 I welcome to the 20th meeting of the rural affairs and islands committee in 2023. Before we begin, can I remind all those members using electronic devices to please turn them to silent? Our first item of business today is to decide whether the review of evidence heard during our pre-legislative scrutiny of future agriculture policy should be taken in private at our next meeting. We all agreed. Mae'r next item of business is an evidence session on future agriculture policy with representatives of major supermarkets in Scotland. First, I would like to put on record that we did ask Tesco co-op and Aldi to join us in this session. The reasons behind having these sessions were explained to them quite clearly, but very disappointingly the three organised supermarkets declined our invitation. However, I am delighted that this morning I welcome to the meeting Chris Bowne, who is a sustainable business director from Asda, and Sophie Thorpe, who is the technical and sustainability director in manufacturing from Morrison's. We have approximately an hour this morning for questions. Can you give us your view on how the food supply chain typically operates in the UK and the role of major retailers like yourself in the food chain? I will kick off with Chris. I would say that the overall perspective will be that it is a very successful food supply chain. If you think about the challenges that the UK food industry has faced in the past 20 years from BSE for the foot and mouth, and yet in general the shelves in our shops have been well stopped, there has been availability of products that might not be a complete range, but for most cases I am sure you as policy makers have not been challenged about the availability of food. We have proven to be robust and responsive both in terms of what is happening in the supply chain and in terms of changes in terms of customer purchasing habits and patterns. We managed to get through a global epidemic. Can you elaborate more on how you see the food supply operate in practice from the field to the plate? I think that varies according to the supply chain. In some instances, on livestock for example, we operate through our processor, which for Scotland is ABP with that plant at Perth, and then they are taken from farmers who both supply dead weights, and in some instances is coming in through auction markets. If you looked at something like potatoes, we as to operate its own potato packing plant, and that is supplied by two major grower groups. One is Scottish Potato Co-op, and the other is Tay Growers. They do over 90 per cent of the supply into that packhouse. If you looked overseas, we would deal with pharma cooperatives, and we would deal with the large brands. There is no one size that fits all in this regard. It depends also on what the supply chain and the suppliers are wanting, so we are trying to adapt to meet their requirements. Can I pronounce your surname? Is it Thrope? It's Thrope. Can you give Morrison's perspective on the supply chain, please? For Morrison's, we are a bit different in that we also have a big manufacturing business as well as supermarkets in Scotland. We have one of our manufacturing sites in Turf in Aberdeen, where we are taking in beef and lamb. About 70 per cent of the beef is coming from within an hour's drive, and it is similar in numbers for lamb as well. That structure that we have, convenient within Morrison's, means that we are buying directly from farmers, so we buy directly from about 900 Scottish farmers. Beef and lamb go direct to our own plants in potatoes. We still take from predominantly about six farms, our 34 farms, Peggypardon, through six groups, but they go down south of the border now to be packed in our own processing and packing facilities. However, we don't manufacture and process everything ourselves, so we have long-standing relationships with growers, for example, in Duncan's farms, who supplies with all of our Scottish eggs and are there in Lockerby for our milk and Lactalis for cheese. We try to think about working with long-term relationships and companies on the ground, but we are possible through our own facilities. Alasdair Allan, I share your disappointment that some of the supermarkets have not chosen to turn up. That is not something that I can hold you responsible for and I will not. However, the figures that I have are that 60 per cent of the market in terms of food being sold, I think that the figure refers to the UK rather than just Scotland, is in the hands of five retailers. However, there are many towns across Scotland where, of course, you could replace that number five with two or with three. Is that a situation that can go on forever without people asking whether it is entirely healthy? I think that that strikes me as being data-related to the grocery market and not the food market. Of course, one of the things about the food industry is that it is an incredibly dynamic and progressive industry. We have home delivery services, we have the growth in internet retailing and, of course, a third of colour is consumed outside of the home. There is also an enormous food market in public procurement, too. In terms of where retail is, I think that the retail market is a very competitive market. It is a very scrutinised market and one in which we are very open to that level of scrutiny. We also have, when it comes to supply relationships, the grocery code that we comply with. How does that picture in terms of market share compare with other European countries? I told my head that you could look at Australia where there are two major supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworth. There is, of course, a lot of competition within the grocery sector, which is for the benefit of consumers. We are able to, particularly as we are in the cost of living crisis at the moment, extremely mindful about how customers can afford to access good British food for ourselves. As morrisons, we have 100 per cent British sourcing policy, 100 per cent British fresh meat, milk and eggs and produce when in season. In Scotland, we are also trying to think about that in a Scottish focus, 100 per cent Scottish milk, eggs and quite a high proportion of beef lamb as well. That sort of competition is very important for consumers. It is our role as retailers to also have that healthy balance. We are trying to ensure that we are obviously supporting farmers and growers successfully and fairly, because, for us, a successful food service means a resilient growing supply base. We must also be mindful of how we can keep that accessible food for customers as well. Are there differences in how the food supply chain typically functions for the main agricultural sector, such as fruit and veg, meat, dairy and cereals? I do not know who wants to kick off with that. Simple answer is yes. I suppose that we should have said that Sophie and I are in a slightly strange position because we own our own processing facilities, so we own our own vegetables and fruits, and, obviously, morrisons have a greater range than that. The people that supply into that are under the auspices of the groceries code, which would be different for other organisations that might use intermediaries. We are working to a higher level than some of our competition are. That being said, Sophie, my milk and dairy products are coming from Arla. I have described my potato supply chain. When it starts to get into some of the commodities, wheat, it becomes much broader than the wider range of markets and the wider range of intermediaries and processes that make the chains more complicated. To add to that, some of that is obviously seasonally appendant as well. We are thinking about the fruit and vegetable sector in particular. From Morrison's perspective, 65 per cent of our vegetables, while our UK grown, but the rest are imported. However, we are conscious of trying to understand where we can have full all-year-round supply from the UK and Scotland, where, for example, 100 per cent of our sweet ever-sweet comes from Scotland for the whole of the UK. We have just moved this year to 100 per cent leaks from Scotland when it is season as well. We are always trying to be very conscious about where we can buy locally and buy from the UK or from Scotland, but we are also mindful about what grows here and what does not. Obviously, that has some effect, but for us it is an important thing for customers to be able to shop locally. Good morning, and thank you very much for turning up. It is a very decent eat that I have done so, given the fact that the rest of your competitors are not here. You have both talked about your commitment to Scottish producers, which I absolutely applaud, which is great. There is potential to talk about the branding of Scottish produce, but more importantly, I hear constantly the downward pressure from producers driven by the supermarket power to get them to provide it cheaper, with less security in their contracts and all the rest. It is a constant supply of information that we get. Do you accept that your commitment to Scottish produce also means that you have a commitment to the Scottish people to make sure that there is a resilient food industry in Scotland? Yes, absolutely we do. As we were talking about before, it is really important for us to be able to supply those products to our customers. Therefore, we can only do that. We have a resilient supply base that we can buy from. We pride ourselves in long-term relationships and we have many farmers over suppliers for 20 plus years coming into our depots and into our abattoirs and into our other facilities. We are also very mindful about where we can try to make adjustments and extra support for prices. It has been incredibly hard. We are farmers at home as well, and we absolutely know the pressure that farming has been under these last couple of years and beyond. Our supply is well therefore not only thinking about the market price, but also where we can go on and do more. For example, we have just been starting for about the past year a shared risk initiative in root vegetables and potatoes, where we are doing that in a small number of farms at the moment to see if it works, but we are underwriting the cost of any risk for any potatoes, so do any costs go down, and if there is a benefit, we get that shared between the two to the growers That is a really important point, and I am glad that you have brought that up, because from a soft-grower point of view, we have witnessed tunnels lying empty, we have witnessed plants being ripped up and shredded and mulched because they can no longer make money from them. My understanding is that what we have is an increase in the shelf price of about 11 per cent last year and 40 per cent the year before, but the price to the producer has remained static if not been pushed down, so that shared risk, are you going to put that across all the year sectors? We do absolutely listen carefully and we have to have those discussions with all of our suppliers as well, absolutely, but our own margins as well within supermarket have been under increasing pressure, and we have also had, for example, in Morrison's, our margins have dropped every year for the last 10 years as we try to respond to trying to keep paying a fair price to farmers and also another suppliers and growers, but also maintain that price to customers as well, and it is a highly competitive market. We absolutely know that if we put our prices up out of line with other retailers, then customers would choose to their feet and walk elsewhere, so we are very conscious about how we can try and keep that balance going between the two of making sure that we are having future, it produces them in the future, it is very important to us to make sure that we can still source British and Scottish where possible, so it is not in our interest to make sure that that industry is not there for the future. You do accept. We have only got one pig process and plant left in the country, we have only got one chicken process plant left in the country. Those pressures are going to continue to grow, and if we want to have a resilient industry here in Scotland, the responsibility that you have as a group of organisations is absolutely vital to maintaining that long-term supply chain. Do you accept that? We absolutely accept that we have to have a fair price that is going to be like having a decent return for everybody so that they can continue to invest. It is not the job of supermarkets alone to be able to do that. However, we absolutely know that we want to be able to support futures in the long run. For pigs, we have our own pig abattoir south of the border anyway, so we are taking pigs south of the border. For chickens, it is interesting that we are taking from that abattoir, but there are other things. For example, we have the feedback often from our egg processors that Scotland would benefit from its end-of-lay hen abattoir. At the moment, all of those laying hens, if they are RSPCA short, have to travel all the way down to Bradford to be processed from Scotland, which does seem unsustainable. There are areas where it is a question of working together to understand where we can have other elements that can help the supply chain. OK. Do you want to come in, Chris? Well, just a quick build, really, which—sometimes I do a farmer meeting and I say, what do you think the number one number that a supermarket looks at when it is trying to work out if it is being successful that day? Usually, it is profit or, I guess, something less polite. It is availability. We are the orders that we put. Were they fulfilled by our suppliers? If they are not, we end up with spaces on the shelves. It does not matter what the quality is, what the branding is, what the flavour is. It is only a concept to a customer. The customer has to buy a physical product and we have to work as a supply chain to deliver that on the shelf day in, day out. If we are not doing that right, and that is because there is an interruption in the supply chain, we have lots of conversations. Obviously, with the recent energy price spikes, we have a lot more conversations about the fact that we needed to improve cost price to suppliers, otherwise we would not get the supply that we were ordered. On potatoes, 20 per cent of the cost of a potato can be energy because it is stored. It is keeping those places chilled. We have to work with suppliers. I would say that we are still quite an attractive proposition. Our local sales within Alistair stores have gone up by 30 per cent. We are going to list another 240 new Scottish lines next year. That is great, because that shows the positivity in the industry and the food industry, which is generating new products that customers want to buy in Scotland. I would accept that you guys are the place to go and buy our food, but it needs to be on the basis that the guys are supplying it. I get the fair kick a lot. Arrianne Burgess Thank you, convener. Jim Fairlie has touched on some of the area that I wanted to cover in this section, but I will ask another question. We have heard that some stakeholders are calling for fruit and veg to be subsidised by the Scottish or UK Government. A paper from Warwick University found that that would cost the taxpayers roughly £2.5 billion a year compared to £6 billion a year spent on poor diet-related illness. I would be interested to hear what your views are on that. Would supermarkets support government subsidy of fruit and veg? That would be an interesting concept. We are also incredibly mindful of our customer diets. We have not set any targets for altering the balance of what customers buy. We have started a lot of activity and we want to do even more on encouraging customers to eat more fruit and vegetables and to be able to eat whole foods as well. We produce some fantastic whole foods and to be able to know what to do with them when they have them. Fruit and vegetables is a bit more straightforward, but to be able to support the subsidy of them and to understand how to be able to eat and prepare them, I think, is also going to be important and a good place for government to be able to help. I think that the mechanism would need some very careful consideration. How does that go into operation? I would say that supermarkets in general push fruit and veg. It is the first area of the store that you hit when you come in. When you are thinking about what you are going to buy, you are presented with the fruit and veg in most of the stores. It is the prime selling opportunity and I would hope that that means that people are then going to make the right type of data choices, but they are individuals. I thank you both for being here. We are obviously scrutinising an agricultural policy bill to replace cap, so we are very much focused on subsidy, or another word, for that financial support. I want to go back to how you agree contracts with farmers, co-operatives and wholesalers and what the process looks like. Jimmel has already touched on that point, but the percentage of the profits that go back to the producers, so some of the research 2022 food charity sustained suggested that on five everyday items, apples, cheese, beef, burgers, carrots and bread, farmers could sometimes make less than 1 per cent of the profits. That has a direct bearing on where we believe, for example, that a subsidy should be set in order to sustain those livelihoods. In terms of that process, how you reach agreement on pricing, how you reach agreement on volume and timescales, and my little supplementary is that I was quite heartened to hear that you have some relationships that go back 25 years, which suggests to me that that is a mutually beneficial relationship. Is that the norm or is that rare? We are very much thinking about a market price when we are setting prices, and market prices can go up and down, and our suppliers ultimately can be free in some cases to choose where they want to go as well. It depends on what they are supplying and to which supply they are supplying with. For example, dairy contracts tend to be a longer supply agreement with their end point. However, some of our suppliers have been working with them for a really long time through the abattoirs. Not all of them have a contract that guarantees that they will send their beef or lamb to us, for example. They are free to decide where they want to send it somewhere else. However, most of them will continue to be able to send it to us and we have worked with them for many, many years. When we are setting that price, I am very conscious about market pricing, we are also thinking about are there any extra areas that we are asking farmers to look at that we need to be able to add extra payment to? We have initiatives that are looking at additional welfare and sustainability measures in our milk supply chain, where we are paying a buff for the market price for things like that. That gives us additional support for the farmers to be able to go and do more. Similarly, we are quite flexible on how we look at arrangements. We are talking about policy and thinking about future areas. We are doing an awful lot with farmers looking at sustainable agriculture ways of working. We have spent a lot of time, for example, in those cases, investing in farmers having supported carbon footprints or sort of soil carbon testing or other areas that will benefit them as a business but are not therefore beheld to them to have to pay for. We are trying to work very much in partnership with our farmers in trying to take things forward and thinking about pricing. When we are thinking about volumes, we are therefore absolutely thinking about what it is that we can sell within the stores and, from a Morrison's perspective, we do not sell just only to Morrison for our manufacturing business, but we also sell to external customers as well. That includes quite a lot of export too. We are therefore mindful of what markets we are selling into and gearing up for additionally. With that, we will also work with other organisations like QMS who can help to open some of those doors and help to facilitate some of those opportunities for us. Pricing and volume are absolutely thinking about—we are very conscious about trying to hit that right balance. It is very difficult. One of the things that was tricky for the pig sector this time last year and going for the back was an oversupply of pigs in the market, which is part of the reason—not all of it—part of the reason why the pigs about pig price were so depressed. We therefore also took the very hard decision to, through all the right amounts of notice period for our pig farmers as well, reduce the number of pigs that we had coming into our business, so that we could balance the supply a little more and help to stabilise the price. We are very conscious of our role in making sure that we are demanding the right numbers to make sure that we are not flooding the market with more than is required. For the big products in Scotland, we are going to use the indices that come out of QMS for beef and lamb and pigs. If you take it slightly broader—for example, on broilers and eggs, there is a price, but there is also a feed price tracker, which has operated since April 22, when we started to see the massive volatility in commodity markets. Some organisations, some of the Spanish co-ops, they like to contract for half of the volume and then they like to see what the spot market does for the other half of the volume. We are happy to accommodate that. Other areas where there is particularly intense price volatility—you can certainly see them in the catching sector at the moment—contracts to agree on a three-month basis. One tiny supplementary. Clearly, it is well known that farmers typically make a loss without government subsidy. Can you ever envisage a situation in Scotland where farmers are sufficiently recompensed by the market to not make a loss? I think that that depends. It torts a lot of farmers and some will say things in private, which they will not say in public. I appreciate that there are various farming studies that show the majority, but I have a range of people doing a range of performance. I would say that there is an awful lot of farmers who produce and then expect it to be sold. I think that that is going forward. This was a process that was set in motion back when the McSherry reforms came in 1990. As the intervention came out of the CAP, it was much more market related and much more volatile. People need to be thinking about where they are going to market their product and produce. I