 Efallai, wrth digwydd, a fawr i gael ein rydw i ni ddim yn y 31rhyw gyruch ש Anthraff ac angylch yn 2022. Felly mae'r cydysm y gallwn no wneud i всёmenau cyquiethau cyffredinant, i bydd ymweld i gael unrhyw eiffer yn cyd-dillod. Yr unrhyw cyhoedd ymydd iddyn nhw yma, mae y cyd-dillod yn pryd mewn cy planteig cofod gyntaf o'r Cymru. Mae'r cyd-dillod yma, yma rydw i'ch gweld unrhyw yma,yd y bwysig i hyr ystafell y dyma arnyn diweddial wasiael, ym mwy o gyd am ymwysg. Mae cyhoedd 5 o 6 cwestiynau o'r tynes a'r tynes i ddim ni'n gwneud eu bod 15 minutu per tynes ym mwy o'r tynes, ond mae'n dwi'n gïnno i'w cael ei fod bwysig i'w cwestiynau.感覺on o'r tynes i ddim ni'n gofo i ddim ni'n gwybrae i ddim ni'n gofyn gwneud. Do not feel you have to contribute on every topic if you do not have a particular line or something that is significantly different from the opinions that we have already heard. I remind everybody that this session is specifically on rough shooting and not necessarily just about the two-dog limit in isolation. We felt as a committee that the rest of the bill was quite clear what the objective of the legislation was. However, we had significant numbers of people who raised concerns about rough shooting, and that is why we are having these sessions. We could try to keep the conversation and the debate around rough shooting specifically. Before we go into our discussions, I thought it would be a good idea to have a quick round table to introduce each other. If you could give your name and your organisation and our constituency in the region, and if we keep it at that, we will get fired into the questions nice and quickly. I am Farnley Carson. I am the convener of the committee. I am also the constituent MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries. Good morning, everybody. My name is Ross Hewing. I am the director of Moreland at Scotland and the States. Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland. I am Robbie Marsland. I am the director of the League Against Cruel Sports in Scotland. I am Jim Fairlie, MSP for Persia, South and Canoesia. Good morning. I am Billy Telford. I am the world-life crime coordinator for Police Scotland. I am Rachel Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxbro and Berwickshire. I am Jenny Minto, MSP for our Gailan Bute. Good morning. I am Alex Hogg, chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association. I am also a gamekeeper working at the present moment in time. I have been working for 40 years. I am Ariane Burgess, MSP for the Highlands and Islands. Good morning. I am Jake Swinnell, director for the Scottish countryside lines. Good morning. I am Adam, MSP for Bamsur and Buckingham coast. Good morning. I am Kirsty Jenkins. I am a policy officer for one kind. I am Alasdraethan, MSP for the hill and in the near. Good morning. I am Peter Clark, public affairs manager for British Association for shooting conservation. Good morning. I am Mercedes Vialba from the Labour Party. I am a list MSP for the north-east Scotland region. Last but not least, I want to join us remotely. I am Mike Flynn, chief superintendent of the Scottish ASPCA. You are all very welcome. We will kick off with the first question. I would like the panel to give us the air opinion of what the meaning of rough shooting is, nice and simple to start. I will start. Am I right with Ross? Thank you. I would say that there are broadly three things that define what rough shooting is. The first is that you would typically have a mixed quarry being shot. What I mean by that is that generally you will have a mix of game birds such as pheasant, partridge, woodcock, but you may also have wild mammals and that is sometimes termed as ground game. Those are the two types of quarries that you might expect to encounter on a rough shoot. One other thing that characterises rough shooting is that you usually have a gun or guns walking up to rain to try and flush the quarry. The quarry can be flushed in broadly two ways, either using dogs or sometimes indeed people, a bird will get up in front of you. One thing that I would add, convener, is that rough shooting is not necessarily about controlling wildlife. We have heard that a lot in previous evidence sessions. It is very much something that is done to harvest food predominantly, and it is very much done with that one-for-the-pots ethos. It is very important to get across that it is not generally about the management of wildlife. I partake in a rough shoot. I shoot 10 times a year on a rough shoot in Mr Fairleys constituency. I have to say that it is something that generally people get a lot of enjoyment out of. It is a very social occasion, but broadly characterised by the three things that I set out there, convener. I echo what Ross has said. It is a mixed quarry taking place across countryside. I would just like to make a specific point that, during a rough shoot, there is no chasing or killing of wild mammals with a dog. It is purely flushing. It is a humane way of wild management. I would also like to add that, as Ross also