Chamber and committees

Yes.

We have already had quite a robust discussion about the process that is available to people if they object to or disagree with NatureScot’s decisions. They have the right to appeal to a sheriff if NatureScot decides to refuse to grant a licence, to attach a condition to a licence or to modify, suspend or revoke a licence. If someone is dissatisfied with how NatureScot has operated in relation to their communication or liaison, they are also able to contact the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman.

However, I keep coming back to the intentions that NatureScot set out in its evidence. It was made clear that NatureScot wants to work with potential licence applicants and other stakeholders in the area to ensure that the licensing scheme, the code of practice and the advice and guidance that are given are appropriate and are bought into as much as possible by the people who will apply for the licences. That is where a lot of the confidence will come in that area. As I said, NatureScot—or SNH, as it was called previously—is used to working with all those stakeholders in a number of areas. I hope that there will be that confidence, and I think that there will be, as was demonstrated in the back and forth during the committee’s round-table session.

One criticism is that someone could say, “Well, I like the person who is in charge of NatureScot—I think they are decent—but what if it was someone else with a different personality?” There are processes, procedures and frameworks in place to avoid personal decisions being made. NatureScot would have to adhere to those frameworks and, if it was found to be the case that it had not adhered to them, an appeal would be successful. I hope that that gives comfort. I think that NatureScot’s answers addressed quite a lot of the concerns.

I have looked into it. I come back to whether the law, as it is drawn, is sufficient in itself. All I can say is that I am open to suggestions on that. I know that some people have been calling for that, but I keep coming back to the fact that people are concerned about a lot of things and I have not been able to have one-to-one conversations about them. I want to have those conversations from now as we move on to stage 2, and I will consider anything that could strengthen the bill in areas in which people believe that it is not strong enough. Alternatively, we could change the wording to make it clearer, or look at anything else that people want to bring to me.

I would rather that NatureScot used other methods to get people to conform with the code, and I think that that is the intention.

I guess that it will monitor compliance through some of the things that we have just discussed. If someone is not complying, the public will soon let NatureScot know, and it will respond to any public intervention.

NatureScot liaises with shooting estates all the time on a number of areas. Again, it is up to NatureScot how it would monitor compliance. I am very aware that it might have an increased workload as a result of the scheme. I have not yet had a one-to-one meeting with NatureScot, but it is one of the bodies that I really need to get up to speed with and have a one-to-one conversation with about what the bill will provoke in its work and what it wants to do on compliance and licensing, so that we can ensure that it is adequately resourced.

I will have to defer to Hugh Dignon on the consultation. However, before I hand over to him, I want to clarify what we are saying to the SSPCA and the agreement that we have. Time and time again, what has come up in evidence on this bill and others that deal with any kind of animal harm and cruelty is those situations in which the SSPCA has not been able to act and take evidence that would have helped a police investigation. When the SSPCA is called to a scene, it is able to deal with any live animals, but, if dead animals are involved, it is not able to give that evidence to the police. The issue came up during the passage of the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020 in the previous parliamentary session, and it has been mentioned by Mike Flynn and the SSPCA.

Police wildlife officers have also said that they can find themselves in a situation in which the SSPCA is first on the scene and it has taken a bit of time for the police to come. Indeed, it can take hours. If the SSPCA is first to arrive on the scene, it cannot do anything or take any evidence. The powers that we are giving to the SSPCA will not be blanket powers that will be given to everybody who works for it; instead, I will, as minister, be able to give licences to specific individuals who have been trained in the area, and I will have to be satisfied that they have had the training required to do the job. I will have oversight of that, and I will also be able to take those licences away from those individuals, if necessary.

In case of any doubt, I make it clear that the police have primacy in investigating wildlife crime. The powers that we are giving to the SSPCA are for evidence gathering to assist the police in those investigations. It closes a loophole that has been talked about for many years now—indeed, the need for it is quite compelling. That is where we are coming from on that point.

As for your other question about what consultation will take place, I defer to Hugh Dignon.

Are you talking about the Official Report?

It feels like I have never been away. [Laughter.]

Thank you for asking me to give evidence on the draft UK statutory instrument, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (Amendment) Order 2023. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board is a statutory levy board funded by farmers, growers and others in the supply chain. It provides services, advice and support to our world-class food and farming industry.

The AHDB comprises the four statutory levy-paying sectors that are currently included in the scope of the order, which are the cereal and oilseed industries in the UK, the milk and bovine dairy industry in Great Britain, the pig industry in England and the beef and sheep industry in England.

The amendment order is a UK-wide instrument, as has been said, to be made in the exercise of powers conferred by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 on the secretary of state, acting with the approval, for Scotland, of Scottish ministers.

The main purpose of the order is to deliver a set of modernising updates to the principal order, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Order 2008, which will enable it to deliver operational and financial improvements.

A UK-wide consultation on the proposed amendments was launched on 4 December 2022 and closed on 28 February 2023. It was led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which contacted all stakeholders by email. It received 17 responses and the majority of respondents agreed with the proposals included in the instrument.

I will not outline all nine amendments, because you have them in front of you. I support the changes that the order makes to deliver those improvements and I am happy to take any questions.

You are probably referring to the business and regulatory impact assessment, which sets that out. There was a great deal of collaboration with my officials ahead of the bill’s drafting, and the review group met a number of organisations and businesses, including representatives of many grouse moor estates. As well as meetings, there were questionnaires that were targeted at landowners, land managers, gamekeepers and other interested bodies. A few years ago, we commissioned research on the socioeconomic impact of licensing, and quite a lot of financial information from estates was collated in order to provide an evidence base.

Of course, it is not just estates that are involved. We also looked at the implication of banning the sale of glue traps, for example, so there were meetings with the pest control sector and we looked at the implications for people who sell glue traps. They are actually very cheap, so there was not much implication there.

In effect, I am saying that a great deal of work was done in speaking to stakeholders and reaching out to them in a number of ways to ascertain any financial implications that the bill might have for them, as you always have to do for bills, and we thought that they were minimal.

The proposal for a licensing scheme is not problematic in itself. We want to make it simple and NatureScot has said that it wants to make it simple. We do not want it to be too complicated or to take time away from the day-to-day work that land managers do. NatureScot says that it currently does not charge for licences, but I wonder how sustainable that will be. That is something that NatureScot will need to decide.

Perhaps people on this committee will need to decide whether a lot of applications for licences will be made to NatureScot. NatureScot seems quite happy that it can continue with the situation, but I would say that it is going to have to do quite a lot of work. Therefore, we might need to look at that. Even so, I think that any fee would need to be minimal, just to cover the administration costs.

You could look at environmental health, for example. Licences would be suspended in environmental health if it were thought that there was a public health risk. You are absolutely right that there are a myriad of areas in which that could happen.

You would hope that something so serious that required such action to be taken would never happen, but if NatureScot did not have the flexibility to do this and something like this happened, you, as MSPs, would be coming back in future years and asking for additional secondary legislation to amend the provision. The bill gives that flexibility, as you have said, in the way that quite a lot of other licensing schemes do.

Norman Munro wants to highlight some examples. I have been talking about environmental health, but I was obviously not anticipating your question, so perhaps the lawyer can jump in here, too.