think that even the Corry Commission way back when, about 20 years ago, said that the HM Treasury should be looking at price volatility measures, a bit like the US use insurance, to be able to manage that. I think that there are levers if government wants to intervene in marketplaces. Otherwise, you will have supply and demand setting. We will end up with shrinkage of production, and I think that that was fairly pointed out. We would lose critical mass, and that is when you lose processing, and you end up in a bit of a doomhole. Recently, the red tractor scheme proposed a new environmental assurance scheme, but farmers raised concerns that the new standard would incur higher costs and supermarkets would sell their products at a premium, but farmers would not receive a premium price. Similarly with organics, there is a market premium but soil association, and others proposed that more of a premium should find its way back to the farmers. I understand that some supermarkets would pay farmers a higher price, but they feel that they cannot do that while their competitors keep the price down. I would be interested to hear if your companies would welcome regulation in this area so that farmers who produce a premium product to a higher environmental and animal welfare standard would be guaranteed to receive a premium on the price from all of the supermarket buyers. I do not want to keep it all with that. I also want to make it transparent that I am the BRC British Retail Consortium member on the red tractor board to make that clear. With regard to the red tractor greener farms commitment, that was in proposal of it as a voluntary module and not as a compulsory one as you probably already know. We had said from a Morrison's perspective when that was being looked at that we were thinking about how we could try and pay a subsidy towards farmers for doing additional steps towards that environmental module, but that has to be up to each individual retailer as that hasn't been a price that has been set by a red tractor. However, what things like the environmental module from red tractor do and other schemes like that is set consistency. There's an increasing amount of transparency that's required, and probably absolutely rightly so in the food supply chain from which retailers and processes are obligated to report against. To be able to understand how we can get that data from farms as a primary data source in a consistent package is really important, otherwise you aren't into comparing apples with apples, so schemes like that are very helpful. However, the benefit again of red tractors and other schemes like that is that it's going across a volume of supply. Organic, for Morrison certainly, will only ever be a relatively small amount of product that is going to be taken in by customers. Our own organic sales are only about 5 per cent of everything that we sell altogether, because our customers tend to be much more value focused. However, for those customers who choose to do them, we obviously have organic available and the premiums that are associated with that for the farmers that are producing it. However, there are other schemes that we've done ourselves. For example, on our eggs we've been paying farmers for many, many years to have additional steps towards environment-like additional tree planting and bee cover strips of which we are asking customers if they choose to be able to pay a little bit more for those eggs. We have a scheme called Four Farmers where they can choose to pay a little bit extra and that money goes straight back to the farmers to help them to invest in that. We are trying to make schemes and programmes available for customers to be able to support so that we can pass that money back down to farmers as well. I think that this area of the market is very dynamic at the present moment in time. As there is converting all of our produce, both domestic and overseas, over to LEAF, Linking Environment and Farming, which is an integrated farming module, we have particularly taken a perspective on the green tractor module at present moment in time because integrating the LEAF across is taking a lot of our time. On organics, very similar to Sophie, organic farmers receive a premium and where that premium goes through to the retail price and at present moment in time, organic is in decline. My question, so it's great to hear that both of you are working in terms of giving farmers that premium price but do you think that we could get further if there was regulation across the board so everybody had to do it? In general, forget about organics, if there was regulation. One of the things that I understand is that what you have been talking about this morning is the challenge around the competitive market type margins and if there was regulation in certain situations that could help you all to take that step together, do you think that that would help us move? We've got incredible targets and farming, our agriculture plays a big role in that, climate targets are good to reach. I think that our challenge would be if you did that domestically, how would you regulate imports and you would end up with potentially a very great differential between the import price, which shouldn't have to do, this is a conversation we have all the time, versus domestic producers, you're going to be penalising domestic producers time both hands behind their back and the consumer who is very time and finance restrained will make their own rational choice and it might well end up that you shrink the market for domestic project. I think what we're also very mindful of is that we ask consumers a lot, as you would imagine, about lots of issues to do with sustainability, environment and welfare and yes they all want these things to happen but most of them don't want to cost them any more. So we are quite mindful about how we can try and do both as much as we can, however, but then allow those schemes and programmes available for those customers who are able to make a bit more of an investment in their food to be able to do so, for example through full farmers or organic. I have one very quick build, which is don't forget the caterers. If you put chicken prices up to £10 but you could go and buy a rotis chicken from your local convenience store for £5, that's where you're going to go and buy it cooked and salted. I'm going to keep questions in the same vein and move to Alasdor Allan. Thank you, convener. I wonder if you can say a bit more about what you do to work with farmers and others to ensure high standards on environment and animal welfare you've touched on some of that just now, but specifically on how that's actually scrutinised and reported and assessed by you. So we have as our core standard for all of our UK production of which, as I was saying, we have a British sourcing policy anyway to go for a retractable QMS and so that is our baseline standard. That also enables to have a standard level of audit and also reporting that we're able to make. On top of that, we have, in certain sectors, our SPCA should, which is particularly for eggs and also for other variants of outdoor bread pork, for example. Many of our vegetable growers are already leaf accredited for other supermarkets, although we don't have that ourselves because they're supplying for multiple other retailers. We have the benefit of them being able to be that as well. On top of that, too, we're very mindful about trying to understand where we can ask farmers to do more. I was describing earlier that we have various initiatives that we're doing through our four farmers range for milk and for eggs, where that money will be directly returned for farmers looking at environmental and animal welfare sort of step-ons in sustainability, but we also have set ourselves our own ambitious ambitions to support agriculture to get into a net zero position. For that, we've been trying to make very practical steps to bring farmers on the road to carbon footprinting, but more importantly, what to do with that information when they have it and how to think about an action plan and how that can benefit their business overall. We're trying to do various things from standards to different programmes and ways of working with farmers to help to encourage them on those next stages of sustainability, which is ultimately what many stakeholders in the food industry, including our customers, are looking for. We use Red Tractors as the benchmark standards and require overseas product to be benchmarked against that, where there are adaptations for local positions. We run farmer groups, where it's Sophie does, so investing in groups of farmers to look at best practice to trial things. None of this is about exclusivity because the field is a very open laboratory and we actually want people to talk, so we've been working with Syngenta and Planting, 1,000 cover crops on Opposito Headlands. I would make a policy direction move, which is that they look fantastic. There are beautiful flowers, they look terrific, but they're not there as horticulture, they're not flowerbeds, so we also pay to have an entomologist go and sample them to see what biodiversity is being generated, so I can give you the breakdown of 150,000 insects. That's what apparently entomologists do in the winter. Then you can enter, and what we've been building on that is to say, okay, can we take the labour out of that, are there laboratory techniques, are there new opportunities to get this down to a farm level, and so I think pretty well all the retailers are engaged in best practice development and supporting agriculture. Absolutely. Thank you. You mentioned some of the things that you do on that front, and clearly at farmers and I'm sure yourselves are committed to environmental and animal welfare aims. You mentioned some of the interventions there, but of course the big intervention or the big influence you have is the price you are prepared to pay. So how do you ensure that the price you are prepared to pay is having the right influence and not creating perverse incentives, if you like, or creating pressures that are difficult for farmers to reconcile with those high aims? It's a constant dialogue. The potato buyer in Scotland is based in Scotland and is visiting the growers and hearing what's being said. I would say having been through the price that the energy costs spike in the past two years, we proved to be adaptable in all the retailers did, because we were going in front of farmers who were saying, look, if we try and deliver the contracts we agreed three months ago, I go bus next month, and that doesn't help anybody. So we had to change and we had to be adaptable and we had to listen to the concerns of our suppliers, and I would push back and say, look, the shelves are full. I haven't got too many rulings against me from G-scope, so fingers crossed, touching wood. We're trying to do a good job. Yeah, absolutely. I think we are equally mindful of making sure that we are paying a fair price to the farmers and supporting them in much more holistic aims as well. We also have introduced the things that we're trying to support in your entrance to farming. For example, we've got a thousand head of cattle on our elite beef scheme in Scotland, which is basically where we're taking beef from the dairy herd, which we prepay for. We pay for those at the end of rearing, we put those under farms to contract rear, and then we knock off the price difference when they come into our abattoir. We're constantly trying to think of different ways to be able to fund growth and development for farms as well, and to be very practical in our approach. It is a real tension, trying to understand how to maintain food prices that customers can afford. We have some, as I'm sure you're absolutely aware, some real food poverty in the UK, which is incredibly sad to see. We want to be able to try and do our best to make sure that all customers can afford to access healthy and sustainable food. But absolutely, we need to make sure that that is not going to fall over at the other end of the supply chain. Listening very hard and being able to adapt and change regularly, like supply payments, is really important. Both ends of the spectrum feel that they're listening. It may surprise you that we've turned down a lot of commercial offers on the ground, so we don't believe that it's long-term viable. Someone will come in and offer a surprise, which has been fed down through their supply chain very often, and we don't think that's going to supply it. We think that you'll go bust, and then I've got empty shelves, going from that to what I said to the committee before, and that's the last thing we want. Okay, thank you very much. Jim Fairlie. Thanks very much, convener. You have raised some really interesting stuff. I think that this has been a brilliant session. I want to come back to you first while you talked about the standards. This is a kind of a follow-on to the last question, but it will lead into my next one. Scottish Quality Beef and Lamb Association, I don't know if you remember it. I have to declare an interest. I used to be a cheating cattle farmer many years ago. Scottish Quality Beef and Lamb Association was given as an incentive. Join this, we're going to pay you extra, but that incentive became a stick. At what point do you see where we are right now those incentives that you are encouraging becoming sticks? I particularly want to talk about carbon credits, because that natural capital that is owned by farmers in their soil is theirs. Is that going to become an incentive at the moment to supply you as part of their ability to be in your supply chain, which then becomes a stick to them later if they don't give you the value of that carbon credit that they can no longer supply you? We're absolutely aware of this. It's a very burgeoning and emerging industry in carbon credits. I think that what guidance and a rule book is about that whole sort of market of carbon markets. It's incredibly... Farmers are going to, as Christa's, huge numbers of farmer meetings where carbon credits are talked about. No farmer is really understanding what they can do with them, because what are the rules of the game or what's to trust and what isn't to trust? However, for our own perspective, what we've set out from a very early stage is a progression for farmers to understand how they can make themselves as sustainable as possible and how we can help to reach a net zero position. That's not at the expense of biodiversity or anything else, it's to do it in a holistic ground. We were very inspired by the NFU's goal of thinking about net zero 2040 or 2035 and wanted to be able to encourage our producers to do the same thing and to go after it. However, we have never said that means that we want the credits that are therefore sitting on your farm. It's about how we can therefore encourage and work with all of the farmers in our supply chain to lower their emissions as low as they can go and then to raise the opportunities for carbon sequestration and carbon holding, which also have a very good biodiversity impact on the farms as high as they can go, so they get to a net zero position. That is also not saying that if you're not at that point, you're out and you're not allowed to come into a Morrison supply chain, but we know that our customers are looking for sustainable food, but we also know that as a retailer we have a huge amount of pressure put on us by certain sort of NGOs and groups to sort of adopt a meat reduction target, which we don't think is for us the right thing to do. For us it's much more about how can we make meat more sustainable, how can we make meat which is a really excellent protein source for customers, accessible, sustainable and something that customers don't have to feel guilted into not buying, which is some of the narrative that does come through, and so for us it's about absolutely supporting those farmers to be robust and resilient in the future, not everything, but many, many ways of lowering emissions are also about lowering costs and being more efficient. How can we sort of like help support farmers get there through the right skills and knowledge and tools to do the job, but absolutely we're not there to do a dawn raid on carbon credits where they're sort of thinking about how they can really help improve their own farm situation and hopefully improve soil capacity for the future as well. Chris? You've only got 20 minutes, so let me have a quick go at this one. I've very quite got it, but I apologise for giving you that. I'd not touch it with the dodges to barge poles. A couple of reasons why. One at the moment, DEFRA, has a group look, which Scottish government is an observer on food data transparency. One of the work streams is looking at the whole area of eco measurements. Last time I looked, I think you had four pages of questions. I do not understand for the life of me how we can set government policy as something important to food production for this nation when we don't actually understand the question we're posing ourselves. I think the whole area of how people look at carbon labelling and the rest of it has run way ahead of the science. I don't think we have, for example, a true handle on carbon cycling. We're going through the process because it's what we have to do, but when I talk to them and say, okay, if I put biscuit waste into an AD plant, that's zero carbon, I put biscuit waste into a cow, which also produces methane, and all of a sudden it's got all the carbon cost associated with it. Are you going to correct for that or we'll get back to you? I say, well, how are we going to declare this? I'm going to put a carbon label on so that the public can make a choice when they go into the shop. So, let's do that and put it on a kilo of cabbage and a kilo of beef. A kilo of cabbage is 90% water. A kilo of beef is only 30%. Are you going to correct for that? Do you want to correct for the nutrition that's in a kilo of beef in terms of amino acids and proteins which we need or just a bit of a bit of vitamin C that's in a cabbage? I think the questions are so big and they have been ducked and we need to generally get a hold of all this. Sophie said, it's a bit like the Wild West, but points out that Eastwood came into the Wild West and shot the bad guys. At the moment, the bad guys are running the school. Okay, that is really interesting. We're going to have to have you guys back again. I'm afraid we're going to have to move on. We've only got 15 minutes left and we've still got quite a few questions to get through. I'm going to move on to a question from Rachel Hamilton. Good morning and thanks for being here. Does the contractual process vary between different agricultural sectors? Shall I start with you, Chris? Yes. I've described some of the Spanish growing co-operatives that contract half of their volume and then spot market the other half of their volume. Bananas are on an animal basis with a cost reduction for logistic cost and currency changes so people can fit into that. When it comes to beef and lamb and pork, they're against the QMS market standards. I'm trying to think, as I said, there's a feed tracker on broilers and on egg layers. Generally, we'll chiff the contracts or the arrangements depending on what people want. We've been taking beef from ABP since 65. Glenrath eggs has been supplying us 25 years plus. I've been told off by John Campbell so many times. Those are part of a dialogue. It's not—the conversations are done face to face on Zoom to Zoom, but they're part of a conversation around supply and demand and the pressures that people are facing. I was looking at some of the stats and I was concerned to see that one in five farmers suffered because of council orders. 