said, it is an important activity in terms of providing for the pot. That is particularly true as it relates to food miles and it is a very ethical way of providing food for the pot. I wonder whether you can elaborate on what you have said there. Is it more normal from what you have just said for quarry to be walked up? Is it high proportion of rough shoots that involve people walking up quarry rather than dogs? That has not been the case. It has always been a case that you have guns walking as part of a line. The minimalistic form of rough shooting that you can have is one person walking with their dogs just walking up some terrain. If I use my shoot as an example, there are about eight guns, usually, three or four of us have dogs. We walk in a line through terrain to try to flush the quarry, which will then be shot. My shoot in Perthshire is a ground game, so wild mammals are usually on. We shoot wild mammals and we do that for two reasons. One, the pear in particular is very tasty, and I quite enjoy eating it. Secondly, there is evidence sometimes that the hares are doing damage to regenerative woodland, for example, and sometimes they need to make sure that we are maintaining the populations of pears as well. It is always characterised, as I would say, Mr Allen, by having a gun in a line or just a gun on its own walking up some terrain. I am eloquently put by Ross in the description of the rough shoot. Ross said that it is not just about controlling wildlife. Although I completely agree with that, there is an element of wildlife control in this as well. Many of the rough shoots are rough over rough ground, rough terrain that you normally would not be able to control successfully with a lamp or otherwise. There is an element of being able to walk through rough ground using dogs to flush to control certain species, such as rabbits or hares, that would be causing damage as well. There is a slight element to that. Are you clear on what rough shooting is? Given that the bill is all about clarity, are you confident that you will not have to make a decision based on your own opinion to decide whether a crime has been committed or not? Are you comfortable with the current definition of rough shooting? I have had to do some research into rough shooting. It is not something that I have much experience of. There may be some challenges and confusion if there is alleged or suspected criminality. Essentially, if there are more dogs than two—I am not saying that this is right or wrong—if there are more dogs than two, it is potentially creating confusion and difficulty in establishing which dogs have been involved in which act and who has control of which dogs. There is potentially an opportunity for those minority of people who are undertaking illegal acts, such as a legal foxhunter and so on, with multiple dogs to falsely claim that they were rough shooting. I think that there is certainly an issue about forming a pack. That was one of the descriptions that we heard last week from the bill team. Can you set out what your opinion would be of forming a pack? That is where it is going to come down to an opinion. There is obviously the definition, the dictionary definition, but that is not necessarily in real life terms always going to be totally relevant, I do not think. That is ultimately going to come down to the judgment of looking at the evidence, the judgment, the opinion and speaking to experts. Ultimately, if somebody was charged for it, that is something that is going to have to be tested at court, but there is potentially always going to be that, is it or isn't it? I come to Jake, then Jim and then Robbie. I completely understand what DS Telford is talking about and I understand the complications that you face when it comes to rough shooting. A couple of concerns that I have is that, first of all, if this bill goes through as it is, then it would be very easy and I would suggest a very common place for people who are against shooting in principle or the killing of animals to be able to disrupt a perfectly legal day and I think that we will see this common place. For instance, if it wasn't clear what was going on in a wood, then an allegation may be made. The police would then be duty bound to investigate this, which would mean probably most generally stopping a legitimate and lawful activity from going on, which has a knock-on effect because it would stop the wildlife management from taking place and it would stop the legitimate and legal activity from taking place as well. That is my first point. I would seek clarification on that. The second point would be the confusion. I know that the bill team alluded to a rough shoot being used as a loophole. I would like to dig into that. Generally, if you are hunting rabbits in fields illegally, you are going to be using longdogs, which are not used on a rough shoot. If you are hunting a fox with a pack—or trying to flush a fox with a pack—then you will be using hounds. On a rough shoot, you use spangels, labradors and occasionally HPRs. There is very little way that you