 Ma 알�edinid? Professor Diolch yn maen nhw i gael nhw'r awddiad? Ond o ffordd fel mewn byddion, bydd eich gweithio i'w gweithio i fynd i gweithio eu fanhwyffaidd. Yn cael ei bach o'i bod y Pwyllwyr yn gweithio ei gweithio ar gyfer a'u gweithio fanhwyffaidd ac y ddweud i ddweud cyfnodol a'r acran ar leflaesiaidau oedd yn fawr i gwybod yn gwybod hynny'n meddwl i'r gyrwm le ac i'r Skydd y Blin. That includes setting up of SAUQ, the Commission, as an independent body, which is able to set its own priorities, respond to concerns of stakeholders and provide independent recommendations to government about animal welfare. Importantly, our remit in SAUQ, sorry, that is how we tend to refer to ourselves in the commission, and the welfare of free living wildlife. That is where definitions of animal welfare, which apply from a science perspective around animal function and experience, don't replace action. It is an important distinction. That part of our remit offers Scotland the opportunity to be in understood relation with the welfare and ethics of our interactions with wildlife. a chyffinidwch i ddod i gael ei wneud iawn ar gyfer y ffawr iawn ac yn gynhyrchu i gael ei wneud iawn yn gweithio ar yr ysgol yn iawn. Aelodau, erin oliadau, yn ei wneud, yn gweithio ar gweithio aedd yn ei ddweud newydd ac yn digwydd ac yn ei ddweud rydw i ddechrau erbyn gwybodol ac yn gallu gennymau. Aelodau i gael iawn ac yn gallu bwysig. Aelodau yn ôl ddatblygiad eich cael ychydig, gallwn i ddwy i gyfnogi weld-gade o'r that any legislation, not only that directly relating to animals, should conduct an animal sentience impact assessment, consider the effects on all sentient animals that will be impacted by activities. These trade negotiations and other policy areas such as the good food nation. Our remit federation of both legislative and non-legislative approaches to improve animal welfare, the SPCA and others have put forward on the needs to increase animal welfare education in schools, including in early years education in the curriculum. The understanding of animals as sentient beings should be a key principle of our interactions and decision making around animals and really being able to embed that into early education is critical. Overall, we consider that there is a need for a better understanding and application of age methods in encouraging Scottish citizens to do the right thing in regard to animals. Examples of that might include things like choice of breed and buying of pets, the use of animals in some forms of entertainment, interactions with wild animals. As a commission, we think that there are some very important areas to consider in animal welfare and we look forward to our discussions with the committee and to addressing your question. Professor Dwyer, we have some technical problems still. I hope that broadcasting can sort them out as we go along. I think that we got the gist of your opening comments. I would like to start with the first question. How has the commission created its work programme, including any involvement of the Scottish Government, and what progress has it made so far in relation to achieving the objectives of the work plan? I think that the audio is sort of cutting out a little bit, but again I think that I've got the gist of the question. The commission is independent work that we take those decisions as a consensus within the commission. We do engage with the animal welfare policy team from the Scottish Government. We also provide the secretariat for SOARC and have really been instrumental in setting SOARC up. However, they don't impact on our decision making and that is agreed through a process of working groups and discussions within the commission and agreement on the principles and the recommendations. We do engage with the Scottish Government, particularly through the animal welfare policy team, but also NatureScot, MarineScotland and the APHA, depending on the issues that we're thinking about and we're talking about. We have legislation that each of those teams is relevant to our thinking in terms of setting up our work plan, but it doesn't define the work plan. There are areas that, as a commission, we have quite a broad base that the commissioners are drawn from and they have their own particular interests and they're in different sectors. What we have done in drawing up our work plan is different areas and arrive at a set of priority areas or key areas where concerns were considerable or that it was very timely to put forward an opinion and to do a piece of work in that would be the very quick response that we made around ear cropping in dogs, which was an area where we felt that we could say something useful. There wasn't really a depth piece of work to weigh up different areas because we felt that the welfare concerns were clear and obvious and so we were able, whereas other pieces of work are more complicated in terms of weighing up different principles of different areas. Our work plan has really evolved through discussion but also through our own particular interests. Working on at the moment is setting up a sub-committee of the commission which will help us to prioritise areas in a more formal way for animal sentience and weighing up different areas to help us to define which areas are moving forward. Okay, thank you for that. I represent the seafood sea fishing area so you wouldn't be probably surprised at the next question because I note that the commission wants to introduce protections for cephalopods, crabs and lobsters so what would that involve and how would that impact on seafood fisheries? Thank you for the question. I think that that is a bit of anticipated as well. I am going to make a start and then I would like to pass that on to Jane Anderson afterwards for their inputs into this. The piece of work that has started from was to consider having made our definition of animal sentience consider whether the current rules and legislation that applies only to vertebrate animals is sufficient in terms of which animals are sentient and whether other animals should be brought under those protections. The work that has been commissioned by DEFRA as well suggests that species that are not under the legislation are in fact sentience. They have passed the threshold for that from a scientific point of view and from that point of view we don't think it seems logical in law to differentiate between these animals because they have reached a similar level of we believe of sentience in legislation. I am going to pass now to James, perhaps he was very involved in that work afterwards. The work that we did was exactly that looking at the scope of consideration. Defining sentience is that ability to have physical and emotional experiences that matter to the animals. We then thought, how do you assess that? This is the question of whether those animals should be considered in policy making and morally. We looked at four main criteria that provide evidence as to that sentience. One was how genetically related they are to humans because we know we are sentient. Evolution can come up with similar processes and functions in different ways. Not being so closely related is not a reason therefore to conclude they are not sentient, but it is one to consider. The second was about the form of the animal, the anatomy and physiology. Sentience may well come in different structures. It does not have to be exactly like humans or vertebrates. We found evidence in Keflopods of nerves that respond to painful stimuli and that can get sensitised from previous injuries or from early life experiences and that can be affected by anesthesia drugs, for example. There is then a category of the behaviour and Keflopods can show evidence of responding, particularly to injury, but also distressing situations and things like electric shocks. They can learn to avoid that. Again, they can get sensitised to those kinds of injuries, but also, on a positive side, a more enriched environment can alter their behaviour as well. Of course, we know that they have very complex intelligence opening giles being a classic example. While sentience is not about intelligence, it shows a degree of flexibility on how they respond. That is extra evidence for those feelings. We also looked at qualitative behavioural assessments, i.e., looking at the animal as a whole, the assessment that we get. The weight of that evidence made it sufficient to conclude that, on the balance of probabilities, Keflopods are sentient. They have experiences that matter, and that should be considered. Obviously, that will therefore have implications, but we made sure that we did not logic the other way round of thinking that we are worried about those implications, so we will change our assessment of sentience. All that concluded was that those experiences should be considered. How they are considered, of course, could be more or less. Obviously, we know that other species are sentient, but we still harvest farm and research with them, but we take that sentience and those potential feelings, particularly suffering, into account. Thank you, James, for that answer. Can I bring in Ariane Butchess now, who has a question? Thank you, panel, for joining us. I hope that the technology works for us throughout. I am pleased to see that your work programme includes a task to prepare a report on welfare on salmon farms. Could you please speak about whether and how that will build on the report from March this year by Compassion in World Farming, and one kind, titled Underwater Cages, Parasites and Dead Fish? Why a moratorium on Scottish salmon farming expansion is imperative? Do you believe that there is sufficient reason that a moratorium on new salmon farms should be put in place until animal welfare concerns are addressed? If not, would you propose strengthening aquaculture regulations through legislation to bring legislation on welfare for fish closer in line with other species? I am not sure who to direct that to, but maybe Kathy, you can help me with that. Thanks. I can start with that one, and then I might pass to Libby afterwards, if that's okay. Thank you. Aquaculture is a really important topic area, and I think that it's one that the commission has—although the commission doesn't specifically look at farmed animals, I think that there's Scottish context here, so we have started to consider welfare issues associated with farmed salmon and other farmed fish. At the moment, our main approach to this, because it's such a huge area and there's a lot of work going on in this space, and we're only able to really focus on areas bit by bit, I suppose. Our particular focus at the moment has been on the use of acoustic deterrent devices, because it's for salmon production. There's not to say that any of these other issues are not, but there's a lot of research currently going on in sea lice and other ways of improving the welfare of