29 per cent of those farmers had no explanation and 29 per cent had not been paid in 30 days. Some of the key areas where farmers are concerned is that they want to sell what they agreed to sell to supermarkets. They want to be paid what was agreed to be paid. They want to be paid on time. They want a longer-term commitment rather than a short-term for sustainability, and they want to agree on fair specifications, but it sounds as though Chris Brown is saying that supply and demand, affordability and other external factors are playing into that. How can supermarkets, with a challenging legislative demand on the agricultural bill for Scotland's farmers, look to a sustainable future and ensure that somebody can succeed them in their farm? When we were thinking about a few of those points in your question, payment terms, for example, when we were working with farmers and other small supplies that include local food makers in Scotland, we have a policy where we pay within seven days. That automatically helps the farmer's cash flow position. We are very mindful about paying more quickly. As Chris Brown described before, there are markets elements, but we recognise that, for producers to be able to invest in longer-term contracts, we have moved to even up to seven years contracts for some of our egg suppliers in the UK. We have also extended to two-year contracts for potatoes in some cases instead of annual negotiations. The annual negotiations leave everybody free to move, so we are not tying in for forever, but we are open to listening and not just having a one-size-fits-all approach to all farmers and all suppliers, but we are trying to be responsive in how we set in contracts, how we set in prices and how we set in those payment terms, particularly for small family businesses of which farming is one. We need to understand how to get those payments across, which we think short payment terms are a sensible way to go forward. The dairy industry is to be protected, I suppose. Let me use that term broadly. Dairy farmers are able to stop any contract changes and have a fair say in the process. I suppose that we are hoping that that is going to be quite groundbreaking for dairy farmers. Do other sectors in agriculture have the same ability to cancel a contract or come to you and say, look, there has been a frost, we have had a drought, there has been flooding, we have issues here, can you be flexible? We have to be. I would just say just to cover off on dairy, we are both supplied by Arla, which is a farmer cooperative, so it doesn't get covered by that piece of guidance. I would also say that one of the things that has never happened in the UK, which has happened overseas and was always available under the EU regulations, was the ability to form a producer organisation, which takes you out of competition law. Some of the remedies were in the farmer's hands if they could get together and agree anything. Sophie, can I pick you up on something that you said earlier? I can't quite remember your words, but you almost said that you would honour a contract. I am trying to get at the eventuality of flooding, so recently there was Storm Babette and I know that many farmers lost their potato crops and others lost, I can't remember what it was, neeps. I think that there were neeps here. I am interested to know that farmers have to go out on to the open market to honour the contract. I am not sure whether it is necessarily relevant in your case, Sophie, because you are controlling that within your growers, but I am not elsewhere. Chris, could you support somebody who was in a situation in which they had to go on the open market and buy potatoes to supply to you or by neeps to supply to you? I was in a departure's lounge on the continent and my brassica supplier wanted in, so I just had a thunderstorm in the UK, which was a high summer, and the hail storms have bruised my spinach crop. I need to go and find some spinach and here I am trying to find it. There are people who take an opportunity and look and see whether they could win. There are French growers of parsnips, which the French do not consider worth feeding to cattle, but they have it just in cases of bad dose of weather in the UK and they could send parsnips in. That is dynamic in the industry, but if people have problems then we have conversations. We have talked about the stewards at A-Side, where a very big customer is there, and we have big conversations with them. I think that one of the things that is happening, from a policy perspective, is giving capital opportunities so that people can give themselves more their own personal protection, so we have increasingly leaf salads, which are not grown in greenhouses, but have roofing on. That is not to protect them from snow, but to protect them from excess rainfall, which causes soil contamination of the leaves from splatter, which makes them useless for being put into bags on them. People are making rational decisions. I think that there is a longer-term view needed about security of food, which could encompass maybe some capital assistance to do that type of food. I am afraid that we are way way behind A-Side. I am going to move to a question from Karen Adam. Thank you, convener. I think that we have had quite a full, rounded discussion on a few of the points that I would have liked to have raised, but, if you do not mind, I will go back to a few. I think that, since my time here on the rural committee, we have first scrutinised the Good Food Nation Act, and we have now scrutinised the future agricultural bill. Throughout all of that, we have been talking and discussing with witnesses that have come to committee, and then going out and actually talking to industry leaders, farmers, tenant farmers, and constituents who are in areas of deprivation. There is obviously a move of a spotlight on to the markets when industry farmers—for example, food producers—are telling us that they do not feel that they are getting a good price and that perhaps sometimes their eyes move to the consumer. The consumer is telling us that we cannot afford that food, so it always comes back to this conversation of what is happening with the supermarkets. I would like to give you this opportunity to be able to speak to that and to tell us what factors you would consider in setting the supermarket prices. Do you appreciate that there is that discussion there with how you operate? Absolutely, we do. As we have been describing, we listen carefully to customers and we know that customers are feeling incredibly stressed. That is also regionally dependent. We do a customer survey that shows that Scotland, for example, is 18 points more sensitive and more worried about money than they are in London, so we are very mindful about how customers are feeling. Absolutely, we are very mindful about how farmers are feeling. As we were describing, we are buying directly from about 2,500 farmers altogether across the UK but 900 in Scotland. It is really tough and the cost of production has really been a very big challenge for farmers, particularly in feed, fertiliser and fuels. We have seen the step back on energy prices, but we have been very mindful about how we can absorb some of those costs. That is partly why the costs of morrisons went up sooner than they did at other retailers at the beginning of the cost of production crisis. Having manufacturing, we drew that straight into our chain. However, as the costs have set to ease slightly, we have been able to pass some of those costs on to consumers. Obviously, in the middle, we have our huge enormous costs of challenges have happened as well. We are quite rightly thinking about collie pay and collie wages, but our own energy bills and our own rates and other areas have gone up astronomically as a business. It is absolutely a balancing act and we are very mindful of how we are paying our part responsibly within that. As we have described before, it is an extremely competitive business. Supermarkets are only talking between 2 and 4 per cent margins altogether from a supermarket perspective. It is a very careful tightrope that we are balancing to have the cost of food right, thinking about our own costs of running the business centrally and making that as efficient as we possibly can do. We are also thinking about how we are making sure that we still have farmers and growers there in the future to be able to buy from them. Income tracker, which looks at our customers. The thing that jumped out at me last year was 30 per cent said that they were not going to go on holiday. They were basically going to do day trips during the summer. We recognise those pressures. The other thing that I would say is that there tends to be a bit of a lag because of those contracts and everything else, so that you will not see the catapult price dropping tomorrow. You are not going to see the price of beef dropping the day after. Those things have got those buffers within supply and being drawn down. You have both spoken about how you source from Scotland. I wonder what the constraints are on sourcing locally. What do you take into account when you decide whether you source in Scotland, the UK, internationally? We source from Scotland. I think that one of the constraints is availability of processing. Like Sophie, we are taking pigs out of Scotland. They have been processed in England to come back into Scotland. Similarly, we will take a couple of thousand lands a month out of the borders to go to our Dunbeer plant in Lancashire to fulfil. There is a reality check here as well. In Scotland, it is 500 per cent self-sufficient in land. There is a question mark about whether or not the investment is in production or sheep or production of lamb, but one of the constraints is processing. Ever since Proxbyn went on pigs. I think that we have just been mindful of time. In another area, we are looking at, as we work very closely with QMS and also the Scotch PGI, but one of the things we cannot do is to assign a Scotch beef status to cows. Femal coming into the beef supply chain is perfectly good to eat. It is being sold as a premium in France for being particularly aged, but it is not available to be named through the Scotch beef standard. It can only be males. That is one of those constraints, for example, which would be a practical change that would enable us to be able to have more beef to Science Scotland. That is something that we as a committee need to look at. It seems very strange to me. Can I ask the question about processing and the ability to process? I was told by a supermarket, not yourselves. I hastened to add that it was sourcing local potatoes, but that they were going to England for washing and packaging to come back to the local supermarket, and everyone thought that it was coming five miles down the road rather than doing huge miles in the processing. Is there a way that we can overcome that? Is that common practice? What can we do? We do not now. We do pack our potatoes south of the border and we do pack our potatoes in gabbrook in Cheshire and then bring them back up to Scotland. There is that challenge for us as well, so being able to have more processing facilities available and packing facilities is good. The reason why we did that was about economies of scale. We just needed to and also how the way you make a manufacturing business pay is to make sure that each of those sites are as efficient as possible and running almost as full as they can be. We had to have a very hard decision about coming out of Scotland and moving our potato into two sites in England instead. Sometimes those economies of scale meant that we could not keep the site open in Scotland. Just briefly, what priority do you put on margins when you look at whether to procure pork or pig products or beef products when you have a choice? If you touched on an overproduction of pig meat, I presume that means that you did not just stop procuring from overseas. That would be the same situation when you look at beef because I understand that morrisons have interests in farms producing beef out with the UK. What priority is margin when it comes to looking at limitations from sourcing more locally? For beef, for all of our fresh meat, we are 100 per cent British and we do not have any farms outside the UK that we buy from. Similarly, for pork, we are taking from six farms in Scotland and that volume has remained consistent. However, we are absolutely set by a global price when it comes to pork. The fluctuation is both of African's wine fever but also of China's shutdown of imports had a huge effect on the pig price as well. As the committee is looking at policy, the fact that we are still measuring beef carcasses on the Europe grid, which was designed for beef intervention purchases, is nuts. We need a much better decision. That would help everyone's pleasure. That leads us, hopefully, into a question from Jim Fairlie about the production size and whatever. I would go into that. Is that question seven? Right, okay. Sorry, we're jumping about all over the place here. You guys have just made this too interesting. The role of supermarkets, where do you play in determining specification for certain products? I cut some meat, size or shape of fruit and veg and as a former sheep producer, I know that he's wanted them with 21 kilos so that he can get your chop size as that size, so he put it in a packet and reached a price point. However, nature doesn't work like that. Can that system lead to massive food waste, which is, if you account it as a country, would be the third largest emitter in the world? That's a lot to do in 30 seconds. We are very mindful about what, of course, practically is going to be not only just fitting in the pack but also what consumers want to eat and what they want to go for. Also, what sort of fat content that has as well and therefore additionally what waste we're having to cut off at butchery and the additional efficiency demands that would have if the cattle are coming with just too fat or needing too much there for extra processing. With sheep in particular, obviously, there are so many different breeds to go for. However, we are looking towards a certain sort of like, we've got a bit of tolerance, we're not quite so fixed but we have got a certain pack size that we are meeting to be able to satisfy. For things like vegetables, for example, we have a policy that is the same as we do for fish and buying the whole crop. We're buying the whole crop from the field and then through our processing facilities, we have one key, we have products that go to animal feed where they really can't go anywhere else, as well as obviously into premium in class one and class two. We are trying to do the whole piece that we can with that field. From a fruit and veg point of view, there is no penalty to the farmer for producing odd-shaped carrots or odd-shaped carrots? Absolutely, no. That used to be the case. It did use to be the case and I remember, I think, I was asked about about 20 years ago and that was like the case but it was, but absolutely we sort of like taking him because the one key market is actually incredibly well liked by supermarket customers. Sometimes we cut, sometimes they want to buy more one key than they do cool, so it's something that customers are quite bothered about. Chris, very quickly, I'm going to ask you this. You talked about Scotland's 500% self-sufficient and lamb and yet we still import it from New Zealand. Is that because of size packaging? Is it because of price? Why is it? It's because of the spike in demand for legs in Easter and Christmas. So you can't get rid of the rest of the carcass there for you to buy a New Zealand lamb leg? Yeah, and don't forget 25 per cent of UK lamb is currently being exported. We don't talk about that. There's no supermarket market anymore. These are other markets and I think there's a big information piece which still needs to happen to the farming community about where their animals are going and what those markets are requiring. Yeah, but it just seems kind of counterintuitive that we're 500 per cent self-sufficient and lamb, but you still go to New Zealand. Supermarkets still go to New Zealand. I've sorted that out. But it's the out-of-balance requirement and people, and a shift in preference, customers like leg meat. You know, shifting shoulders, whole shoulders is tricky. You do need to be quite an interest in anathomian. We've run out of time, but there is one topic that I would like you to briefly touch on, and we may write to you for further clarification. Rachel Hamilton has got a question on the grossers. Has the introduction of the grocery coded you to cater benefited anyone in the supply chain, food supply chain? In what way? There is a route through for complaints to happen. It's got statutory powers. Buyers in Asda, and I'm sure in Morrison's too, all have to be trained. The fact that there is a complaints procedure which is there in law with an independent due to cater is an incredibly strong message to farmers and also I guess to customers as well, that the operation is the supply chain. Because we're buying directly from so many farmers, farmers are also covered by the grocery coded due to cater, not just the suppliers. That makes a very big difference. We also have a director who's solely responsible for taking on those complaints independently within Morrison's. If the farmers or any supplier doesn't feel that they don't have a route that they can only speak to their buyer or trading director, they can go and speak independently to somebody who's solely responsible for, which is the things in order, but is absolutely responsible for making sure that that code is listened to and that farmers and suppliers are being listened to as well. Just out of interest, how many appeals have there been? How many appeals have there been or complaints? I don't know. I would have to come back to you on that. We also have a compliance officer as well. I think all the retailers do. We are covered by the code. Just on that, Chris, you touched on earlier that not everybody came under the groceries, but you felt you did because you processed a lot of the... Morrison's, because we've taken the process that therefore we're buying from growers, it means that a grower can then come under the auspices and can make a complaint. That wouldn't be true if they're selling to an agent, to an agent, to a pack house, to a retailer. So, in your opinion, do you believe that the groceries code should be expanded to include everybody in that supply chain? No. Of why? Because I think that when you open a real door to a... ...a maintenance complexity, if you go to the first point in the chain, I think we can manage that. Once you go further down, so, for example, a sheep farmer that's putting lambs into Symbosable doesn't know where those lambs are going. It doesn't like the price, but they're going to make a complaint. They know where their lambs are going. I think that becomes very difficult to manage and also to resource. Don't forget this costs and being able to... Don't forget that the grocery code checks on the contract being delivered. It doesn't talk about price. Jim, very, very briefly. Yeah, and I'm going to disagree with you on that one, Chris. And I think we should be having a further conversation about the whole supply chain being included in the grocery code of duty care on the basis that where does the primary producer go to when they have this feeling that they are being completely shafted. Pardon my French, that's the word that would be used. By the supermarkets. Surely it's in the benefit of the supermarket industry to have that ability to say at any point in any stage in this supply chain you've got someone that you can speak to and that can hold us account if we are doing something wrong. Surely that's a good thing. I could do that on a graph, but you need to have something stronger than a feeling, Jim. And I do think that for some sectors that would be very difficult because they're assembly processes and they don't know where they... It would be very difficult to work out exactly what's happening in terms of attribution of value. Okay, I think that's going to be a great session. Can we get them back, please? Sophie, did you have any to add to that? No, just I think as I've already said, you know, we're sort of slightly different because we have so much of our farmers that are already covered by the grocery code of duty care, so I suppose it makes us think about it therefore slightly differently. And I also think, you know, I spend a lot of time, as I'm sure my colleagues do, as well going to round to farmers meetings because I think it's really important that there is that transparent dialogue and that farmers know that they have somebody to talk to to even to understand how things work. Because actually we do quite a lot of days, for example, where we bring farmers round abattoirs and supply chain and they go crikey. I didn't know all of this went on after it left my farm. And so actually that sort of increasing transparency about what happens to the product as an education piece of farm is as important as thinking about the discussion about price. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that you've come to represent Morrison's analysis today where others have failed to. I hope that you believe after this session that we don't bite and when we're here to bring that clarity and transparency to the food chain, we really appreciate your involvement in this. No doubt we'll be in touch again. We might have some written questions you'd like to follow up on. So thank you very much once again. We'll now suspend this meeting until 10.15. Welcome back. We now have our first of two round tables this morning on the Scottish Government's proposed stage 2 amendments to the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Scotland Bill. This session will focus on the proposed ban on the use of snares in Scotland. We have a tight one hour to get through the questions. So rather than allow you to introduce yourselves, I'm just going to go round the table. I'm starting with Jessica Finlay from NatureScot. We have Glen Evans from Bask, Libby Anderson from the SAWC, Ross Ewing from SLE, Penny Middleton from NFUS, Connor Kelly from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, Bob Elliott from OneKind, Ross McLeod from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and Chief Superintendent Mike Flynn from the Scottish SPCA. As I say, there's a lot of people in the session today and we've only got an hour. So can I ask you to keep your contributions short and only indicate to come in when you've got something further to add? To the question. We're going to take one question and at the end, hopefully, we'll have some time for some supplementary questions from members. And if you could raise your hand, I'll try and bring in an intern to address the question that's been asked. So the first question I'll kick off. I can ask what you believe the animal welfare impacts of snaring in Scotland are and do you agree with the Scottish Government's proposal to implement a full ban on the use of snares? And is there any arguments for any exemptions? And I'll kick off with, on my right, probably some place with Jessica. Okay, thank you very much. So in terms of the information that NatureScot holds, we don't have a specific remit associated with snaring. We are aware that snaring does have the potential to cause potential welfare issues for target and non-target species. But in terms of the predator control, we recognise that there's a breadth of predator control measures that are undertaken that they can have sort of positive impacts, but that's quite complex in and of itself in terms of predator impacts are quite difficult to disentangle. But in terms of the precise information around snaring, that's something that we don't hold because we don't have a particular remit associated with that. Okay, thank you. I'm going to bring in Libby Anderson because Libby is here to represent the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission, who reported back on this. Libby, would you like to make some comments? Yes, thank you, convener. The commission does support the proposed amendment. In our advice to ministers, we highlighted that any live trap has an impact on the welfare of the animal that's captured. So while we're aware that there have been modifications to snare design, the basic principle of the snare is one that continues to cause suffering to the animals that are captured in it and there is a risk of asphyxiation, strangulation, evisceration. All of those have been documented well over the many years that I've been aware of snare use. As I say, I'm sure we'll come on to modifications that are current at the moment. I'll leave those aside for the moment. But the principle of capturing an animal by a wire noose around the neck and leaving it for up to 24 hours exposes it to significant welfare harms. Very briefly, we don't think that there should be any exemptions to this ban. Okay, thank you. I'm going to bring in Ross Ewing and then Glenn Evans. Thanks, convener, and good morning everybody. First of all, the thing I just wanted to highlight is some findings of the review of snareing for the Scottish Government, which took place in February 2022. For those that