can get those things mixed up. I will use one as a loophole. Very briefly, I just touched on that. From the police's point of view, would you be in a position to take a judgement if you are having a shoot and there are eight dogs there, but they are all labradors and spangels? Based on that, we would not necessarily need to take action at that point. We would speak to experts and try and gather all the information that we have to make a judgement on whether it is a legitimate rough shoot or if it is someone posing a legal act as a rough shoot. That is something that we take into consideration, the breed of dog and so forth. We would look to speak to experts on that. You would take a consideration based on what you find when you are asked to go out to an event? Yes, we would look at everything and gather as much information as we could. I just wanted to back up Billy Telford's observation about the danger. If there are multiple dogs in use, that can be formed as a smoke screen for illegal hunting, which has been illegal for over 20 years in Scotland. I think that the reason why we are all sitting here today is because Lord Bonami concluded that flushing to guns, which was an exception in the current law, has been exploited and used as a smoke screen to allow illegal hunting to happen. There was a need to strengthen the existing law. What we are looking at in front of us is the strengthening of the existing law, which means that one of the things that we need to consider is whether there are potential loopholes in the legislation or in amendments to the legislation that would enable a mounted hunt to say that we are actually doing this, because right now what has been going on is that mounted hunts have been going out saying, we are flushing to guns. That is one of the exceptions in the 2002 act. It has been shown that that was a subject of huge and that it was a smoke screen. As I say, that is why we are here today. My watchword in all of this process is to look at the proposed legislation and the proposed amendments through the eye of somebody who would like to try and find a way around it as we have had clear evidence that that has been done for 20 years now. Any suggestion that rough shooting should enable more than two dogs worries me, because as soon as you roll out out in the countryside with a pack of hounds, if you have a smoke screen, a reason or a loophole, then it is very easy to claim that that is what you are doing. That is the concern that the League Against Cruel Sports has. That is the way that we are looking at all of the bill and particularly as we have been talking more and more about rough shooting and less and less about traditional mounted hunting, which is what we are all here to make sure that we really stop, which is what we thought we would stop 20 years ago. I feel as if we always ought to come back to is the bill going to stop traditional mounted hunting? That is why we are here, that is what we want to do, as I understand it, that is why the Government introduced the bill. That is the focus that I will always bring to this discussion. How many activities have you been called out to in the description that Robbie Marsland gives in terms of what he says is a smoke screen for rough shooting? Alex Hogg, on the back of the description of using rough shooting as a smoke screen, is that a reflection of what you see as what rough shooting is for? I noticed that the SGA gave a submission around saying that people attend a rough shooting with the intent for the dogs to flush the game for guns to shoot. Is there some sort of interpretation here that is not true? Probably that we make some. The rabbit, as a rule, just lives near its burrow or just outside in Russia and near a wood. It is never far from safety, so when you bolt a rabbit, it takes for cover, it is within, it has got it in cover in seconds. Where is the hare? I mean, he lives out in the open all the time, and a hare can be hunted with dogs. We need to separate the two species and make sure that rabbits do not get caught up in what we are trying to aim for. In terms of incidents reported to us whereby a legal act is in the guise of a rough shoot, I cannot give you exact figures, but I certainly do not recall any such incidents being reported to us. Do you recall any time that rough shooting has been used as an excuse for a legal activity? No, I don't. I'm going to come to Ross and then Robbie and Jim. I'll just back up what's been said thus far. Jake eloquently described why it would be difficult for a rough shoot to masquerade as something that was potentially illegal. The thing that we really need to reflect on here for a second is that the aim of the bill is to minimise the risk of wild mammals being caught and killed by dogs in the course of hunting. The Scottish Government, if I'm honest, what's happened here is a mission creep, so in seeking to try and close the loopholes that surround it at the moment, it has quite illegitimately impacted on what was never meant to be within the scope of this legislation. We do now have