farmed fish from a research perspective, but this was an area where there was a particular concern around the use of acoustic deterrent devices to deter seal predation on farmed fish, but there's also the impact on European protected species, the impact on disturbing citations. This is a really challenging area where we have three separate sentient species, all of which we are concerned about from a welfare point of view, so fish definitely come under our definition of sentience and are given or should be afforded protection under legislation and they fall under the animal welfare act, but seals and citations also have other pieces of legislation that apply to them and they also have potential welfare issues as well. Weighing up these different areas is really quite a challenging both from a scientific point of view but also from an ethical point of view. There are issues that apply to fish farming that we are considering and we are still working in this area of work, so we don't yet have a place where we can put forward concerns or not or recommendations in terms of how we see progress in this area. Use for farmed fish, and I suppose if we increase the number of fish farms then potentially we need to try and resolve some of these issues as we go forward. So this is the area of work that I'm looking at and maybe I can, from a policy and legislation point of view, pass on to Libby to pick this up. Thank you, thank you Cathy. The essential thing is really to look at the welfare of the fish in addition to the welfare of the marine mammals that Cathy has just described. I don't think the commission currently has a policy on a moratorium because the work that we are undertaking is still at a very early stage but the welfare issues that have been identified include things like sea lice burden and the report that you mentioned. Ariane gave evidence of significant welfare issues, fish almost being eaten alive or significant wounding and damage to their flesh, so obviously that is something that I expect the commission will look at. There have been long-standing concerns about the welfare effect of stalking densities and the treatments themselves for sea lice, the mortality rates that are as high as you would find in any intensive farming system and that is something that is of concern obviously. Cathy has mentioned the fact that these are sentient animals and there's no question about that and all this is in the context of a Scottish Government commitment to increase the economic input of salmon farming by 2030. As I said, we're at an early stage, we need to work through all of these issues and it would probably be wrong of me to suggest that we would be supporting a moratorium because in many ways that's not our role but I think it is fair to say that we're very aware of these issues. The other thing that is relevant at the moment of course is Professor Greig's inquiry and if you look at the terms of reference for that inquiry it's not about welfare and this sometimes can be a concern where environmental regulatory issues can trump concern for welfare but I suppose that's why we're here and to keep that on the agenda. Thank you. I've got another question, a different topic. I also noticed that you have in your work programme you're going to be looking at abattoirs and I would like to hear your views on local and mobile abattoir provision. Would this help improve animal welfare and how, what other benefits would local abattoirs provide to animal welfare? Thank you. Yes, I think I can speak to this one to begin with and then I'm all possibly hand up to to give extra views perhaps and correct any mistakes I might make I think. My connection is not very stable so if you're missing things then perhaps Pete can fill in some of the gaps. Our thinking in this area was in particular around discussions around animal transport particularly animal transport to slaughter and consideration of a ban on live export which we support from an animal welfare point of view but we do appreciate that this brings particular issues for the more remote communities in Scotland and even movement within the UK can be significant for these animals in terms of moving them off islands and we know from work done in Scotland from some of the research that it's not just moving off, moving out of the British Isles that causes problems for animals it's any movement and the transport is a really significant welfare problem and it's a very visible one that we know that that citizens find quite distressing to see animals and really a potential solution to this is to have to reduce movement journeys and to slaughter animals as close as possible to the place where they're where they're read and this is a particular issue I think we've had some representation from from farmers and vets working in in some of the more remote islands like Orkney's but we I think there's also a consideration so from a from an animal transport point of view mobile slaughterhouses or slaughterhouses that are small local abattoirs that can slaughter animals very close to their to their rearing location is going to be valuable but the concern is that how how other aspects of animal welfare and indeed some of the environmental impacts of water houses and this is an area that there's not a huge amount of research at the moment but it is starting to be an area that people are thinking about in terms of the ability water houses to provide suitable stunning for example and suitable laryg and they only have relatively small numbers of species or they may have multiple different species being slaughtered in the abattoirs so I think there are a number of considerations that we need to think about we need to think about animal welfare in the round essentially in terms of not only the the shortening transport journeys but also what's the the end of life experience for animals in these different approaches so I think in general it seems like a the useful solution to to reducing animal transport improving welfare that way but I think it we still need to know more about the animals experience at the end of life in these different environments and Pete I don't know whether you want to add anything else so I have some additional views to express hi hello right fine thanks for the question thanks Cathy for passing that forward yeah the main points were covered there the journey length is something that people very much think about in terms of the animal experience and there's quite a bit of work at the moment to think to ask whether the the sea crossing part of a journey in a container actually counts as part of the journey length so that's an important consideration as well yeah the experience the animal receives at the end of its life is very important it's not just the journey to the abattoir it's the conditions of the abattoir so a mobile abattoir would would a system and it's not just a facility it's a whole system would need to provide the same welfare care for the animal as it currently experiences in a large abattoir that that's possible to where it's possible to offer all the benefits of good handling and oversight so that's very important so the care of the animals is the key thing but also there's a lot of concern about the infrastructure needed at the site of the mobile abattoir so it's a considerable undertaking to provide how water drain is removal of materials so quite a big question and as Cathy said that there's not been a lot of work in this area and it's one of the things that's on Sorks radar but we haven't done any particular work about this yet I'm afraid. Okay thank you Pete I've got questions from Alasdair and Jim but Rachel do you have a supplementary on this point? Thank you convener it's just a very small supplementary on the points that have been made there about the practicalities of moving animals and I think it was Libby had said or Cathy had said that it was a difficult thing not to do to get animals from say Orkney to wherever they're going perhaps in the rest of the UK how does the animal welfare commission look at this and this is what Pete's made his point how are you actually going to look at ensuring that we have shortened food supply chains when somebody is not finishing an animal in the north and it needs to go to lower land how are you actually doing that are you doing it from the animal point of view or are you doing it from kind of a food supply chain point of view which we all advocate as a shortest food supply chain sorry it's a very long question but can I maybe put it to Pete? Yes thank you well that tight that question sort of overarch is quite a lot of what we do to be honest and I think our priority must be looking at the animal welfare aspect as a priority but there's a difficulty here as well because actually sometimes you're trading off one animal welfare harm or benefit for a different type of harm or benefit so an overall cost benefit analysis is something that needs to be done so you know we can't look at a particular aspect of let's say the whole transport disorder process on its own we need to look in the round and there are a number of frameworks to do this the five animal welfare domains model is one way to do this but at the end of the day while we can be supplied with a lot of scientific information there is an element of judgment to make to to see what's given contemporary understanding what's the best solution and it may be counterintuitive as well but we try to bring all the evidence on board but sometimes it's not solely based on scientific principles there's an element of expert judgment if you like that comes into play thank you for that can i move on to dr allen please and thank you very much convener i want to preface these remarks by by saying i appreciate the importance of what you do as a committee and i i'm fully signed up to the principles of animal welfare on which you're based and indeed on much of what you're reporting to us however representing an island constituency where fishing is important where crealing is important i think people are curious to know where your recommendations about crabs and cuttlefish and so on are leading obviously understand why independently you have to come to the views that you come to about sentience but what is it you're expecting people to do are you expecting or looking for behaviour to change in terms of how people cope with bycatches how people cope with with creals what is it that you would like us to do to to improve the lot of of a crab who would like to take that question thank you um i can sorry i i can start on this one and then any of my my colleagues who wish to to add in i'm sure um can make their their opinions known or their views known as well um broadly speaking what our works shows is that the same considerations that are given to finfish to vertebrate fish should also be given to keflopods and the decapod crustacea because