 Gweld i'r Gweithio gyda'r 12 ysgol y Rhyw Llyfrgellau i Siadwynt Cymru i 2023. Gweithio'r gweld i'r gweithio'r newid Yn Ym Grym, gan geni Minto. Gweithio'r gweld i'r Gweithio i Siadwynt Cymru i'r Gweithio i Siadwynt Cymru i fynd i'r gweithio'r Gweithio ac i'r Gweithio i'r Gweithio i'r Gweithio i chi wneud dweud i'r Gweithio i'r Gweithio i chi'n gweithio i chi, teimlo yr edrych chi'n gweithio i siaradau cyntafol yn dŷnodd, ac i'n mynd iaris스� calculation o'r perthyn envelopeau a'u ddechrau sy'n gweithfodol. Fudderillag, rydw i'n bobl cyflaenau o'r mynd i'n hyn i'ch gweithio i ni fwy enghretaeth gyda'r llwyngen am gyd-gweithfudio, ni'n topi gwag i ni'n cyflaenio am ffraith cyflaeniau. A fawr i ddweud o'r tfawr bwysig, a'r fawr i'n cyfrwynger o'r adegach ar y cyfrwyngau cyfrwngau! Mae'r next item of business continues our pre-legitive scrutiny of Scotland's future agriculture policy, focusing on food production and supply chain resilience. I welcome to the meeting Kate Rowell, the chair of QMS Quality Meet Scotland, Joe Hind, the policy manager for Scotland food and drink, and Paul Fanagon, stakeholder engagement director from the agriculture and horticulture development board. We have approximately 90 minutes for questions and discussions. I'm going to kick off the questioning. Sectors are points in the supply chain, which we know have experienced and experienced risk in the past and expected to do so in the future. So can I ask what the reasons for risks in the supply chain in Scotland and in terms of resilience, particularly looking at farm profitability and also something that's I believe key to sustainability in Scotland, that's the process and capacity. So perhaps we'll kick off with Kate with experience on issues around profitability initially. Thanks very much and thanks very much for inviting QMS to give evidence today. Yeah, there are a lot of risks and obviously the immediate past risks are very obvious. The one Ukraine has caused huge increases in input prices, that's one of the biggest risks that farmers have faced in the past year or so. But Covid has also upset supply chains right the way through. We obviously represent people from the primary producer right through to processors. Covid was a huge shock to them as well, just recovering from that and then you get this war in Ukraine and then obviously the longer term risks of climate change, of labour and skills and all those issues. I think that the red meat supply chain has shown through Covid how resilient it can be. There was a huge shock at the start. A lot of people adapted very quickly. A lot of the businesses downstream pivoted to do business differently and they did show huge resilience overall. But there are huge challenges going forward as we know and we need to invest in that supply chain to make sure that it continues. The big problem that we are facing is the loss of critical mass in the red meat sector. To explain that, if we lose animals, if we lose primary producers, if we lose farmers, we don't have enough animals to then make the rest of the supply chain viable. If you cut back on your count numbers, the first thing that's going to happen is that we're going to lose a major processor. You've got fewer processors in the game then prices are going to go down because there's not so many people competing for the product. If you've got farmers going out of business, you don't have the hall ears there because they can't get work so they disappear. The vets haven't got the work so you're losing large animal vets. You've got feed companies closing down. All these things are downstream from the top-level numbers of animals on the ground and the numbers of farmers and businesses that are out there. You'll no doubt have picked up on the letter that Chris Stark wrote to the committee regarding future agriculture policies and climate change. The CCC persists in suggesting that the only way for agriculture to reach its targets is to cut our red meat industry and actively support farmers to leave the industry. Why is that message about the critical mass falling in deaf ears? I think that the CCC in particular have a job to do. Their job is to do with emissions and I suppose when they write letters like that, that is them responding to that job. Your job and ours is to look much, much wider than that and look at the unintended consequences from those proposals. The things that I've just said are definitely a risk if we go down that route. The other thing that I would say on that proposal is that it doesn't take into account livelihoods, it doesn't take into account the rural economy, it's numbers on a spreadsheet whereas in your world and in my world we're dealing with people's real lives and their livelihoods and their businesses. There are so many things going on in the agricultural industry to look at mitigating emissions and indeed the science is not absolutely solid either yet. There was a report out just the other day in Nature Geoscience which said that the effects of global warming from methane had been overestimated by 30 per cent. That's one paper but if there are still question marks over the actual science I think it would be incredibly damaging to even think about going down that route, which we then can't come back from and then discover in a few years time that we've done the wrong thing. I think that we just need to keep making that point. As I say, I'm not here to get an argument with the Climate Change Committee that's their job, they've done their job. What I'm here to do is try and explain the unintended consequences that would result from any intention to follow that route. Paul? I would agree with everything Kate said there. Sustainability isn't just about carbon footprints. Clearly the Climate Change Committee have got their job to do it but what we are here to look at is that we want resilient farming and land management systems, we want to look after the health of the people, the animals and the environment and that's a much broader view than the Committee on Climate Change have taken. In some cases, some people should be consuming more meat and dairy because they'll be beneficial to their diet. Clearly each individual group has got their view to take on that but we need to look a bit more broader. Climate resilience, of course, we need to look at economic resilience, we need to look at the fabric of societies, so we need to take a much broader view but I guess what I would say from an agriculture perspective on what's been a little bit self-critical, there's more we need to do in terms of demonstrating the progress that we can make towards net zero and again we have to get away from this discussion about gross emissions. It's about net zero emissions, is what we have to be speaking about. Paul, Joe, from a Scottish food and drink perspective, do you think that the agriculture sector does enough to show and evidence the efforts and the change they've made in terms of emissions and what's available in the future and how can the food and drink industry as a whole add to that? I think from Scotland food and drinks perspective we're grateful to be here to have the opportunity to speak because we are quite fortunate in the position that we can look across the industry as a whole from farm to fork and what's been clear looking at the debate around this really important issue you know this will dictate the future of agriculture, the future of land use, the future of food, massively critical elements of society for the foreseeable future and within that I don't think anybody's arguing or advocating for the status quo you know we're all recognising that there are ways we can improve, there are things we can do around the processes but what we need to do is recognise as Kate touched on that livelihoods are at stake, economies are at stake, the rural viability of communities, coastal communities, island communities is at stake here when it comes to topics such as meat it's very contentious it's very polarised sometimes some people would advocate for no meat others would advocate for more meat we would say there is a balance here and there is a global context to consider when you think about the impact of meat and dairy and in terms of that global context you've got to think about unintended consequences if you reduce production in Scotland yet consumption remains the same that's displacing production potentially to somewhere where emissions are greater and welfare is lower where we have land which is potentially not useful for other forms of farming there is a really strong argument and this is advocated for by all spectrums of the thinking around this including NGOs who have put out you know calls for agroecology for example um ruminant farming is a absolutely critical element of a sustainable food system and there is discussion around balance and from our perspective it's continuing to have that discussion and bringing lots of people in is a really critical element of that yeah just before we move on I want to keep on the response from the ccc because it's incredibly important so it would appear that the ccc don't agree that livestock production should be something that we should continue in Scotland they want to see a dramatic cut but given most of Scotland's only good for growing grass can we realistically have a resilient food and food security without having red meat production livestock production at the heart of it Kate well the figures that we have so so Catlin sheep production in Scotland is split into LFA and non-LFA at the minute so less favoured areas are the disadvantaged areas and that makes up a huge amount of the country so not just over on the west coast a lot of the south of Scotland is also LFA the Catlin sheep from the LFA part of Scotland make up 706 million they give 706 million pounds of output and that is 26 and a half percent of the whole output of Scottish agriculture so you're talking about that section being a quarter of everything we do in Scotland agriculture wise so it would appear from looking at the ccc letter that they are just saying forget about all that focus on the bits that produce lots of things and grow trees elsewhere but that is a huge it's a huge figure a huge headline figure but when you think about the number of actual people on the ground that that is applying to you know you've got people up glens you've got people out on islands and then you've got the whole associated infrastructure with that actual farm or croft you've got all the people that feed into that the feed merchants the vets the fencers every single person that then relies on those businesses to be there to exist and if you think about the farm croft businesses going all those associated people then going what have you got left you're talking about complete depopulation of some of those areas and we would argue incredibly strongly that that is absolutely not the way we want to go in scotland okay thanks jim fairly i'm sorry i thought you want to be just first okay the ccc are statues to advisers to the scottish and the UK government and the scottish parliament signed off on a climate change act in 2019 so they're clearly part of this equation but i take the point that you made earlier on about the science because when we had the evidence session with them here before they said that grazed grass will probably sequester less carbon the older it gets but there's no actual science is there when we're talking about resilience we have to talk about whether or not we have a long-term future for the livestock sector in scotland given the numbers that you've just given us so do you know of any work that is being done to look at the science that will probably tell us the old grass sequester less carbon is there any work being done around about that i'm sure SRUC are working on that but there's also quite a lot of work from others including the rothamstead institute who have done a lot of work on soils they've got records going back for 150 years on soil and there are the potential for soil to sequester carbon this is all evolving science as far as i can see at the moment and we need to as i say make sure that we don't go too quickly down one route based on one piece of science which then turns out not to be correct or or not to be you know complete there was one thing i picked up on in that ccc letter it referred to low carbon breeds now as far as i'm aware that is not a thing there are low carbon genetics but not low carbon breeds so you know that that one little scent and said to me they don't really understand all this and that is another huge potential as far as i can see is the genetics of cows in particular because individual cows can vary in the amount of methane they produce by up to 50 so if you can tie in that genetics and breed low low low methane cows you're going to seriously make inroads into the targets sorry paul yeah can i just come back to that so there's some evidence and i'll i'll i'll get this evidence and i'll pass it to the committee it's a company called Devinish who are based in Northern Ireland they got a farm in the south but they've done um it's a guy john gilliland it works for uh hdb just as a consultant right now but he's done a number of things you know working together with you know livestock and multi species swords legumes and and particularly what they what they did and all that what they've done it is the uh i think it's called lidar the process by which you know they worked with um archeology it comes from so you can actually look at the uh the carbon in the in the hedgerows in the in the trees and actually get to that uh that net carbon level and i think the challenge i think we have um from a sequestration perspective especially right now is too often we're looking at you know tier one you know international level um averages and then greenhouse gas emissions using tier two national levels but we haven't really got the tier three individual individual farms we really need to have that that baseline from a sequestration perspective but certainly from that from that point of view from a sequestration point of view and the interaction of livestock and and forestry Devinish have done some really good stuff and i'll i'll i can find that and pass it on to the committee that would be really interesting thank thank you very much i'm pretty sure that's the same company first alastante and did the work on the red meat supply chain so that's i think that's something that the committee are going to be looking at in terms of profitability one of the things i want to talk to you about particularly yourself Kate is um to be reasonable we get farmers can make money in two ways you can either sell to the market at the cost of production plus in order to get a profit or they can sell to the market and be supported by the government in order to allow the price of the product not to be beyond the consumer ability by it so that's my understanding how the two ways that farmers are going to be sustainable what role do supermarkets play in that equation so i suppose that one of the problems we've got in in the UK in general is we have a very small number of very big supermarkets which means that they what they do can have disproportionate effects on everybody and i'm not going to sit here and say that supermarkets are bad because supermarkets buy a lot of the produce that Scottish farmers produce so they absolutely are not but it means that if they are in a price war with each other and they are focusing on their own profits and their own issues then the unintended consequence can often be that farmers right down the line the primary producer level are are affected quite quite a lot by by what's happening i want to get to as a factual position of how the farming community sell their product in order to be profitable it's either through government support or it's through the market or it's a combination of both if our export market is limited or constrained in any way the supermarkets then go to war with each other and it is always the primary producer that pays the price for that in terms of how much they're going to take out of the marketplace is the responsibility on supermarkets when we're talking about food resilience to have more of a role to play in making sure that that resilience is there for the people of the country they do have a role to play but i suppose ultimately it's up to government to make the policy that they then have to abide by supermarkets are businesses they're going to try to make money for themselves as all businesses do absolutely it's down to the consumer to i would say as well as government to put pressure on supermarkets and say this is what we want so i suppose what we try and do at qms is speak directly to consumers because they're the ones that are then going to put the pressure on the supermarkets if we if we can get across to them how important it is to buy scotch bave scotch lamb especially selected pork which are all raised in scotland if we can get that across to consumers and they then go and put the pressure on the supermarkets say we want to see this on the shelves then that's going to achieve it as well as through any government policy the issue you've got with the whole supply chain sorry is that you've got processors and other secondary processors and all the other people in the middle who all need to make a living out of this you know that's the problem given the fact that we are in a traditionally stack at high cell and low economy people are used to cheap food in this country the supermarkets would tell us that they will respond to consumer demand our costs of production in this country are always higher because of the standards that we set the standards that we as a government and consumers expect from our producers and yet that is never reflected in the price that's paid on the shelf so how do we ask consumers to put enough pressure on supermarkets to demand that product at a time when people are struggling to pay their everyday bills I know and and people talk about food poverty and and my own opinion is there's no such thing it's poverty we have to separate these things we need to have a proper return for the food that we produce right the way through the supply chain and people need to be able to afford it and we can't we can't have cheap food just so that people can afford it we need to in my opinion fix the poverty bit of it not just the food poverty bit of it the other thing I would say is as a society we do have a a different view on food than a lot of other countries you know a lot of other countries will individuals will spend a bigger percentage of their income on food they seem to they seem to have more value the value food more they value local food more and that's a societal feeling you know if you go to if you go to likes of france you know that they're very much more into local food than we seem to be here and I would say that that's where we need to get to and that's a societal conversation that we have to have and we need to make sure that people understand how important it is to have local food to have local farmers to have local supply chains and not always bring it down to this lowest common denominator of price okay problem sorry yes so just a bit of context for this at the hdb we look after the beef and lamb and the pork for england only so i'll i'll kind of give way to decay from a red bean scotland but but we also look after the dairy sector from a gb wide point of view i suppose we're trying is how do we square the circle on this how do we get more money back to the primary producers and I think as you know as as Kate in a case organisation a hdb are doing the route by which we do that is not by just having one one group of people we sell to which is the supermarket it's pushing more and more into the into the export markets because the advantage of that is that not always but but most of the time you're going to get a higher price for that you can talk about the provenance in terms of what's happened with with with scotland or really and really sell that and get a higher price but at the same time you're tightening the home market so you're giving yourself more options now when you say tighten the home market are you talking about reducing production no no i mean it i mean by that if you're selling if you're selling more in export markets so you're there for the supply you've got going into the home market it's going to be it's going to be less so if you if you can do that at the same time now clearly you can't just switch and wake up on a Monday morning and say right i'm going to switch everything across because that would be that would be crazy but getting a better balance for that and driving better returns i think is the best way we're going to get more returns back to the back to the primary producers you know as well as i mean some of the stuff i guess we'll talk about during this session some of the areas in terms of reducing climate impact will be you know be beneficial financially as well some of the areas will be there as well but but the main way we'll get money into the top line for producers and getting more money into supply chain is export so i'm really hogging the the session i do apologise with convener's permission i'll go for one final thing if we're going to get consumers in this country to demand that they're going to eat scotch beef scotch lamb especially the selected pork surely what we have to be looking