are unaware of this, basically under the Wildlife and Natural Environment Act that was passed, there was a review of snareing that took place every five years. And in the latest review, which was in 2022, it did give us some insights, as opposed to the scale of snare misuse in Scotland, which I think perhaps might be quite instructive in this regard, especially when talking about those potential negative implications. The total number of standard prosecution reports received by the Crown Office procurator Fiscal between 2020-12 and 2016 was 23, and between 2017 and 2021 was 18, so there has been a reduction there. And the other thing that I just wanted to highlight, convener, because I think it really is an important point and it was touched on by the minister last week, but the review was very clear about where it felt the issue was with regard to illegal snare use and, by extension, those welfare implications. And it said, and I quote, the review group considered that it would be very difficult to legislate for the actions of individuals where the modus operandi is to undertake an act of snareing with the intention of committing an associated crime. And they go on to say that the cases prosecuted tend to point to deliberate abuse for purposes ranging from poaching to badger persecution. To be clear, that is completely distinct from illegal snare operators and what they do, and I'm sure the practitioners in the room will have more to add about how they go about safeguarding animal welfare when utilising these devices, convener. Thank you. I'm going to bring in Glen Evans, but I'm aware that Glen that Bask also played quite a role in the recent legislation in the Welsh Assembly. Could you maybe touch on that in your contribution? Yes, so I'm actually somebody who lives in Wales, so who will be impacted by the decision to ban snares in Wales? And the legislation in Wales bans all snares, including licents, it closes the licencing route as well. I think this is going to be an absolute disaster. I can give an example. We don't have many grass moors in Wales, but there is one grass moor and they use human cable restraints. They hold 85% of the black grass population in Wales. So when we look at rare species, curlews, lapwings, I genuinely think that we will rule the day in Wales that they've been banned now. I just wanted to touch on something that Libby mentioned about asphyxiation. Modern design snares, human cable restraints have stops and the stop is specifically selected to be 26cm, so it will not close beyond that point, so it will not asphyxiate a fox that is caught in it. It cannot happen. The stop prevents that. You have experience in the legislation in Wales? Yes. We have presented evidence. There are different committees in Wales. One of the committees in 2017 suggested that we had a voluntary code of practice, which the Welsh Government drew up, and the suggestion with that committee was almost a step-wise approach. So, if things were not shown to have proven, and it's very hard to prove a negative, that we would take a step-wise approach similar to what has happened in Scotland with training and registration. However, the Welsh Government moved forward and decided to introduce a ban. Okay, thank you. I'll move on to a question from Jim Fairlie. Scotland and the States have proposed a licensing scheme that should be introduced, enabling certain snares to continue to be used—we're talking about the cable restraints that you just talked about there, Glen—under specific licence for specified purposes, including preventing harm to wildlife, gambers, livestock and crops. Mike, what is your view on that? Scottish SBC will be unsurprised to know that it follows the Government's stated intention of banning all types of devices snares. You can rebrand them as you like, but from what I see with its humane cable restraint, to all intents and purposes, there's a snare, so we would agree with an entire ban. Connor, what's your response to that? I don't know if you have much experience of humane cable restraints and the use of them. However, we changed our management style about two years ago to humane cable restraints. My experience being a practitioner is that our non-target catches went down significantly. We rely on them out on humane cable restraints massively, as the estate that I'm on is currently what you would classify as an island with no predator control being carried out. In the surrounding areas, to give you a scale of things, we control about 200 foxes a year on the land, and 61 per cent of that is true of humane cable restraints. The removal of this tool would be absolutely detrimental to the practice that goes on in the estate. People say, oh, it's the same. I get how perception is that it's a cable and it's a wire. However, you've got a breakaway device now on it, so we found that, again, with some dear badgers as well, they've managed to break free, and we record that. It goes on to a database shared with the GWCT, so that is recorded. Glyn pointed out that you have a 26 centimetre stop, which stops the asphyxiation of any fox. We are finding with them that foxes are managing to get out of them, so it's of the most important that we are there. We try to be there no later than one hour after daylight. I know some people will point out that it's every 24 hours, however, that we tend to find best practice where they are as early as we can. To stop any longevity of a fox being in the device, that's my experience. Bring in Ross McLeod from the Game Wildlife Conservation Trust. The GWCT has been working on research into predator control for the best part of 40 years now. We've been researching fox movement as well, and for that purpose, we've used human cable restraints to catch foxes, to tag them and release them. In our experience in those situations, we've actually re-caught some foxes and been able to assess their welfare, and they've looked absolutely fine under those circumstances. We also listened to the minister's words very carefully in the evidence session last week, and she rightly concentrated on welfare. I think that the aspect that we were most concerned about is that there wasn't a mention from the environment minister about the impacts on rare, iconic and vulnerable species such as curlew, lapwing, oyster catcher, black grouse, capocali, and this list goes on. For that purpose, that's the reason why we think that a conservation license type approach will be a sensible provision, particularly now, because we can monitor, as was indicated by Connor, we can monitor through mobile app recording exactly what's happening. There's every reason to think that we can improve the technology further in that regard to give early warning of when foxes are in snares. Ross McLeod. I'm just to follow on from what Ross McLeod was saying there. We've actually done a survey ahead of this evidence session taking place where we basically surveyed 129 land managers in conjunction with Scotland's regional moorland groups. Off those 129 responses, 98 per cent of them said that there would be a negative impact on biodiversity. If this goes through, these are the experts, the people that work on the land, and know best ultimately what would happen. Indeed, if you actually look at that further and try and understand the implications on job losses, we asked them if snares and cable restraints were to be banned, do you think it would result in job losses? 72 per cent of those that we surveyed said yes. That is just to highlight the extent and scale of what we're talking about here. Last week, we were really struck because we didn't think that the minister was able to really articulate the scale and extent of snare use in Scotland, which are now being largely superseded by HCRs, I'm pleased to say. 61 per cent of foxes in Scotland, broadly we think, are controlled using lamping or thermal, and 39 per cent are controlled using snaring, and 0 per cent to our knowledge are controlled using live capture traps. It's for all those reasons, convener, that we think that the licensing scheme that we and alongside others have devised constitutes a compromise approach that would ultimately enable cable restraints, human cable restraints to continue to be used under licence. The licensing scheme is predicated on the land, and that's really important because it is the characteristics of the land, be it topography, be it cover, be it windblow that necessitates snare or HCR use. That's a really important point to note. We have included things in the draft licensing scheme, such as we need to make sure that NatureScot would have to be satisfied that no other method of fox control is reasonably practical on the land. We are talking here about broadly, it needs to really be the last resort, but there are some places where it is absolutely instrumental, and we cannot get away from that point, convener. Have you any indication of how many old type snares are currently being used as opposed to the new human constraint devices? We've been alongside the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Scottish Gamekeepers Association really been pushing the use of the human cable restraints. It's not widespread at this point, and that's because the current code compliance snare in Scotland necessitates the type of snare completely different from a HCR. It's only been trialled by a handful of states, including Connors state there as well. I think that the important point to note is that at the moment Scotland's code of practice it basically has got a snare within it that is not a HCR, despite what you've been told by certain people, convener. It is distinct, and we can evidence that and show you that quite clearly. I'm going to bring in Penny Middleton then back to Glen Evans. I wanted to go back to your original question of the animal welfare impacts of snaring and arguments for exemption. I spent previous 10 years of my life as an SSPCA inspector, and I fully understand exactly where the committee is coming from. The types of injuries I saw through snare use were absolutely horrific, and I completely understand why people have such bad connotations with snares. I do, however, believe that the most recent changes in 2011 did really concentrate and improve the use of snare significantly that would address a lot of the problems that were previously seen. I think that this new human cable restraint device will take that even further. If you then parcel that up with use being under licence, I think that you have got a very different situation for what most people will think about when they think about snaring. From the farmer's point of view, pest control is a necessary activity on farm. We speak to farms that lose sheep on a regular basis through foxes, and they know that once a fox finds them, they can come night after night after night. Snares sometimes in that situation really are the only option available. That can either be due to the topography and the type of land, as Ross Ross says, and that is what it is. However, the time restraint and the lack of skills that we have moved on a long way in farming have lost a lot of the skills that are involved with lamping and shooting of foxes, so it becomes really the only option for them. I am very brief on that specific point. On that specific point, you just said something there where everybody accepts the fact that we need to control foxes. I would like to ask Bob, Mike and Libby. Do you agree that there is a need to control foxes? Obviously, in certain circumstances it might be the case, but what we are talking about here is snares, so we are talking about snares being indiscriminate. If we accept the fact that there is a need to control them, do you accept the fact that there is a need to control the numbers in certain circumstances? We are not using those devices now. I totally agree with the farmer, and it is funny that he is just looking at our statistics. We have no record of a farmer being involved in illegal snares at all, whatsoever. I agree that farmers have got to be able to predict a livestock. You accept the fact that, as Penny says, there is a need to be able to control foxes in certain circumstances. Do you agree with that principle? In a humane manner, yes. We have not been asked to opine on the need or otherwise for controlling foxes, which is why you are asking. I would also be aware that, in terms of lamb mortality, that is a very multi-factorial issue. The statistics on fox predation on lamb indicate that it is a very low strand of the problems that affect lamb. I know that that has been discussed in the committee before, and the commission wrote to the convener and members of the committee to point out the Scottish Government research on lamb predation. So you would just say no, there is no need? I would not say no, there is no need, but I think that that need needs to be evaluated. I think that another thing that the committee has heard of previously is the international consensus principles for wildlife control, and any wildlife control technique should be evaluated in the light of those principles, and that includes whether it is necessary and whether it can be affected by changes in human behaviour or practices. You may feel that we are not giving a straight answer, but that is because it is a very complicated question. I will bring in Glen Evans. Yes, there are lots of points there, but I will touch on one to keep it succinct. At times, there is a need to control foxes, and at times, humane cable restraints are modern snares. We need to understand that there is a complete difference between an old-fashioned snare. Self-locking snares have been illegal for over 40 years and modern humane cable restraints. When we talk about international agreements, those devices meet international standards for restraining traps. The modern devices meet that. Just to touch very briefly on a point that Ross made, times of the year the cover will be too high. I control foxes. My preferred option generally is to use a rifle, but at times of the year the cover will be too high where I live. I cannot see a fox to shoot it. I need to use a different method. In the past, that would have been new main cable restraints. It is really important to understand that the time of the year when it is difficult to control foxes with a rifle because the cover is high is also the time of most conservation need when you have ground nesting birds on the ground. If you do not have a method, you will suffer. The context here is really important. The first point to note is that we are in a biodiversity crisis and those reasons have been set out very clearly by the GWCT. I am not going to repeat those. The other point to note is that already we have lost one third, if you like, of the toolkit for fox control through the Hunting with Dogs Act that passed earlier this year. I know that there is a licensing scheme in place for that. The feedback that we have had from members thus far is not particularly rosy. We absolutely need to be able to manage predation and I cannot make that point in any stronger terms. These devices, human cable restraints offer us an opportunity to do that. It is also important to note, convener, that in the five-year reviews that have taken place since the ascension of the Wildlife and Natural Environment Act, recommendations have been made to improve Scotland's code-compliant snare not once but twice and they have not been acted upon by Scottish ministers. The recommendations have been there for some time to bring us in line with elsewhere in the UK and bring to fruition human cable restraints. That has not happened. We have the opportunity to do so now through a well-managed land-based licensing scheme and I really hope that the minister will listen to that and bring that to fruition as an alternative and as a compromise. I am sitting here now with a paper from 2017 Christine Graham, Stink Pits motion in Parliament. I have loads of pictures of dead foxes here, foxes that were found dead in snares and they are appalling devices. On the research angle, there is a lot of play being made about Cappacalli becoming extinct or curlew, etc. Now, no conservation organisation, the RSPB, Trees for Life, John Muartrust use snares. They do not use them in their toolkit. It is about landscape management looking at alternatives. There is some really visionary stuff going on. The Clyde Valley Wader Group, which is a farmers are on that, RSPB, NatureScot. Some of the inventive ways they are growing crops there and lapwing numbers are going up. It is really brilliant. I am sure that there is some predator control but it is not snares. They are not using snares to do that. Also, on the Cappacalli Act, it is not really a great idea to be snaring around Cappacalli or where there might be wildcat or protected animals like pine martin. Wildcat pine martin won't get away out of a breakaway. You are already talking about foxes and we are still accepting that foxes will be snared around the neck by a device. This is a rebranding exercise. These were called was it called Db snares back in the day when these were in? Glyn, there is a film of you setting them. You guys setting these. You in 2015 you were setting one of these things and things have not changed. Companion animals are still getting caught in them. People's cats, dogs, we have had otters. The list is huge. These have been banned elsewhere in Europe. Wales have done it. We should do the same. I will come back to Bob at that point about his paper and question those foxes that you are finding. Were those with tag numbers and were there prosecutions that came from Rosalda from that? I have got them down legally. It does not make any difference whether it is in the legally set or illegals is still a snare. That is where we are now. We have had lots of reviews. We have had lots of changes. It is still not worked. A second point on that in relation to Pine Martin and to Caper Caleigh. This device has been designed with a larger stop so that a smaller animal can remove itself from it. We are finding that with smaller foxes that they are removing themselves from it because the stop is as loose as they can remove themselves from it. I will come back and, in my experience, highlight that that is not what we are finding. We are finding that we have not had absolutely no catch of Pine Martin Wildcat. We obviously do not have them in our area. However, Pine Martin GS, we have absolutely no experience of them in our HCRs. I will bring in Glen, Penny and then Mike. There are two aspects to this. One is the snare hardware, the humane cable restraint. The designs have moved on. I am grateful for Bob Name checking me in a film that I did. That is a modern humane cable restraint, a snare that was code compliant with the Welsh Government code. That is a different design to what you have been looking at previously. The hardware is one thing. The other aspect is setting them in the right place. If you have non-target species and you have mentioned many of them, you would not set them there. That would be your approach. When we talk about injuries and things like that, one of the other key things is that you set one of these devices away from risk of entanglement because entanglement is one of the big issues that will cause injuries. The hardware is one thing. The best practice advice of setting them comes together to make this device compliant with international humane trapping standards. Two things. I would like to go back first of all to Libby's point about the fact that lambs die for any number of reasons. I absolutely accept that. There are a wide range of things that will impact the lamb losses, some of which you can do something about, some of which you can't. What we are talking about here is giving them another one that they cannot do anything about to face it. We are asking them to be used under licence. As part of that licensing process, you would have to meet those three levels of licensing to prove that, first of all, that you were preventing serious damage and that the action was necessary. Can you move on to licensing in a moment? That is not currently an option in front of us. We are asking about the use of licences, so we will have to meet those tests. Secondly, we are talking here about significant changes in snares. People are still using illegal snares, but we cannot make legislation based on people who are hell-bent on breaking it. It will be a clearly different type that you will be able to see what is a legal snare versus an illegal snare. You cannot take that option away because some people are going to break the rules. I would like to emphasise that the only reason that we oppose snares 100 per cent is the welfare issues. One is totally discriminate. The jobs that we go to about half of the animals that we get are non-target species, cats and badgers, etc. There have been reports made to the fiscal that have been regarding legal snares that Glyn has quite rightly said have been set illegally, and that has involved people who have been on training courses, so that excurses out the window. I am glad that Penny mentioned earlier on our earlier career. The injuries that we find are horrendous. I am not talking about just a wee animal in distress, I am talking about disembowlment and stuff. There is no guarantee that animals will be caught round the neck with a 26-inch stop there. Do you get something like a badger or that round a middrift? It is going to do incredible damage. This year alone, we have had two cats that have been brought in with snare injuries. That is the reason that we oppose them. They are totally indiscriminate, and they are cruel. Do not forget that foxes are sentient beings as well, and they deserve the protection. Some of the states that we have seen, some of the foxes that have come out of snares, are atrocious. I guarantee that any gamekeeper finding in Malaya that would be equally appalled. Thank you. Of examples of good practice exercised, Bob mentioned the Clyde Valley Waders project. It is a very good example. We know that people from there very well, we work with some of them, we work with the RSP movement, and we have every respect for what they do. The difficulty is that, in these particular cases, their islands are critical. What we really need to do is tackle that at scale across Scotland, because the situation for, for instance, Curlews is critical. Curlews are likely to be extinct if we are not careful if we do not manage for these situations. The possibility that we can transfer sensible practice quickly in terms of land use and