from a scientific point of view from an ethical point of view there is not really evidence that they could they should be treated differently that is our recommendation from a welfare perspective now of course we understand that that communities have many competing issues in the same interview and i think this is the point that pete was making as well is our job is to provide advice based on animal welfare obviously that we might make some recommendations and i do appreciate that for some of these communities that this will involve or potentially could involve changed behaviour in terms of how you deal with these species um so we appreciate and we appreciate that that can be challenging and difficult for those communities but um i suppose our our view is that the the scientific and the sort of ethical reasoning that we have applied to these things suggests that these animals aren't aren't particularly different from finfish and so any legislation that is and wild capture of fishing should also apply to to these other species i don't know whether any of my other colleagues want to to add anything liby or james liby please yes thank you very much cathy i think that what we must consider is the bar is thought to be met with regard to the sentience of these animals what is the effect of that the recommendation that that they should come under the protection of the animal health and welfare act scotland act 2006 now section 16 of that act defines protected animals currently it defines them as vertebrates and it allows the scotish ministers to extend that definition to invertebrates as long as they have evidence that they are capable of experiencing pain and suffering and the scotish the commission obviously has established to its own satisfaction that they can but what does that mean in practical terms it means that they have the same protection under the law as other wild animals when they come under the control of man or other farmed animals or animals that are harvested the protection that is given them is protection from unnecessary suffering what we would normally consider to be cruelty the act also contains exceptions for anything done in the course of fishing so that may give you some reassurance but if you think of the practical effect on lobsters and crabs octopus once they come under the control of man i.e. their their in captivity or they're about to be killed the practical impact would be something like killing methods and there is widespread opposition to boiling lobsters and crabs alive and that is something where there are alternative methods of killing these animals which are arguably more humane and this has been applied in other jurisdictions new Zealand for example there's much more guidance and there are other methods of doing it the keeping of animals so a few years ago there was a case in England about lobsters being displayed in a supermarket wrapped in clingfilm that these were live animals wrapped in clingfilm for a number of days this is the sort of thing that would be the first object of this sort of legislation so it's preventing unnecessary suffering once they're given equivalent protection under the 2006 act so does that sound more proportionate to you that's very helpful i mean i suppose one of my my questions was really about species where the only practical method really of getting them to market might be to get into market live so i mean for instance prawns are the obvious example there again i mean the example you give of the supermarket i think people can can readily understand that but obviously there is an anxiety you know which will be expressed you know in communities perhaps whose whole economic model is based on getting say prawns live to market so you know it is what you are saying about some species like crabs for instance is that does that have an impact on that kind of trade legislation assuming it is accepted into legislation and then the practical effect would need to be worked out but it would be done i'm quite sure with stakeholders and this notion of unnecessary suffering clearly a very debatable issue but it is generally accepted that farming or the harvesting of wild animals is a reasonable purpose providing food for people so other we may have personal views about what's acceptable to do to an animal but when the legislation comes in it would be taking a much broader brush okay thank you very much that's very helpful did james you just want to come in on that i think that the large points have been covered very well it's worth pointing out our conclusion so far have been about kethlopods so octopus and similar species rather than dechopods but similar approach one would take to deciding whether they are due moral consideration within the policy making and then as liby says what that consideration looks like can take into account the wider factors some of which might be trade-offs as Pete was talking about earlier but of course in other cases we might well expect that concern for animal welfare is aligned with other sustainable or development concerns particularly thinking in in the long term or of course in relation to health matters so that's all further work to be done at this point it's just making sure we don't logically other way around and thinking we won't consider their sentence because of those potential impacts we need to recognise that and then we can work out what's proportionate and reasonable and sensible thank you can i move on to a question from Jenny before moving back to Ariane thank you convener and thank you panel i just wanted to pick up on what Dr Goddard was saying around trade-offs and local wisdom and how how you incorporate that into your research and i'm also interested just it was touched on earlier under Ariane's questions about the russell-griggs regulation review and what basically how are you engaging with that so i think the first part was Pete Goddard okay so thank you for the question so thinking about trade-offs it this is a this is a difficult area and i'm sure that's why you are so we can we can look at different aspects of animal welfare and think that there might be trade-offs for one welfare benefit against another for example in any production system you could think of something quite simple perhaps in the upland setting of a trade-off an animal might want to make between let's say housing and the quality of food it's provided with that that's a that's a difficult one perhaps to assess from a scientific perspective but they're the ways you could approach that so there are trade-offs of animal welfare internally if you like but then there are also trade-offs in terms of animal welfare versus societal needs producer needs public needs and in a way that's something that sort of that brings in a wider constituency beyond the animal welfare commission so i would primarily see our view our role as providing evidence with the former and then it's more a political and public debate about trade-offs for with animal welfare against some other priority and i think obviously that's where policymaking has a role it's its prime role in a way and that's where we can provide advice and support but with the animal welfare hat on if you like thank you can i um maybe make it slightly more specific i read some evidence from a piece of research done by thompson and others talking about seal blinds and false bottomed nets which reduce water flow and then that may also impact on the health of the fish so trying to on one hand provide protection from the seals but then the solution perhaps doesn't help the welfare of the fish um that that was kind of what i was getting at does that make sense right i think yes i'm involved in in the work on the aquaculture no you're absolutely right i think um that that we can we can propose solutions or potential um ways of improving the management of fish that might exclude um exclude seals but we do need to take that in the round um with with some of the other impacts and i think there was a question about i think part of the question was about local knowledge and i think it's important to in our way of working that we don't rely entirely on the published scientific literature particularly in areas where there isn't a lot of information and i think the um that the sort of uh farmed fish wildlife conflict is a really good example of that um and actually what we have done and we do in most of our working groups is we also take evidence from stakeholders so we ask um people with a vested interest in the in these industries what their views are as much as as looking at what's in the scientific literature the the work from um looking at the at um seals and fish farming we have consulted quite widely we've had some really um really helpful feedback from the salmon producers organizations um from the british trout association um we've spoken quite widely to other stakeholders because a lot of that um understanding of of how these things are managed in practice is something that's not available in scientific literature so although i think we have talked quite a bit about our use of science and scientific evidence here and that is really important in what we do particularly around things like understanding animal sentience we are aware that a lot of um that there's a lot of useful and valuable expertise and knowledge that's actually in the hands of producers as well and so we're really keen to capture that and i think it is um the um the seal seal fish farming issue is a really challenging but uh example of this that um as with with terrestrial animals if you want to keep a predator out you start with the barriers how do we keep the predators away from the animals and that is the approach that the fish farms are taken but there are particular challenges in aquatic environment that um that they are they are working with and we're very aware that the producers are working on this themselves as well and um that interaction with the producers has been really beneficial in helping us to understand um and we'll we'll be taken into account in our recommendations and our guidance and our thinking about what are the possibilities and the stakeholders have given us some really useful information both in terms of their unpublished data their videos their images of what happens on the farms as well and we've taken all that into consideration thank you thank you can we move on to questions from arianne please thank you convener so we're moving on to the theme of scottish government the programme for government commitments on animal welfare so the 2021 to 22 programme for government as well as the shared policy programme with the scottish greens includes many commitments on or related to animal welfare including strengthening controls on sea lice, wrath and fish escapees from fish farms considering whether the scottish SPCA should be given extra powers to investigate wildlife crime