for as a point of differentiation and it can't just be the badge it's got to be something else so that's eating quality taste all those kinds of things now i have a problem personally with the grading system that we currently use where other parts of the world are looking at how they are grading their beef in particular to focus on eating quality my own personal view is native breeds angus gallaway highlanders there's a much better eating quality there what we're not looking at the shape of the animal before it goes to slaughter what is qms's view on how we're currently grading the system so i hear this all the time and have done for the entire five years that have been in the chair we are currently in the initial stages of a meat eating quality project i don't have the ins and outs of that as chair but i can definitely get you the details on where we're going with that there has been a lot of work done on this in the past and it's something that we've definitely picked up on and our in fact our entire industry development work for next year is is based on this meat eating quality work so i can come back to you on that the one thing i would say that would be really quite an important signal the public procurement sector in scotland is worth 150 million and it very much would lead the way as a good example if schools hospitals prisons the scottish parliament everybody led the way on having as much local produce in their in their meals as possible and we do have some figures that have shown that this has gone backwards since covid actually so we really need to be pushing on this and you know there's a lot of good work being done out there the soil association have their food for life project with schools we've been hearing anecdotally that local authorities have actually been pulling out of that because of the cost so we need to you know it's maybe not a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of things but as a as a sort of good example and to show leadership i think it would be really important that public procurement goes down that route i'll stop there thank you we will have the opportunity to question the cabinet secretary on progress the good food nation bill at a session that's come up very soon one thing we're we're planning are hoping to have the supermarkets in front of us this is a question for joe and you can come in with your other comments as well we have the the grosser a duricator but we know that the that duricator doesn't have the ability to control price but can you know bring sanctions against supermarkets that de-list its short notice because it rises and falls in supply and demand and so on do you think it's part of the agricultural bill there should be legislation there that gives the the grosser a duricator more powers to to bring a bit more resilience and certainty over the supply chain certainly a question to ask i mean we've got a close relationship with the grocery coda duricator and invited them up to scotland to meet some of our producers and suppliers and they took away a number of issues i would say that said you know we have to look at this system wide we have to look at the situation that we are in we have a highly efficient food production and selling system we are you know we produce premium produce in scotland and we should be proud of that and all the people that go into that and produce that great food and drink that we all enjoy at home and abroad that should be celebrated and and championed there is therefore a tension potentially in as Kate alluded to the fact that we don't spend as much on food as households and communities as other countries do so how we resolve that tension is important and perhaps it is in diversifying markets you know reaching out to become a trading nation as part of a national strategy for economic transformation making sure that we've got other routes to market but we absolutely can't ignore the role of supermarkets in you know what they choose to buy for their customers but they are of course minded of the fact that we're in a cost of living crisis and they will seek good value for their customers but the question of consumer demand is you know is it about accessibility and affordability and availability of the products that therefore those of us who have the wherewithal to go into a store and choose Scottish produce for our meals which we all should do where we can is that available to everybody and if not what's the solution there how do we resolve that okay thank you again move on Beatrice Wishart thanks convenient i'm sorry for mucking the questioning order my questions around the processing capacity and it's probably directed to Kate initially but i noted in our papers that 50 percent of abattoirs in scotland had closed between 1970 and 2000 so what does that mean for the business resilience of livestock producers especially in rural and island areas and how can we better support the short supply chains bearing in mind the value of local food production and the end result the consumers using local food yeah so as you say abattoirs have disappeared very quickly and that is not necessarily all financial it's down to regulation it's down to other things as well it's also down to labour and skills there are not enough people out there that want to work in in processing facilities and it is a major issue particularly in the more remote areas and i think we probably need to to look so that there are i have to have numbers somewhere i think we've got about 39 processors in scotland but there are only a handful of really very big ones and there are quite a lot round about the country so you've got shetland you've got mull you've got out on the western isles where i'm from down in the southeast and people sure we don't have an abattoir at all in the southeast so it really does affect that that local supply chain so the big the big processors work with the supermarkets and the bigger wholesalers but any farmer who wants to sell direct is really coming up against big issues in in actually finding somewhere that can kill their animals and then the butchery part of it as well although that we are starting to see a few more butchers who are happy to do that and they're starting to see a gap in the market there i think particularly with small abattoirs what we need to do is change our mindset and how we think about them the big ones are businesses and they obviously need support and they need help and we need to make sure that they continue because they have got such a huge value to the economy the smaller ones are far more infrastructure really that's how we need to look at them and i think the comparison i would make is that fishermen have piers and harbours that they land their catch on and that is infrastructure and as far as i know i'm not a fisherman but as far as i know these were put in by local authorities by government to make sure that that could work and they don't necessarily have to make a profit and i think when you look at island communities when you look at more remote areas we need to think of small abattoirs as being the same so not necessarily a business that has to make a profit all the time but one that has to be there to service the local area to make sure that we that the primary producers have somewhere to go with that so i would say a definite a definite mindset change there would be really useful and i know there has been a lot of talk in the past about mobile mobile abattoirs and there was a Scottish government report done on it but nobody appears to have come forward to to grasp that and i think mainly it's because of the regulation rather than the financial it's both but the regulation would be so difficult with a mobile abattoir i've got one or two figures here just to say that the processing sector in general ranks really highly in the Scottish government's input output tables in the in the type two economic multipliers it's it's ranked second out of 98 sectors so it's you know the processing sectors really really important and there is capacity there to increase that but but people are often the the factor that stops abattoirs from doing more because they can't get enough labour and enough skills in thank you rachel hamilton apologies convener for being late due to the train just on the point about abattoirs it was something i was really interested in so i was glad that i caught that part kate i'm just concerned that some of the well i know from experience in the constituency in the borders and i'm not sure it's because of the geography but a lot of farmers are having to go south a fairway south take their cattle you know they've got increased input costs to do that because of the contraction within the smaller abattoir sector in scotland i mean what is your view on that taking into account what you've just said as well would you rather that Scottish cattle that were born bred at reed in scotland were killed in scotland or are you quite agnostic about it no so as quality meat scotland our brands are scotch beef scotch lamb and specially selective pork and part of those part of the the guidelines for those is that they have to be processed they have to be killed in scotland so we absolutely do not want people going down south with animals although obviously if that's a business decision of theirs that's you know that's not something that we can do anything about but it is so important to have a strong abattoir sector in in this country and not just primary abattoirs not just the ones who are actually doing the first part of the process but secondary processors as well so we don't have we only i think have one packing facility in scotland so for a lot of the other processors they kill the animal up here but then it goes down south to a bigger facility to be to be processed further you know cut up and packed and everything like that so we lose quite as an economy we lose quite a lot of the value of that produce by sending it sending it down south to get and obviously those are you know those are commercial business decisions that's what these companies have done they've they've consolidated things to make their make their businesses more efficient but that has contributed to how much of the added value has gone out of scotland yeah so yeah it's very worrying joe yes thanks for that i was just going to add that you know in terms of thinking about it system wide the the processing that we have in place across scotland is absolutely critical if we're talking about resilience because resilience isn't just are you okay chair issues carry on resilience isn't just about finances you know and who's got the deepest pockets it's about structure you know it doesn't matter how much money you have if the labour isn't there for you to recruit and similarly with structure around processing if it's not there then you have to spend more to process your goods and the value has escaped right in touch with the values lost and that's processing across all sectors i would say and your fpmc is one tool that we have to do that and we're conducting a review of that which is which is great and will hopefully lead to more availability of you know funding in the in the right way to support the industry to grow responsibly through processing and production i've got a question for ariane budges but how significant is the risk to the scotland beef industry right now from the number of lives the livestock moving south because of the additional demand supply demand issues south of the border how significant is the risk to scotch beef in scotland for that critical mass to be lost well it's not something that we're very that we're very happy about obviously but it is because it's because of a huge range of factors including the fact that the english agricultural policy has has gone down the route of removing direct payments which means that a lot of the suckler producers down south have decided that it's not worth their while so therefore the finishers who need to make sure they've got numbers are coming up to scotland to buy store cattle to take down south to finish now in some ways that's a real compliment they're coming up because our cattle are so good but the trouble is that that just then creates more more demand around the ring it possibly has helped to drive the beef price up a bit that demand but the fact that they're then taking them out of scotland means that they're lost to our brands yeah and it is really important that you know the work that we've put into the scott develop in the scotch brands and they are so widely it's particularly scotch beef is so widely known in scotland that we really need to make sure that we have enough cattle going into into abattoirs in scotland to keep that that critical mass up thank you just briefly Rachel if the direct payment was maintained in scotland in the future do you think there could be on the back of a market demand an increase in the uh the suckle herds here it's entirely possible if we are if the if the suckle beef sector in scotland is properly supported and the investment is put in there then absolutely we've got such you think about climate change and how the climate is changing our climate is fantastic for growing grass which is what we need people are looking for pasture fed grass fed beef we are absolutely in an ideal place it's a huge opportunity for us in this country we've got the rain we've got the land we've got the grass we've got the skills in the farming community and we could absolutely grasp this as i i do see it as a huge opportunity but we do need support and not just financial we need regulatory support and everything to make that happen thank you beautiful big apartment arianne budges thanks convener kate i just wanted to pick up on um i was interested about your comments about the abattoirs and i just wanted to pick up on the bit that you were saying about um the mobile abattoirs it's something that's been interesting to me being halyn's nalins msp and you mentioned that the regulations are too difficult could you just unpack that just a little bit yeah so so regulations around abattoirs are incredibly stringent and it's for good reason because it's for food safety i mean nobody's arguing that we just need to make it free for all again but one of the biggest issues is waste and how how we get rid of the waste from abattoirs um so the regulations around that are such that if you had a mobile abattoir every place so the ideal i suppose the ideal idea is that this this lorry would just drive around each farm and kill the animals on the farm that they grew up on and that's fantastic from an animal welfare point of view but every single farm would then have to have the infrastructure in place to deal with that waste um they'd need to have all the regulations in place and i'll just i'll just go back because i found it really interesting there's only one abattoir as far as i know that's opened in scotland since devolution um and that's down in the borders it's a very small microabattoir and speaking to the the owners of that they just gave me a tiny flavour as to how difficult that had been they said they were dealing with dozens of different public agencies and for example one part of their water system there had to be a valve and i think scotish water had said it had to be a specific kind of valve or they wouldn't sign it off environmental health had said it had to be a different specific valve or they wouldn't sign it off and it took months to get that valve do you know what i mean it just things like that or it just makes it really really difficult for these things to happen and it with a mobile abattoir you would need that every single place it went to the layerage would have to be up to the spec that you that you demand a static abattoir you'd have to have vets there that's another issue that we haven't touched on there's a lack of vets there's difficulty getting vets to to be there you know there's food stand of scotland do a really good job but there's just a lack of vets for this so there's a whole host of different things it's not impossible but it's very difficult and i personally haven't spoken to lots of people about small abattoirs i would say if we want to invest in them we would be better to look at a model like shetland where they have a static abattoir i think it's community owned it can be operated by one person it has an extra room after the abattoir that butchers can rent out and it has all the equipment in that room that butchers can use to make sausages and things like that so so a model like that in my opinion would probably work better even though you you are still going to have to take the animals to it i think it's probably more realistic than a mobile one so then we would have a number of those around scotland yes in the in the more remote areas and there are some of these around you know mull abattoir does a fantastic job and actually i discovered recently 70 of what goes into mull comes from the mainland it's not just for mull they are operating it as a you know really successful concern a really good business and it's just making sure that we have those in the strategic points in the country that we need them so also i'm hearing from your example about shetland that it's something about getting the right scale because i'm aware that orcney i think they created one and it was a bit maybe a bit too ambitious yes and then there was a problem with that one and again going back to the labour and skills yeah if you can have something that one person or two people can operate and it can be seasonal or or whatever and they can do other jobs particularly in island communities then that's probably ideal um mull was closed for a few months i know because they lost their slaughter man and they had you know took my while to get another one and that just shows how key one person is in the whole thing in those smaller in those smaller situations thanks very much it was helpful to get that detail thank you to pick up on on the point about infrastructure and of capacity rather specifically around haulage i don't know if any of you want to say anything about where we're at in terms of where things stand obviously there's there has been some concerns expressed in recent years about the availability of of lorry drivers from other european countries the difficulties of crossing ports into europe but more generally a labour shortage in that that sector and i just wonder if you could say anything about how that impacts on agriculture or if there are any other factors around haulage that's relevant i mean holliers are absolutely critical and i'm sure i read somewhere recently that like farmers their average age is is is not in the lower bracket so there could be an impetus there could be a real loss of them quite soon i think and livestock holliers in particular it's a specific role you know it's not it's not something that anybody can do actually most of the livestock holliers that i've come across are scottish you know they're the the europeans and others who've come and driven lorries for supermarkets and things i don't think they've made it into the livestock hollage business as far as i as far as i'm aware but i suppose the lack of lorry drivers in other parts of in other sectors could be pulling people out because you might not want to get up at five o'clock in the morning and go and load cattle on to onto a lorry in the pouring rain you know you might prefer to to go to a distribution centre so it is it is something that is a real risk and again there's regulation around there which is necessary but we definitely you know they definitely need support to help make sure that everybody's getting through it the real risk and i don't know if this is going to wear or not because things have gone very quiet is there was a consultation that defford put out about transportation of animals and there has been talk of changing particularly the headroom that is required for animals but also temperature controls now if those sort of things were i'm not sure where they've got to because it seems to have gone quiet but if those things were to be brought in and suddenly holliers were being told you need to replace your 250 000 pound lorry with a brand new one that's five inches taller because of the headroom that's going to put a lot of people out of business so it's things like that which are again done for good reason people think they're doing the right thing but it's looking at the unintended consequences of that sort of change that we need to be really cognisant of drink of water for a minute so i'll talk about you know hauling hauling milk just a little bit so i think it's a number of factors here that the factors that Kate talked about you know the average age i think going back a couple of years there was a there was pressure there was a there was a really a lack of pipeline of of hollies hollier drivers coming through and and what a number of milk processing companies did is they trained their office staff actually up and people who are fuel based to to drive lorries just in the to get around that now i don't think it's really had to come to that that those people have had to actually have to move jobs and and do that but the thing i think specifically in scotland is that going back to just an earlier question i think it was just the deputy convener questioning about the you know the lack of processing from a milk perspective there's a couple of creameries