a situation where there's a lot of people very worried about the potential implications of the provisions of the bill on an activity that was never meant to fall within the scope of it. I'll just back up what Jake said there. I do not think that it is realistic that a mounted hunt could masquerade as a rough shoot in any sense whatsoever. Jim, I'm going to bring Jim in first, because you did end... Okay, I'd rather hear what other folk are going to say. Robbie and Jim. Thanks, Jim. Yeah, I just wanted to come back to the question that Rachel Hamilton asked. And Billy's answer. So when... Which way to say it? Before the 2002 Act, no mounted hunt ever went flushing to guns. That wasn't something they ever did. Mounted hunts went traditional hunting. That's what they wanted to do, and that's what's very important to them, and I understand that. But that activity was banned in effect by the 2002 legislation. And the very next season, for the first time ever, Scottish Mounted Hunts declared that they were going flushing to guns. For the first time ever. So the question about have they ever been... Have there ever been any concerns about rough shooting? Of course, the answer is no at the moment. As I said before, my worry is that this legislation introduces new ways in my parlance, new loopholes. I don't think they would be intentional by any means, but any opportunity for anyone to go out and say that they were doing a legal activity, which gave them the smoke screen to do an illegal activity, is very worrying to me. And one of the things that I went into this... I know very little about rough shooting. Very little I mean. I think no one would be surprised about that. And I went into this thinking, well, that's not going to be a problem, because Ross is probably right. You can never say they were rough shooting and being on horseback and that. But then I was thinking, the more I hear about this, then the definition of rough shooting is really broad. Really broad. I mean, we've heard different descriptions of it here. So what is to stop somebody on horseback with a man with a gun waiting around to say, yep, we're rough shooting and we've decided to go rough shooting. What's the difference to that between, yes, we're flushing to guns, we've decided to flush the guns the first time ever, which is what happened in 2002. So, again, that's the caution I placed before you that we mustn't allow what are we described loopholes to go through this legislation. I'm going to come to Jim and then Rachel's got a specific supplementary on this. Yeah, I'll start flush this. We'll keep you here, other people. What kind of dogs are taken on a rough shoot and who is in control of them and are they in control, Alex? Well, you've got a lot of dogs. You've got labs and you've got spanyls and you've got hunt point retrievers. That's your type of dog and your dog for hunting. Foxes would be hounds. So it's a totally different bolly, totally different. And you cannot mix the two of them up. I've got a number of hounds and I want to try to bring everybody in an order. So, I'm going to break. It's okay. You're okay. Jim, I've got Alistair, Mercedes and then Jake. Thank you, convener. Coming back to you again, DS Telford, since you've raised some interesting questions. I realise you're not here to say what the law should be, but one of the discussions we've had is about whether some of the complications you're talking about would be there or not if a limit of two dogs applied to a rough shoot as a whole so that there could only be two dogs at the shoot. Now, whether that's right or wrong, I'm interested to know, given what we've been discussing this, whether that's a simpler or more enforceable solution in your view. Adds to your complication, if you've got six people out shooting and they're all 50, 60 metres apart and the ball got two dogs each, how do you make that differentiation? Would you have the capacity to be able to make that differentiation? Okay, so I'll say, obviously, Police Scotland are impartial, so I'm just commenting on the sort of ease of gathering evidence and so forth. So yes, if there was two dogs, ultimately that would make it more straightforward. It would reduce the question of has a pack formed and so forth. Yeah, if there was obviously a line, if the dogs were separate, that's where we would need to make our assessment as to whether a pack had formed. If we knew straight from the back that when any alleged incident had happened that there was a significant distance between the pairs of dogs, that's fine. The complication is, I suspect, it will not necessarily be that cut and dry as to where dogs were at a particular time if allegations are being made, but we'll work with whatever legislation we've got and gather the evidence accordingly. One issue there is that the bill team leader Lee have said last week that if the dogs did form a pack, and we're not sure what the definition is, as long as the owners tried to separate them, but surely the offence would have been committed, that's a bit like saying, I've caught