and exploring the introduction of a public register of species licenses i'd like to hear from you about how sock could support areas of legislative policy development set out in the programme for government and shared policy programme and whether those announcements have made or will make any impact on your work programme and i realize that that's a very big question so maybe high level response would be welcome who wants to take that first thank you um i'm i think uh liby is tends to take on our legislative um questions as first call um i think potentially also we might then go to pauler paul um particular for comments around or for parts of the programme around um the importation and trade in dogs so there may be liby first thank you um first of all with regard to the consultation or the task force or the scottish SPCA it's something i do have a view on it's an enforcement issue this is my own opinion which is that any additional resource to combat wildlife crime is to be promoted and encouraged however with my sock hat on and i'm not sure what other colleagues would think but i'm not certain that we would be involved in that directly it is certainly a policy and enforcement issue i'm keenly interested in but unless cassie thinks otherwise or unless it's referred to the commission which could happen um i'm not terribly sure that our sort of advice could usefully input there on species licensing this is an area where which is so large it it springs from conservation obviously and the wildlife and countryside act and licensing under section 16 of that act there has been challenges to things like the general licenses for the taking and killing of wild birds and those have taken place south of the border but there has been an impact that's been felt up here and the test for issuing a species license whether it's a specific license for control of a protected animal or a general license for the more widespread um the the stoats the corvids the pigeon the test for that is that there has to be no other suitable alternative and in looking at those tests i think the commission again speaking from my own point of view but i think the commission would be keen to see more attention to the welfare aspects in that and it's not within the legislation at present but it's clear that the licensing authorities and Scottish government are keenly interested in welfare and want to make that one of the principles by which they act and in terms of wildlife management more generally i think it's also in the pfg or it's certainly been spoken about previously in that a strategic approach to wildlife management is being proposed with principles attached for management and again the commission has yet to discuss this in detail but i think we would be keen to see ethical principles welfare based principles built in to that approach that's both to wildlife management under license and not under license and i do apologise i can't remember what the third part of that question was um can you remind me well let's give any examples and i was talking about the strengthening controls on sea lice, wrath and fish escapees but it was really generally to to get a sense of you know whether the pfg and the shared policy programme you know what though the announcements within the pfg what kind of impact it would have on your work programme and i think you've begun to outline that but yes if you wanted to talk a little bit about the controls on sea lice, wrath and fish escapees from fish farms but we've kind of already touched quite a bit on fish farms already yes yes i'm not very whether they call the subgroup and kath can keep it right here has looked at the use of cleaner fish but again there are welfare issues surrounding it and i suppose one would be in the other um population and conservation issues as well as to where the fish are taken from but there are issues of their welfare and what happens to them at the end are they allowed simply to die off from starvation or are they culled once the the salmon population has been harvested but it's not one of the groups the time on so i'll pass back to kathie on that one thank you liby thanks liby yeah cleaner fish was on our on our list of things to look at and i think dear concern around the licensing of of add so the acoustic deterrent devices that they asked for our help with that which turned out to be quite a substantial issue for us to deal with but also helped us set some ethical principles ethical frameworks in place that we can then apply to other issues so i think the cleaner fish will come back on our radar once we have worked through the issues with salmon there's only i guess so many things that we can do and there's a lot of quite a lot of sort of fairly urgent some urgent some sort of longer term deal with i think when we get to those is is a bit harder to a bit harder to say sometimes often we we start with what we think is quite a focused question but it does tend to be quite substantial and take some work to get to get through that particularly when there are a lot of competing interests that we want like to take into account and i think that there was a broader question about how the programme for government might shape our work plan i think it is something that we consider and we tend to look at our work plan we meet as a as a whole commission and we look at our work plan every time that we we meet together and so there are adjustments to the work plan and the things coming up in the programme for government where we feel that there is a need for us to make a potentially to make a to make a statement or recommendations or whether we are specifically asked by by Scottish Government or one of the agencies to help with something then that would be is it doesn't necessarily mean that we will do that but it's something that would certainly we would discuss in the plenary sessions to decide whether that is something that we should be focusing on thank you thank you can i bring in paul avoidon i think she wanted to make a contribution yes thank you very much um it's really to follow up on uh classes comments um just really in terms of the pfg and the the aspect to work with the other governments to look at managing the importation of dogs as an individual who works across other administrations sometimes there are benefits in working individually so for example with Scottish government introducing regulation of animal welfare establishments that's really helpful for me because i can use that with the other administrations but i think in terms of importation it is important that we are working across the board to make sure that we have a consistent approach to importation of dogs i think one thing i would say is there is a broader issue there and i think it's something that the commission can contribute in that clearly the importation of dogs is very much associated with the supply and demand of dogs which is a broader issue you'll be very aware that the kept animals bill is going through Westminster at the moment and Scottish government is progressing with a legislative consensus as part of that i think now is the time to actually take a step back and take a holistic view of supply and demand in terms of the demand we know for example Scottish s pto running their campaigns to try and look at the consumer side of things but from a legislative perspective we need to look at where the gaps are so for example one of the recent introductions with the new license of activities involving animals introduces Lucy's law which is a ban on third party sales which is quite appropriate what i have seen if i might for one moment put my day job hat on is that we have seen an increase in the importation of heavily pregnant female dogs into the country because it circumvents that because you then have a mum and her pups to be able to sell the pups so we do need to look at that the other key i think gap for us is traceability of dogs and i think until we have that traceability there are opportunities unfortunately for those that are involved in in these activity purely to make money so i think there is a great opportunity for the commission to identify those gaps and be able to enter into a dialogue with Scottish government about how and where those gaps could be plugged thank you paul that's helpful that takes us neatly on to our next team which is around other uk legislation so if i could bring in jim fairly please sorry there are we i was right i'm doing that oh yes um it was i just wanted to is it the yeah you question eight you said you had question eight convener i it was the view on animal welfare regulation being made uk wide um and being done at a uk level i do you have any views on the implications for the engagement of Scottish stakeholders in the uk wide legislation in devolved areas my apologies i was on the following procedure should say thank you yeah i can i can make a start on that and then paul may also want to come back in again i think particularly in the trade for and um and other animals coming into the country i think um yeah and i think where we have these pros changes in legislation particularly around trade and movement of animals um it is it is difficult and challenging to have animal welfare legislation which differs in different parts of of the uk and i think um i'm sure and paul will talk to this much more eloquently than i about the ways that people will try and circumvent um any legislation so if we have legislation in the uk the animals will come in through a different route um i think that that's true potentially also of farmed animals as much as it is of um of the trade in pets but i speak to that as well thank you yes thank you cathy um certainly with importation i think one of the challenges we have is um the points of entry so um clearly we know that for example importation of dogs a lot of dogs are coming in through the ports in the southeast of england but they will end up in scotland so actually having legislation that is um that the same across all of the administrations um certainly will um enhance our ability to be able to deal with these issues so it's it's something i don't feel that we can deal with um at a devolved level in terms of having differences um and i think it's in terms of um encouraging stakeholders in the devolved nations this is one of those areas i feel that we do have to look at holistically um one thing we have found we've um again if i might just put my day job hat on for a moment uh we've been working in the area of illegal importation of puppies into the uk for for many years and what we have found is that those involved in this activity are very very quick and very good at changing the way that they operate um so to give you an example um during we know that a lot of puppies were illegally imported into the uk through the pets travel scheme through non-commercial routes when we went into lockdown