on the west coast that have closed in the last 10 years there's one milk processing site in in in Aberdein that closed in the last 10 years so milk is getting transported for longer distances therefore you're going to need more drivers from that perspective to do that which puts an additional pressure in there to you know the longer distances that the hollier drivers are doing from that point of view so it's not an issue that people are screaming about right now but it's something that wishes a rest you know going back to your first question convener for the industry can we open up the topic more broadly about labour can can have your views on the current labour issues we face in agriculture and horticulture but focusing probably on what can be done in the future through an agriculture ability to elevate some of the issues joe would you like to yeah i mean it's an absolutely unknown issue so we're publishing or launching a new strategy national strategy for food and drink the industry in the summer and as part of that we've gone around the country to gather views from different people different businesses and one of the top priorities is around labour shortages labour skills we know that some of those issues are being looked at by the migration advisory committee and they're continuing their work around the shortage occupation list and potential there's movement there around who can we potentially bring in to scotland to to fill those labour gaps there are also other work like for example deffra john shropshire's review into labour shortages in agriculture specifically focusing on england but almost certainly have ramifications into scotland as well so there's various pieces of work and it's clear that there is an issue there's an ongoing issue in terms of recruiting people especially into rural areas we've got examples of members who are busing busloads of workers from rural from urban areas into rural areas to to do a day's work and you know taking measures such as that just demonstrates the the nature of of the issue and the problem that i think we face here and it's compounded as i understand it by not just the labour shortage but accommodation for those labors given labourers given things like airbnb and the ease of which it is now to to rent out accommodation that previously wouldn't have really been viable as an economic input so that that kind of almost presents as problems rather than solutions but there is work under way to review and see what can be done and clearly if there is opportunities within this bill to help fill those gaps and help businesses to to fill those gaps and continue to produce because we know that sometimes they're turning away orders because they just don't have the labour there and automation plays a part in all of this as well but automation requires investment it isn't it isn't just simply feasible for an individual business to invest the amounts needed often to to turn that particular production section into something that's automated can i ask paul you're specifically around the dairy industry we've seen some dairy managers changing the working week for dairymen we know that it's a it's a hard task uh melt and cows have been there done that but we are seeing different practices from your perspective how can labor shortages be addressed in the future yes it's particularly challenging and there are a number of farmers looking at you know different uh different contracts that fit around individuals they can they can bring on and we've got challenges in terms of farmers almost poaching people from you know from the neighboring neighboring farm which obviously causes some issues there's a number of farms which are just almost solely relying on family labour now the challenge with that is that's i'm not on effective mental mental health but but even from if we think of this this policy that we're talking about from a scotish government perspective if we want farmers to pick up um to learn about this and to learn what they can do we know when we do meetings of farmers let learn best from other farmers so it's getting along to meetings meeting other farmers if you're stuck in the farm and you're not getting off there and you're trying to learn about you know climate change mitigation or biodiversity online and looking at webinar meetings that's that's fine but the best way to learn is by seeing things in practice so i think there's a there's a number of issues that this is this is causing and i think right now there's there's probably no solution um there are some farms that there are some farms that actually don't have a uh go and social media quite a bit i don't have an issue with people coming through the door but it's a number of other farms that are really finding this very very difficult and it gets to the point of you know the average age of farmers how long he keep going on your own or how long he keep going just with with family labour and when you're actually having to to milk uh you know two and sometimes three times of the time today it just becomes uh just becomes impossible gym fairly are we still on labour yeah yes no it's natural impacts unless you've got a supplementary one well i've got a supplementary one um labour if that's okay okay then i'll bring christina can you asked um uh the panel about whether or not we can do anything with this bill now given that brexit is clearly the biggest cause of the lack of labour coming into the country that we had previously how does this bill alter any of that given that immigration is reserved um i suppose i meant uh the indirect consequence if we're talking about an agriculture policy for scotland and as part of the agriculture policy for scotland you're going to you're going to need um farmers to understand what they can do from a climate mitigation perspective or biodiversity the way to learn the best way for those farmers to learn on that on that process would be actually to come to meetings now my specific point was if they're stuck on the farms because they haven't got the uh because they haven't got labour they can't attend the meetings and therefore their ability to pick up the intelligence on that and the learnings and actually implement it back on their own farm will be restricted okay okay so i suppose it's i suppose from my point of view it's two it's two different things you've got the the more intensive sectors like dairy like soft fruit um where you need seasonal workers to come in and that's but we also need capacity and processing and slaughtering and a lot of these lads came from eastern Europe went home and haven't come back so if we're talking about resilience and we're talking about profitability we need to have people in those jobs but the scotland Government has no locus on any of the immigration policies so how does this bill rectify that issue so the bill i would say from my uninformed point of view that the bill can't rectify that because that is reserved but what the other side of that apart from these people that we we need to come in excuse me to help to help our processing in our areas we also need to have people in this country who want to go into food and farming and we need to do what the what the bill in my view could do is promote confidence in those sectors to encourage more people from this country to go into those sectors because it's not just it's not just those sectors that are struggling um i was up in Caithness in the summer farmers they were telling me that they were they were giving up they were selling up their cattle it wasn't anything to do with financial or not all to do with financial it was to do with the fact that they were getting older they there was nobody they could get locally to come and help them to do a tb test or to pd their cattle or whatever they needed it was the the skills that were there on the ground and that isn't eastern europeans or philippinos coming in that's people in this country so we've got i think we've got to start at the bottom up we've got to make sure that we work in schools to to let kids know that this is an option for them to make it as to make it as welcoming as possible to try and get people to come in from out with the farming sector but also to make it as easy as possible for our own children in the farming sector to carry on and for to make them want to carry on so that we've got those people coming through and we need to make sure that things like skills and education are designed around rural communities as well as being designed around going to university so if you don't want to go off to university there is an opportunity to go somewhere local and learn and that's colleges like SRUC it's things like monitor farms that that's the sort of thing paul was talking about that we do it's given them opportunities the farm advisory service to get out there and learn in the community that they're in i'm not saying you have to go off to university so to me they're two different sides and you're right i don't know what this bill can do about the the brexit side of that but we can certainly do something about promoting confidence in the whole sector using the bill okay thank you on that point i think you know the new industry strategy is looking for responsible growth and responsible growth is about economic prosperity and having vibrant viable communities across scotland with food and drink at the heart and food and drink productivity profitability and sustainability and if we achieve that then it should become more attractive as a sector for our domestic workforce that doesn't solve everything but the bill could potentially support that thank you christine grell yes on local i'm just going to pick up on somebody who said they're on local employment i think was in the f us that ran as something a border union show ground last year where all the local schools came and they had you know big fancy tractors and sheep shearing but they also took to get children locally interested in the farming sector broadly and the college also border college also had a stall did you know about that and what i was going to ask you is if you didn't i don't know why not but secondly would it be worth us going back convener to the nf us i think we're promoting it to ask the outcome because that's to stimulate local children's interests in the sector and also the college whether the college had any feedback from that it was a really good day so that's the border union who run that day so it was a border union it's the border union agriculture society i think who run that day and they've been doing it for a while because my daughter they take the primary sixies every primary six in the borders is invited five is it five to go on that day to the countryside day and my daughter's now 24 and she went so they've been doing it for a good long time and it's ret are very involved as well qms go along and help all the different nf us to it is something that happens in the borders i don't know if it happens elsewhere but it's a really really good i'm just asking for the outcome really you know it's it's it's an interesting day but you know do people actually take up careers in agriculture horticulture i'm interested in seeing what impact it has it would be interesting i don't know if they have any information on that but it'd be interesting to follow that up i suppose you're talking about 10 year olds and then you need to really speak to them again in probably 10 years time to see if that had any effect on them we must have some already yeah there must be there must be there must be we could certainly see if there's any so could ask you convener if you maybe do a follow-up and see what we have an audit what happened at the end of this you know did you know what follow-up there was from borders union and from the college you also have a it seems to me that that is an interesting way forward for local local employment you employ people locally they spend locally joan then paul it was just to touch on the work of developing the young workforce programmes across scotland and the fact that they are seeking to hold these sorts of engagement events and have been quite full coming towards scotland food and drink around how can we get more people processes primary producers involved in those sorts of events so i'd say that that is absolutely an opportunity for us to improve the the level of awareness and understanding of the kind of opportunities for careers in in this sector yeah and i think from my perspective as well as as well as right that there's a number of things that we do and i think qms and involved the sense of you know speaking to consumers and sorry teachers about about the you know the role of of meeting dairy and talking about the careers in there and we also run a you know consumer campaign we balance which talks about the role of meeting dairy and which is aimed at you know anybody that watches tv or looks at social media across a certain period and and is in retail so there's a number of places we'll raise awareness of on meeting dairy from a career perspective yeah it'd be interesting to deceive the what the borders union is saying particularly ret say on that because they'd be the leaders of it yeah it's certainly a royal highland educational trust and do a huge amount of good work and i'm pleased to say they'll be coming into parliament at some time soon to educate the msp's some who i'm not going to suggest indeed educated but it certainly would to open their eyes to some of the issues that we face in the rural agricultural sector moving on jim fairly thanks very much convener i want to talk about natural impacts weather pest stuff like that now from a livestock producer's point of view there's a phrase that the gallows society brought out a couple of years ago the future is traditional in terms of the native breeds their ability to outwinter we're talking about resilience and profitability that kind of comes back to my question i'll ask you about earlier on what we're judging on eating quality or shape so what role do you see the sort of traditional native breeds and sorry i'm focused on this on cattle and sheep again what role do you see the traditional native breeds taking and making sure that we have long-term profitability and going back to the old traditional native breeds so breeds are very much an individual decision for each farmer to make but what we are seeing in the the national picture is that the native breed sired calves are are going up there are more abradirangoses and short horns and herofords all those sort of things the numbers of them are going up and you know if you go back in time we've sent these genetics around the world you know all the cattle that you get from south america are from those genetics so it's very very important what we can't do is quality mate scotland is tell people you should have this breed or that breed or as government what we can do is show them the benefits of you know the characteristics that different breeds have and then people make up their own mind depending on the situation they're far so i would absolutely agree that there are great selling point things you know abradirangose in particular is recognised worldwide and the numbers of abradirangose sired calves are are going up year on year very disappointed you don't mention galloway there Kate sorry i do you like my galloway cow sorry i know that i was very specific is there anything else that in the rest you want to talk about in terms of natural issues like again i'll go back to weather because a traditional breed will winter out better rather than being in shed anything else the rest of the panel want to add to that um no i don't think so at this selfish point i think what we wanted to to get your views on all of can you see anything in the future around natural impact so the changes in weather or increase in pests that something that we need to be aware of and potentially consider as part of the bill your risk management involves or requires capacity to understand and then measure and mitigate for that risk so the bill could presumably provide some of that capacity as a system wide because the risks exist across all points of the supply chain for all producers processes and etc within within the kind of weather changes you know climate change will probably drive different weather patterns and we'll have to respond to that as well but there's geopolitical as environmental all those risks have to be essentially monitored managed and then addressed so it's the capacity for that is probably one of the key elements of resilience that's very nicely on to geopolitical and environmental risks arian Burgess thanks convener yes so i wanted to look about look at that in the future geopolitical and environmental risks in the in the future and i'm going to direct this question to you joe but given the risks of trade deals like those with Australia and New Zealand undermining food production to higher environmental standards that we've been discussing those standards in scotland do you think that there's a need for something like a carbon border adjustment mechanism which the EU is bringing in to increase the price of imported goods from countries where carbon taxes are not in place and do we need a similar mechanism to increase the price of meat and other food products imported from countries of lower environmental and animal welfare standards it's difficult to talk about specific mechanisms i don't you know fully know the all the consequences of each one but it is absolutely true to say that if you're producing a premium product and then that the price of that product is undercut by imports due to trade agreements then you are threatening the viability of of the domestic production and some form of protection is needed there what that form takes could differ depending on what decisions are made the trade agreements that are being made are of concern i would say in terms of understanding them they're complicated we don't yet fully understand the opportunities they might present as well as the threats that they might present and we're engaging Scottish Government around that specifically because there's a lot of them happening a lot of them in discussion and we had a very effective trade agreement when we were a member of the european union which has obviously been dismantled and unpicked and there are complications and challenges around supplying into our nearest neighbour so that is absolutely you know a critical factor and something that we you know we'll need to monitor and watch and it does present a threat and diversified markets is one of the potential solutions for that in terms of making sure that we have a diverse range of people and places that buy Scottish produce thanks very much for that response so i'm just curious to know kate or paul if you've got any thoughts not necessarily specifically on that bit around carbon border adjustments but just trade agreements or anything that you think in the future that we need to be aware of that could be coming our way I think it's important with with the carbon that everybody's playing on the it's on a level playing field it it would be it would be absolutely wrong of us to cut down domestic production and then just bring in food from somewhere else and pretend that it didn't matter because it was somebody else that was producing it so i think that's really really important i think also it's very important that we have mechanisms in place to make sure that disease is not brought into this country and i think there needs to be a huge investment in that and that's not necessarily this parliament's issue that's maybe UK but it's all very well said we've got these checks in place but they need to be actually being done for it to matter and i think there was a recent case where there was lorries coming in and only one of them might be 22 was even looked at and the big the big current issue is african swine fever if it came into this country it would be absolutely devastating to our pig industry but as the climate changes that that could be any number of different diseases so we need to make sure from a bi security point of view that that's done on an export level there are huge opportunities out there in the world for our producers and we would we would i would definitely echo what what the other two have said about how that can help our domestic market and help the primary producer so we do it we do international trade shows and it does help also that international export trade to balance carcasses with red meat so there's a lot of things in in an animal that we don't want to eat in this country i've seen some things that they really like to eat in places like china and indonesia and places but we would not touch them with a barge pole so it's very very important that we have that that carcass balance and we can sell the things that other people want absolutely to them and we can bring in anything that we need extra that we haven't got the capacity to produce you know lambs have only got two back legs so you know you've got to make sure that that balance works and exports are really really important but it has to be done on a level playing field just to come in on that point so as my organisations are a non-departmental public body so i'll be skating thin ice if i talk about policy but from an evidence perspective i think it's an interesting question in terms of you know carbon border adjustments and different