 Welcome to the 24th meeting of 2015 of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. Remind members to switch off mobile phones. They can interfere with the broadcast system and committee members may be using tablets for the business of the meeting. Agenda item 1 is subordinate legislation and this first item considers four negative instruments which are listed on the agenda. Only the fourth of those, the common agriculture policy direct payments etc, Scotland amendment regulations 2015, has been drawn to Parliament's attention by the delegated powers and law reform committee on the grounds that it breaches to 28 day rule. Does any members wish to comment on any of those pieces of secondary legislation? It's one comment, if I may, convener on the last one on the common agriculture policy, which it's nothing other than a recognition of the fact that regulation 6 removes the references to specific species of grass that are required when a farmer chooses to undersow a crop and I think that was something we raised with the Government and I'm pleased to see that that impact because common sense has prevailed. That's very good, yes. Claudia Beamish. Thank you, convener. Just in terms of the same negative instrument, I was just interested to see that there was an equality impact assessment but there's no comment on what the result of that was in our group so it would just be useful if we could know. I'm assuming there are no impacts or it would have said so but I would just like clarification on that. It's the environmental liability Scotland amendment regulations. I just thought that this is a probably uncontentious but actually quite important piece of work because it's all about keeping our seas clean and it steps up what the previous requirements were so I think it's welcome that we got this in front of us. When it goes wrong it's devastating for wildlife and fishing in an area so it's quite good to see this coming forward to us. Indeed. Are there any other comments by members? As the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to these instruments barring our search for some pieces of information that we've already agreed. We're agreed? Thank you very much. Agenda item 2, Public Petitions, PE 01490. Agenda item 2 is to consider Patrick Krause's remarks on behalf of the Scottish Crofting Federation on the control of wild geese numbers. I refer members to the paper and invite comments from members on the petition just now. I think the petition raises and has raised over the last two years some very important points and regrettably I don't think those points have been fully answered, Andy. Still fully answered. The problem lies in a point that Patrick Krause makes I think very well when he quotes this committee's previous position and if I'd like just to quote it in Patrick Krause's response in paragraph at the top of page 7 he says, Dr Cloud makes a general point a reiteration of something her predecessor also said and she quotes the national goose management policy is informed by the 2010 management review. The Rural Affairs Committee of a number of occasions asked for a current review of the situation. We've also brought this up several times and that's the key point. The policy is operating when the basis of a review that was undertaken in 2010 of a policy that was set a long time before that. It is to cope with a very serious problem and I know this problem from Eila but I also know it increasingly from Kintire, from Gia, from Lesmore spreading across from the west coast and it was funded in order to resolve or at least to keep in check that problem. It is no longer funded in that way because the money is not available. The policy objectives have not changed and that is an impossible situation. There needs to be a review that starts with two premise. First is what do we need to do to ensure that these numbers are kept in check so that crofting and farming can take place unhindered because they are very severely hindered in some places and secondly how can we pay for it? Where are the resources and how they can be applied? There is an additional dimension which is a European dimension and that needs to be considered as well. I certainly have no doubt that the petition should be kept open but that this committee should go back to the Scottish Government and say that we think that the nub of the matter is the operation of a policy that has not been reviewed since 2010, circumstances financial and other circumstances have changed substantially and the nature of the problem may have changed as well and in those circumstances there needs to be a new independent review and it needs to happen quickly because this problem occurs on an annual basis and each year my constituents feel more and more strongly about it as do people in UST, as do people increasingly in Orkney and elsewhere and it is growing and not diminishing. Yes, first of all Graham Day and then Sarah Boyack. I concur absolutely with that convener and might also at the end there mentioned Orkney which we as a committee visited fairly recently and I think we were all struck by the evidence we found about the numbers of resident geese, the impact that is having on the community, the fact that the opportunity that we had heard about previously to sell the meat after shooting is proving quite limited and of course the news that we also heard about the RSPB withdrawing from the local stakeholders group so I absolutely agree with Mike Russell. I pretty much agree with the comments that have been made already. I think the issue of funding for geese management is actually quite important and it's the idea of monitoring what's happened over the last five years is also I think quite important to know what the baseline is at the moment so what are the projects that you would need, what are the funding options and I think also impact on habitat management as well because I think that's part of the agenda particularly in the US in terms of the matter. Claudia Beamish. Right, thank you convener. I would concur with the view that there should be a review for the reasons that Mike Russell has put forward. I just want for the record for it to be clarified for the purposes of the review that it's although it might seem obvious that there is the distinction to be made between the protected and quarry species and that sort of an assessment is an important one as to the way forward. I was disappointed to see that the response from other countries in view of adaptive management which the Scottish Government wrote about has been nothing and I would like us to ask the Scottish Government to pursue that because I do think that there may well be models elsewhere and it could be quite a short response that came on that and I'd like us to pursue that and like my colleague Graham Day I had discussions in Orkney and so did Jim Hume and one of the points that were made was the capacity of local farmers that which was not they were not able with the other demands on their time in terms of their farms and the other things that they had had responsibility for to actually deal with the quarry species by shooting them even where they were able to because and also the issue around them not having the equipment necessarily even then have the guns or you know and the training to do that so that's another aspect that I would like still to be considered but keen to keep the petition Angus MacDonalds, Alec Ferguson, Jim Hume. Thanks convener, I certainly agree with all the comments that have been made so far. I've still got concerns that not