due to covid restrictions there was an almost overnight swap to using commercial routes for that and so i think it's it's really important we don't underestimate the ability of the individuals involved in these activities and any nuances between legislation could certainly give them an opportunity for a potential loophole can i just clarify what is the position uk wide in terms of dog chipping i know that all my dogs have all had to been chipped so what is the what is the uk wide position on that so the uk wide is it's mandatory across all administrations to microchip a dog um you may be aware that there is a certainly proposals particularly south of the border to introduce mandatory microchipping of cats at the moment um however there are challenges with the way that the system is currently run um so for example when um compulsory microchipping was introduced back in 2016 there were four databases we are now up to 16 databases there is no easy way to access the information in those um across those databases there's no single point of contact um so until that is resolved um you know one has concerns about introducing further compulsory activities um the other aspect from from my perspective and forgive me i'm speaking about the situation south of the border here but in terms of penalties if somebody has a dog that's not not microchipped um they're given a window to to basically microchip that dog um what we need is sort of immediate on the ground penalties to actually access a an incentive to encourage dog owners to get their dogs microchips so there's a lot that could be done to tighten that legislation up and it does make sense to have parity across all administrations um you may recall when this legislation was going through um that Westminster and Wales had drafted their legislation separately um and the initial draft completely contradicted each other so that's why again it's it's really important that um the administrations are talking to each other to make sure that we've got good solid robust enforceable legislation one of the points that they just made there is actually one that i came across myself um i had a dog that went to another farmer and they couldn't find the the chip the dog was chipped i had all the paperwork and everything but as you say there were only four um databases at that point if we're now up to 16 then surely the ability to be able to attract dogs is one of the things i was looking at here uh the ability to track them is going to be essential to be able to go forward if we've now got 16 databases how can we possibly tie that down that's a really good question and this is one of the areas of frustration that um that there is there is no single point of contact when back in the day of four databases there was a proposal to have a single point of contact um for those unfortunately that didn't happen uh but it means that if i may be in my my professional qualification is as a vet if i'm standing in a consulting room um with a stray dog that's been brought in um the potential is i have to try and contact 16 databases to try and find the owner for that so i think that there needs to they need to be tied up um the other challenge that we have is if there is um that there is no robust guidance to deal with any sort of keepership disputes either um so the the databases are the ones that are um you know clearly that they're running a business um and i think that there needs to be a good robust process of being able to deal with things like keepership disputes okay i've got one very final point if that's okay um i'm presuming that the the still the biggest market for where pups are being bred or pregnant bitches are being produced is still in ireland that are coming over but i also know that there is you know reasonably good trade between ireland and the rest of the uk with working sheep dogs um do you have a a view on whether or not sheep dogs should be transferable between ireland and the rest of the uk um in terms of dogs in general that you know that there are obviously there are routes to be able to to to move those dogs across but clearly they think as with ireland being an EU member state the uk no longer being part of the EU they would need to go through the appropriate channels in order to do that um the other quite significant source of dogs from ireland is actually racing greyhounds are over 80 of the greyhounds that are racing in great britain are bred um originally in ireland um so those transport routes are there i think that the challenge that we have um is obviously in terms of the island of ireland we have the republic which is part of the EU we have northern ireland which is part of great britain um i appreciate this is not the forum to to discuss the challenges with that but but there are certainly significant challenges in terms of the routes used um and the mechanisms to to actually in terms of passports do you need a passport do you not um the other comment i would just make about um microchipping and in terms of traceability is we as you would be aware that we have during lockdown seen a reported increase in theft of pets particularly dogs um and certainly again with with the the cat side of things um if we are looking at microchipping cats um we do need to be able to have that traceability so for example with a cat has it been stolen um has it been run away has it been hit by a car so so there's that there are broader issues with microchipping um and certainly the theft side of things is one of them okay thank you before i bring in arianne with her question on this theme did james v8 did you have something you wanted to come back in on it was to so thank you commander it was to to broaden it into cats they've all picked that up at the end but we have seen similar patterns again using evidence from other charities no longer my day job price is going up by 40 percent and some are being sold in scotland for for several thousands and we've seen a doubling of seizures of cats across the UK border so that is a UK wide and of course those trade and transport routes need to be joined up to avoid loopholes and just to give there's a range of views on the the chipping i think there is a broad consensus on the the value of chipping of cats and the importance of that as much as for dogs from the cat's perspective at least and obviously there are issues to solve eg databases and they need solving and that doesn't preclude the value of microchipping cats so we need to have that compulsory microchipping and to sort out those issues again that's me representing a range of views rather than a sorgfium yep come in leechel dr boyden um this is really interesting about strengthening um the protections on animal welfare for pet trade and companion pets and i just wondered if that the examples that you give in terms of the data collection whether that will be dealt with it's james is making this point as well on a UK wide basis or are there animals that are being imported into scotland uh that we don't know about that cannot be traced through a common objective or a common framework across the country does it need to be looked at from a devolved perspective and a UK wide perspective can i ask paula that please yes yes thank you thank you for the question uh the traceability is a is a really um interesting and challenging area so um in terms of particularly importation from overseas uh i'm sure you're aware with the the rules of the pet travel scheme that in order to travel um a cat or a dog or indeed a ferret needs to be uh microchipped needs to be vaccinated against rabies has to have a passport issued um two big challenges with that one is the microchipped does not have to be registered on any database at all um so with no ideas you could come across um an individual with a microchip that won't be registered anywhere um the other challenge is that there is there is no traceability on entry to the country um and that that gives me great concern um i saw the evidence that the bva put forward and i completely subscribe to it in terms of dogs in terms with regards to the risk of diseases coming into the country um what it would be ideal to see apart from making having a mandatory registration on a microchip database is to actually log those microchip numbers on entry at whichever point of entry they come into what that does is to give you a date stamp and why that's important is that um we have certainly seen and we're aware that um with dogs being imported quite often that the transporters will meet at Calais they will divide the the dogs between the various vehicles and then they will literally travel up for example up the m1 corridor probably north of the border as well um if if we have a date stamp if we do have an outbreak of disease it starts to give us a level of risk um so if i can use the word rabies for a moment um most cases of rabies will present between three and 12 weeks post infection um a dog that came into the country six months ago is going to be much lower risk than a dog that came into the country six weeks ago to having that date stamp and having that microchip number we know that that individual has come through an approved route it doesn't mean to say that everything is perfect but it starts to give us that level of traceability that is incredibly important um the other element bringing it back to a more domestic level and referring to your comments about looking at things from both the devolved and across all administrations um at the moment in terms of the supply of dogs obviously we've got the new lyreggs that have come into effect um you only have to be licensed if you're producing three or more litters a year so anybody producing less than two litters of dogs a year there is zero traceability um now clearly we don't want to be prohibitive however to have a system where there's at least registration um you start to get stats traceability but that registration if it's with a local authority it would mean there does need to be communications with the local authority so that you have a central repository in terms of the registrations and the licensing and the benefit of somebody if for example I had a dog I was having a litter from them to have a registration number that starts to give traceability in terms of me as an individual to make sure I'm not breaching the lyreggs but then it could also mean that if I'm advertising those puppies I have to put that registration number on the advert because this is where a lot of these illegally imported dogs are being advertised is via online websites and you've no idea who they are where they've come from so it starts to help with that I'm not saying it's a panacea but it starts to give us that traceability thank you for that just in terms of the flow of questions can I bring in Jenny and then I'll come back to Ariane thank you I'd be interested to hear the views of SOC on the UK