policies of different organizations and it'd be something i'd be happy to commit to doing some analysis on that and the sharing sharing with the committee committee there. Thanks very much for that. Thank you, Alasdair Allan. Thank you, convener. In talking about future risks geopolitical risks that we face everybody quite rightly points to the the shock to the agricultural economy worldwide that the legal invasion of Ukraine has represented but we have to be prepared for other potential shocks in future so and despite the fact that obviously regrettably this parliament can't legislate on some of the problems that we've just been talking about i just want to wonder if you can say a bit more about how resilient scotland is to future shocks what those shocks might look like and where the role of labour shortage is in all that and being resilient to future shocks? Again the risks and resilience issue is complicated the risks exist almost everywhere across the supply chain and because we're talking about a natural product we're talking about variants in weather being hugely critical to that we have to provide protection for our primary producers and for the rest of the supply chain as an island nation we also have to recognise that industrial unrest will sometimes cause blockages at ports and for perishable goods that's a short term acute situation which we have to have some form of mitigation against so all i would do really in response this is echo what i said previously which is that if you have a risk capacity within the country to understand what's happening and we obviously have a task force now set up which we're part of and is looking at things like food security those sorts of mechanisms are really important to ensure that there's eyeballs on the situation and something there to call upon in terms of support to overcome that headwind and we've had major headwinds for some time and they continue so you know that we need to build resilience in the short term across the industry and then we can look forward to you know hopefully a future which is which is kind of bright should should government underwrite the production of certain crops so some crops are more risky to grow but actually should form part of our future food supply should should government underwrite those like an insurance policy against the more frequent natural weather patterns that make growing some cereals more difficult is that something that the politicians should consider well i think the policy probably has to consider all forms of investment from the public fund into agriculture and where that lies you know there is not a limitless pot so difficult decisions have to be made i would imagine around what do we support what do we provide into the nf us has been quite clear i think we would support this and the cabinet secretary has also said your active farming you know productive farming is something we can all get behind we can all be proud of in line with our you know environmental constraints in line with our social aims and ambitions around vibrant communities all of those things are possible but there is you know difficult balance in terms of what do we use the public funding that we put into that to achieve and that obviously partly comes down to decisions made at UK government level as well so uncertainty unfortunately is something that we have to live with on that point to mention uncertainty and you mentioned UK government which are often mentioned in the same sentence and i just wonder if you feel that as as organisations you know i wonder if you are making representations to the UK government about preparing for geopolitical shocks in the future and whether you feel it would be useful if some of the relevant powers might be exercised here that's a hopeful last question but i'll put it anyway so as an NDPB also we are not a lobby organisation but we absolutely are speaking to people at both levels of government to provide information and make sure that they know the facts about red meat production in scotland that's probably all i can say thank you likewise we have conversations with a wide range of stakeholders we have a membership group we also are a leadership body we coordinate the scotland food and drink partnership we're responsible in part for driving forward this new industry strategy some of that strategy to be successful does require decisions to be made at UK government level and we will engage around that to try and ensure that the sector as a whole the industry as a whole can grow responsibly with both parts of that being really important growth and responsibility yeah and again for us it would be the same we're providing evidence to government rather than rather than what we're in there yeah thank you thank you Beatrice Wishart thanks convener and i guess my question follows on from what's just been discussed before and it's looking at um what the actual priorities you would see being required from agriculture and food policy today just to mitigate those some of those risks and ensure the long-term resilience are there any priorities that you would like to see so the three priorities that we would have would be as i've already gone through local public procurement and making sure local and public which are two different things i suppose there are various things that could be done in public procurement a streamlined process a framework that everybody worked to it would be really useful the infrastructure that you need for for that local procurement piece is really important labour and skills is hugely influential in how we go forward and help with international exports are the those are the things that we would really see as being priorities so we really want to ensure that scotland maintains its international reputation as a as a producer of world-class food and drink and to ensure that and help protect that we need to work together we need to collaborate we need to continue the dialogue sometimes difficult decisions will need to be made and we will recognise you know across the industry the need to act swiftly to address the climate challenge nature crises but it's one thing that's absolutely clear to us is that food production needs to be at the heart of the industry it needs to be at the heart of agriculture and that's how we can protect the jobs the communities that the ecosystem that is supported by and supports the food and drink sector industry and i think that the only thing i would i would add in this and this is this is maybe related it's it's how the policy lands with farmers and how the engagement with farmers particularly random with this is done and we did some analysis on the sustainable farming incentives i appreciate this is that this is there for when when they did it and i think what that what the key message out of that was the higher payment rates were needed to incentivise farmers to take part in in some schemes so in terms of thinking about you know new policy development the key things for us would be you know ease of application of farmers ease of application operation of the scheme attracting this of the payment rates confidence of the of the participants in the audits and inspections and any you know additionality gain from participation you know specifically around about that so we have in the same way of qms have we've got expertise in terms of engaging farmers primarily around farmer to farmer learning through the groups that we've done so it's about you know using that expertise using the industry to come together with one voice and certainly from a from a dairy industry perspective from the roadmap the environmental roadmap that's been in place which is probably further ahead than other sectors there's a lot of learnings there we can use in terms of getting farmers to move along certain lines there thank you thanks okay i'm going to direct this question to you first i'd be interested to hear what the risks are to meet protection we've talked about the processing issues but specifically in relationship to climate change so i suppose the biggest risk at the moment is that we go down the wrong route in our efforts to tackle it and as we said right at the beginning nobody is arguing that we don't need to do something but we need to make sure that we go down the right routes and don't end up have said it several times with unintended consequences it's so important that we keep people in rural areas it's important from an economic point of view and a societal point of view and also from an environmental point of view because if the people aren't there they're not going to be able to take the actions that we need them to take and i just want to bring up i know you've spoken to martin kennedy from NFUS he has started talking about support or subsidy in terms of investment he's no longer calling it subsidy or support he's calling it investment because that is absolutely what it is any public money that's going into agriculture is an investment it's an investment in society in rural economies it's an investment in our future health in our food security and it's so so important that we keep that investment going to make sure that we have the confidence in the sector that we need for it to continue because that is another big risk is that people don't have confidence farmers don't have confidence and as i said a few weeks ago when i was here they feel absolutely brow beaten down and if that lack of confidence is there then that is a huge risk to the sector so that's why i would say thanks for that so it's so in terms of confidence so last week we had ian boyd livingston on the panel and he was talking about the need for investment i think i'll start using that word investment for livestock farmers who want to diversify their income streams or transition to low stock or no stock farming and i'd be interested to hear from you what kind of investment do you think we need for those farmers who want to make that transition and take those steps for that diversification you know around moving to that low stock farming or want to move towards different different forms of environmental land management so i would say most farmers for a start not many farmers i know want to want to leave livestock production they want to continue with it they want to be able to do it profitably and they want it to work for their business but also for their farms they need lots of farmers are diversifying and it's a new word but or a new issue word but it's not a new concept farmers have always done everything it takes to be able to make a living and to be able to stay on their farm you know 50 years ago my dad had a trout farm on our farm which give us a little bit of extra pocket money it's long gone now because of regulation but we need to help farmers if that's what they want to do if they want to diversify so agritourism all those sorts of things should be supported but at the bedrock of it all is the actual farming life that they have and the business that they have and we just need to make sure it's it's a very emotional subject actually because farmers love as i said before farmers love their farms they love farming we're there because we love it we love producing food for people we love being in the countryside we love looking after nature and we just need to make sure policy-wise that people are enabled to do that and farmers have always adapted they've always done extra things and they will do it if they're given that help so it's about education it's about support it's about investment and it's about the policy direction to show that they're valued and that they're important in the rural economy and i'm picking up from some of what you're saying in that passionate response and i certainly meet farmers who also express that love for the work that they're doing but i'm also hearing some of what you talked about earlier around the peer-to-peer learning and the monitor farms and that kind of thing where people can get out and learn about new practices or different ways of doing things from each other yeah and that's so so important because it is an isolating industry there are you know i've just gone through four weeks where i've not left the farm at all you don't see people there are lots of farms out there who that you know that happens most of the year it's not just at this time of year so it's very very important that those skills and that education is shared and peer-to-peer is the best way to do it it has been proven and we work very closely with hdb to to run the monitor farms and to make sure that we we facilitate that wherever possible i'm just unfortunate to remind everybody we're we're fast running out of time we've really only got five ten minutes left um so if we can try and keep the questions and the responses as succinct as possible um rachel hamilton still on the subject of mitigating risk and promoting food resilience my question really is how is your organisation modelling for the future using technology and innovation in agriculture to increase gdp and also reduce emissions and bearing in mind that the Scottish Government are looking to reduce emissions in agriculture by 2032 by 31 and so far that has not made much progress um can i can i start with um i think um i think that the best route to do that is through the the road maps we're doing um as i indicated earlier the the dairy world map is probably the ones that the most established been around since 2008 uh in terms of getting together the industry and what we have there is that we have our organisation hdb we have the the process organisation dairy uk and we have the the farming unions working working together on that and underneath that you've got a whole range of stakeholders working there um with with one aim it is i would acknowledge it is easier in the dairy industry because it's a more consolidated industry because you can work with a you know a smaller number of processes you know the two largest processes that probably got over 50 in the milk in in great britain so you can get people together more and then you can work through the processes to get to the farmers and get our organisations together but but i think that's going to be the main route we will actually achieve progress so that everybody's behind behind the one plan and understands the what we're doing from a climate perspective what we're doing from a you know from a biodiversity point of view but at its base has to be the economics you know it doesn't work for farmers to to produce milk then then we want to milk and we'll have to we'll have to import it in case point about the fabric of society as well so i think that is a i think that's a model and i know what's happening in the in the beef and sheep sector as well there's there's road maps and various working groups coming together but that is the way we will create progress and and of course government has got a role on that but industry i think really needs to lead on that in terms of those those road maps and drive that forward and that will give us the i think the confidence in terms of delivering and having the the risk maps on that and the mitigation techniques within within the road maps and having efficient road maps and having uh allocating you know required level of resources behind them you do realise that you just milked some cows then Kate can i ask you so much like hdb we we have a redbeat net zero road map in production which is looking at everything from primary production right through to processors to see where to do life cycle analysis to see where the the gaps are and what we know and what we need to know and i suppose that the other part of what qms does is help to share the sort of science and the research we don't do it others do it sr you see amongst lots and lots of others but part of our route is to try and share that and to try and get those new practices or or someone would say old practices come back again get those out there get them all widely understood and make sure farmers know exactly what they're doing and what they're being asked to do and how they how they do it so that's that's part of our work and the monitor farms are a big part of that and sharing the information George just very briefly yeah i don't know if i mentioned we have a new industry strategy being launched in the summer but within that there are some pillars some key pillars of work on one of those is net zero and sustainability and this industry strategy has been signed up and supported by all elements of the industry including agriculture so there is clearly a pathway delivery plan that will follow that will allow us to reduce those emissions with regards emissions as a whole for Scotland you know renewable energy is a massive one for the industry we are energy intensive and we we are we are necessarily energy intensive if we can reduce the carbon footprint of our grid energy then we will massively move towards net zero regards meat it's very complicated but if we displace those emissions to other countries production we will shoot ourselves in the foot convener just on this because none of you have really answered the question specifically about what is being done to from the organisations to support farmers to work out how we reach that point because so far we've kind of got anecdotal information about route maps and about a strategic review and unfortunately farmers are being asked to put all the eggs in one basket and we are scrutinising this and farmers are feeling under pressure from from the expectation that they are to be part of meeting net zero by 2045 now as far as I can see in the pre-legislative scrutiny so far we haven't got to the stage where there is a clear indication of what farmers can practically do with support from organisations and the government to actually get to that point and it seems as though as I say they are under pressure and that everyone expects a lot of them to get to that point and I don't know if you understand where I'm coming from there Kate. Yeah I do I think there's a lot of measures that the farmer-led groups in particular put together that that but there's no there's no if you add a b c d e you're going to get to f I think that's that's the problem that is that where you're trying to articulate that we don't actually know if we do all these things I think a big part of it is how things are accounted for the sequestrations already be mentioned it's not necessarily all being counted if it is being counted it's in different parts of the inventory and I think what what government can do is bring all that together at an individual farm level to say look these are the these are the good things that you're doing this is your positive budget here are the things that you can do better and these are going to give you this saving this saving this saving you're either hitting it or you're doing better than than we're asking you to do or you're not quite there so here's some other options is that what you mean an actual so to me that needs to be at a farm level really it needs to be that down there and we need people who know what they're talking about to help farmers with that and I'd hesitate you know there's been a lot of accusations about consultants charters and we don't we definitely don't want that but we do also we do on the other hand need the expertise to help them so we'd have to try and get that balance right somehow. I agree with Kate I mean it needs to be base-slided at the farm level and we've done that on a number of our farms we've got strategic dairy farms we've got agri-calcus the tool we use the SRUC tool we get somebody in there to do that and then we look at mitigation measures underneath now I can send a whole heap of you know I'll try to be to think about the information in terms of what we're doing as the HDB but what we're doing at individual farm levels on that but it really has to be individual farm level rather than at national level than international levels on that and that's the way we'll make progress and then go back and do testing a number of years later to see what progress we've made. Yeah I think that would be helpful that we're running out of time here but if you're able to provide some real life examples of what farmers are doing on on the ground right now and written evidence that would be hugely useful. Christine Graham. Yes thank you very much very interesting session you're facing collectively a perfect storm as you know Brexit, Covid, Ukraine, climate change, food inflation about 18 percent or so however I'm going to cheer you up. Out of adversity comes opportunity and I think this is a big opportunity across the sector to drive more the consumer towards more seasonal local produce. I heard what you said about the supermarkets and I understand why you might be cagey about them but supermarkets are key the consumers can influence but supermarkets are very clever at influencing the consumer so what should we ask the supermarkets and are you going to be frank about it? Oh thank you. It's very difficult isn't it to tell a major retailer what to do? No it isn't please do it because I'm a consumer I want to do this I can afford to pay the inflation prices for my normal but I look at the prices on the shelves and even I say I'm not paying £1.50 for a cauliflower. Some retailers are our members as well we look across the whole of the food and drink system around this and we work with them and encourage them and run programmes where we