those examples, over a very significant scale, is to say the least that it is going to take us a very long time. We need other options in the interim to be able to make sure that we can balance the good work that does occasionally happen in the landscape with the immediate and pressing issue that is presented by Fox Predation. If we do not take that short-term opportunities, which we think are represented by a conservation approach to licensing, then we are going to miss a big opportunity to redress the balance and transfer it and remove the risk that we cannot meet the recovery of species, as the Scottish Government expects by 2030. We need to do something rapidly and quickly. Before we move on, we did touch on licensing scheme. I want to explore that a little bit more. We do not have an amendment from the Scottish Government in the moment relating to snares, because the Scottish Government suggested, before the summer, that it wanted to do more work to look into the various devices. However, the Government still has not made that position clear. However, it did suggest that the Scottish Lands and Estates had come up with a potential licensing scheme that they have only looked at in the past few days, which is quite remarkable. I am going to go to NatureScot and ask what their views are on a potential licensing scheme and where do you think it is on the NatureScot and what could it manage? As we know, the minister is considering the licensing scheme. I cannot comment on that, but I can say that NatureScot, as a licensing authority, has considerable experience of licensing schemes. We issue about 5,000 licenses a year. In doing that, we aim to uphold the highest welfare standards that we can. If a licensing scheme were to come our way, we would need the resources, because, as it is set out at the moment, there is a code of practice that goes alongside it, so considerable thinking would need to go into that. If it did come within our remit, I mentioned earlier that we do not currently gather information on snaring, because it is not something that we are required to do. However, if we were a licensing authority and that became a responsibility of ours, we would look to gather as much evidence as we could and do that against an international agreement on international humane trapping standards to ensure that agreement is with that. However, it is that balancing act between the need to safeguard welfare, which we understand and accept that there are potential significant issues from snaring. In terms of that licensing thing, obviously, the minister is currently considering that. Ross Young proposed the licensing scheme. Thank you, convener. It is worth noting that we did so in conjunction with several of our land management stakeholders. Just to give you a flavour of the key points of the licensing scheme that we have pulled together, Penny has already alluded to the fact that there are certain licensable purposes, and those would need to be satisfied by any prospective applicant. Secondly, it would have to be able to evidence that no other method of fox control is reasonably practical on the land. That brings me on to the additional safeguards that we have proposed in the licensing scheme. Jess just mentioned the humane cable restraints code. What we are talking about here is a statutory code of practice that land managers will have to have regard to when they are carrying out any sort of HCR use. Within that, we have already prescribed because we know which areas the minister has concerns. We have said, for example, that humane cable restraints code should allude to things such as how often humane cable restraints are to be checked, how humane cable restraints are to be set to reduce the likelihood of non-target catch and how to keep records. If that was not enough, convener, what we are also including is really robust modification, suspension and revocation provisions as well. We have given the Scottish ministers the power to modify a licence at any time to suspend or revoke a humane cable restraints if they are satisfied that a relevant person has committed an offence. Indeed, they could suspend a licence if they are not satisfied providing proceedings against an individual or a licence holder were in order. What we have proposed, convener, constitutes a really reasonable compromise. Ultimately, it will allow that crucial conservation work, that protection of livestock work to carry on in Scotland but under a strict licensing regime, which we have got every confidence that NatureScot will be able to administer and handle. I am going to bring Penny back in on this after I have readily interrupted her. No, just yes, as Ross says, I do believe that if it was a use of snares under licence from farming situations, they do not have snares out every day, every year. Constantly, it is targeted at certain times of year and at certain individual animals. We think that a licensing scheme could work and then as part of that scheme, again, it is those three bars that you would have to pass that definitely there is a reason for your snaring and that is that you have got lamb loss, for instance, that you know is down to a fox, so it cannot just be the fact that you have got some infection in your lambs and you would have to demonstrate that you are losing lambs to foxes. You would have to demonstrate that no other alternative is possible and I do believe that in certain situations there are not other solutions that might be available. Thirdly, it will not have any impact on the conservation status of the species that you are targeting, so I think that there are definite protections there in place that would mean that under licence it could meet that balance and be that thing that it is being used because it needs to be used. Last week, when the minister was in front of the committee, I asked whether NatureScot would have an opinion on whether banning snares would have a positive or negative impact on the preservation of ground-nesting birds. The minister suggested that we should ask NatureScot. Do you have an opinion on whether banning snares would be positive or negative for ground-nesting birds? We know that predator impacts can have potential significant impacts on the decline in productivity of certain threatened ground-nesting birds, and we know that predation impacts are part of only one impact of which there are complex number of habitat impacts, climate, etc., and that predation in itself, as I said earlier, is really difficult to disentangle the different impacts of different predators, as was born out in a large-report understanding predation about six years ago. There is a lot of complexity in that. As I have mentioned earlier, we do not have and neither do we have the requirement to understand the role of snaring as one of the suite of predator control methods. It is difficult to disentangle all of those different issues, but we also recognise the significant welfare implications of snaring. It is difficult to answer that question because there are a lot of different factors involved in it, but we support the need for coherent predator management control, and we recognise that predation is one of the factors that can have an impact on ground-nesting birds and biodiversity. In isolation, looking at snaring out of the potential tools in the toolbox that a gamekeeper or a land manager would have, would that have a negative impact? That is one of the considerations when the Government makes a balanced decision. Would that have a negative impact on ground-nesting birds? There is a risk that it could have, but that has not been qualified in any way. There are alternative methods, and it is about balancing the welfare implications with the tools available and those alternative methods, whether they can step up and be used in place of snaring. It is not something that can comment on in detail, because we do not hold that information. I think that it would have a negative effect, and I think that it was the GWCT who did some research recently. I assume that foxes are snared pretty much on a number of grassmores, and their research said that curlews, predator control on grassmores—there were four times as many curlews to other areas of similar unmanaged land. Similar areas are not managed, but four times as many curlews on grassmores as those areas. It was 1.05 birds chicks fledged, which was double what was needed to sustain the population with predator control, and I would assume snares form a big part of that in the spring of the year. I am aware that another three people wish to come in the back of that, but I think that it is appropriate time to move on to the question from Rachel Hamilton, and then we can get the views again, Rachel. I think that you touched on it, so bringing in those other people just now would be beneficial, and I can pick up on anything that does not come up. I am going to bring in Connor Ross and then Bob. Back to Jessica's point on the negative effect of fox predation on ground nested birds. I think that GWCT would absolutely have the dala to show that foxes do impact on ground nested birds and their productivity. In my own experience in our area, we find that we, in our lower lowlands, with the predator control that we carry out, that we have quite successful broods of lapwing, curlew, even on the upper hills, golden plover, whereas the area, because, as I say, we are on an island, the area is round and about in that circumstance. The birds turn up, they try to breed, they get predated, that is by the bias. That is my experience of the impact that foxes can have on the ground nested birds. The GWCT has undertaken a substantive research in this field, the first one that is often referred to as the understanding predation experiment at Otterburnch. It took place between 2000 and 2008. The result of that was that we could see that curlews in particular, but black grouse productivity improved dramatically. In the Otterburnch example, snaring formed roughly 25 per cent of the catch of foxes. The work was repeated and appeared in a journal in 2022 that was undertaken by my colleague Dave Baines. He looked at 18 sites, 18 paired sites, where we checked predator control against non-predator control and we have then swapped them around. In one particular case, in those paired examples, 80 per cent of the foxes were caught using human cable restraints. He pointed out in the research that he led that curlews were achieving a productivity of about 0.95 per cent when we see the problems occurring at below 0.5 per cent. We proved the case again, and that is why we believe that the use of predation control, in particular snarers, has a role to play in improving the lot of upland birds. Bear in mind that those birds are described as upland birds now where they used to be on farmland, so we really need to make sure that those islands, those refugia, are resources to spread the birds back into farmland, where the landscape needs to adjust and it's going to take time to do that. Thank you. Bobby Elliott. On the research again, I noticed on the GWCT website that I was reading up about foxes, particularly the rear and release of pheasants and the studies that have been done on that. The widespread rearing and releasing of game birds has probably improved fox food supply in autumn and winter, so a lot of the snaring work is going on because people want to protect their game birds for shooting. That's essentially what's going on. There is nobody really doing much regarding snares and snares research apart from GWCT. I think I heard Ross dismissing some of the large landscape-scale projects that are going on now. They're going on and they go to the Cangorms Connect or any of those huge trees for life who are connecting up habitats, thinking about why we have lots of crows and foxes in the environment, rather than concentrating on snares, which is an item, an object that is cruel and indiscriminate. We've got to come back to that. We're now talking about welfare at last with those things, not just changes to design. We're talking about whether we should be catching animals in wire nooses. That's what we should be talking about here. I'm going to bring in Ross for right to reply to that. Then I'm going to move to Ross Young. Okay. With respect to game birds, we don't see many pheasants and partridges knocking around at about 1,500 feet in some of the grass mowers that we're operating. The point here is that we're talking about a conservation licence for these rare endangered species, which are typically an upland. I'm not at all dismissive of the issues that are taking place in landscapes. We are involved in some of them ourselves and we think they're very important. The issue is that, in terms of overall behaviour and culture about changing that landscape used to suit the birds at risk, it's going to take a long time. In the interim, we need something that helps the cause of those birds. Ross Young. Thanks, convener. Just a point. The fox range in Scotland is dramatically increasing. The 2018 review of fox population in Scotland was quite clear on that. One of the main reasons for it is the extent and scale of afforestation. It's surprising, I suppose, in the southern uplands and the southern upland moorland group representatives of which are here today in the room. Snaring is a particularly important method of predation control. We see in that region, for example, of a survey that I did just this week from 2021-22, 55 per cent of foxes in the southern upland region are snared versus 38 per cent shot versus 7 per cent controlled with dogs. You can see the importance of it in that respect, convener. To dismiss this as an issue that simply about producing vast numbers of game birds is fictitious and misleading. The motivations of gamekeepers are not singular for that reason. There are multiple drivers as to why gamekeepers carry out predation control and it is not just about game birds. I want to make that absolutely clear. Anybody who suggests that is clearly not someone who is engaged or spoken with any of the people that we have at the back of the room today. I'll come back to the welfare point, convener, and I do get the concerns of Mike and his colleagues in relation to the old conventional listener. I would ask that you look at GWCT's evidence in terms of the welfare benefits, or not benefits, but certainly you've knocked at the same side of facts or negatives from the HCRs that you had from the old conventional listener. From my experience of that, we are certainly seeing an absolute reduced risk to the fox as a species in our HCRs. It should be pointed out, convener, that best practice gives a set-out outline stipulations that you should use in terms to limit the non-target catch. I hide the size of loop, again that was pointed out earlier, by Glen entanglement area. Those are all things that good practitioners should be looking at to limit the risk of any injury or damage. Nobody in this room wants that. I don't want somebody to stumble across with my tag number, somebody to stumble across with an animal in distress or whatever. My experience is that you're coming along quite often and you find them sleeping, quick dispatch and then move on. Very briefly, because I was slightly concerned that we may be losing sight of the fact that the issue before is snaring rather than the validity of certain sectors or otherwise. If all sectors are agreed on the need for predator control—whether that's conservation, agriculture or anything else—my question is, would a licensing scheme enable better enforcement because, as Penny Middleton outlined, it requires you to jump through certain hoops rather than pushing some of the illegal activity further underground? That's absolutely spot on, I'd agree with that completely. The revocation, suspension and modification provisions that we've included in the draft licensing scheme are robust. I think the other thing to add to this, convener, is that, in light of the fact that there was no impact assessment done as to what the implications of this particular proposal would be, I think that the onus is on the Scottish Government to ensure that they do put in some sort of interim measure that will enable the use of HCRs to continue, and it was really regrettable when we were looking at the consultation that came out. The statement was made that the use of live capture traps, for example, were more humane and more efficient. That is just not the case. I think that it's really important that we recognise that, as a conservation tool, things are vital. As Kate Forbes has just outlined, it will allow land measures to make sensible applications for specified purposes where no other method of fox control is available. We're talking about these limited circumstances on places like the place that Conor works, where they're absolutely fundamental. Rachel, do you have anything to sweep up on that? I'm just glad that there's been an explanation between the differentiation of the humane cable restraints and the ban on the traditional scenario itself. In a way, we were starting to get inflated, and that means that we need to be looking at exemption in terms of the use of this. Ross Ewing has just said possibly an impact assessment on the use of humane cable restraints. My question goes to GWCT and to Conor Kelly on the ministers. Last week, she said that people could use shooting and trapping, which were available to land managers. I wondered how effective shooting and trapping were, particularly if you have any information on the effectiveness of life capture of predators. We'll move to Ross McLeod and then Conor Kelly. With regard to the mix of options, we've been collecting data through an app, which has been rolled out to 26 upland estates to look at the proportion and the mix, if you like. I think that, off the top of my head, it's about 39-40 per cent of foxes that are managed by snaring, by HCRs, and 61 per cent is by shooting. Within that mix, it included 1,000 mandates of operating cage traps as an alternative no foxes were taken. We therefore concentrate on the issue of whether shooting makes up the shortfall if HCRs happen to be removed. 40 per cent is a lot to make up, particularly when shooting is not always possible. It's been outlined that in circumstances where deep cover is present, it's not possible to shoot where you can't see. It's also unsafe under those circumstances, particularly where you've got other people moving around the landscape. There are issues about shooting. You can't always use thermals, particularly when it's damp or wet. The possibility that shooting makes up the shortfall is just impossible to imagine. Touching on Ross's point, we find shooting very effective. However, there is that shortfall. We shoot probably 30 per cent. It's kind of roll-reversed. In that sense, 61 per cent of our foxes are snared or caught in humane keelol or stones, because it's quite steep topography. We're heavily forested on all sides, surrounded by commercial forestry. It's not physically possible to shoot the number of foxes or control the number of foxes. To our best efforts, we do try. However, the use of humane cable restraints is absolutely vital, especially when hunting with dogs has just been removed. I know that there's, with NatureScot, I know of one case that went forward so far, and that's been rejected, and that's in Perthshire. That's not exactly filling me full of reassurance, if I'm being honest. The toolkit is becoming less and less. I understand that technology is getting better, thermal equipment is getting better, but I can still not see the tops of hills, you know, you have to take into consideration things like fog and all the things, so we can't carry out our farming control with the need that we need to. So it's certainly not where entire straits of FHCRs are not left as an option on the licence. Thank you. Move on to question from Alasdair Allan. Thank you, convener. Just in terms of how the operation of sneering offences under the bill might work, I wonder if we could say anything or if anyone has a view on the issue that we've touched on in this committee before about vicarious liability and how it might apply and what the consequences of it might be. Anyone like to comment on vicarious liability? Ross. I think it broadly was covered last week. We're not aware of any VL offences in relation to existing sneering offences, so I don't really see the need. The other thing I'd highlight, of course, is that the review, the 2022 review, was quite clear on this. The majority of a legal snare operation tends to be around those who are committed to undertaking a legal operation. It's not people that are sanctioned to do so in a certain way. I think we're not going to be able to ever stop those who are going to act on the wrong side of the law. That will continue irrespective of whether snares, cable restraints are banned or not. When we're looking at what is the aim of this legislation, ultimately a ban on snares is not going to stop illicit operators such as poachers and people who persecute badgers for continuing to do what they're doing, so I don't really see the case for vicarious liability, to be honest. Bob Elliott. My experience was when I was working for RSPB when vicarious liability came in, I think I might be on this committee at one point. It can be a powerful tool to drive change, but I would, again, just come back to the main point about the welfare aspects of snares. So whether they're set illegally or legally, it's still the same impact on the fox that's being snared. I think that's why we're here today because we've moved on, this debate has moved on, from the basics of predator control. This is a device that shouldn't be used for any reason at all. Jim Fairlaw is supplementary. It's just on the idea of vicarious liability. If a person's entire liability is put at risk as a result of doing something illegal, setting an illegal snare, surely vicarious liability is an important tool to be able to ensure that it's only going to be legal-set snares that are set by estates and farmers who are trying to do the right thing. I think that what we would argue would be a sensible compromise, and our licensing scheme sort of speaks to this, because it's a land-based licensing scheme. If some irrelevant individual, i.e. someone acting at the incidence of a landowner, was to deliberately set a humane cable restraint in an illegal fashion, NatureScot as the regulator would have the power to suspend, revoke or modify that licence and it would cover the entire land holding. So the