animal welfare kept animals bill with respect to provisions on livestock exports movement of domestic animals and modernisations of zoo licensing which apply to Scotland thank you thank you I think that there's obviously there's several different pieces in there and I think we will probably pass the baton around a little bit but um I think some of the issues around the the export and import of animals and trade issues I think were and um we would concur with with those issues and we talked about animal movements when we talked about about those issues you know for the responses to those that are still well um so we would support moves to to prevent or to to reduce the export of live animals particular and purposes slaughter um I think as we've already talked about there is overwhelming evidence that that animal trans is a cause for welfare concern um we may not know everything about everything about all all aspects of the journey but it's it's very clear that there's welfare compromise through through animal transport so we would uh be supportive of moves to um to ban live exports the sorry the issue of zoo licensing can I pass that one to you and I'm sorry I've forgotten the other part of the question um so there's exports zoo licensing and movement of domestic animals movement of domestic animals thank you um Libby would you pick up zoo licensing um with difficulty frankly um I'm aware that uh it's a fairly small clause in the bill so much of that will depend on the standards secretary of state standards which I understand are to be made mandatory and I watched our fellow commission member um Simon Gurling speaking on this he's been very involved with developing these standards and uh clearly feels that they are robust so I'm pretty sure the SOC will be in favour of those um it's also necessary for zoos to uh to demonstrate a conservation purpose which I think is another valuable protection for the animals um I did hear yesterday in the committee looking at the bill that um you can't treat all zoos the same so small collections versus a large international standard zoo like Edinburgh zoo but I I think probably we would be better to speak to Simon Gurling and respond to you in writing on that one that's that's a good suggestion thank you Libby okay can I move on to Ariane please thank you convener I want I want to touch on the UK animal animal welfare sentience bill which has provisions to create an animal sentience committee to advise the UK secretary of state and I'd like to know how SOC might engage with a future animal with this committee in future if it comes to be and what your views are on the provisions in place in Scotland uh to have regard to animal sentience especially given the article 13 of the treaty on the functioning of the EU which stipulates that full regard should be paid to animals welfare requirements when formulating and implementing policy no longer applies maybe Libby thank you yes um and I think a very important question and I think a key part of our um the setting up of SOC is is animal sentience that's um really a sort of keystone part of our deliberations our thinking and our approaches um so I think and we would support a um an approach that makes it clear in legislation that um that particular groups of animals when we've already talked a little bit about which ones those might be are considered to be sentient and that takes animals into a different place they're not considered as a as a tradable good in the same way or a commodity in the same way that that um that's something that is inanimate might be considered and we think that is really important and I think in my my opening statement we also talked about how sentience should be um be considered um as an important part of of policy making and not just the policies that relate specifically to animals but in other areas as well um that this is something that um that that we feel as a SOC is is really um is really a key part of our remit is to um is to keep that in mind um both in the work that we do that's directly related to animals but also thinking about other impacts other um aspects of the programme food nation as well and procurement that when we think about food um animal sentience is really um an important part of that which is sometimes not always considered and there are of course other parts of legislation where um I think liby has already referred to thinking about regulation but not necessarily thinking about animal welfare when we have sentient animals involved in terms of the um the proposal to set up a sentience committee um and I think that potentially is going to be part of the animal welfare committee um within um within SOC we have a slightly different remit and that we're independent in a way that um the animal welfare we do engage with the animal welfare committee on a regular basis so we're aware of what they're working on and um I would expect that that would also extend to um to the animal sentience committee when that is set up um within SOC itself we are setting up our own um sort of subgroup I suppose to to deal specifically with animal sentience and some of the ethical issues that that arise in that to help the wider deliberations of SOC so um recognising animal sentience is really a key part of what we do as SOC um and we would expect to to also be engaging in the same way that we currently are with the animal welfare committee on on any developments relating to um to their sentience committee. James um who is leading our work on animal sentience did you have anything that you I heard Kathy up to did you have anything that you so I'm going to imagine the rest of the the sentence and respond apologies if I've got it wrong so yeah in terms of the bill I think what we've been talking about about recognising sentience is that first step and as we were discussing earlier that recognition then can lead to assessments alongside other considerations of course in policy making and as I say quite often it might well be that they are aligned with other environmental or health or other concerns or even productivity concerns. The sentience committee as I understand it in the UK is also having a role in ensuring um government policy considers animal sentience whereas here for SOC we are we are not taking that sort of um quite such a strong view we're giving advice and helping and assisting policy making again yourselves or Libby and that might be able to explain that better but that does mean there's a slightly different role here. What we can do to help is to make sure is that that consideration is based on good science is done objectively and robustly um and that draws in all the relevant expertise and issues and we can also help and this is on the subcommittee we're setting up it working out ways to prioritise what are the most important ways to consider that sentience as well as then obviously how you do that in policy making obviously part of that is going to be related to sentience in terms of which species are sentience how severe the suffering would be but also of course is going to take into account wider issues in terms of legislative agenda of course in terms of the linking up to AWC again I think there are links already in place particularly across pairs and at least one co-member although that's an informal link and I think officials do too that that would set up similarly I'd assume the animal sentience committee but until we know what that looks like it's quite hard to define what that relationship would be but it would be important to be having that relationship to avoid duplication and where appropriate to align. Thank you James I'm conscious that we're running out of time as always happens in these evidence sessions and I've got two members who still haven't been able to ask the question so could I move on to the theme of the EU exit and bring in Rachel Hamilton please. Thank you I'll try and make it nice and succinct our exit from the EU could bring challenges and opportunities it's an opportunity for us to strengthen animal welfare but I'd like to know from the panel where you believe the deficiencies are currently at and in terms of strengthening animal welfare things like welfare labelling ending south stalls possibly bringing in gene editing to ensure that we increase biodiversity you talked about livestock transport where are the issues what are the most important priorities that we should be looking at should I start with Professor Dyer you seem to be managing the panel very well thank you very much for the compliment and I've struggled a little bit with connectivity issues so I'm doing my best in difficult circumstances and I'm happy to make a start on this one and I will probably I think if time permits it's probably useful to get inputs from from everybody it's not something we've specifically discussed as SOARC so we don't have a SOARC view on this I think it's probably more a personal view which reflects our areas of expertise and interests my I think from you you mentioned a number of different areas that I think are our significant concerns live transport and export I think we've already talked about non-stun slaughter is something that it still rears its head I think it's still an issue in in the EU as well as here and I think there is you know moves to strengthen that legislation to ensure end of life but I think certainly that there is a strong driver in the EU at the moment to get rid of cages altogether including faring stalls for sows and that would be something that it would be good to see Scotland and the UK also contributing to I think there's mounting evidence and indeed sort of consumer and citizen pressure for that to occur it's not without its problems of course both from a welfare point of view there is a growing body of evidence to say that these sorts of confinement systems are just not what people want I think animal welfare labelling is a really interesting interesting issue before we before we left brexit I used to sit on the EU animal welfare platform and we did discuss animal welfare labelling there as well and it's not without its issues in terms of what can be put on a label that is meaningful for consumers in terms of their understanding of animal welfare and we do put a lot of pressure on consumers to make the right choice and I think that's going to be particularly if we think about some of the trade agreements that we might make with countries where we know there is poorer animal welfare standards and how that might that might affect people's buying behaviour and it's it's potentially successful if you're buying you're buying shell eggs if you're buying a piece of meat but it's much more difficult if you're buying a ready prepared sandwich where you might not think about the life that chicken had in your chicken sandwich or in fast food restaurants where animal welfare labelling is potentially not as is