about in this case, with falconry, is falcons—possibly not even native species—being used to kill an animal, which, as in most cases I have seen, is done extremely quickly and with little suffering. I therefore cannot support Colin Smyth’s amendment 34.

I ask members to remember that, if they vote against my amendment, they are possibly prolonging the suffering of an animal, which is not something that I would ever seek to do.

I remind the Parliament that I have an interest, in that I own and manage land and have been involved in wildlife management for more than 40 years.

I thank the minister for listening to some of the debates around the bill. I know that, in some of those, she has struggled to find a solution to some of the problems that she feels as a matter of conscience. However, her amendments are refreshing, because they take into account what is, after all, the good practice that is practised on the land by most people who are using dogs underground.

I am disappointed with Ariane Burgess’s amendment, because she seems to seek to defend it by suggesting that it will stop dog fighting and badger baiting. There is never any excuse for dog fighting, and never any excuse for badger baiting. The badger is one of the most protected animals in the United Kingdom and the offences for interfering with or causing injury to badgers are probably some of the most stringent offences that someone can be charged with. I therefore do not find those arguments compelling, or a reason to stop the use of dogs underground.

Those people who work in the countryside know that, when a fox gets a taste for lambs, it becomes a very difficult animal to control. Often, as we heard during the committee debate from Jim Fairlie, older foxes with fewer teeth become more susceptible to predation on lambs. If members have seen a few lambs with their back passages eaten out, tongues chewed out, or soft underbellies ripped apart while they are still alive, they will know why foxes need to be controlled. Therefore, controlling them underground, by using dogs to flush them from under the ground to be shot, is entirely appropriate and is necessary across the farming community.

Colin Smyth’s amendment 54 does not need supporting, because, as the minister has pointed out, that is what people are attempting to do when they flush a fox from underground: to shoot and kill it.

I support Rachael Hamilton’s amendments 55 and 58 because they are good practice.

I am concerned that, if members decide to support Ariane Burgess’s amendments to remove section 5, we will make a problem for ourselves that will prevent us not only from looking after domestic livestock but from looking after the flora and fauna of Scotland.

I press amendment 22.

I will start by speaking to my amendment 96. I know that Governments do not necessarily like looking back at what has and has not been achieved, but it is really important that we do that. My amendment 96 would place a requirement on the Government, after two years of the operation of any licensing scheme, to declare information about the applications that have been granted and those that have been refused. There are slightly different areas under each of those, which can be seen in the amendment. I think that the Government should also declare how long it takes for an application to be processed, and I would be very happy for the Government to add any other information that it feels is appropriate.

The minister said earlier that she was convinced that NatureScot had the facilities to do the licensing. I, too, am convinced that it has the facilities to do it, because I met staff and asked whether they had the ability to carry out the requirements of the bill and the various permutations of it and they said yes.

As far as Colin Smyth’s amendment 95 is concerned, I am minded to hear what the minister says. It does not necessarily chime with me that there should be a review every five years. We are talking about legislation and, if it is not working, I would suggest that the whole act should be considered, not just the licensing. I will be grateful to hear what the minister has to say about that.

The amendments of my colleague Rachael Hamilton are really interesting, because they drill down into the effects of the legislation, including the effect that it will have on the countryside. For those reasons, I support them.

I ask members to support my amendment 96, on the basis that it would give the Parliament full information about what it is imposing and would allow it to make decisions in the future on whether licensing is appropriate and is achieving what it aims to do.

Will the member give way?

Presiding Officer, I seek your guidance to confirm that no member has been given a cut-off time for their speech, so they are in a position to accept interventions. Although Mr Swinney might not like that, I am sure that you will give us a ruling. [Interruption.]

Does Colin Smyth agree that, in order to review the licence scheme, we need full details of all the licensing that has been carried out and that, in that case, my amendment 96 would support what he is trying to achieve?