you speeding at 70mph, but as long as you slow down, that's okay. So she's implied that if they were forming a pack, as long as they were separated, but the offence would have been committed. Yes, I suppose off the top of my head we'd need to look at what measures had been taken, had they taken reasonable measures, and then you're getting into what's the definition of reasonable, but had they taken suitable measures to stop the pack forming in the first place. So yes, I suppose we need to take every case in its merits, but they should certainly be taking measures to stop that happening rather than just say, oh, they've formed a pack, we'll try and pull them back without implementing those measures. Mike Flynn. Back to your original bit, what's your views on rough shooting? My view is that it is for a sport or a past thing, has always been referred to as a social or an enjoyable event, and not seen as essential in terms of the other stuff that's going on. I do have sympathy of those changes with Police Scotland, Mr Telford and his colleagues, because it will not be clear. When we look back at some of the cases that have happened, people do break the law, and I'm talking about law breakers, not your lawful members of the public. If there is a potential loophole there, they will try and use it. I know a bit that Mr Hogg is saying about the dogs that are used for rough shooting, but the law, as it stands, this bill, as it stands, says dogs that don't differentiate between separate breeds, so I've genuinely got concerns. Okay, I'm going to bring in Jake, then Mercedes and then Ariane. Thanks, convener. I've just got a number of concerns relating to, primarily, some of Robbie's comments. It seems like, admittedly, you've said that you've little to no experience in rough shooting, but it seems to take every opportunity to beat hunting foxes with hounds over the head. I'm not sure that we're in the right session for that, really. I'd like to come on Rachel's comments, as well, about which dogs are normally on a rough shoot, and the obedience levels, as well. As Alec quite rightly said, you'd be looking at spaniels, you'd be looking at labs, some terriers, even, are in the beating line. I know terriers that are very good at flushing and even picking up as well. To give you an idea of the level of training, I know that this was raised by, I think, Mike as well in one of the evidence sessions, to begin with, one of the six sessions, about the obedience levels. This is completely different to hunting with a pack of hounds and hunting separately working one, two or three individual dogs. For instance, I've got an 18-month-old cockaspanule. She is primarily a deer dog. Her name's Myrtle. She's a very cute little thing. She is absolutely phenomenal at deer stalking. She is ridiculously well trained, as are most dogs that go on these shoots. They're individually trained. There's a lot of time and effort put into them. If Myrtle starts to do something that I don't want to do, I can stop her instantly. That is really the case with most of the dogs on these shoots. If you turn up with a dog that doesn't do that, you will not be invited back for that shoot again. I can say that categorically. Gamekeepers and land managers have a job to do, and they have a reputation to uphold, particularly if it's their livelihood as well. They will not tolerate dogs that run in, dogs that chase. As Alec rightly said, if I control rabbits as well, I've shot for over 30 years. I've worked dogs for over 30 years. I've been involved in training police dogs as well. If you go into a field full of rabbits, which I often have, and have been a rabbit controller as well, as part of my general duties, after you fire one shot under a lamp, the field will empty because the rabbits are virtually next to their holes and they don't stray far from the holes. They're completely different scenarios, and I'd like to get that on record. A follow-up question to what Alec said about the different breeds of dog that are used on different kinds of activities to flush different kinds of prey. Are foxes ever flushed on a rough shoot? A lot of times it will happen, and quite often they might be shot if it's safe to do so, but normally it's by accident, it's unintentional. They get up out of the cover and if you're wanting to try and have your conservation or your colors and things, we will shoot it in the course of what they buy. Would a fox be included in the definition of ground game? Well, you would never eat fox for obvious reasons, and that would not taste good, but the main rationale, the main motivation for controlling fox is just as Alec said, it's for biodiversity. Managing predation is what it's all about. You would never eat it. Under any circumstance, but as Alec said, you can control them. If you've got evidence of fox predation, a lot of rough shoots will do that. We do that on my shoot. If there's a dog fox that's moved in, we'll often control it to reduce its impact on the ground nesting birds that we've got on the ground, not least woodcock. Does it