enough's been done to address what's becoming an increasingly significant problem particularly now that Hebrides are not just in the U.S. but also in Lewis and Harris. So whilst taking on board the minister's point in her reply that this is not just a problem for government, the SCF make a valid point in highlighting that there can't just be a reliance on land managers to manage geese especially when crofters livelihoods are being threatened and indeed the whole situation reminds me of the the comment in the West Highland Free Press about a year and a half ago where a crofter was quoted as saying it used to be the grey lag geese that were endangered and now it's the crofters. So the SCF in their response also make a salient point in that given that the situation has got considerably worse in recent years the government shouldn't be reliant on five-year-old data and recommendations which Mike Russell referred to earlier. So while the minister states that an in-house or SNH review will take place, I have a lot of sympathy with the calls by the SCF for an independent review to be carried out and as Claudia has mentioned the given that the Scottish Government's failed to get a response from I think it was the Netherlands and perhaps Norway that they wrote to for examples of how the management systems have been addressed there, would it be within the remit of this committee to try and get a response from the various governments or agricultural departments in the Netherlands and Norway? We might be more successful than the government have been. We'll have a look at that at the end once we wrap up people's comments. I'll be very brief, convener, but thank you. I just want to endorse the approach that was put forward by Mike Russell, which other members agree to. I would just point out that this situation also exists on the Solway. It is a national issue, this one. The problem on the Solway and this is where I want to underline the calls for urgency here because there are people who are going to pull out of that scheme and once people start pulling out of these schemes then they lose a great deal of the credibility that they have in the first place and the problem really seems to be one of success in a way because the goose numbers certainly on the Solway have increased markedly since the scheme began. I also want to endorse the call for an independent review. I don't think that an in-house review is satisfactory in this instance, so I think it needs to be independent and it certainly needs to be urgent. Thank you. Jim Hume? Yes, concurring with more or less everything that has been said. I just think that one additional part that the Scottish Government should maybe explore is along the EU Parliament, EU commission, putting point of views across to the error about what the situation is and the need for action. Also echo what Claudia McLean was saying and others regarding the shooting doesn't seem to be changing much in the way that numbers are at all, if anything. We need to look at other options. I thought that the visit to Orkney was very illuminating, especially in relation to the number of geese who now find it a lovely place to stay in the resident geese population, which they didn't use to have any of, is now massively increasing. I very much support the comments from around the table. The cost of shooting, I think that Patrick Cruz makes a very good point there as well. You know, there's the time that crofters need to spend in doing it and there's the cost of the cartridges and so on, and that's not cheap, so it's quite an expensive business. So even if there's a quarry species and they're allowed to shoot, it doesn't mean to say that they're going to be able to do that. I think that the review should look very seriously at all methods of reducing the numbers, including dealing with eggs, and dealing with a problem at a very early stage, and that might be something that the review could specifically look at. Thank you for that. It seems to me that there's a wide range of agreement that we should seek an independent review urgently about this matter, that it's a national matter, and that indeed there is a European dimension, both in getting evidence from other places that have management schemes, but also in terms of how the EU would review such matters as a derogation, as well as the kinds of things that would allow us to have something in the armory to do this. How we do it, I'm not quite sure. Angus MacDonald asked the additional point about getting information from other countries. I think that we should ask the independent review to do that and for it to be set up speedily, but it's been suggested perhaps that the SRUC might have contacts in other countries that it could do some preliminary work for us, and we could possibly ask them to do that if it's possible. I think that we've got to make it clear that the outshot of all of this is that the money has got to follow the policy and not follow the money, however limited that is, and that the policy has got to be made clear in the conditions that we face today. If there's a wide-ranging review and it's done quickly, I think that that would be the best thing that we could possibly seek at this time by asking ministers to move and therefore keep the petition open and respond to the petitioner with what's on the record and at the same time write to the minister and ask for a response ASAP and not when we come back in September. I move on to the next item of business, which is future meeting details. Just before I do, Mike Russell had an update for us at the moment about the milk. I'd just like the committee to note in the light of its milk inquiry and the evidence that was received from Mike Gallahar four weeks ago that first milk announced two things yesterday. One was the departure of their chairman, who has decided to leave as chair, and the board is now seeking a new chair. I think that much more importantly and concerningly, a further drop in the price, the A price of milk by a full penny. I think that that does get very close to, if not at, the intervention price that we raised with the European commissioner next week. I think that it also creates the circumstances most regrettably and worryingly that the concession on transport for Gia and Bute has been wiped out by this drop in the A price, that the advantage that might have accrued, or at least the lack of disadvantage that might have accrued to Bute, has lasted for essentially less than four weeks. I think that many people who know this industry better than I do are now incredibly worried about the viability of the industry in Gintar and Bute. I will be writing to the rural affairs minister today, but I hope that the committee might consider just expressing its concern that the first milk continues to drive down a price that was already very substantially below the price of production. That will affect people out with my own constituency, of course, constituents of Alex and others. We can discuss that in the work programme that you will be coming to in private just now, but we will be noting the fact that you are thinking of writing to the minister, and we will look forward to seeing the results of that. Thank you for raising that just now. The next meeting of the committees on 2 September will be hearing from the Scottish Government bill team on land reform Scotland bill. As agreed in its previous meeting, the committee will now move into private and consider its work programme, and I now close the public part of the meeting and ask the public gallery to be cleared.