meet the buyer, meet the supplier to bring them together and create that relationship and that does help to ensure that there is local product on local shelves. They will always be mindful I think of the end price and as will consumers and so the piece around cost of living availability accessibility affordability of food i.e. among our communities is paramount to resolve this as well and that is something that I think you know we touch on a lot in terms of resolving symptoms rather than resolving root problems and one of the root problems that we potentially have to resolve in this country is inequality and lack of resource among communities to afford the things that we would like them to afford. Yeah but I want to get back to seasonal yes because there's no point in buying tomatoes that are rock hard which they are plums which are rock hard so we've got in a way if we get back to seasonal Scottish seasonal foods or UK seasonal foods we educate the pallets of the consumer once again you shouldn't be eating strawberries in January there's the food miles and they taste crap so can I ask what your discussions with supermarkets we do bog off on these non-seasonal products whereas the Scottish mints or the cauliflower's at whatever they're grown are quite dear so how do we how do we have a go at them I would just say it's a collaborative effort you know we have we have a food and drink system which is what it is we start from this point now and we move forward towards what we hope will be more resilient supply chains we need a strong domestic market yes we need UK market and we need international markets we need to diversify them we need to produce that now if we need to look at the balance of what we produce to ensure that we can supply those markets seasonally to the volumes that they need and at the right price that we need then we all have to play a part in that because it comes down to what funding are we putting in place what structures do we have in place what regulation do we have in place what decisions are consumers making about the foods that they eat and drink and we believe if we get that right we have the opportunity to genuinely be proud of the food that we're producing and consuming and public procurement as Kate touched on is a huge part of that we've been trying to crack that through food for life Scotland you know we've but local authorities have public procurement systems which are set up still to wait towards cost and lowest cost if you chase the lowest cost you are unlikely to drive up supply of Scottish so how do we fix that in public in the public sector we probably can in the private sector in the commercial world of supermarkets it's more challenging but we're absolutely on the side of wanting to champion Scottish produce I have to say the corporate body here does has what I'm on the corporate body we do push local produce which is in our and I can't call it the canteen and also in the dining room but I'm just the last point because you haven't really and sort of want to really know the supermarkets do not push local produce it's there but it's not pushed in the same way as other items and how can we then get them in their part appreciating that if the price of cauliflower which I think is in season just now why is it so dear you know how do we get them to say well actually these are better things for you to eat actually than to spend your money on the stuff that's imported that's out of season I mean that's probably the million dollar question in terms of it's food you're talking about food culture you're talking about decisions that people make private businesses making you know we hope that the new industry strategy will drive a conversation so we can improve that situation we want to improve that situation as well I'm not going to hammer supermarkets in this forum in order to drive them to change the way they operate I think those discussions will need to continue and we will of course support continued local domestic supply into the into those retailers but those retailers are at the moment absolutely critical to providing food and drink to our communities and our people yeah as I say we'll probably get a chance to look at this again the good good good food nation last we lost not least Karen Adam thank you convener and I think a lot of my questions have been answered throughout this session so I might throw in a wild card but not too wilds convener if I may but just you know after hearing all the evidence thus far just to touch upon Kate what you said early on in the session in regards to France and how they spend a bit more you know on their food and things and it just got my brain thinking you know that obviously they don't have as high energy costs as we might have in our everyday lives maybe commute costs I don't know there might have to be you know some kind of report maybe commissioned just to find out why there is more spend on food and why we can't often pay more but there's this constant dichotomy almost between profitability and affordability and this just keeps coming up all the time and if we were to focus more on a health and wellbeing economy where we're actually looking at perhaps low carbon foods where there's perhaps a levy on high carbon footprint so if something is being imported that would generally be cheaper it might cost more because it's got higher carbon footprint lower carbon footprint local you know maybe there is some government support there for for lower carbon you know these are the things if we were to flip around and really look at health and wellbeing economy where we're including environmental where we're including people's good mental health producing food locally with great you know employee benefits also I know that you know fishing was mentioned and the ports there was quite a high cost to people landing their fish in the the northeast at the ports as well which you know they have to focus on agriculture so I'm just trying to wrap it up in a way that you know if we are focusing on us health and wellbeing economy rather than just these profits would that make a big difference to the industry and what we're doing and then last word to Kate yeah I suppose very briefly on that I I see we are coming from i think we'd have to think about how we would model that my concern with it is what prevent percentage of the population with that you know if you float all that would actually be able to pay for that you know when you're going through a cost of living crisis and and and what you do because we have to have one eye and when we sell stuff it'd be nice that we got twice the money for it but you know for for doing certain things but we need to be able to serve the needs of the consumers so I think it's something that's that's worth a worth thinking about but yeah we'd have to do some modelling on that in terms of yeah how we would segment the population to pay for that yeah thank you I mean we we focus on responsible growth in both parts of that are really important and responsibility encompasses sustainability I think with meet and dairy there's it's a contentious topic and there are very intelligent people arguing for different perspectives different solutions we would there are models and systems around sustainable food systems which use ruminants as part of that sustainable food system and we would advocate for you know farming to support productive agriculture and if we get those decisions right then it will affect how we use our land it will affect how we farm how we produce but it will also touch on how we sell how we trade internationally what we eat as a country and that demand for different foods from different consumers at the retail level is an important part of that mix whether you would want to put a carbon price against something when that's a single vision a single lens if you like looking at that there are other factors and you know we haven't really touched on the fact that we have briefly the fact that you know the meat and dairy agriculture exists in scotland on land which is otherwise unsuitable for many forms of agriculture that is part of our mix and that part of our consideration here as is the fact that if you if you took away fossil fuel use which is obviously driving climate change and that is about our energy and our transport sectors you probably wouldn't be looking at agriculture at all in terms of its climate change impact because it's part of a methane cycle rather than using fossil fuels by and large so there's a lot of factors at play here which i think we need to consider but if we get it right you know we can all be rightly proud of the food we're producing what we're eating in scotland i think you're right about we need to have a health and wellbeing at our core that's what we need to be focusing on as a society but for farmers a lot of their health and wellbeing is down to the need to be profitable as well so the two things are completely entwined and they need to be profitable not just financially but they also need to make sure that the environment and society and everything are also in that profitable category as well and i just wanted to end with talking about the French example so at the NFU conference a few years ago there was a French lady there and she was speaking about food she was from the ministry of agriculture speaking about food and she was talking about all the things they do in France and one of the farmers put up a hand and asked the question he said how can we get our society to value food and local food in the same way that they do in France and she didn't understand the question because to her it wasn't something you got people to do it was just how you were you know it was just part of you that that's what you did she didn't understand she you know that's just how you do it you know so she didn't understand the question and it wasn't the language barrier because that's in their society and in their psyche and to me that's where we need to get to and that all starts with education and with children and with moving things slowly in that direction towards that health and wellbeing economy thank you very much for your extended but hugely valuable contribution this morning that's been fascinating and and it will certainly help us in our deliberations when we get the bill before us so thank you very much for joining us this morning I will now suspend this meeting until 11am welcome back everybody our next item of business this morning is consideration of petition PE1758 in Greyhound racing in Scotland and I welcome to the meeting Paul Brignol the owner and director of Thornton Greyhounds, Mark Bird the chief executive officer and Professor Madeline Campbell both an independent director both of the Greyhound board of Great Britain we have around about 75 minutes for questions in discussion and I'd like to invite all our contributors and witnesses to to give a short opening statement I'll start with Paul good morning at the moment Thornton Greyhound track is the only one operating in Scotland we race approximately 40 meetings per year where on average 30 Greyhounds will race in five or six races the Greyhounds race against each other for their enjoyment and ours and it is safer for a Greyhound to run around our safety prepared sand track than it is to run around a field where uneven ground and rabbit holes can be far more dangerous I would question that any of the concerns raised by the petitioners in their previous statements to yourselves have any bearing on Greyhound racing in Scotland we have provided video evidence to show you and the SAWC that there are very few injuries at our track and the SAWC have attended the track and seen that all the Greyhounds were in excellent condition and there were no animal welfare issues the SAWC have submitted a report to this committee which also contains very little relevance to Greyhound racing in Scotland and makes a case for phasing it out based on Greyhound racing in other countries they have recommended that a vet be present at all race meetings and whilst every animal based sport would love to have a train vet in attendance the cost for amateur sport is far too high whilst all GBGB tracks have a vet in attendance this is paid for by the bookmakers and funded by the multimillion pound betting industry how do you propose the amateur Greyhound racing and for that matter all other hobby sports involving animals competing are going to fund the vet in the rare event of a serious injury there are several vet surgeries in the close vicinity of the track and any injured Greyhound will receive treatment faster than any person will get treated at accident and emergency even if there were a vet at the track the injured Greyhound would still have to go to a surgery because it needs to have an x-ray and operating facilities to treat it the SAWC should give evidence of sorry the SAWC should give independent advice to ministers however their previous correspondence their report and subsequent presentation show an unacceptable level of anti Greyhound racing sentiment the call for views has given animal activists in Scotland yet another platform to attack Greyhound racing whilst the committee maybe felt that they would get the views of the general public this was never going to be the case the passionate animal rights activist has far more motivation to take part in the call for views than any other person and this can be seen clearly in the report as to what has happened the call for views is no basis for deciding the future of Greyhound racing in Scotland the Scottish Animal Welfare Act protects all animals in Scotland and there is no reason why a Greyhound in Scotland should be treated any differently from any other animal that competes for fun and competition and recreation thank you very much Mark Covina you'd be glad to know that I'm not going to monopolise the three minutes that you've offered us but thank you for allowing us to come along this morning I just have a question which is Madeleine myself and going back to Paul's comments about the Salk report both gave evidence to the Salk committee I think we were pretty dismayed by what we then read when it was published we have submitted a response to that which in which we outline there are over 35 inaccuracies in which we want to hopefully air today within this committee meeting but can I just confirm that you have that report and the members of the committee have seen that yes thank you this is much time as I know you thank you you will kick off questions thank you for those open remarks what I would like to open with is to explore how GBGB and also Thornton protect the welfare of Greyhounds through your role as a director but the role is a nationwide organisation and what evidence it has at the approach secures the highest level of animal welfare for example in your responses if you could scope out your role and how you monitor the tracks for GBGB and how that data on monitoring is made available and how you engage with the public and external organisations to incorporate expert advice so I'll maybe kick off with Mark from the GBGB perspective but they move on to Paul to outline how you address and potential animal welfare issues okay so the Greyhounds board of Great Britain came about as a result of the Donahue report which was done by the Westminster government which looked at Greyhounds welfare and then subsequent to that there was legislation laid in 2010 which obviously looked at the welfare of racing Greyhounds so all of that came into being and GBGB became the self-appointed regulator of the sport in in the UK we're not a big organisation we're certainly not for profit there's there's 32 members of the Greyhound board that exist and within that we are required to first of all certificate and license all the tracks of which there are 20 but also all the trainers and the residential canals as well so that's been in being since that the the Donahue report was given given life and has evolved over the subsequent 22 years since so from that point of view we have a small office in London but most most of what we do is about feet on the ground and going to the tracks doing inspections mostly at random but every year a track is recertificated and that's the case also with with the trainers as well we have 504 licensed Greyhound board trainers and again their their canals will be checked once every sorry twice every every year as part as a minimum of what we're doing to try and safeguard the welfare of the Greyhounds you asked also what what we do in relation to the public and other stakeholders as well as having a stakeholder board we also report back through DEFRA through DCMS but also in relation to other stakeholders we meet with other animal welfare charities which sit on the Greyhound forum and that meeting still takes place and even though as you're probably all aware the RSPCA Bilks Trust and Blue Cross have called for a ban on Greyhound racing more widely they are still members of the Greyhound forum and we continue to to exist with them and to speak with them and work with them in terms of taking what Greyhound welfare forward. Eir Paul, I beg your pardon and Madeline. If I might just add a couple of very brief comments to that you asked about the scope of the protection which be provided for animal welfare and as you know we're only required to take responsibility for animal welfare within the racing period of a Greyhounds life but as you will have seen from the strategy which we published almost a year ago now we have made a decision as the GBGB that we will take responsibility across the entirety of the life of a Greyhound bred for racing and also that we expect all stakeholders to join us in adopting that responsibility and in terms of engagement everything Mark said and on top of which we're also working with the charities within the Greyhound forum to develop kind of roadshow type events whereby alongside them we can go out and engage with the public for example at county shows and that kind of thing to talk about welfare and particularly as far as retired Greyhounds go. Okay, thank you. Paul, it would appear that we have the GBGB who's almost the professional arm of Greyhound racing but from what you said in your opening statement you're very much the amateur side so what policies on a week to week basis how do you review animal welfare concerns as part of an amateur sport? Well fundamentally because we're an amateur sport it's the actual welfare of the Greyhound on a day-to-day basis is the responsibility of the owner of that Greyhound. As a track which is a hobby track our only real responsibility is to ensure the track is as safe as possible and the environment that the Greyhounds are in is as safe as possible when they come to the track and we do that to the best of our ability. We can always improve things but at the end of the day I would believe if there was a dog that was coming to the track that wasn't in a good condition we would address that we would approach the owner and we say you're not looking after that dog properly but that really is the scope of what the track will do for that Greyhounds welfare and fundamentally it is the responsibility of the owner as it is for a whip it or a dog agility dog they turn up at events and it's their responsibility to look after that dog and you know that fundamentally is where our responsibility ends is the safety of the drug on the track. But as a director on the other track is there a procedure you go through do you have a board of directors which would that meets on a regular basis and maybe decides that an owner has presented a dog on a regular basis which hasn't perhaps been in your view. Well that's never happened to be honest. I mean all the people that look after their dogs at our track look after them exceedingly well and the SAWC will confirm that I mean they came now contrary to what they think we didn't tell anybody at the track that they were coming and it was purely you know they turned up and everyone the first they knew of it was when I announced it over the tannoy but the SAWC are here and we would like you to cooperate with them okay and that was the first they knew so what they saw was what it is on a regular basis okay thank you Ariane Burgess thanks convener the Scottish animal welfare commission noted that racing greyhounds suffer specific injuries particularly around the foreleg that we do not see in other dogs companion dogs or dogs that run but not in races and I'd be interested to hear some more information about the type of injuries that racing greyhounds endure compared to other dogs and if you could outline the role and importance of having vets present on the site so maybe Madeline so it's not surprising perhaps that canine athletes like human athletes incur different type injuries than non-athletes and one of the things which we the greyhound board was already doing and which we have continued to develop within this current welfare strategy is really to drill down into the evidence base around that so we've we're working and have already worked to improve the granularity of the evidence which we collect the data which we collect it's it's sometimes difficult because the numbers are quite small so we need to be careful that we interpret that really carefully and exactly with that in mind we are also in the process of recruiting a specific data analyst who can help us to do that so what we're trying to do