It is an extra £14.2 million, because, as Mr Johnson will remember, we gave the yard £30 million—well, Derek Mackay did, without telling the Parliament or the minister who had ordered the ferries. The Labour Party is calling for another £14.2 million to be invested. The question is, who would invest £14.2 million—

I thank Neil Bibby for highlighting those issues. Does he agree that the appointment of Tim Hair and, subsequently, of Andrew Millar caused further problems for the yard, which it could have well done without?

It does not help that, this year, the industry has changed the way that it reports fish mortality. We know that more farmed salmon will die in Scotland this year than last year. Does the cabinet secretary share my deep concern about that, especially when one fish farm had a monthly mortality rate of 45.2 per cent, with more than 600,000 fish dying since the end of September?

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, in which I declare that I am a proprietor of salmon fishings on the River Spey, and that I am a member of the Spey Fishery Board and of Fisheries Management Scotland.

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to the newly published October mortality figures for the salmon farming industry. (S6T-02793)

I am delighted to hear that. There is potentially a huge benefit. I realise that there might be some nervousness when I mention the issue, given the state of the married quarters, but let us be clear that they are empty at the moment, and my proposal would provide a chance to gain some rent from them and for Scotland to benefit from them.

I will hold up my hands up and say that I tried to raise the issue with the previous UK Government but I got very little traction when I did that. However, I stand by the fact that the issue is worth investigating. All that I am proposing is that the Government looks at the option, so that we can get more veterans to come back to Scotland.

Given the spirit in which the amendment has been lodged, I hope that the Labour Party will support it. Scotland benefits from all the attributes that veterans bring back, most of which will help us in our businesses and everyday life.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am embarrassed to tread on what the minister has just said, but I tried to get his attention earlier to make a declaration of interest that I am a veteran. I should have done that before I made my speech, so I apologise for doing it now, but I failed to do it earlier.

I thank the minister for giving Parliament the opportunity to have a debate on veterans, and I thank Susie Hamilton for the work that she has done over the past year. I am delighted to say that I, too, welcome the work that the Scottish Government has undertaken to help our veterans—the veterans who stood by us.

I do not need to remind Parliament that national service stopped being a requirement in 1960 and that the last national serviceman probably left the services in 1963. Many of us do not know how many veterans are out there. We probably do not know that a person we are talking to is actually a veteran until we see them wearing a medal at a remembrance Sunday parade, whether it be a campaign medal or a medal for valour.

We could probably all put our hands on our hearts and name some of the conflicts that our soldiers have been involved in since the second world war. We could probably reel off Northern Ireland, the Falklands, the first Gulf war, the second Gulf war, Afghanistan and probably a few others. However, do we really know the extent to which our armed services have been involved in those conflicts and where they have been deployed? I can list a few. We have been involved in 45 official conflicts and many others besides. We could talk about Libya, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia, Belize, Gambia, Angola, Oman, Tanzania, Uganda, Cyprus, Malaya, Kenya, Aden and many more. I will not list them all, but there is a huge amount of them.

To my mind, we owe a debt of gratitude to those veterans who stood by us, fought on our behalf and, when they were not fighting, helped to keep the peace in the places that I have mentioned. They allowed us to rest easy in our beds at night, so we owe them the ability to have a bed themselves. After the 1914-18 war, we gave many returning soldiers smallholdings across the country to allow them to come back to a house and to farm the land. I think that that was a great idea. Over the past 110 years, Veterans Housing Scotland, which we know a lot about, has been helping veterans to obtain housing.

I remind members that, currently, about 176,000 people across Scotland have served our country. Fifty per cent of those are over 65 years of age. In my area, in Moray, we have a high proportion of veterans—about 9 per cent of the population. In Highland, the proportion is slightly less, at 5 per cent. Those veterans play a huge part in society. Their great contribution has been recognised in the NHS and Police Scotland reports that we have read, which recognise that veterans bring so much to us.

Businesses across the country recognise the skills that veterans bring, whether in problem solving or in being worldly wise when they look to address problems. In my opinion, we need to encourage veterans to move to and settle in Scotland, and to help them do that. That is why the Conservatives have lodged an amendment that seeks to increase the availability of housing for veterans who move back here.

In the reports that she has presented the Scottish Veterans Commissioner makes the point that we need to do more on local housing strategy. In the amendment lodged on behalf of my party, I propose that the Scottish Government should talk to the UK Government to see whether any armed forces married quarters could be made available to retiring service personnel to facilitate them moving back to Scotland, possibly at a reduced rent for a period of up to a year, so that they can bring their skills back here and we can seek to use them.

If I have time, I will give way to the minister.

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.