Chamber and committees

Welcome back. Our second agenda item is an evidence session with Mark Ruskell on the Greyhound Racing (Offences) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. Mark is the member in charge of the bill. I welcome Mark to the meeting, along with Nick Hawthorne, senior clerk, and Liz Anderson, assistant clerk, from the Parliament’s non-Government bills unit, and Alison Fraser, from legal services.

We have allocated around an hour and 15 minutes for the discussion. As always, we have quite a few questions, so I ask members to be succinct with their questions and answers.

I invite Mark Ruskell to make an opening statement.

We will move on to more questions about deemed crofts and environmental use. There was a question in the consultation about the purchase of grazing rights and so on, although the question did not actually allow the respondents to say what we have heard in evidence since then. More than a third of respondents to a question about the purchase of grazing rights suggested that there needs to be more legislation around it. As was noted,

“Many respondents called for automatic grazings rights to be included with the parent croft, often alongside a call for deemed crofts to end.”

We understand why the proposed legislation would stop inadvertent separation—which is, effectively, a bad solicitor not doing the job properly, as they do not recognise that a grazings share is part of the croft. However, respondents described

“disadvantages of deemed crofts ... such as limiting the rights and crofting activity of the crofter; the risk of ownership of grazings shares becoming concentrated; and crofting communities becoming fragmented.”

The Highland Good Food Partnership said:

“Ideally, deemed crofts and grazings shares should stay with their parent croft. The loss of a grazings share may seriously damage the viability of a croft, especially where the crofter wishes to keep livestock.”

From my point of view, and given what Rhoda Grant said about the outcomes that we want from crofting legislation, I cannot understand why there would not be legislation to prevent the splitting of inby land and grazings shares, particularly given the potential economic value—which might not have been there in the past—with the ability to pursue carbon capture and so on. We will move on to discuss that in a minute.

Why are we not going further to stop this, unless there are absolute conditions? Michael Nugent suggested the scenario of splitting off a bit of land for a house or something like that. Why is there not an assumption against splitting the inby croft land and the grazings share?

The evidence and testimony that you have given is distressing. However, we need to focus on greyhound racing in Scotland. Of the examples that you have just given, how many relate to dogs that had been raced in Scotland?

What I am pressing you on is that the bill sets out—rightly—to address animal welfare issues in Scotland and to prohibit greyhound racing in Scotland, so, although the testimony that you have given us is distressing, it is important that we understand accurately how many such situations came about as a result of racing on oval tracks in Scotland. With the best of intentions, your bill is not going to address the issues around greyhound racing outwith Scotland. It is therefore important that the evidence absolutely focuses on racing on oval tracks in Scotland. Of the testimonies that you read out, how many of those cases came about as a result of dogs racing in Scotland?

Will it extend beyond just the individual inby land crofts to the common grazings when a decision is taken?

We heard from other stakeholders that, currently, the crofting register boundaries are inaccurate and there would need to be tighter procedures to improve the process of amending registered boundaries. Does the bill need to go further?

I feel that it is a potential missed opportunity, because although there is no racing on oval tracks in Scotland, your evidence is that there is still an issue with animal welfare as it relates to dogs racing. As Emma Roddick suggested, why did you not consider having an element of licensing in the bill that could cover a lot of those aspects? The bill is so narrow that it is questionable whether, in the absence of any racing on oval tracks in Scotland, it will deliver anything. You said that the wider issues are the Government’s responsibility, but the bill was a fantastic opportunity to address most of the animal welfare issues that you used in evidence to support your bill.

Just an estimate is fine.

I am sure that it will be in our papers somewhere, but it would be interesting to understand the numbers that we are looking at and the challenge that might lie ahead with the change in legislation.

We will move on to our next theme, which is the Crofting Commission’s powers. Beatrice Wishart has some questions.

There will almost certainly have to be additional resources. Mr Barron suggested that a reduction in the capacity required for assignations and boundary changes will bring an increase in capacity in some areas, but, from what we have heard, there is a lot to do, and there are a lot of concerns about abandoned crofts and those who do not abide by the regulations. We will therefore need more active monitoring and enforcement.

Are there any plans to use technology? We heard a suggestion that drones or light detection and ranging—LiDAR—could be used to detect changes in the management of crofts. Might that be considered in order to provide some more capacity? If so, would there need to be additional legislation to allow that to happen?