of course is to understand which type of injuries occur and then what the predisposing factors are which might result in those injuries and that really goes across the board so it goes you know to everything from track design and there's parts around that within the strategy to the way in which dogs are prepared for races to detection to the way in which people are trained to detect very early injuries so that the dogs can be rested and treated appropriately and not race and those are subclinical injuries we're talking about all of that is written into the the strategy as well as using new technologies and we've got research in place around that which will help us to make use of all of the techniques that nowadays are used in human athletes to try and adopt some of that and apply it to canine athletes as well and what about the role and importance of the vet yes sorry so yes absolutely so as you know there's always a vet on site at any GBGB regulated track whether the dogs are trialling or racing the vet checks the dogs in when they first arrive they check them before they go to race they check them when they come back from the race and any concerns which the vet has can be dealt with at that point and we also then have a system in place for following through so if a dog has incurred an injury at all the vet will treat it obviously at the track immediate first aid is always provided and if that then needs to be referred on specific instructions are given and the GBGB follows up that those have been taken care of thereafter thanks thanks very much and i'd be interested to hear from paul why it's seen as less important as i understand less important to have a vet present than a bookmaker at your track well the bookmaker i mean it is it is basically fundamental to improving the the experience of of them racing their dog if they want to have a small bit and it would be a small bit i mean we're not talking large bets this one bookmaker that we've got on the track he is just there to provide that service to the people and if they have 50 pound on their dog it just makes it a little bit more exciting for them than running for a rosette and you know some of some of the people that have run dogs at our track do also have whippets and they will go and race their whippets for a rosette and there are many people at the track that will actually race their dog don't bet it and they're racing for nothing just for the privilege of seeing their dog win but but we've just heard from and gb gb the importance of the role of a vet being present at a regulated gb gb have a different policy on the vet and it that their organisation is a huge organisation with multi million pound turnover now if we were to employ a vet to stand at our track he will probably charge 400 pounds where is that 400 pound going to come from we're just a small club we don't have the capacity to to play that now you don't insist on a small on a vet at a whippet race meeting you don't insist on a vet at some other amateur sports racing so why why would an amateur sport like greyhound like a greyhound track have to have a vet well clearly it's an important i mean if our dog hurts itself it will get treated extremely quickly now if a person hurts themselves the doctor doesn't jump out of the bushes and come and treat them so i find it very hard to understand why we think that a dog is should have better treatment than human beings now that is a bit weird now i do appreciate that that dog may suffer for 10 to 15 minutes in a journey to the track to the vet but a small child who's broken his leg playing football is going to be sitting in the car and he's got to go to accident emergency so why is it that you think that it's it's so important? I mean there's several reasons why the GB GB haven't been at their track now I'm not going to but one of the reasons is that when a trainer turns up at a GB GB track he will have 10 maybe 13 dogs on the cart if one of his dogs was to break a leg ddyfodwch chi'n gwaith i'w cwerth, gan gydych chi'n rhaid i ddweud allu o'r lleidol, ddyfodwch chi'n gwaith i ddweud o'r lleidol o'r lleidol i'w ddweudio'r lleidol, gan hynny ddod yn darwch chi'n gwneud cwyseliau mae phischio i ddweud fel hyn o'r lleidol. Roedd efallai gwybod ychydig o alternative i gyrgyn a wnaeth beth yma. Yr rei gyda i'r prif. It might, but it is too. I forgot to say this, on GBGB tracks, which is something to introduce under this new welfare strategy. We might alsorolw to what we might call the treatment vets, which is what we've just been talking about, where we now have a team of so-called regional regulatory vets, so they're here to deal with the whole regulatory side of it. Vast and resurgence also are there. That's my understanding, because GBGB is providing greyhounds for betting, for the gambling industry. For the company, Thornton is very much about providing a facility for amateur Greyhound owners to race their dogs and the bookmaker is secondary to that desire. To be honest, most of the people would like the bookmaker to either. sefppersiaeth o gyd yn oedlu i ddim angen, i ddim yn ddigon i ddim yn mysgol i ddim yn ddigon i ddim yn ddigon i ddim yn ddigon i ddim yn ddigon i ddim yn ddigon? Rhaid i ddim yn ddigon i ddim yn ddigon i ddigon i ddim. Da cawr, yn gweithio, do串 drach yn gwahodol. Rysyn wedi'n credu gwahanol. Maen nhw'n gwych iawn, nid o'r holl bethau o gyllyddo, nid o'r holl barath, yn ddwy mo tal samu popeth am gwych wych. Yn gwrslaen, That evidence, that we've now been presented with, hearing from the professional side of the business, or the side that you seem to be on, Paul, is that there are two fundamental of the different things happening here. The side that you are working on, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is just as my assumption, is based on people who own their dogs, they're part of the family, they go to theating, i fy ngyrsdag o ddod. Mae'r dogau yn hawddolol i ddwyaf yn unig ddirailiol fel rwyr i fynd yn y trac. Felly mae'r ystyried ar gyfer, rwy'n gweithio bod ein bodys i ddweud i'rch m celebr i ddweud i fflyg, nifer ond i fflyg, a'r dda i gyrsdag i ddweud i mlynedd ar y rhai llyfr yng Nghymru, oedd gynhyrch yn nid o'r pethau mae'n gweithio ddwy i fod yn yr ysgol, ond mae'n nid o'r rai llyfr i ddweud i gynnwys iawn. I mean we in most cases or in many of the cases when the greyhound returns they just keep the dog as a pet for the rest of its life. Sorry, I am asking you are I wrong to make the assumption that the boys that are coming here, or the folk that are coming here yourself that's part of their family. That's what the evidence that we have taken from Wrth gyffredinol, gwneud â'r gyda Cyngor iawn. Nid ddweud â'r grwn i gwahahadd hyn yn fwyaf, yn ddweud hynny sy'n ddweud â'r cymaint, rei hynny'n wneud ar unrhyw.beithas unrhyw hollwch ei ddweud. Ar ôl wrth cyffredinol, yn mynd i gyd wedi gwrsgiadol ym m alphabet ac yn ddweud ac mae ydych yn hynny'n ati'r unrhyw hwn. Ond wrth gyffredinol, roedd wrth gyffredinol yn hwnnw'n iddyn nhw. .. 快りwch sydd yn drafod greisio. Chwysylltzi'r上面au yw oes yw sy'n troi i'r cydweithio ac yn ei bwysig a wneud eich bod yn credu iawn o'r cymdeithas då. Felly os yw'r cydweithio y prysgau rhai, y twydau o'r 20 ychydigau sydd yn yw eich cydweithio ar y cydweithio. Mae'n3 o'r bod ni'n meddwl o'r gael'r cysyllt mewn y byddwr i'r cydwyr a'r cymdeithiau'r cydweith�g. have family oriented needs are incorrect. My experience as an independent expert coming in has been very much that everyone involved in GBGb licenced training is truly passionate about animal welfare and they care very deeply for these dogs and many of them remain involved in the lives of those dogs whether, in fact, as you said, those are dogs which never actually go racing to start with or whether they are dogs that are home that when they finished racing gan wrth syrprifoeddiaeth i gael i'r ddweud? Dwi'n gwybod i gweld i gael i'n gwybod a'i gael i'n mynd i ddynion gyda'r bod gwaith yng Nghymru o ddigon o adrofiad i ddigon a gyllidan, a ddigon i ddigon o ddigon a ddigon a ddigon a ddigon, ac mae'n cael gwaith i'n mynd i gael i'n ddweud. Felly, rydyn ni'n ddim i'n gwybod i'r ddigon a'r ddigon, o'r cyfleniol, ddigon o'r gwion. and then want to do something that's going to make that dog ill hurt' or whatever else? Now I had dogs killed on the farm working as a sheep farmer so it happens. And I understand that these things happen. But why is there this need to stop greyhound racing, when people are as passionate looking after their animals to the way that you're telling me there are? So, where does it come from? should get injured. That is always an accident and something everyone involved really wants to avoid just as they want to avoid an accident to their sheepdog, to their racing pigeon or whatever. Okay, thank you. Christine Grahame Yes, Mr Begnell, go back to the welfare, you said in your statement that you're only responsible for the welfare of the dogs at the track, that's correct. Rydyn ni'n anodol eich mynd i'r Lemon Cymru, i ni ddim yn gwerthu i'r frofaf, ti'n ddawg'r gael, ond bydd ei ffordd i ei gofod i ni, ond ei wneud i gael. Rydyn ni'n gofod i gael i'r Trofaf, doedd yna hynny ddim yn ddechrau i chi, a wnaeth chi'n ymdyn nhw, i ni'n gofod i gael i gael i gael i'r trofaf, ac mae'n gweithio i chi gwaith i bobl sy'n fod yn roedda ni'n gofod i chi. go through to assess the dog whether it's fit to run. He would ask you to walk your dog up and back and he would look at the dog and he would say is it laying. He won't give the dog a thorough examination and the trained eye whether it be a vet or a dog physiotherapist or a trainer would be able to look at that dog when it's walking and would know immediately whether it was laying. Now what you don't understand as well anything about greyhound racing is that all the dogs that run out our track go to physiotherapists on a regular basis and they are all checked by physiotherapists on a regular basis and when they come to our track they will probably have been checked before they race anyway. You know that they've been to physiotherapists? I don't know that they've been to physiotherapists. No, I'm not being difficult. You just keep saying probably, probably and I'm just asking how far your reach is in respect to the welfare of the dogs. Well there's a limit to what I can do obviously and what you're asking me to do is impractical. If you go with it racing, I'm just asking what you know, not what you think you know. We're a hobby sport and I am responsible for making sure that the track is as safe as possible and I'm responsible to make sure the dog isn't lame when it goes on to the track and I try my best to do that. I understand it's the track that you're responsible for for the welfare. There is a difference I would suggest between an athlete suffering injuries, you know, an elite athlete in a way, because the athlete chooses to do it, the dog doesn't. So we just park that as a comment. Can I ask how far your responsibility, your veteran responsibility for the welfare of dogs extends? I understand from Mr Bigel's track that he may know other stuff just through passing knowledge, but for yourself, how far does it extend? For instance, does it extend towards where the dogs are bred, how they are kept, what happens to them when they are injured, what happens to them when they can no longer run, when they are euthanised, when these things happen, how far does it extend? So there is quite a lot of detail on this provided in our written response, which we've given to you about the Salk report, but you're absolutely right. So as I said, we chose as a board to take responsibility for welfare across the animals' lifetime and so in the early stages, in the pre-racing stages of Greyhands life, we work alongside, for example, the Kennel Club and they're developing as bespoke, assured breeders programme so that we can really concentrate on welfare standards around breeding. We're working alongside the Greyhands stud book so that we can interact with all of those who are breeding Greyhands. And because we now have in place not only the treatment vets but also the team of regional regulatory vets, they will be helping to track and ensure the optimised welfare of dogs at that stage of their lifetime. When we go into the racing period, and of course Stuart is also going in and checking on Kennels, when we go into the racing period, we have an independent Kennel auditor visit once a year to residential Kennels. We're in the process of finalising UCAS accreditation for trainers residential Kennels. All trainers are required to be compliant with the past 251 2017 standard. And if there are concerns raised either by regulatory vets, by treatment vets, by the dogs, by the vets who look after the Greyhands on a day-to-day basis or indeed by stipendory stewards or any of the others who are visiting Kennels, that can be brought back to the GB. We have a director of regulation. It can then go through the disciplinary process which again has independent members sitting on it and the whole system around establishing the welfare standards within Kennels is run by something called the impartiality committee which again has a vet on it as an independent subcommittee. And then when we go into the retired stages of a Greyhands life, at that stage normally a Greyhand would be moved into the care of a kind of non-Greyhand vet, a regular vet who looks after pet animals and so forth, then they fall under their care and under the animal welfare act are looked after as any other animal would be at that stage. My correct answer is that not all Greyhands are suitable for retirement because they have not been socialised and so on. They are just no matter what you try to do. Can I ask you, didn't answer how many dogs were being put down and for what reasons let's take in a period of a year, last year let's say? OK, so I'll pass over to Mark in just a moment so he can give you some details on figures on that. In answer to your question about those dogs which have a not suitable for rehoming or for homing because it's the first time they've gone to a home, of course, that is a very small number and we are nonetheless very committed to driving that down. So within the welfare strategy we have a particular stream around behaviour. We're working with one of the charities specifically within the Greyhand Forum around this and there are several strands to that work which include, importantly, as you mentioned, making sure that in the early stages of a Greyhands life, everyone responsible for it, make sure that it is socialised at that stage in a way in which we'll make it easy to go to a domestic home at the point at which it retires. So that's one programme. We're developing in collaboration with a charity, a canine charity, a standardised process of assessment of behaviour of Greyhands and we're making sure that we have in place, again, along with the charity, a number of behaviours to whom Greyhands can be referred. So we are very conscious of that and we have systems in place for it but I'll pass over to Mark for the details. Yes please. I think, Christine, when we met, which was about four years ago when you were at the cross party. Yes, I've got more recent correspondence but I can't see it because the committee has not seen it. No, but I think that we had only just started collating track injury figures and within that there were fatal figures as well but also in terms of what happened to dogs at the end of their racing careers and IE gains of retirement. So I think when we first started collating the numbers back in 2018 there were 242 dogs died at the track back in 2018 so they were put to sleep or caused sudden death at the track and obviously overseen by a vet. That was in 2018. Last or 2021 figures which was the most relevant figures we've got has seen that number decrease to 120 so it's a 50% reduction in terms of four years on where we were on track fatalities for Greyhands. In terms of injuries that's pretty much remained the same in terms of where we are in terms of numbers of runs versus number of dogs that are running but I can give you other figures on other fatalities if you want as well. Yes, because that's died at track. Either we're put down at the track or otherwise but what about dogs not suitable for retirement? What depends on what you're saying they're not suitable for? If you're saying they're unsuitable for homing which says at 10 days. Or homing, do you put down dogs that are not injured? So dogs that are unsuitable for homing so there's some behavioural problem with the dog. Again back in 2018 there were 190 that were put to sleep because of that particular reason by vets. Is that out of the 242 or additional? No no, this is additional. So it's a hundred and eight. But now 2021 figures that have reduced to just 13, a reduction of 93%. And the reason that came about was because we worked with trainers around the culture of, I think you mentioned earlier about them being a commodity and trying to get them away from the fact that a dog is not a commodity that it's a sentine being and it's been used in racing and therefore went on to retirement. So the work that we've done over the four years has seen that number drop by 93%. So the absolute number is very very small but we are not complacent about that and that's exactly why we've got this huge collaborative programme within the welfare strategy to do everything we can to make it easier for Greyhounds to transition to a domestic life when they retire. That was helpful. I'll stop there if I might come back later. It was remissably not to mention that we've got Mark Ruskell MSP with us who's taking an interest in this topic very closely as we have taken evidence and Mark have opportunity to ask some questions. I'm going to bring in Ariane Burgess and then Mark Ruskell. Thanks very much, convener. I just wanted to go back to pick up a little bit of a thread connected to Christine Graham's questions and it's around the independent track owner. I'd be interested to hear about, so in your written evidence Thornton Greyhound Stadium wrote that obviously if they felt that an owner was failing in their duty to look after their dog properly then they would address that. I'd be interested to hear, picking up on the conversation earlier about the vet, in the situation that Greyhound is inured what's the next steps that you take given that there is no vet present on the site and only out of office emergency. Vet services are available on a Saturday night when races at the track take place. We have a vet who is at home on Saturday nights and we will bring him immediately and the dog would go to his surgery to be treated. Thanks, Mark Ruskell. I want to go back to the issue of euthanasia. You introduced some figures there. I gather that there are 1,400 dogs that were euthanised over a four-year period from 2018 to 21 for a range of different reasons including difficulties re-homing but also treatment costs and other issues. I wanted to ask yourself, Dr Campbell, about some comments that I think you made recently in relation to euthanasia. You said, I think these are your words, euthanasia at the end of a racing career has the advantage that the fate of the animal is secured and the guarantee that the animal will not suffer any subsequent welfare problems. Can you explain what you meant by that because on the face of it it sounds like you're saying that there'd be better off dead? No, of course I'm not saying that as always. When things are taken out of context they need to be explained so you're absolutely right. I think euthanasia by definition is a humane process so we need to be very clear that by definition euthanasia is not a welfare issue and what we are very concerned about of course always is improving welfare standards. That's exactly why we're undertaking all the work we're talking about, driving down, constantly striving to drive down injuries which result in a genuine need to euthanasia a dog because they can't be treated or to do everything we can to give the dog the best possible chance of having a set of behaviours which allow it to be successfully homed at the end of its racing career. So I'm not for a moment of course suggesting that Greyhounds would be better off being euthanised absolutely not that's been taken out of context and it's exactly as I've just described. It's difficult to explain the words that you have there. You're saying that it's a humane process euthanasia. Surely euthanasia is a humane process if it's in response to something which is unavoidable whereas an injury which is sustained by a Greyhound going round a track at 40mph is avoidable. So how is that a humane process that dogs are being euthanised in that context? I think you're confounding two things here if I might say so. So as I've said from a scientific view by definition euthanasia is humane. That is the definition of euthanasia but what you're talking about is whether it is ethically reasonable for dogs to run if the possible consequence is that they will become injured and then you talk about avoidable risk. So of course that's and this is exactly the same across all animal sports, of course equine sports, other dog sports as well as Greyhound sports and we do have to accept that all animal sports as all human sports have some risk of injury associated with them. But what we are constantly trying to do is to identify the risk which exactly as