implication would be felt not just by the individual but by the estate at large, and I personally think that that gives the regulator sufficient discretion to say, actually, we do not have trust and confidence that proper practices are being followed in this particular place and therefore the entire land holding should be subject to a suspension or a revocation. I think that constitutes a fair compromise, I don't think that vicarious liability will be required, I think that our licensing scheme achieves the end. We've been involved in many snare and cases and vicarious liabilities never come up. There's never been any evidence that was carried out on behalf or at the instruction or knowledge of the landowner or the factor or agent. Just on that, so I posed a question a number of times to the minister on the convictions and whatever. So at the moment there's quite strict guidelines, as I've heard from Connor Kelly about the way snares are currently set. How many convictions or how many cases have you investigated where snares have been set legally and resulted in a bad outcome? You've got to remember, a lot of what could be classed as well like crime never gets to the fiscal never reaches court. So we've found lots of instances where an animal has suffered and it has been, as I explained earlier, because of bad practice putting it on fence-line and stuff, which is against the law. I mean, you've got to remember, we've been discussing this for at least 15 years and it was always getting better. We'll put the stop at 20 to 30 years, we'll stop, drag snares will stop, putting them on fence-lines and stuff and it's still going on. Has it gone on from licensed operator or has it gone on with people who are illegally setting snares? That's what I said earlier. There are two cases currently with the Procurator of Fiscal that have been involved with people who have been on training courses, so it's not as if they didn't know the exact law, they've actually been on the training course, so it does happen. I suppose my point is that this legislation will make it doubly illegal, because currently the cases that you see are snares that are being set illegally, so actually banning them probably won't make any difference because it's currently illegal because when you get animals that are caught indiscriminately or the snares not being set properly, it's illegal. Yeah, it's two different things there, convener. One, the actual legality, but two, coming back to what Bob says, the method used is inhumane. It's cruel. I mean, snare is not designed to kill the animal, but invariably in many cases it does, and it's not a very quick, pleasant death. But that's currently illegal. Yes, and it would be currently illegal in the future if this is brought into place. I think that Ross wanted to just come in and then I'll bring you in for the final. So, I mean, I think that the policy intention here is to stop undue suffering to animals that are potentially caught in snares or cable restraints, right? The point and the central point here is this, and the review group of 2022 said this. It would be very difficult to legislate for the actions of individuals where the modus operandius undertake an act of snaring with the intention of committing an associated offence, i.e. those people that are absolutely committed to committing offences are going to continue to do so. And, convener, you asked for facts and figures on this, and I'm happy to provide that. So, again, the 2022 review of snaring for the Scottish Government, there were 18 cases of standard prosecution reports received by the Procurator Fiscal. Four of those resulted in the cases being prosecuted, and that's basically the ratio you've got there, and it sets it out also for 2012 to 2016. So, the Scottish Government have got this information available because they commissioned it, but that is all set out in the latest review of snaring. Okay. Finally, Rachel Hamilton. Well, it's just to reiterate, Mike. Are you saying that you still believe that legal snaring will continue by those who are bad practitioners or poachers, even if this legislation is in place? You'll always get illegality. I'm not saying that there is a need for the use of snares. Again, it comes back to the actual suffering that's caused by them, that it's unnecessary. For a put on record, I do not believe for one second any bona fide gamekeeper has ever put a snare out with the intention of causing an animal to suffer. I'm not saying that's their intention, but that's in reality what happens. Can you put some figures behind some of this? We've got figures of the cases that we've investigated and reported to Proctor of Fiscal, and I can get them to you this afternoon, the whole committee, not a problem. That would be useful. Thank you, Mike. Ross McLeod. I want to make one point. We've talked about the use of app technology to understand what's happening as far as Foxcatch is concerned, and that has improved dramatically our understanding of what's going on. I think that looking back about the two iterations of the five-year review since the introduction of Wildlife and Natural Environment Act, there has been a collective failure, and that is to bring the information together. So if we are in a position where a licensing system is introduced, I think it's incumbent on both our side to produce evidence about what's happening, not just in relation to fox predation and the catch rate, but also what's happening in terms of conservation benefit. Equally, I think that it's incumbent upon the authorities like SSPCA to be clear in the information about where incidents are happening, whether it's illegal, legal, whether it's involving tags, where these are taking place as well, because that might give us a clear idea about whether this is happening in the rural environment or whether it's happening in suburbia, wherever. I think that that will help immensely. The commission would not be supporting any exception under licensing. In terms of HCR, although the technology of the snare itself may be different, the peripheral effects, the fundamental effects of being restrained in a wire noose over a period of hours, are not affected by that. If there was to be a licensing scheme, we would not support the proposal that is being tabled at present. It is far more permissive than the current legislation or other licensing schemes. As a quick example of that, to base a licensing scheme on a code rather than regulations, which would be the normal approach, is more permissive. There is an assumption in this proposal that ministers must grant licenses subject to certain exceptions, and that, again, is the opposite of the normal procedure, so I won't go into more detail at present, but I think that we would not be able to support that. I've got final speakers, Penny Middleton, Glenn Evans and then Rossi Ann. I just wanted to go back to what Mike Flynn was saying about the cases where they have seen suffering in snares, and just that clarity on whether I heard incorrectly that the cases where they have seen suffering in snares have been illegally set, so they've been set in a manner that doesn't follow the best practice and doesn't follow how they should be used. If we're coming down to the pure welfare argument, if the new style of humane cable restraints are used in the manner to which they are designed to be used, they will significantly reduce suffering. OK, thank you. If you have a code of practice that enshrines that you have to use the right device in the right way, that should alleviate the concerns that Mike has just raised. Libby Anderson has mischaracterised our licensing scheme because it's a rebuttable presumption in favour of granting licenses. There's a distinction, and the reason that there is a distinction is that basically NatureScot would have to be satisfied that another method of fox control is reasonably, or would have to be not satisfied, that another method of fox control is reasonably practical prior to granting a license. So that is the safeguard that's in there. The second point I'd add in terms of the strength of the code of practice, NatureScot would be able to suspend, revoke or modify someone's license based on them not, an individual not having regard to the code of practice. That is a strong, robust licensing scheme. OK, thank you all very much. We've now run out of time. That's been hugely useful. Thank you for your evidence you've provided this morning. We'll suspend the meeting until 10. It's a big apartment. 11.30. Welcome back everyone. Our second round table this morning will focus on the proposed extension of powers of the Scottish SPCA, and we have once again approximately one hour for questions and discussion. I'll start as previously just going round the table this morning. We have Ian Bathow from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. We have Chief Inspector Kevin Kelly from the National Wildlife Crime Unit. Ian Thomson from RSPB Scotland. Once again, Ross Ewing from the Scottish Land and Estates. We have Detective Sergeant David Lynn from Police Scotland. Susan Davis, who is the review lead on the independent task force on SSPCA powers. Once again, Chief Superintendent Mike Flynn from the Scottish SSPCA. We'll start with questions from Ariane Burgess. Given that there's a number of members of the task force on this panel, I'd be interested to hear how you came to your recommendations of increased partnership working and why the group was not able to agree on a recommendation to expand the Scottish SPCA powers. What were the key concerns and how are they addressed under the proposed compromise position? Maybe if I could start with Susan Davis? The remit that I was given was to try and reach an agreement with Police Scotland and the Crown Office on the way forward. It wasn't possible through that route to get to either option 1 or option 2, which is set out in the task force. There was a lot of support for improved working together and a lot of good examples of where people across the partnership work very effectively together. However, there were some valid concerns that were raised by the extent of the scope of the powers. That was why, in the final report in my cover letter to back to the Scottish Government and to the Minister, we set out option 2, which potentially gave a way forward, but it was not possible in the timescale of the review to actually get agreement from either Police Scotland or the Crown Office to option 2 at that time. That is because some of the detail of some of the safeguards, which would be required, still need to be worked through. Mike, have you got any comments on a protocol? I had a protocol. We have said all along that we will go along with whatever protocols put in place. I would like to thank Susan for all the work that she did during that task force review. I have a question. Last week, I asked the minister whether the legislation that formed set about how the SSPCA would work and how their powers would be extended, whether those powers would be enacted prior to a protocol being agreed to. The minister said that that is something that could come forward as an amendment. Susan, first of all, what is your thoughts on the enactment of part of a bill if there is not an agreement between the SSPCA and Police Scotland? I think that it would be a pragmatic step to take to provide that safeguard, but I think that it also needs a timeline on it. That is an issue that has been around since 2010, if not before. Option 2 is to take us forward to a resolution on the issue, so it would be important that there is a strong commitment to work on the detail of those protocols and to put it in place fairly quickly after the legislation is in place. The approach will take some time to bed in and there will be issues, but if there is that real commitment to partnership working alongside it, again, those organisations will work through that in a sensible manner. As I said, we are ready to go with the protocol as soon as it is put forward by the Police and agreed by the Crown Office. What involvement would you have in that protocol? We have not seen what has been suggested yet, but I see absolutely no reason why we could not agree with what is potentially coming down the line. Iain Barthol, can I get your perspective on how the protocol would set up and whether that should be the trigger to enforcing the additional powers? Our position is that we can neither endorse or oppose the proposals at that stage in the absence of detailed legislative proposals and drafts of any proposed safeguards such as a memorandum of an understanding between the Police, Scotland and SSPCA. Our position is that we are ultimately governed by the law and the rules of evidence, so the devil will be in the detail from our point of view. I think that we would be in favour of those safeguards being drafted in advance of the bill coming into place. I don't speak on behalf of Police Scotland as I'm not a Police Scotland officer, but on behalf of the implementation of the police in the UK wildlife crime. With any new legislation or practices that does sit risk with it, I think an agreed protocol is the first step to look at mitigating any risks that could be seen. Are they going to be used reactively? Are they going to be used proactively? Where does this align with disclosure requirements upon policing? I think it's a positive step forward as demand on policing rises and services get deviated elsewhere. We are looking certainly, from an England and Wales perspective, on a project like this, where we've had legislative change and we are looking more towards partners. However, it sits around the management of the changes and how we mitigate that risk and also how people are trained within that as well. Police Scotland has reviewed that there needs to be a very clear protocol with well-defined roles and responsibilities in order for that to work successfully if those new powers are enacted. Of course, we could sit down with the SSPCA, with the Crown and we could get our heads together and make sure that we create a protocol that suits everyone's needs and ensure that there are no unintended consequences of additional powers that have been afforded to the SSPCA. Mike, the Scottish Government consultation result in the Scottish Government describing the scope for new powers as a compromise. What areas do you think that the Scottish Government thinks that the powers that you've got are a compromise? Where would you like to see them go further? I'm not sure what the Government's meaning by a compromise from their side. I think that the original intention, which was first suggested by Mr Peter Peacock MSP back in 2010, was to grant us powers under section 19 of the Wildlife and Country Side Act, which covers a multitude of things. It's now been narrowed down to extending the powers that we've currently got under the 2006 act. If an animal is live at the time, we go there, which our inspectors do, because it's the public that call us. It would extend what we could do at that point. Police Scotland still has the primacy in all things there. The protocol ultimately is the fiscal decision on whether anything goes to court and the fiscal is the expert in ensuring that all evidence is gathered lawfully, there's substantial evidence there to take it forward or the fiscal will just not carry it forward. In practice, if you were called under the existing powers of the 2006 act to an animal caught live in a live trap, if it died when you arrived, would the new powers allow you to then carry an investigation into a suspected wildlife crime? For that individual animal there. Funny you mentioned that because it's not that long ago, the animal was alive in a snare and died while our inspector was standing over it, just because, again, they struggled, they tried to get away. That was the ultimate cause of death there. If you look up and there's other traps there, we've got to leave the scene, get Police Scotland, which is not always available immediately. I have to put my hand on my heart. We could not do our job on a day-to-day basis. I'm talking about the whole remit of everything that we do without Police Scotland, with service, because it's very good, but, like all services, they're getting tired. They've got far more demands on their time than we ever have. Alasdair Allan. I appreciate, Mike, that you've touched on some of this and others have touched on it as well. I also appreciate that there is no law or legal framework for you to operate within yet, but just for people looking into this, they understand what option 2 is and compromises. Can somebody just say whether they have an understanding or a shared understanding of who does what under that option? Police or SSPCA or anyone who wants to? At the moment, our inspectors are authorised under the 2006 act, which is where an animal is alive and under the control of a man, so they're there. It does not stop us investigating wildlife and countryside offences, and, as I said previously, ultimately anything we do in 99 times out of 100, we're working in conjunction with the Police Scotland anyway, but ultimately the report goes to the fiscal and it's a fiscal that's got the ultimate decision. That will not change, regardless of protocol, as to whether the report eventually goes to the fiscal from Police Scotland or the Scottish SPC. It's the fiscal that has the ultimate decision, and there have been instances, and I've mentioned it before, where we've masturbated, where it was actually the police that suggested, because of the time and the expertise that we've got on it, we actually finalised the reports that went to the fiscal, and I've never heard any concern or complaints of that. The only additional thing that I was going to add is that what this really gives is that it gives the SSPCA the powers to collect and preserve evidence, which they currently don't have if that animal is dead when they arrive on site, and that seems a sensible extension of the current situation. That is backed up by training in terms of how to gather that evidence, how to preserve that evidence. That's the step that they get. I think that we can't lose sight of the huge importance and significance of those LHDs of an investigation. We just need to bear that in mind. We could have an incident at the start, so it appears to be relatively simple. Items are seized, but it could develop into a very big police investigation, a very big police inquiry involving numerous people, and it could involve numerous areas. Ultimately, the bottom line is that a case could fall, a case could be taken no further because of a misstep at the very early stages of investigation, for example, when evidence is seized when a loathe is identified. I totally appreciate certainly Mike's point. Police Scotland may not always be able to respond immediately then and there. However, we just need to bear in mind the importance of those very early stages of investigation. It's not something that we can talk about, as if it's not hugely important. Sorry, Mike. Just to concur with what David McLean has said, to be fair, the evidence required to meet a criminal standard doesn't matter if it's a domestic animal, what or a wildlife animal, the evidence requirements are the same. You've got to have your locus, your evidence of an accused. That's what I was saying in the last session. There's a lot of things that are genuinely wildlife crime. An animal is there, it's suffered illegally. You never find an accused person, you can never prove an accused person, so it never gets to the fiscal because you've got no evidence to actually say it's an individual that is responsible. The risk of gathering evidence at any stage is the same regardless of what type of animal is involved. David McLean, come back in. It comes down to the frequency with which we use these powers and things. For things like, police officers are obviously, I would say, I suggest experts in identifying opportunities, evidential opportunities. There may be other considerations, there could be forensic considerations, for example, that may not be immediately obvious to someone who's not maybe got that investigative mind to the same extent. So I think it's just making sure, I think, key to this, if the powers are afforded to the SSPCA, I think training and making sure a reasonable standard is met will be absolutely key, training will be absolutely key to this, to make sure, you know, a standard is being held. I've got, I think, Rachel, then Jim. It's just some clarity on what happens if the protocols cannot be agreed between Police Scotland and SSPCA. In that circumstance, will the powers be extended to the SSPCA? I'll maybe go to Ian. Is that the right person? Ian, I think if you're more or less touched on that. I know, I want to be clear on that, though. I think that, first and foremost, the protocols are primarily going to be between the police and the SSPCA and determine the way in which they work. Ultimately, our standards of evidence remain the same whoever reports the evidence to us, and so in general terms, as long as the standards of evidence are met, we don't really mind who gathers that evidence. But I think our point of view is that there is an increased risk when offences are investigated by specialist reporting agencies compared to the police, and I think it needs to be acknowledged that there is a difference in the level of training and experience of criminal investigation between the police and specialist reporting agencies, and that risk can come into the way in which evidence is gathered, the admissibility of evidence and ultimately whether there is sufficient evidence for us to prosecute. I think that there needs to be an acknowledgement of those risks, but our position is that if certain safeguards are in place and our main safeguards, I think that we are in support of a protocol between the SSPCA and the police, the main safeguards that we would primarily be in favour of are an enhanced level of training for SSPCA inspectors, particularly with a view to the standards that are required in order for them to get approved by Scottish ministers to become an inspector. More generally, another safeguard that we would be looking for is some kind of increased accountability for SSPCA in the form of additional formal procedures to enable independent scrutiny of the SSPCA, and I think that one purpose that would serve was to enhance public confidence and faith in the investigation of wildlife offences. David, Kevin, this is probably more important to you, but it is directed at