useful so I think there is particular issues around new trade agreements with countries the USA would be an obvious one but there are also issues with Australia and New Zealand and some of their welfare practices which are poorer than what we currently have in the UK and in Europe so I think that there are lots of probably an area that's quite the the the informal management procedures in farmed animals and what and so I think from a from a farmed point of view there is a number of issues and that there might be opportunities but I would think our particular challenges as you and what sort of trade agreements we might make with other countries for farmed animals in terms of of their welfare I I'm sure that Pete has and Libby will have things to say about wildlife so maybe we can move to them and then to talk about companion animals okay shall I shall I pick up Kathy but just to reiterate those points that you made we certainly have aspirations to be a society that pays high regard to animal welfare but sometimes purchasing behaviour doesn't follow that lead so there's a big educational role here I think to play to to put in place and that relates to people of all ages really in terms of what the systems mean the labelling issue is a critical one but you know most consumers zoom through the supermarket and just snatch things as they go taking time to look at a label that tells you about a carbon footprint the calorific value of the food and as well as that some animal welfare notation it's going to be very difficult and and supermarkets are struggling with this and as you say Kathy there's a there's a super big problem in terms of processed food where there are many components looking at the food miles on those components even is a difficult one and if there are animal welfare aspect as well that's that's very important but of course if we're trying to play on a global market as a nation we can't fall behind the standards of the lead players but there's a cost implication of us being ahead of the game and so there's there's a lot of economics that comes into this too but I think there are as you alluded to Kathy there are some good opportunities in terms of leading the way in how we interact with wildlife and the the growing awareness of everyone about the the sentence debate if you like and how that's falling into people's minds is very important and I think this really kick starts probably the work that the Scottish government is doing and was in the last programme for government who publishes strategic approach to wildlife management that puts animal welfare in the centre and I'm not quite sure how that work is being taken forward but it's a really exciting area it could be a world leading area for Scotland and it could deal with lots of the concerns that we've already covered today in the lots of the way we approach the management of wildlife is fragmented there are numerous rules regulations objectives of different players there needs to be a consensus to bring everyone together here and I'm really looking forward to this strategic approach that's going that's being worked on at the moment and as I say that could be a great step for harmonisation and a world leading aspect of the way Scotland manages its wildlife so that's a very exciting opportunity for us I think thank you we've got a brief supplementary from Jim Fairling convener just very just a point rather than the rest at the moment about the labelling a consumer takes six seconds to make a decision from seeing a product to putting it in their basket I was at a meeting last night where they were talking about labelling for environmental standards welfare standards hygiene standards nutritional standards we're going to ask people to be taken five hours a day they're going to do their shopping with the amount of labelling that we're looking at and it is a real issue and we need to find a solution for it but in terms of the EU relationship following an appearance on the 29th of September Simon Turner raised that there may be merit in creating a Scottish animal welfare reference centre given the fact that we have lost access to the EU's notification system by coming out of the EU what do the panel feel about a centre where is there merit in creating a Scottish animal welfare resource centre to support the commission's work through working together literature identity and research gaps and training needs sorry because shall I shall I say something I can't see who's going to take the lead on so thanks for the question that's a really good question actually I looked at the the EU reference centre quite the website quite recently there is some information there and it's a sort of work in progress I guess for many of the species there's quite a lot of information on pigs but for many of the species there isn't a lot I didn't see any coverage of if you like non-production animals either and that's perhaps a shortcoming of it but I think there's a lot of merit in having a system that meets the Scottish need it wouldn't be without resource implications but yeah following on from Simon Turner's comments I think it's something that should seriously be looked at and in a way that perhaps could go hand in hand with the thoughts about having a Scottish centred veterinary service as well so I think there could be some merits in combining a lot of these things together to be able to deliver something that's more tailored to the the needs of Scotland going forward and did paul i want to come in on yes please if I may just in terms of companion animals and obviously exiting the EU I think we are starting to see some benefit and you'll obviously be aware that the kept animals bill is going through Westminster at the moment the the rules around pet travel whether they're commercial or non-commercial are basically is basically EU legislation so prior to exiting the EU irrespective of which side of the fence is it on regarding EU exit it now has presented an opportunity for us to change the law so you're with regards to kept animals bill there's a proposal to increase the minimum age of dogs entering the UK a decrease in the the the help the stage of pregnancy of a pregnant female dog before they can the maximum in terms of coming in a ban on mutilations importation of dogs with mutilations i.e. with those that either doxed or have cropped ears and the number of animals as well so they are really positive steps forward I mean clearly the devil is in the detail but the other thing I would say about that is as with any legislation it's only as good as it's enforcement so it's really important that we are able to harness these in terms of making sure that the legislation is robust but making sure that our colleagues who are enforcing do actually have the knowledge the skills and the resources to enforce those there's another piece of legislation that does apply to companion animals but not greatly and that's the welfare of animals in transport. DEFRA consulted on EC1 2005 the relevant piece of legislation but unfortunately we're very much focused on food producing animals but again there is an opportunity there to just look at that and input into it from a companion animal perspective as well. Thank you for that. Before I bring a can can I bring back Rachel? Yeah, thank you. With regards to what Scotland can provide in terms of veterinary checks, vital sanitary checks and others including managing biosecurity do you have any views on what we should be doing to protect I suppose animal welfare but also biosecurity on imported goods coming into Scotland and what Scotland can do to ensure that that that is of the highest standard and we have the highest capacity and capability to do that. Maybe Pete? Well thank you for the question. It's probably a resource issue as much as anything else in a way and it also relates to actually the points on the board where goods enter so there may be it depends whether you take a Scottish or a UK or GB wide view about where the point of entry is and whether there are checks along the way elsewhere but I'm afraid I'm not an expert in this particular area so I guess that's something we would need to come back to you about. Okay thank you. Is that something you could provide a written response to perhaps? That would be helpful. Finally can I bring in Karen Adam who's joining us remotely? Just wondering if everybody can hear and see me. Okay that's good. Thank you convener. I have two questions if I may but obviously I'll take your leads and if there's time for the second question. My first question really I'd like to ask about the complex connection between animal abuse and domestic violence particularly as we've seen recently in the pandemic context. Numerous studies have confirmed that in households with companion animals experiencing domestic violence and abuse there is also a high probability of animal abuse so some domestic reports detail that individuals and families will often delay fleeing a violent situation due to concerns regarding the safety of their companion animal. What more can be done as children in particular often rely on their pet to provide stability, security and companionship. I ask this from a veterinary and animal welfare agency context as they may be in a position to identify this as holistic approaches to abuse issues have a greater impact overall. Thank you. The question is incredibly pertinent and we know that particularly during lockdown that domestic homicides actually increased quite significantly. I do declare an interest here. I am actually a chair of the links group which is a multiagency group that basically acts to raise awareness of the links between violence to people and violence to animals and I think that there's two elements to your question. One is to continue to encourage that into agency working. One of the things that my own organisation does alongside other members of the links group is to actually provide temporary fostering for pets belonging to people fleeing domestic abuse. That's really important for two reasons. One is that as you quite rightly say we know that individuals will delay fleeing a violent situation because they don't want to leave the pets behind at the hands of the perpetrator. The other is particularly for the children who they may not know everything that is going on but to actually be able to give them that lifeline that once they're out of that situation once they're in a better place then they will be reunited with their pets is significant. Certainly with a lot of the pet fostering that there will be regular updates for the clients and their children about how their pet is getting on and I can't tell you the importance and the value of those to those individuals in that situation. The other side if I can put my vets hat on for a moment is really continuing to raise awareness within the profession about identifying what the so-called