you say is avoidable and that's why we have all of this increase in granularity around the data, why we have all of the research written into the strategy so that we can understand very well the causes of injuries and we can understand what we can do to mitigate them and then we have an absolute responsibility to do everything we can to mitigate the causes of those injuries so that what we are left then is only the unavoidable risk. So it's not a avoidable risk as long as we are constantly trying to undertake that research and to improve practice. I'm really struggling here. We're not comparing apples with apples and most of the information that we've had from Scottish Animal Welfare was around the activities of GBGB and professional industrial scale Greyhound racing if you like to put it that way. But one of the things that we haven't had and which makes it difficult is the lack of information surrounding the one and only flapper track as described, the unlicensed tracks. There is legislation in place specifically to protect greyhounds. Greyhounds are mentioned in the legislation but what confidence can we have that there isn't animal welfare issues at Thornton if they're not regularly inspected somehow? It's my understanding that SSPCA don't have access or haven't taken access to Thornton and we don't have any other way for understanding whether there are or are not animal welfare issues at the track and subsequently in the breeding of those animals and from what you're saying most of it's a hobby thing. So how are we to understand how we can improve animal welfare if we actually don't know Scotland specific because we have no GBGB tracks in Scotland, we've only got an unlicensed tracks, so how can we have confidence or what needs to be put in place that we know that the current legislation is ensuring the best welfare for greyhounds? Is there more that you think SSPCA should be doing or the Government should be doing to ensure animal welfare at these tracks because all the information in front of us is around GBGB and from what I understand it is, it's comparing apples with pears, your business at Thornton is completely different from the GBGB model? We would be more than welcome to the SSPCA if they wanted to come and in fact we have written to Mike Flynn saying you've had every opportunity to come and visit our track and he did eventually come with Professor Dwyer to the track. I don't think that he was in any way concerned about anything that went on the track and the same thing would happen if he did come at any time and as I say that the invitation has been open to him and he's more than welcome to come if he wants to. I want to come back to the point about euthanasia. I presume that when you get to the point where a dog is going to be euthanised, when you say that it's unsuitable for rehoming it's either because of a severe injury or a dog's temperament or whatever. How did you manage to reduce it from the 180 odd that you had to 19 and what were the differences? Why did people change their mind about euthanasia? First of all we should talk about homing rather than rehoming because they haven't been homed until they go to that stage of their lives. It's a really interesting question and there is a lot around decision making. There is the scientific part around which injuries can be successfully treated. There are questions around how quickly we can refer to specialist centres and we have a big work stream within the strategy on making sure that we can do that really effectively. There are questions around making sure that everyone understands very clearly the responsibility for doing everything we possibly can to successfully treat injured greyhounds. Hand over to Mark and he can talk a little bit about the injury. We have the injury recovery scheme which limits when a dog is injured and goes into treatment with a vet at the track. Obviously it's pretty emotional because the dog is probably in pain. It's a question of changing that culture from when the dog was in pain. You've got the owner there or the trainer or one of the kennelhounds who's obviously upset themselves because the dog had become injured. It sometimes led to the dog being unnecessarily been put to sleep because that's what people were thinking was the best course of action. When actually it wasn't, it was actually more a case of we haven't really got prognosis on what the injury is here and working with the vet to give that dog some immediate pain relief. You could then actually make an assessment as to whether or not what the injury, the scale of the injury was and what the four thinking prognosis was going to be. That seek cause some of the changes. Going back to unsyntable for homing, it isn't because the dog is just about behaviour. This was an assessment that the owner of the trainer would say that a dog wouldn't home as a result which was then put to sleep and that was happening far too often and in our view that was unacceptable and unnecessary. We've worked very hard with trainers and owners to work on what the behavioural problems are with most of these dogs and you've seen the numbers yourself. They've changed radically and that's by a process of changing the culture. Won't there's also funding available to help with treatment cost? The treatment cost funding, there's also funding in relation to getting dogs retired as well. When a dog enters racing it receives a retirement bond which is paid for by the owner which is £200. The dog then comes to retire, that £200 is then released for the dog with a further £200 for the greyhound board as well to assist with the homing journey of that particular greyhound. The injury recovery scheme again helps fund some of the treatment costs of those dogs when they are injured and if you're talking about a long bone injury you could be talking anything up to about £5,000 which again if you've got dogs as pets you realise that some people with domestic pets cannot afford to do that. We take the responsibility as to the owners in our sport that actually if a dog is savable as a result of an injury then we should be doing our utmost to ensure that that dog is looked after as best as possible and that includes the treatment. OK, can I follow on that thing? I've got these bonds with your dogs and I'm interested to say that you're not rehoming because they've never been home. That goes back to the point that I was trying to get to earlier on where dogs are bred for a specific purpose to race only whereas my understanding and again I could be wrong is that when you're at the amateur track dogs are very much part of the family. Please don't think I'm trying to make that differentiation between the two things. At a professional track do your owners have insurance? Because if I'm a pet owner and my dog gets injured I can have pet insurance that will then allow that dog to get treated up to a certain amount. Do you have insurance and Paul, do your guys who are racing people? Sorry, I should correct myself. The folk who come to your racing track do they ensure their dogs against injury on the basis that there is a risk to the dogs getting hurt if they're going round the track? No, you would be very lucky if you could find a pet insurance policy that would ensure a greyhound that was racing. So no, they're not insured. It is fully the responsibility of the owner to make sure that his dogs were looked after if he does get injured. So put things into perspective, throughout the whole of last year we did have two bad injuries which needed treatment promptly by a vet. One of them was a broken leg which was fixed and the dog is now sitting on the guy's sofa. The other one broke its wrist and unfortunately the owner decided that the cost to have it fixed was too high and he had it put to sleep. Something we don't encourage but it is fundamentally their choice. That kind of goes back to the point that the convener made earlier on. We don't know how many dogs will get euthanised from the folk who come and race at your track but we've got statistics so we can make that argument and that judgment. It goes back to the question that the convener asked. How do we have confidence as a committee that how your track is being run will allow this committee and the wider public to have confidence that what you guys are doing will meet the standards and the requirement of people's expectations of animal welfare? We provided the committee and the SAWC with all our race videos and believe me if a dog breaks its leg it is blatantly obvious. Anyone can see it. If you looked at the videos you could see that there was no other serious injuries throughout the course of the years racing. Now I'm not saying that we wouldn't have been some muscle injuries and as previously all athletes and all animals that take part in any competition will pick up muscle injuries. I mean whether it's even fly ball you might think that's a totally harmless sport but the risks take an absolute pounding from fly ball and a lot of the dogs get serious wrist injuries. It's just the nature of taking part in a competition whether it be an animal or a human there is an element of risk and you're going to pick up injuries. But all these injuries will be treated and all these dogs will make a recovery and if they don't recover they will be home probably by the person that owns them in the first place and on the odd occasion they might get sent to a rehoming centre to be rehomed. Mark did you yourself or Marlon want to come in on that? Well just to cover off the point again about that even in professional Graham racing there is very little chance that you can get insurance to cover a dog as I'm sure it's exactly the same with horse racing. The IRS, the injury recovery scheme that we spoke about is almost a form of insurance which allows a dog to be treated or the costs some of the cost met and the point Marlon was going to make was the fact that some of the tracks as well will meet any additional cost over and above what we put in the injury recovery scheme. So if it's a long bone injury and it's £5,000 the owner's not going to have to pay out anything on that for that dog to be treated. And some of us have an issue about that because it's again about a responsible ownership but that responsible ownership comes at the very end when that dog is due to retire and the owner doing the right thing by that dog. But ownership as a GBGB licence owner is completely different from the owners that we'd be racing at Thornton so they're owners in terms of they own an asset rather than they own a lap dog if you like. The boundary is very obvious with the committee today, as you said, apples and pears between the two. We instill upon all of our owners that come to bring our dogs to Larsen Sport that there is that ownership responsibility there and we make sure that through our rules that that's adhered to. In Paul's case he's work on the basis that these are family pets and they're used to race and the ownership and the responsibility follows through on that I think. Everything Mark's just said is true but I don't think it's really probably fair to owners of Greyhounds who are racing under GBGB licence to describe their animals as being an asset to them. You know, these owners are very attached to their animals often and of course like all owners ultimately under the animal welfare acts in both nations have ultimate responsibility for the welfare of their greyhounds. The majority of the greyhounds are kenneled at a GBGB location rather than being kenneled at the owner's home. They have to be kenneled and the reason being a few years back a game when I came to speak to Christine we did have dogs especially in Scotland that were being housed in the home. The problem we have with that is that there's access to all manner of different substances that a dog could get their nose into including things like tea, coffee, chocolate that actually at a licence track they could be tested for and that they're all prohibited. So we had to actually do away with that type of licence and the only type of licence now ensures that a dog is kept in kennels for their racing career. So that's that we are absolutely not comparing apples with apples that that just reinforces that. In many ways it reinforces that. Other than as Paddlin and Paul have said about the owner's responsibility for their dogs? We are and we aren't. I mean the systems are different you're quite right but what's important of course from the animals point of view and this is very much how we look at things nowadays in animal welfare is the animals lived experience of its own welfare. So what's important and in fact this goes to Ms Ruskell's question about the kind of quality of an animal's life and whether it's a life worth living which is a baseline level or whether it's a good life and that's exactly what we're describing within this strategy. You know what's important whichever system they're in is that their welfare needs are being met and those are clearly described in legislation and they're also very clearly described within this five domains model which we've adopted within the welfare strategy and the way in which we will meet each and do and we'll meet each of them is also described within the welfare strategy. Okay I've got three supplementaries from Christine, Karen and Mark before we move on to the next stop but just again I'm at fault here as well but just remind everybody the time constraints we've got Christine. To be short the first is just to Mr Beiglil has there been an increase in usage at your track since the closure of all the licence tracks in Scotland? No. Thank you and to Mr Bird when you've got data which we've not gone into all the details for time what is there a form that is completed at the track or subsequently to detail why an animal was put down? Correct yes. Have we seen a copy of that form? Well a form has actually only just recently been revised but again we can provide you with a copy. Could we see a copy of that form please if that's appropriate and could I see the previous form to see the amendments that have been made? Will it explain why those amendments have been made as well? Thank you. Thank you. Karen. I would just like to ask in regards to behaviour issues that's been mentioned a few times can we get some clarity on that just for the record what kind of behaviour issues are we talking about and perhaps why that's happened? A lot of it is related to Greyhounds finding it stressful to be in a domestic environment because it's not what they've been used to up until that stage of their life. That's exactly why we're putting these systems in place as I say in collaboration with the charities but one charity in particular within the Greyhound forum to help everyone who looks after Greyhound from the moment of which it's born in its pre-racing stage and then when it goes racing to accustomise them to things for example, it sounds really silly like hoovers or sofas or noise generally and just kind of general household objects so that then when they come to retire that is not a stressful environment for them that they're entering. So that, how does that behaviour manifest sorry I know to be stressed that's the emotion but how... It depends it's very variable dog to dog so I mean sometimes you know a stressed dog will kind of very much withdraw into itself and sometimes it may. This is rare in Greyhounds but sometimes could become overtly aggressive again just simply because it's stressed and so the fundamental thing is to reduce the causes of the stress through appropriate management in order that they don't exhibit any of those behaviours later on. An actual example of that is I've got to retire Greyhound at home and when we got him from the trainer we were told because we have two other dogs which are non-Greyhounds don't feed that particular x-racer with those two dogs because he's always been used to eating on his own. And so we did that for a number of days or weeks but then one day obviously human error we looked away and then found my other dog had her nose in the same bowl as the Greyhound nothing. So someone's perceptional as well because they've been handled in a particular way as a working dog, as a canine athlete, people have this perception that they're going to react in a different way and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Okay, thanks. Ruskell. Can I ask about the GBGB data on retirement because I understand that it also includes Greyhounds that are designated for breeding and also Greyhounds that go on to race unregulated tracks. So can you explain how that constitutes retirement? So, well, it's retirement from the sport. Retirement from GBGB. From regulated sport, yes. Right. But obviously under the new one. They might then move on to unregulated sports and we're out. Well, not anymore. No longer. Okay. Because that loop off includes that. So. Can I ask Mr Briggs, have you ever had Greyhounds that have had a racing career at GBGB regulated tracks or race at your track? To say we've never had one would not be true. What's your data on that? It's rare to be honest. Mr Ruskell, you're taking a historical perspective because in the welfare strategy which was published almost a year ago now it is explicitly stated that we, the GBGB, don't any longer find that an acceptable outcome at the point of retirement of a dog from regulated racing to be going to unregulated racing. We are completely clear about that. Okay, but how do you actually monitor that? Because Mr Brignaw is now saying that you think it's rare, but do you have data on where the dogs are coming from? Well, historically it probably has happened, but we haven't any at the moment that there are ex-GBGB races. So you don't have data on how many ex-GBGB races have raced in the past at Thornton and how many are racing now. It's just a perception that... Well, all the dogs that run at our track at the moment have been with the owners that they've got now for a long time and they haven't raced on GBGB tracks. So would GBGB be concerned if races that were at your formally licensed tracks were racing at Thornton? Because clearly that would be in breach of your new welfare standards and how would you monitor that? So when a dog comes up for retirement from licensed racing the owner has to fill out a green form, a retirement form and clearly on there it talks about who the new owner is going to be. In the event that we have an investigation officer find out that a dog has perhaps not gone to the person that's entered onto the form or conversely has gone into unlicensed racing, then that would be followed up. And then the owner may or may not be able to then have any more registered dogs with a GBGB. So there is a method of being able to... So how many cases such as that have been brought forward? No, because we introduced that a year ago when we published a welfare strategy and we're not aware of any such thing. Okay, so there's been no cases brought forward. Okay, thank you. Karen Adam. Thank you. I'd like to ask, I've spoken a lot about the regulations themselves. Can you tell me a bit more about the differences between the regulations in Scotland and England and what kind of impacts and any effects that's had on animal welfare? Under the welfare racing greyhounds regulations there's lots of things that we've been talking about all the way through this committee meeting. So things like the presence of a vet being there in terms of residential canals etc. So there's an awful lot of what we've literally been speaking to fall under those regulations which aren't currently being applied within Scotland or Wales for that matter. So our basis has always been the reason for being here. As you've quite rightly said there are no GBGB licence tracks in Scotland any more. But our view on this is that actually rather than going for a ban or a phased ending of greyhound racing that perhaps regulation could be adopted by Scotland as well. And that could include obviously the similar or same regulations that are in England at the moment. The problem you have is as Paul says, as a hobbyist track that would be the death knoll for them. Beatrice Wishart. Thanks, convener. I think my question follows on from Karen's questions. I'll just kind of get your views on the report, the SAWC report and findings that recommends that the scheme independent of GBGB is required to ensure the welfare of greyhounds. And quote possibly through local authority regulation or under the auspices of the new Scottish veterinary service. I wonder if I could have your views on that. I think, you're talking to me, I would imagine that the SSPCA would be the ideal people to monitor our trap. And we have invited them to do so. They have chosen not to because maybe their workload is already too big but that's their choice. But you wouldn't have any problem with any kind of regulations. Sorry? You wouldn't have any problem with regulations, I suggested by the... We wouldn't mind the SSPCA regularly checking our track. That would not be a problem for us in any way, shape or form. We strongly, we don't agree with the view that there is a requirement for additional independent regulation of GBGB licensed racing. The board of GBGB already has four independent directors of whom I'm one. The chair was previously Chief Executive of the RSPCA and a director at the Dogs Trust. Among the other independent directors we have one who served as the Shadow