Mike. If that sounds complicated, it will make sense. You are talking about the level of training and the inquiring mind that you would need to do that kind of investigation. You clearly know what that looks like and what that feels like. Mike, with all due respect to what Ian said, there is a different level of inspection or gathering of evidence at the very early stages. What level of training would you get through Police Scotland and, as importantly, how would you pay for it? I understand that all the funding that you get is through charitable donations. First of all, is that correct? If it is correct, how would you pay for that level of training? Yes, we are entirely a charity. We get no central or local government money. My understanding, other than time, is that there has been no indication about a cost. If there is a cost, if we were to pay to go on a training course and it is not just being trained by Police Scotland, we would have to look at that. Up to now, it would be any training that we had acquired on that aspect would come from Police Scotland or the Crown Office, if that was relevant with the garden evidence. I have to go back to my point, and I am going to bring in the banshire patent aspect again. It is the same complexities. The big thing from my point of view, where the police are concerned, is the early notification of anything that we are doing. If it impinges on anything else that the police are doing, they could inform us in the coming back. Where that comes into place at the moment is if we have enough evidence to report a mark to the fiscal, we have to raise a Scottish criminal records number to go with the case to the fiscal. As soon as we apply for that number, the police are alerted that we have an interest in this person. At that point, if it is a firearms issue or the police have a serious concern about anything, we get contacted on, not regular, but occasionally by the serious and organised crime squads saying, what is your interest in this person and then we will pass our information. I am assuming, and I would hope that this protocol would lead to the fact that, and it was myself that individually suggested it, that the police are aware of what we are doing at an earlier stage. If there is any concern that there could be a crossover in any other form of criminality, then the police can address that aspect. I hope that that makes sense to everybody, that it makes sense to me. The other thing that came to light during the review process was around the question of evidence and the standards for evidence. What came from the Crown Office representative through that process is that, whether it is Police Scotland or SSPCA, if issues have been raised about the standards of evidence gathering, that has been taken on board and together they have worked to improve that. Again, in that partnership sense, there is a continuous improvement that can be taken. I do not imagine that, under scenario 2, that that would be any different. If there was an issue about the standard of evidence, it would be addressed by the SSPCA in the same way that it has in the past or in the same way that issues have been raised about Police Scotland evidence. For a protocol, ideally, we would be looking for notification before, during or immediately after the execution of those new powers so that we could make an assessment of any work that we have on going, whether we want to drop everything and come and be involved or we can have a follow-up discussion in a meeting. After that, we have to decide where we are going to go and what direction we are going to go. Is it something that the SSPCA could report to the fiscal? That communication would be absolutely key again before, during or immediately after. We would be looking for that to be quite time-scaling writing. Just to add our thanks to Professor Davies for conducting the review in a really rigorous way, in terms of our expectations for training, if that is going to come to fruition, our expectation would be, and it is set out in paragraph 26 of Professor Davies' review, but we would hope that anybody involved in investigating wildlife crime would complete the wildlife crime officer two-day induction course and, along with the investigator training course, which is a one-week-long training course and repeated twice a year, and indeed more advanced training for those that are perhaps exercising additional powers, whether that is relevant, I do not know. The salient point here is that those two training courses, which ultimately underpin the investigation of wildlife crime in Scotland, our expectation would be that SSPCA inspectors, who are charged and granted these additional powers, prior to that happening, would have to complete those exact requisite courses. DS Lynn summarises the de-confliction issue around it when you have two organisations using similar powers, the notifications before, during or after. I think that the during and after is a really good governance process, so if you have powers and you take every reasonable step to notify Police Scotland, that shows good governance. The only thing I would put out there for stakeholders to consider is, before notifications, we have had issues previously in England and Wales with pre-notifications technically becoming an agent of the police, and that is now the right time to discuss that. If you are all getting powers that are to be used reactively, the pre-notification, we have to have the open discussion around where does that sit, because it is going to be de-conflicted. It was me that suggested that, if anything involved this, we would call 101 before we even enter, because half the problem that we have had is that we do call for police assistance, and there is nobody available immediately. It was my suggestion that, before 101, here is what I am doing, I am going in here, and that goes to the mainframe police, it goes to the relevant bit, if they want to turn up at the exact same time, brilliant, but if not, at least they know about it and they have got the contact number now to deal with it after. One thing to bear in mind is that that approach works if there is an anticipation that you are going to come across certain evidence that falls under a wildlife offence, but one of the issues is the SSPC attending not in anticipation of finding such evidence, and what happens then when, essentially in exercising your 2006 powers under an animal health and welfare issue, you stumble across wildlife evidence and then our concern is that, in that moment, everything is in place for the evidence to be gathered lawfully and properly, so I think that that is the issue when evidence is stumbled across, we would be interested to see how that would work. Bring it back in, Kevin. It's a cool working point of view, that would be you're out there, you're doing your job, you come across something that you need, your additional powers, good governance would be, do you want 101 as you do, you have a Get Police Scotland interest or you don't, and if you don't, then you can fall back on your new additional powers and that provides your governance process. Absolutely. To apply to who you raised earlier, Ross, they're just out there trying to find stuff. We've already informed the police that this is the land that we're going on to and the reason why, which 99 times 800 is because of a complaint that we've received from a member of the public, that's information that we tend to be dealing on. What I'm going to do, I'm going to jump questions so members, please don't get in a panic that I'm missing out questions, but I think it's probably appropriate to go to the question that Rhoda Grant was going to ask on resources and training, because I think it ties in with the conversation that we're having at the moment, Rhoda. Thank you, convener. For Mike, I wonder if you are going to need more, we've talked about training, but more trained officers to carry out this role. Do you see that role expanding with the new powers? And also, what are the resourcing impacts of all of this? I know that your closing offices in Caithness, in my constituency, I don't suppose we're the only ones having SSPC offices closed. Have you the resources to take on this work? This is all based on the fact that we're already there dealing with it. The issues of the offices, it's not offices, it was our kennels in Balmore and Ayr have closed, but that's part of our community engagement model, which is a totally separate arm of the Scottish SSPC, and it's a 10-year vision for us to improve the service that we've got for pet owners and the public. The inspectorate side, this all came about because we're already there dealing with the member of the public's concern, and we can deal with the immediate animal that's there, but we're not allowed to do anything surrounding that area. So there's no plan on increasing our resource when we're going to put in an extra 20 inspectors, and it'll not be all inspectors that will end up being trained and doing the proper training. So there's no additional resource, there should be no additional cost to us, and in a way it might actually save us money because we're there, then we've got to go and involve the police at the moment, wait until they're available, and then we've got to go back. A lot of the things that we could have done, we could have just done there in the first visit, obviously part of the protocol and all that stuff. So there's no additional resource getting put into place by the Scottish SPC for not going to be employing more inspectors to deal with the fact that we've got this slaggy extension to the 2006 site. David Lins indicated to come in and then I'll come to Ian Bathill. Just for regards to Police Scotland's training, so we do indeed run two wildlife training courses, a two-day introductory course and a five-day more advanced investigators course. It would need to be a decision made executive level, really, as to whether SSPCA could sit in on those training courses, and that wouldn't be for me to say today, or commit to today. But, I mean, the five-day course, for example, there are probably some inputs, or there are some inputs that wouldn't really be suitable for the SSPCA to be present for, with regards to covert policing methods and things like that. So it's certainly not necessarily just a given that we could incorporate the SSPC into our current training model, we may need to divide some sort of new system, and again that would need that kind of executive support, so that might not be quite as straightforward as maybe it seems at the moment. In relation to resourcing, I think it's important to note that the role of a reporting agency extends well beyond the initial seizure of evidence. Now, the agency that ultimately reports the case to us is responsible for that case moving forward in terms of providing the evidence to us, providing the report. Our preference would be for any offences involving a wildlife charge to be reported by Police Scotland, but, I suppose, if the bill was to allow the SSPCA to report wildlife offenses to us, we would want some assurances that they are effectively resourced to do the follow-up work after that point. So our requirements is that we require an agency to report cases to us timeously, to submit all evidence to us effectively and properly, and then to make potential further inquiries throughout the life of the cases we require it. So I think that we would need some assurances from the SSPCA that they are effectively resourced to do that on-going work if they were to report those additional offences to us. Just look at the badger cases that we've put in. That involves post mort-on's venues statements, third-party statements, but we're already doing that, and if we weren't, your department would be the first to tell us. Briefly, convener, thank you for bringing me in. Professor Davies's review again kind of gives, I suppose, makes a point of references to kind of what sort of number of wildlife crime instances are generally reported each day, citing Police Scotland data. So there's around 5,000 incidents reviewed daily by Police Scotland of which five, on average of five, are suspected to be wildlife crime instances. So I suppose just to give, I suppose, the committee a flavour of, I suppose, the sort of the demand that could be expected. We would probably also like some reassurances that that would be something that the Scottish SSPCA could actually could handle in terms of their resourcing. Okay, thank you. Susan. Thank you, and thank you, Ross, for elevating me to Professor Mizz will do for the record. So, yeah, I think there is an important kind of piece which Ross has also highlighted there, which is the education piece with the public, which is again a kind of function of the partnership against wildlife crime as to what a wildlife crime actually is, so that the right things are being reported through 101 or the other kind of reporting measures to be followed up as well, and that helps limit the scope in terms of the amount of resource which gets drawn into things that are not actually a wildlife crime. Okay, thank you. I'm going to move on a question from Karen Adam. Thank you. I think my question has been extensively answered through a lot of supplementaries, but just to drill into maybe some of the detail of that that we haven't heard, really talking about a point on official investigation and what that actually means has been a bit of a bona contention. It's raised some concerns with stakeholders, and at what point would an official investigation be launched? I think the concerns have came from the fact that, you know, a licence could be suspended at that point, so just throwing that out, what do we actually mean by official investigation? Part of the protocol should state that only Police Scotland can notify NatureScot of information that they could then suspend, whether it's a general licence or a licence under the Grousmer Management legislation that's going through just now. I think it's key that it's only Police Scotland that can trigger that process from NatureScot. I don't think that that should fall under the SSPCA, personally, from Police Scotland's perspective. We don't think that that response really should fall under the SSPCA, so that will be very important from our perspective, certainly. Process, it would be the information passed to the Police to then assess it and then advise NatureScot if that was relevant. Just in terms of an official investigation, it entirely depends on what you consider an official investigation to be really as to when that starts, because, as I said in a previous session, as soon as someone makes contact with the Police, an incident is raised, so some could consider that to be an investigation commencing because there will have to be some sort of fall-up with that. Some may consider an investigation to start when a witness statement, the first witness statement from a complainer or a witness is taken, so it's really quite subjective. There's no definitive answer really as to when an official investigation starts. It just depends on what you consider to be an official investigation really. I think that that's where the problem lies, is that the legislation states an official investigation, and last week the minister suggested that that would be on the production of a crime number, so there's still some gray areas over that. I'll bring in Ross Ewing on that. Thanks, convener. The establishment of an official investigation as being the basis for license suspension in our view is completely inadequate. We don't think it's potentially legally sound either. Obviously, reference was made last week to the allocation of a crime reference number being the basis on which a license could be suspended, and I'll quote here from the Scottish Government's own recording and counting rules published in October 2023, which gives a bit of insight as to when a crime reference number is allocated, so it says on page 8, in the main, incidents reported to the police as crimes will result in a corresponding crime report being created. The inference that we've taken from that is that genuinely it's in the case of an allegation sometimes does result in a crime number being allocated. That is really no difference to where we started from with regards to the establishment of an official investigation, and in our view does not provide sufficient legal safeguards to prospective licence holders that actually they couldn't be the subject of a vexatious allegation or something to that effect, so we would strongly robustly go against the proposal that was floated by the minister last week. We do not think it's inadequate in any way, shape or form. Kevin Carly. Thank you. There's a number of issues at play there because people have got the right to report a crime. People can report things and quite often they're at conflict. As far as an investigation goes, I've always been personally really clear and it's at the point that you suspect something, and that's a really good point of measurement that when you suspect that a crime has happened to your investigation stats, there are lots of administrative activities that can take place before you reach that point of suspicion. There may be the foundations to get into that point. That's probably something for discussion as we look at MOUs potentially around it all but being really clear the investigation stat at the point of a suspicion of a crime because if you're just investigating somebody and you don't suspect them, that's not right. This is certainly something that has caused the committee quite a few concerns. The minister last week said that we are looking at a few options, but I'm currently minded to make that when something has a crime number. Can I have the views again, Kevin Carly and David, on that? If you ring the control room and report something, it will naturally go to an incident number, so you get issued an incident number. A hypothetical scenario is like you wake up after a night out and you don't have your mobile phone, so you ring up and go somebody's stolen my mobile phone so you can claim on your insurance. There's actually no metrics in there, I've actually lost it drunk because that's a general incident number or has somebody stolen it because that's a crime number. Having a number doesn't always accurately reflect the report that sits behind it. That's a process issue and that's something that's current within policing that probably wouldn't be remedied, but at the point that you suspect a crime it goes from a general incident to a crime report. David? It's hard to say when would be the best benchmark for an official investigation and obviously I know the minister had said when a crime reference number is raised and that that could well be, you know, that's certainly an option. I think we've all, there are issues we could potentially raise a crime report though, but after some investigation is established there is indeed no crime, so a crime report can be no crime as the terminology we use in the police at which point a crime report is then basically written off, so there are added complications with that as well. It doesn't seem like there's going to be an ideal time at which to declare an official investigation. I think no matter when it's chosen there's going to be, you know, an element, a potential element of debate around it. Okay, I've got Mike Ross and then I think Susan. Yeah, convener, from our point of view, as Kevin said, it's when you've got a suspicion because a lot of the jobs that we get, we turn up and you go right, there's nothing here, there's no crime involved, whatever. We don't issue crime numbers obviously. In the scenario that's getting in place to it, the nearest we would get to it is if we've applied for a Scottish general record number because we've got sufficient evidence to report to the fiscal, that would be the closest that would be for us because we don't have that crime classification. But once again, for clarity, when someone phones up and says of suspicion that something is taking part, does that trigger a crime number and is that sufficient to then potentially lead to NatureScot suspending or evoking a licence? I think that's the context that we're in. Sorry, I forgot. Kevin, are you coming in and then Ross? There's more information provided in the document that I just quoted, so it gives some kind of information as to when a crime number would generally be reported. So if someone is able to provide an approximate date or date range of the alleged offence, an approximate locus, or if a modus operandi can be established, then that would generally result in a crime number being afforded. I think that the point that we'd make on this is that the wildlife management and mureburn bill for the licensing schemes for grouse shooting, mureburn and the first certain wildlife traps has got a provision that says that a licence can be suspended or revoked so long as the regulator is satisfied to the civil burden of proof that's on the balance of probabilities that our relevant offence has been committed. Surely that is sufficient to achieve the policy aim. What we're talking about is a reduction in the burden of proof that is required to be able to suspend someone's licence. We've gone away from the criminal burden of proof. We're talking about the civil burden of proof now. NatureScot would have the capacity as long as they were satisfied to the civil burden to suspend or revoke somebody's licence because of a relevant individual who has committed a relevant crime. I would really hope that that would be sufficient and addresses the policy aim. I do not see a circumstance where a suspension, where the regulator isn't satisfied of a relevant offence having been committed, being warranted in any circumstance. I just want to set that out. That document that I referenced in the first instance could potentially be quite instructive for the committee's deliberations. Thank you, convener. This isn't an issue in terms of detail that we looked at as part of the review process. It was more about the direction of travel. I think that it is something that the different options will need to be explored as part of the protocols that are put in place. My thoughts at the moment are that we have nothing like enough information to inform the committee on whether we're supportive of that measure, given that there's no detail on the ground and from what we hear that there appears to be a lot that needs to be on the face of the bill. One thing that jumped side to me is that if an SSPCA officer was to