non-accidental or deliberate injuries is. This is all based on the work that was undertaken by Helen Monroe back 20 years ago. She published some research where we have good diagnostic indicators for abusive animals and it will come to no surprise to you that those indicators are exactly the same if you're dealing with abuse of a child. We are working incredibly hard to raise awareness of non-accidental injury and identifying it within the veterinary profession. We're now speaking at most of the UK vet schools including Edinburgh and Glasgow on an annual basis to raise awareness amongst the students. I think that one of the other big things with that is that within the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons our governing body there are now specific guidance within the code of professional conduct. Basically one covering that if you have an animal with injuries that you can't explain them that you should consider non-accidental injury but more importantly particularly in this world of GDPR that if animal welfare or the public interest is compromised we can breach client confidentiality so that you cannot hide behind client confidentiality if you have concerns. As I'm sure you can appreciate these are incredibly challenging cases to deal with. It's not an A plus B equal C in terms of the injuries and also going through that process of reporting a non-accidental injury to the SSPCA to be able to signpost a client to the resources they can get help from are incredibly challenging. So we do need to continue to raise awareness and certainly again with my links hat on we are sitting on a group that's been convened by Scottish SSPCA to push this forward to raise awareness amongst the vet schools to raise that education. So that's incredibly important that we continue to do that but also providing those resources on the ground and I think with my experience with the links group sometimes we do have challenges with our human health professional colleagues if they don't understand the bond, if they don't understand the importance of the human animal bond between an owner and their pet they may not understand the importance of why somebody will be leafling a violent situation so it's really important we continue to work with other colleagues, other agencies so we do have a multi-agency approach to these cases. Thank you Paula. Karen, do you want to come back in with another question? Yes, thank you. I'm grateful for that answer. I think it's extremely important to have that multi-agency approach and I'm glad to hear that there is on-going work in that regard. And I just want to come back in on the pandemic theme. We've seen an increase in pet ownership but also a consequence of this was an increase of people diversifying into self-employed animal-based work such as grooming, training and pet sitting and walking. Just to quickly give an anecdote for example, I took my dog to a groomer which I won't name. She was connected to a high table with a lead, the groomer stepped away from the table and my dog jumped off and luckily I was there just in time to scoop her up or the consequences could have been quite horrific. The lead had no safety break and surely policy would be not to leave the dog unattended. This and issues that I've heard regarding bad training practices have been highlighted. Are there any kind of regulations that we can see coming forward for these businesses popping up and any support for those with genuine experience who have worked incredibly hard to ensure their high standards which may be undermined and undercut in price? Are the regulations tight enough and how can the public be aware of what certification for example they should be looking for when using these businesses? Thank you for the question. It's incredibly pertinent and I think you've touched on a number of issues there. If we look at training and behaviour first of all there is no regulation of the world of training and behaviour at all and that is something that as a commission we are currently looking at particularly the use of things like aversive training devices, electronic chop collars, check chains, those sorts of things so we are looking at that but it is an area that really does need reviewing and potentially regulation in terms of the behaviour side of things. Again with my vets hat on there are very very few veterinary behaviourists across the country but that needs to be separated from the training side of things and over the years we know there's been a huge move towards training by reward and reinforcement rather than by punishment so that really does need looking at and I think the other areas that you've mentioned things like dog walking has grown enormously, dog grooming has grown enormously. If I may just drop out of the border with my on and field line sector group hat on for a moment we have produced some guidelines for dog walkers but they are very much guidelines but given the size of the industry now and similarly with grooming I think it is something that does need looking at so as you quite rightly say that there is good advice for pet owners in how do I find a good groomer a good dog walker what should I be looking for and that the regulation and as you say that the expertise that is there is recognised. Thank you Delishie, Cathy's hand up. Cathy could you want to come in? Yes thank you I would reiterate everything that Paula said of course. I think also this is on our sort of longer term plan is to agree that these are important and I would also expand that beyond beyond dogs actually we've also talked about this in terms of managing equine establishments and people who also offer services which again are similarly unregulated and perhaps haven't that things have with the pandemic but nonetheless these are on our radar if you like for the medium to longer term in terms of consideration. Thank you for that response, Cardin has answered your questions. That brings us to the end of this evidence session, I think that the witnesses for their evidence and we will now briefly suspend and come back at 1145. We turn now to agenda item 2, the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018. I refer members to paper 2. The official controls transitional staging period, miscellaneous amendments, Scotland number 2 regulations 2021, are made using powers under the EU Withdrawal Act 2018. Under the protocol between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, the committee is required to consider whether the procedure attached to the SSI is appropriate or should be changed. The instrument is subject to the negative procedure and Scottish ministers have categorised this instrument as low significance as the amendments are solely to make relatively minor amendments to the transitional arrangements in place. The DPLR committee considered the instrument at its meeting on 26 October and agreed that the negative procedure was appropriate. Is the committee content that the negative procedure is appropriate for this instrument? We move on to agenda item 3. I refer members to papers 2 and 3. As the committee has agreed that the negative procedure is appropriate, we will now consider the policy intent of the official controls transitional staging period, miscellaneous amendments, Scotland number 2 regulations 2021. Members will recall the committee wrote to the Scottish Government regarding previous subordinate legislation relating to import checks following our meeting on 6 October. A response was received yesterday and has been circulated to members, as well as published on our web pages. The convener has indicated that the committee will consider the letter further at next week's meeting. Does any member wish to raise any issues regarding this instrument? No. Are members content to note the instrument? I now refer members to paper 4. The committee is invited to consider the fish farming code of practice Scotland order 2021, which is also subject to the negative procedure. Does any member wish to raise any issues regarding this instrument? I want to note that the consultation analysis shows that most of the individual's environmental organisations in fisheries or other board trust respondents who supported the code would like fish farms to be regulated further and are also concerned about enforcement of implementation of the code. Concerns about regulation included several requests that the code do more to manage and control or phase out acoustic deterrent devices and replace them with benign methods of predator control. Concerns about enforcement included concerns around non-compliance and inconsistency of self-reporting by APBs. Concerns about inadequate penalties for non-compliance and challenges regarding the practicalities of implementing the code, including timescales, content of reporting and gaps and contradictory guidance. Several respondents indicated that their view that more of the code should be in the form of mandatory requirements rather than guidance. We need to ensure that fish farms are operating sustainably in order for them to continue providing jobs and benefits for coastal communities for the long term. I am content to note the instrument but I urge the Government to review the code on a regular basis and update it as necessary to ensure that use of best available practice underpinned by scientific findings and new developments. That is noted. Are members content to note the instrument? Agenda item 4, the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018. I refer members to papers 5 and 6. The committee will consider a proposal by the Scottish Government to consent to the UK Government legislating using the powers under the act in relation to the following UK statutory instrument, the waste and agriculture legislative functions regulations 2021. As this SI notification cuts across a number of policy areas and addresses legislative deficiencies across three ministerial portfolios, the committee will only focus on the agricultural legislative functions. The other functions are being considered by the net zero energy and transport committee and the local government housing and planning committee. Under the protocol between the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government, the consent notification has been categorised as type 1, meaning that the Scottish Parliament's agreement is sought before the Scottish Government gives consent to the UK Government making secondary legislation in devolved competence. Does any member wish to raise an issue with this consent notification? Is the committee content that the agricultural provision set out in the notification should be included in a UK SI? Is the committee content to delegate authority to me to sign off a letter to the Scottish Government informing them of our decision today and to confirm that no SSIs were made under the defective power that this SI seeks to correct?