Environment Minister and a senior member of AFRICOM, so it obviously has a very strong background in animal welfare. And we have one who's a partner in a solicitor's firm with decades of experience in regulation around sport. So we already have quite a lot of independent oversight. We already also have a grey hand regulatory board, which is independent of the GBGB, that manages the rules of racing and everything that goes around that. We have an independent disciplinary committee with members including lawyers, a veterinary surgeon, experienced sports stakeholders. We also have under the UCAS accreditation requirements an impartiality committee. Again, that includes a lawyer, a veterinary surgeon, a grey hand forum, a charity member and a senior animal licensing officer. So we do believe that there is already a very high degree of independent oversight. Thank you. Once again, it's difficult because there are no GBGB tracks in Scotland, so we are effectively scrutinising what happens in an area that we can't get involved in. But I think it's important that we understand how you're regulated. Can you make it clear that the GBGB is not a statutory body, it's a body which its members are generally made up from those who are participating or have an interest in the sport. And that goes the same for the regulatory board. It's not appointed by government, it's not appointed through legislation. You're at your self-governing body, is that correct? Correct, we're self-regulated. But of course we do report to DEFRA and we report to DCMS as well. So there is even governmental oversight in terms of what we do. And to the Canine Charities through the grey hand forum. We interact with them regularly and we have undertaken and it's written within the strategy that we report upon progress to them about that regularly. OK, thank you. Christine Cleolme. I have a question. I don't think it's me because I've done mine. OK, that's fine, Rachel. Except perhaps if you can see the form that's filled in on retirement, can I ask the forms about animals that are put down? It's the same form. It's the same form, that's it. So that's really all. OK. Sorry, Rachel. OK. Can I ask Mr Bird why in the letter in response to the SAWC report, why you didn't think that the report was objective and that there were some inaccuracies within that report? OK. Professor Campbell. Professor Campbell. You'll let again from you. The letter which Mark and our chair submitted is very detailed and I think probably goes a long way to answering that. A lot of what was in there, as you will have seen in that response, we felt was based on outdated information and some factual inaccuracies. OK. I think we're going to go on to the parts about the breeding and in later questions. So I'll leave a supplementary to that. OK. OK. Can I ask? The committee have noted that 91.7% of respondents to the committee's call for views said that they supported a ban on greyhound racing in Scotland. And I take on board the comments that you've made regarding those who completed the feedback. But I wonder if you could give us an indication, both parties, on what the impact of a ban would be, an outright ban, or potentially a phasing out of greyhound racing in Scotland. What effect would that have, including any cross-border implications of that ban? I might start with Mark and then move to Paul. So obviously we had a last and strike. We mustn't forget that that was in Glasgow, which is Shellfield. That was a casualty of Covid because they weren't, as like most other tracks on a media deal, i.e. the racing wasn't being shown in bookmakers shops, so they did rely on footfall. And sadly because of Covid and the restrictions, which obviously carried on in Scotland as well, that closed its doors and never reopened as a result of Covid. That's now left us currently with 23 Scottish-based trainers, or Scotland-based trainers, that are now travelling between wherever their bases are in Scotland to most likely Newcastle or Sunderland or even to Peelaw Grange. So the effect of a ban, it depends on the detail, but it may well be that even Scottish Scotland-based trainers couldn't actually carry out what they're doing, assuming they're doing it, thought for payment to come over to the border to England. Our views have always been the same because obviously you're aware of what's happening in the Senate as well with Wales with regards to a petition for a ban, is that actually both the Governments, have they done enough to actually look at the legislation and the regulation without having to go for a ban because actually to ban something outright from our point of view would just drive it underground? But I suppose we've got an example of the effects that might, how that might play out because we've got in practice your licence track did stop. What happened to the dogs that you were licensing to race in Glasgow? What was the immediate impact of that? Well, it goes back to, again, most of the dogs that were at Tourfield were very much owners, were the trainers and the trainers had probably two or three dogs. There were very few big owners that were racing at the track. They only raced one night a week. It was, as I said, it wasn't on a media deal so there was no real incentive for trainers to have much in the way of dogs. So, actually, some of the trainers that do it as a professional living, as I said, they have transferred over, are the trainers that have just retired their dogs and are no longer racing. Paul, what would then impact of an outright ban or a face ban be on your track? Well, I think the injustices of banning greyhound racing would be terrible. I mean, I don't actually understand why you would want to ban greyhound racing. That's the first thing. I don't think that anyone has ever come full with a good enough reason to ban greyhound racing in compared with other sports. But, obviously, if it was banned, then we would just have to close. Alasdair. Thank you, convener. Ultimately, we're not talking about Government proposals, we're talking about a petition, and so today is your chance to respond to that. So I preface my question by pointing that out because this is not an accusation from me, but the petitioners, however, have made an accusation and that accusation is that they raised concerns about drug use amongst dogs and specifically cocaine. My understanding is that the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission have not made that accusation, but the petitioners have, so I wonder if you can respond to that, please. So the instances of any class A use in terms of doping for dogs and, obviously, cocaine is something that would be using a dog with a view to trying to get it to run faster. There are other prohibited articles out there that would make a dog run slower. But, of course, with the testing regime that goes on, certainly within GBGB licence tracks, any class A drug that would be used in that type of event would show up. Dogs can either be randomly sampled in races or if there is intelligence to say there's something going on, then, again, that can be targeted. But the actual percentages of those that actually come through are miniscule, they're less than 1%. So of all the races, and last year, there were 359,000 runs, sorry. There was less than 1% of those that came back as a positive and even fewer, lesser percentages on that in terms of class A. This is one of the problems that we had when we had dogs staying within doors, especially within London. If you look at some of the Shawlfield positives that we have, it was for class A drug or for things like beta blockers, which obviously were used for people with heart complaints. But, again, we're talking miniscule numbers because the deterrent is there because the dogs could be tested. Mr Brignol, do you have any comment on that with regard to the alone track? Well, there's no requirement to test for us and I don't really see any reason why anyone would want to cheat and use drugs to test. Would you want to use drugs at our track? I mean, what are they going to win? 50 quid, 100 quid. It's not the same situation. I mean, if you go on to GBGB track and you race a dog, if you were inclined to cheat, then you all wanted to try and cheat. I don't think they'd get away with it, to be honest with you, because they wanted to try and cheat. The potential is there for them to bet with hundreds of bookmaking companies and they could put thousands of pounds on. That's not an issue with us in any way, shape or form. So testing doesn't...? We don't test, no. As Mark said, to be honest, if you found cocaine in a dog from a GBGB test, more than likely it's because the owner is taking cocaine and he's stroked the dog because the test is so sensitive that it will find the minutest traces. I mean, even poppy seeds in bread, a dog will foul because it will have opium in the poppy seeds in the bread. So if you feed the dog poppy seed bread, it's likely to foul a GBGB test. To pick up on Mr Bigelow's point, that is exactly the advantage, of course, of not having dogs during the racing period of their lives living within a domestic environment, which is the way we do it in GBGB. Okay, thank you. Just follow up on that. Whether it happens or not, there may be an incentive because of the return and on betting to enhance the performance illegally of a greyhound through a GBGB track. However, at Thornton, are you saying that the only bookkeeping service available is the one bookkeeper on track so there is no external or online betting on it? Okay, thank you. I'm now going to move to a question from Rachel Hamilton. Thank you. It was just to pick up. It was one of the points that GBGB had made in the SOARC report. Particularly the emphasis on the concern about the welfare standards for breeding and the importation of dogs from Ireland. I just wondered from the response that you gave if you could let the committee know with regards to what you're doing in terms of developing some sort of harmonised set of welfare standards for breeding. Thank you. You're exactly right. It's a question which spans GBGB and Ireland. You will have seen in our welfare strategy that, as I mentioned earlier, we're working with the Kennel Club, who are developing a bespoke assured breeders scheme for Greyhounds, and that is currently in development and will be shortly piloted. That will then form the basis for us collaborating with Irish counterparts in making sure that standards are raised internationally. In fact, that's also part of a wider piece of work. In March this year, GBGB hosted a meeting of international regulators, specifically focused on welfare, and that is the first of what will be a series of meetings and the Irish attended that, along with all of the other main international regulators. The purpose of those meetings is exactly so that we can share best practice, so that we can align standards and we now have an online platform on which to do that. Members of GBGB, a small number of us will be going out later this spring to Ireland specifically to talk to our counterparts about breeding welfare and to make a visit there to understand better how we can all work together, again, to make sure that standards are raised uniformly, internationally. Having said all of that, part of what's within our welfare strategy is also that we very much want to drive British breeding of racing Greyhounds, because once it's in GBGB we absolutely have oversight of it and we don't so much when it's in Ireland, and also that means dogs wouldn't be being transported, and we would rather, from a welfare point of view, they were bred and stayed in the same country. So we have various pieces of work in place to support that. You will have seen that in fact the number of British bred racing Greyhounds has increased substantially over the last few years, and indeed by chance this year the Derby was won by British bred Greyhound. There seemed to be quite an emphasis on the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission report on that aspect of welfare, but I just wondered how, in terms of the context of this petition, I made the point to Cathy Dwyer in the committee session in March that surely there are currently regulations in animal welfare standards that can deal with that aspect of animal welfare and importing young animals, the number of puppies that one animal is having, etc. I wonder if you can comment on that because it was part of the report that actually concerned me. So you're absolutely right, of course. Everything Greyhounds does kind of falls under general national canine legislation, and part of that, as you quite rightly say, relates to transportation and part of that relates to breeding. We have the breeding of dogs regulations, but who falls under that is dependent, amongst other things, upon the number of litters the bitches are having per year, for example. So what we're working to do, and this is what we're collaborating with the Greyhound Stud Book on, and also with some of the charities within the Greyhound Forum, because this is one of the things that they flagged up when I first started developing the strategy, was that we're working to understand very clearly which Greyhound breeders within GB fall under which regulations, and then to ensure, through our rollers regulated, that each of them understands very clearly what their responsibilities are under that legislation and that they are compliant with them. Can I ask also, just because it was such a large part of your response to the report itself, going back to my original question about the report being objective, have you seen the, I can't find the reference to it now, but have you seen the RSPCA dogs, is it Dogs Trust? Dogs Trust and Blue Cross. No, Dogs Trust and Blue Cross report. No. Why has that not been published? Well, we went to both, Madeleine myself and our chair, went to the RSPCA, or Dogs Trust officers, going on for two years ago, where they said that they wanted to review their position in relation to all Greyhound race, not just GBGB racing, but also the independent. And their reason for doing it was because they didn't think that we were acting sufficiently quick enough, or that we had the money in which to do what we wanted to do. We had already got Madeleine embarked on doing the welfare strategy that was published in last May. They even actually asked us to stall that strategy work whilst they carried out their own review, which we contributed to 100% along with some of the other welfare charities as well. We published, as I said, our welfare strategy in May. They published theirs, well actually they declared what the results of their report was in September of last year, but they've not shared that report with us, or any of the other welfare charities, or even alluded to why their position has changed. They've just said that Greyhound Racing in their book now was cruel and abhorrent, and that's why they were going to call for a phased ban to Greyhound Racing. Again, so we're not only seeing the report, it was over a five-year period that they asked for a ban to take place, so they are heading towards their first year of declaring that to be their position, and yet we've still seen no evidence whatsoever, A, from their report, but also how they see a phased ban coming up out. It is a matter of frustration to me that we haven't seen that report despite having repeatedly asked to have sight of it, and indeed the Greyhound Forum itself has asked to be provided with a copy of it, and hasn't been. The reason that's particularly a matter of frustration to me is that we are all in this together. All of us want to optimise Greyhound welfare. When I set out to develop the strategy, I asked each of the charities who sits within the Greyhound Forum, and I sent them a form to fill in and send back to let us know what they thought current welfare issues were and what they thought potential welfare issues might be, and they all did that, and I considered all of those, and all of it was incorporated within the welfare strategy. So if they are now saying there's something we're still missing, I want to know what it is so that we can do something about it, and yet they won't let us see their report. Can I ask the committee if it's a report that you've seen? There is a summary as part of the SAWC report, but the actual full report has not been published or given to us. Okay. Thanks, Mark. Yeah, thanks, convener. I wanted to go back to the nub of the argument, really, which I think the petitioners are raising, and also the evidence that the Scottish General Welfare Commission reflected on veterinary evidence, and that's the nature of a dog racing at 40 mile an hour around an oval track. Now, as I understand it, GBGB is doing research into track design. This might seem like a bit of a doubt question, but are you doing research into straight tracks rather than oval tracks? So we are working as part of the international collaboration with other regulators, which I just described, to really look in detail at the evidence base because there's already some work being done in other countries. And then, as you will have seen in the letter which we sent back to this committee, GBGB will ask Dr Richard Payne, who's at Nottingham University, to have oversight of all of that and make recommendations to us on what there needs to be further research on, which might inform future policy development around this. But there are repeated mentions in the strategy. Is that a yes on straight track research? We're looking at the evidence from all countries. All of the veterinary evidence shows that it's the turn, that first curve of the turn, the speed at which the dogs are going, the impact that that has on the legs. Will you say all about it from the evidence as a report that was done by Andrew Wight? To get back to my question, are you looking at straight tracks? Is Maddlin saying we're looking at all the options? Including straight tracks. Yes, at the evidence from other countries. Another question then just for Paul. There's been a bit of discussion this morning about apples and pears and the difference between regulated and unregulated tracks. Is your track design the same as a GB track? Is it fundamentally different in terms of shape? The only difference is that it's got an inside hair and most of the other tracks are outside hair. Most of the GB, walled GB tracks are outside hair. But it's not fundamentally different to Shorefield, for example? It's slightly smaller than Shorefield. It's probably a very similar size to Sunderland. On that basis then, would you say that the inherent risk that a dog faces by running at 40 miles an hour around an oval-shaped track in Thornton is the same as a dog running an oval-shaped track in London or Glasgow or anywhere else? I don't honestly think that you're right. Why am I wrong then? Although there are reports that say that an oval-shaped track is slightly dangerous, there's no evidence to show that if it was a straight track and the dog was pulling up at the end, it still wouldn't injure himself when you stand up. There's substantial veterinary evidence which Scottish Animal Health Commission has reflected on, and clearly GBGB will be looking at that evidence as well with their own review. Come back to the question, where is your evidence that what you have in Thornton with an oval-shaped track with dogs running around 40 miles an hour is different to an oval-shaped track at Shorefield with dogs running around at 40 miles an hour? How are the inherent risks of a more of a hobby sport any different to that of a professional track? Obviously they're not. The only thing I would say is that because we don't race quite so often, the track doesn't get compacted quite as often as a GBGB track will get compacted. Apart from that, I would say it's very similar. OK, thanks. Just finally, through the evidence, there's been a suggestion or it's been implied that unlicensed or flapper tracks are more dangerous, more likely to have potentially illegal activity or whatever. Do you think that's the case and is Thornton different from other unlicensed or flapper tracks in the UK? The unlicensed track in the whole of the UK now apart from Wiles and they're going to become GBGB registered in 2024, I think, January 20? Or even this year perhaps? Or maybe even this year. So we are the only unlicensed track in the whole of the UK. OK, the one track that was in England which was at Asken in Yorkshire has now stopped racing because of the fact that they're looking to become a registered track as well. So they're now building up their infrastructure to make an application. Is that something you consider, Thornton, becoming a... Not in the immediate future. OK. Thank you very much. That concludes our evidence today. Thank you very much for your participation. It's very much appreciated. We now move on to our next item on agenda which is consideration of consent notification for UKSI, the plant health and cytosanitary conditions. Oak sessionary, moth and plant pests, amendment regulation 2023. Do any members have any comments on the notification? Are members content to agree with the Scottish Government's decision to consent to the provision set out and the notifications being included in UK rather than Scottish subordinate legislation? Thank you. That concludes our meeting in public and we will now move into private session and I suspend the meeting for a few moments.