question someone who may be a suspect, do they need to be cautioned? If they're cautioned, does that then add more weight to being an official investigation, which could then lead to NatureScot suspending a licence? That's a concern, Ian. Legally speaking, there are different definitions of suspicion. There is a level of suspicion that requires—well, that leads to a police officer's SSPCA attending at an address, but then there is a different—a legal definition of when suspicion crystallises that requires someone to be cautioned and advised of their rights. I think that any wording would need to be very detailed and very prescriptive, because general terms like suspicion carry different meanings to different organisations. I think that we need to be cautious for that. Just going back on that, a sure SSPCA would then have to have training on to which point cautioning somebody would be appropriate, because we've heard from Mike that the police can't always respond in a timely manner to some wildlife crimes. How would that work in practice? That's the exact scenario, like the badger bait, in case what we're talking about. The concern has been raised with you, so you've got your suspicion. You go there and verify that what's being claimed is true. You can identify that to the accused, and that's when you've got to caution some. As soon as we think that you must be cautioned, you've got to be given your rights. So we already do that. It is widely a common pitfall for any reporting agency that this legal definition of when suspicion crystallises, and there are plenty of cases reported to us where there may be admissions made by an accused person, where we consider that they should have been cautioned before that point, and that is at a risk, and again, the mitigation of that risk comes from sufficient training to make sure that it's done properly. Can I, at this point, bring in Ian Thompson from RSPB? We often hear about raptors being found on the roadside and whatever. What's your involvement in this, and how do you think SSPCA powers could lead to more? I've worked on the front line of wildlife crime investigation in Scotland for coming on for 17 years. As an RSPB employee, we don't have any powers. I'm just a member of a public, and members of the public have been mentioned a few times in this session. As a member of the public who occasionally receives reports from other members of the public, or occasionally me or my team comes across potential evidence of wildlife crime, we regularly report those incidents to Police Scotland under current circumstances if an animal is dead, or if we receive a report that an animal is suffering, then our first port of call would be to the SSPCA, because our primary objective is to have that animal treated or euthanised. One of the key things that we've found over many, many years working in this is the importance of partnership working. SSPCA, in our view, brings considerable added value to wildlife crime investigations, often because they have a resource that Police Scotland doesn't necessarily have. In my view, with regard to police officers who are experienced in investigating wildlife crime cases, at the moment there are probably about a dozen who are regularly doing wildlife crime investigations and taking to the level of reporting them to the Procurator Fiscal in the whole of Scotland. I think that the increased powers offered by the proposals increase the potential that wildlife criminals will be detected and potentially prosecuted. I think that that has a significant deterrent value above and beyond everything else that has been said today. Just to add, I suppose, an alternative view on this, one of the things that we've got real concerns about is the ability of the Scottish SSPCA to operate under a clear presumption of innocence, and that was obviously something that was alluded to in Susan Davies' report. As part of our research before this session today, I consulted with 129 land managers to find out how many of them had trust and confidence in the Scottish SSPCA being able to investigate wildlife crime in an impartial and unbiased way. We surveyed 129 people in total, and the people who said no to having trust and confidence in the Scottish SSPCA was 97 per cent and only 1 per cent said yes. I want to highlight that there is that concern about the presumption of innocence, and that needs to really be there and established within these protocols. It's really, really important that we have that, and I just wanted to put that on the record. Some of the conversations here are as if we're thinking of the SSPCA as an organisation that's coming to this completely new, that has never dealt with evidence, with reporting cases to Procurator Fiscal. I don't have a copy in front of me, but the Scottish Government's annual wildlife crime report details the number of cases the SSPCA hasn't been involved in, and there are more qualified people around the table than I am to see how many cases are reported to the Crown Office every year. However, the SSPCA is not new at doing this, so it is dealing with investigations into criminals, including some who are committing wildlife offences. I think that that's an important point to make. David Lyon, please feel free to correct me if anyone has a different take on it, from the minister's evidence and from reading over the proposal. It sounds like this is meant to supplement Police Scotland and assist Police Scotland, and I think that overall aim is to provide that evidence to Police Scotland for us to then take it further. I think that that's where it becomes slightly different from Ian's point. The SSPCA is not doing something from start to finish potentially with this. It is going to do the initial work and then potentially pass it to us, I think, is the intention. We are then relying on the integrity of that work for our further investigations. As I said earlier on, that's just where it becomes more complicated, because any potential missteps at that point could then have an impact on the wider police investigation, by which point some recent investigations have picked up speed. They've grown hugely. It started out as a relatively minor incident, and it can turn into an incident where you've got numerous accused persons, and it's a massive case. That's where it becomes slightly different. It's not just the SSPCA that are going to be dealing with something from start to finish, so any kind of misstep would be there to deal with the potential of wider implications in terms of our following investigations and inquiries. I think that the only other point that I would add at this is that the decision to prosecute is, of course, not sitting with the SSPCA or Police Scotland. It's sitting with a crown office, and that's the ultimate control in this on the basis of the standard of the evidence and the quality of that that is presented. I think that one thing to highlight is that, ultimately, if we're talking about the SSPCA's impartiality and presumption of innocence, that comes down to an assessment of its credibility and reliability. That assessment is ordinarily carried out at the end at a trial by the decision maker, whether that's a sheriff or a jury. Our test is to assess if there's sufficient evidence and then apply the public interest test. I think that it was suggested in Susan's report that the impartiality test for SSPCA might happen at the public interest assessment from our point of view. Every case comes down to its own facts and circumstances, but I would suggest that, in general terms, that wouldn't be unlikely that we would not take proceedings on a case because it has been investigated by the SSPCA and there is wider concerns about their impartiality or things like that. In general terms, it would get through our public interest test, and then it's ultimately a matter for the decision maker at the trial. There is a reasonable anticipation that the defence in a case would found upon that point and would robustly question SSPC officers on that point, and I think that that's something to be anticipated that could affect the outcome of cases. That's probably a proper point to bring. Rachel Hamilton has got further questions on the protocol that needs to exist between the Scottish SSPCA and Police Scotland. First of all, I just wanted to say that we won't see this protocol as part of this bill. I think that everybody does understand that, and I've got concerns about the extension of the SSPCA powers if the provisions are granted in the bill. We haven't seen those protocols. Will the SSPCA be able to use those extended powers without a protocol? That's sort of my first point, but the protocol itself, we want to understand what will be in the protocol and what will be part of the agreed standards. It has been touched on slightly, but who is the best person to speak to? In the report, what we set out was that the issues around the training, the standard of evidence that has to be gathered, the trigger points for notifying the police as well, all those things that have been touched on this morning would need to be picked up within the protocol. I think that, in terms of that sort of investigation power that would be extended to the SSPCA if it was granted, it's very much given to an individual inspector, and so there is a review process which goes in place as well. If someone is found not to be conforming to the protocol, then that power can be removed from that individual. It's not an organisational consent as such, it's more to the individual. Again, I think that that just needs to be very clearly set out as another safeguard in the process. If the protocol includes the training, the training involves some of the training that would need to be done by the SSPCA to take an investigation further. What would be the unintended consequences if the SSP were given those powers to investigate without the police? That's the current situation because crucial aspects of an investigation are currently out of their reach and the police Scotland have actually been slightly concerned about that. If a protocol was set, would that be covered by the review of the individual? Perhaps they were overreaching or not carrying out their functions in the standard that was expected. What are the unintended consequences of that going undetected? Ultimately, they are going to have to follow a set of protocols. They are going to have to gather and preserve evidence in a certain way and they are going to, through the agreement with the police, have the discussion about how that needs to be presented and handed over. I think that it's been alluded to earlier on today as well that there has to be timescales around that, too. There is already exceptionally good partnership working between Police Scotland and the SSPCA and others within the wider partnership for wildlife crime. Those are an extension of some protocols that are already in place under the powers that Mike Nees' team already has under the animal welfare act. There are a huge number of unintended consequences. I think that the safeguard of giving an individual that right to follow up on the evidence and having the ability to withdraw that, if issues are raised by Police Scotland and are considered under the protocol, then you've got the safeguards in place. There are not too many unintended consequences there. David, on the parts that were highlighted by Police Scotland in previous evidence around their concerns, do you have any concerns about how robust the protocols will be and how the standards in the training and everything else will be met by your partnership agreement? Ultimately, we won't be able to agree to a protocol unless we feel it's suitable. It meets its purpose, ultimately, as of online. I don't think that to say that we would be concerned about the protocol. We couldn't agree to a protocol unless everyone was happy with its contents. For me, as I said before, the key part is really quite basic communication. Notification will be absolutely key for Police Scotland. I don't mean always possible because the SSPCA will be on land under existing powers, but we want to know before, during or immediately after those powers are exercised. We can then make decisions based on where the inquiry is going to go, where the investigation is going to go, what needs to be done, what has been done. That will be absolutely key. That will probably be the key part of the protocol as far as I'm concerned. I know that all those other things are crucial as well. However, if we are cited on something, we can then make decisions. Without that communication, in theory—with an increase in powers like this—the SSPCA could be on land under existing powers, see a wildlife crime as specified in the list in the proposal, seize evidence, deal with it entirely and report to the fiscal, with any police involvement whatsoever. In theory, minus things like a police interview, obviously, but an official kind of police suspect interview. In theory, that could happen, so communication is absolutely key. That notification is really important because there could be unintended consequences with that. I don't think that the purpose of the proposal is to afford the SSPCA that much power to be able to run with a full investigation and start to finish, but that's potentially the power that will be given if the agreement to ourselves isn't very, very clear. Jim Fairlie. Thanks, convener. I'm going to ask this question to yourself, Susan and Mike and David, a very straightforward question. Susan, you just said that there is a very good working relationship between Police Scotland and the SSPCA at the moment, so what is the need for the extra power? The need for the extra power is quite simply that if the SSPCA arrive on the land and the animal is dead, they have no powers to act and to gather that evidence. That evidence, if the Police Scotland can't get there quickly, could be lost, so it gives them the power to act on that evidence if the animal is dead. OK, and Mike, you would agree that that's the purpose of it? That's the essence of it because we have been there, we have contacted Police Scotland and for whatever reason, somebody has not been available and we've had to walk away so that the evidence can get damaged by the weather, can disappear, can whatever. It's a kind of failsafe just to take that gap that's missing because there is no issue between the Scottish SSPCA and the Police who we work with on a daily basis on a range of things. David. The relationship between the Police and the SSPCA is generally good, we have issues that you'll have between any two ages working together, at times maybe communication isn't great and things can fall by the wayside, but generally speaking the relationship is good. Any increase in powers would have to be very limited? I believe so, yes. Police Scotland's view is that the increase in power should be purely just if the increase is going to happen at all, we are generally going to oppose it, but if the increase is going to happen at all it should just be at those initial stages and that would meet the concerns that have been highlighted about seizing evidence then and there and not having to wait for the Police. Again, as I said earlier on, though, this increase in powers could potentially lead to unintended consequences of, in reality, affording them far more power than maybe was intended. We've got nothing in front of us at all, we've got a direction of travel. Can I ask Susie specifically, should there be far more detail in the face of the bill around the additional powers, the requirements, the safeguards that we might need to put in place? Independent scrutiny of SSPCA, given the hugely increased potential impact of even an initiation of an investigation resulting in the loss of a licence or whatever, should there be a lot more in the face of the bill than just a guidance or a protocol that's part, not even of sector legislation, should that detail be on the face of the bill? I don't think that it's required in the face of the bill. Having that code of practice and the working protocols is sufficient to provide the safeguards that are required. It comes back to the question that you posed to the minister the other day, convener, which is whether the additional powers should be enacted before those protocols are in place. There is already a good understanding, a good relationship between those partners. I don't see that it should take a huge amount of time and effort to put the protocol in place and to agree that. Thanks, convener. Just to pick up on a point that we were a little bit concerned about reading Susan Davies' review, paragraph 30 makes reference to the fact that Police Scotland and the National Wildlife Crime Unit expressed concern that extending powers to the Scottish SPCA could result in wider crime investigations being disrupted. To us, we're all committed to tackling wildlife crime and getting it to the absolute lowest levels possible. When we were reading that particular paragraph and the police's evidence that they submitted to the committee, it's pretty excoriating. Our worry is that we could be compromising potentially some wildlife crime investigations if, as we've said and set out, the protocol isn't really watertight and ironed out. We just really would emphasise the importance of getting that protocol right. Again, early and effective communication could negate that. If we are notified of exercising those additional powers at a very early stage, that could negate any damage to any wider police investigation, ultimately. Thank you, convener. The report, as well, predates my time there, and I've looked at that. I don't necessarily share the views from the NWCU at that time and would like to move forward looking at working in partnership. It goes back to my opening comment around governance and managing the risk around it, which is where I see the issues here is what's policing's appetite for risk. If we get this right via what's the EBOU, what's the pathway to delivery look like, then is it trialable to work? Without that, there's too much risk to policing to be able to say. There's one piece of information that I want to get in record, because the response I got wasn't quite clear from Mike. I'm going to read this out to make sure that I'm being clear. For the SSPC, it was to respond to a call about a live animal caught in a trap under its powers under the 2006 act, but the animal died before the inspector arrived at the scene. Would the current proposals enable an approved inspector then to enter land to gather evidence of a suspected wildlife crime? Ask me what the potential might happen. Would the new powers, as you understand them, allow you to enter the land to gather evidence? Well, I'm not trying to be obtrusive, but we would know. As I explained before, I think it was in the previous session, that animal actually died while we were standing there. Yes, I think that's the point. Would the direction of travel that the legislation is taking at the moment, if you were to get a call about a live animal and if you arrived and it was dead, would it currently allow you to then undertake a collection of evidence? I would say yes. In that instance, if somebody phoned us up saying that there's a dead raptor up a hill and it's been there for six months, phoned Police Scotland. Susan, is that your understanding? My understanding at the moment is that if the SSPC gets a call about a live animal and it arrives and that animal is dead, they are very limited in what they can do, so that power would give them more scope to then investigate that. That's helpful. We're in new territory with this new protocol. If somebody had their license suspended on the basis of an investigation that had been carried out through the agreed protocol that we haven't seen, would that individual have the ability to appeal against the process that had been carried out within the protocol, if they believed that the protocol hadn't been followed? I suppose that it's hard to say without a protocol being in place at the moment and knowing what the legal obligations are in terms of that. If it's not going to be on the bill, then I imagine it would be quite difficult to raise any issues. If the detail within the protocol is not contained on the bill itself, then I don't know how you could really take issue with just basically what is a standard operating procedure between two agencies. I don't know the honest answer. Very brief last comments. I've got Susan, Outros and Ian. Just in relation to that point, I think that you're talking about a licence which NatureScot would be issuing. In that situation, it would have to go back to NatureScot for review. Obviously, I can't speak for NatureScot. I have worked for them in the past and there is a process that they would go through to look at any evidence that was presented for revoking a licence or if something happened that suggested that that had been the wrong course of action. That would be a NatureScot issue for their internal procedures to be in place to cover that. Ross, just a small correction, convener, because the right to appeal on the context of the grouse shoot lightens is actually to the sheriff court, so it would be them that would make the determination of any appeal that was made and on that they'd be looking at everything on fact and law. That would be the mechanism through which it would happen. I think that we would then reiterate that the right to appeal is comprehensively undermined if the regulator actually doesn't need to be satisfied that a relevant offence has been committed. You've got no avenues then or no evidence that you can throw back if you do want to go down an appeal if that is the low baseline without proof that they are essentially setting as being the right mechanism for licence suspension. Ian Thomson. Susan Davis made the point that I was going to make. Very briefly. I could be right to the minister on this specific point because I'm still some dubiety in my mind around how that would work. I think that there are still some questions around what constitutes an official investigation as it's on the bill at the moment and what involvement NatureScot would have in deciding whether a crime had been committed, so we can certainly write for a little bit more clarification. I would like to thank you all very much. That's been a really productive and interesting session and it'll help us in our deliberations further down the line, so thank you all for your time today. That concludes our business for today, and I formally close this meeting.