follow that the absence of hounds doesn't necessarily rule out that foxes have been flushed, that they've been killed in that activity? So there are no circumstances under which a dog on a rough shoot would ever be able to kill a fox. That just would never happen, ever. What would happen is that the fox would be disturbed probably well before the dogs even got there because they're very attuned things. It would be flushed and if there was a gun close by, near enough to shoot it, it would be shot. There is absolutely no chance whatsoever for all the reasons that Jake has set out about the training with gun dogs, but also the fact that it's just not in their nature to try and rip a fox apart. It just wouldn't happen. If it's other than Jake. To echo what Jake and Ross have actually said, it would actually be dangerous if the dog ran out and was chasing a rabbit. Obviously, as Jake was saying, you just would not be asked back, your dog would be out of control. I know from my point of view that, if I took a dog along to shoot and it behaved like that, I'd be asked to leave and it just would not be acceptable. Just going back to the point that Alex Hogg made about ground-nesting birds, you know that the capricaly numbers are declining significantly. It's our Scotland's iconic bird species and I think that we've got to be very mindful that if we remove the tools on which we can control fox numbers and the predator control against these endangered species, we risk losing those birds driven to extinction. We've got to be very careful and in a measured approach that we have these tools at our disposal to protect endangered species such as the capricaly. Many of the rough shoots that I've been on have actually said that if a fox breaks cover then do not shoot it. There is a level of restraint as well on many rough shoots, so it's not as some people might describe as a bloodbath or a blood sport. There is a respect and a level of restraint on many of those shoots as well. If it's on the scene, I've got Arianna and Jim. If it's supplemented to this Jim, I'll bring in now Alex Hogg. Really quick one. If you go to a dog trial, when the rabbit is shot and brought back to the judges, the first thing that the judges do is feel for any damage to that rabbit's ribs. If the gun dog has chomped at its ribs at all, that dog is put in the lead and sent home, so that's how soft mouth they are. The last thing they want to do is to breed a gun dog that's going to kill a game or stuff like that, so it's totally different times, Ross, on that specifically. Just a very quick point, convener. I think it's just very, very important that we clarify here. The Scottish Government has got their policy intention, which is absolutely fine, but I think what we've heard here in this discussion reveals that rough shooting is going to be impacted in a way that is negative. I think the Scottish Government has got an obligation to act proportionately in trying to close the loopholes, which is completely legitimate, but they need to do so in a way that does not impact on other legitimate countryside activities that have never been within the scope of this bill. I think that it's interesting that we're talking about rough shooting as we do it today now. I think that what we're trying to establish here is that if we bring in this legislation, then rough shooting could be, as Robbie Marsden said, could be used as smokescreen, so it could be that rough shooting is carried out in a different way, not by people who are genuinely rough shooting, but by people who want to use that as a loophole. I'm interested in, I want to pick up a bit of a thread of conversation that was happening a while ago with Billy Telford around intent. Person, intent, activity, dogs—is it possible to establish intent? Could you talk a little bit about how do we establish intent? Is there a way to ascertain that people are planning to do this? If you're going to use it as a loophole, you're going to have to plan it a bit in order to get those dogs that are no longer spaniels or labradors but are actually hounds together into a place along with horses. Something needs to be pulled together in order to do that. Anything about intent would be helpful. Of course. We'd be wanting to gather as much evidence as possible. It wouldn't be simply a case if that's the bare minimum evidence that I've got to libel this charge or to disprove it. We'd be gathering as much information as possible. Off the top of my head, breed of dogs would be a consideration, but that's not to say that people might change the breed of dogs that they use depending on their intentions and to create a smokescreen or so forth. We'd also potentially have the opportunities for phone seizures and so forth. We would use as many investigative tools available to us to establish any offences or to disprove any offences. I'm getting slightly confused because I thought Alex said that rough shooters would never go out with hounds. Would you ever use hounds? No. The point is that they wouldn't use hounds now and he would never use a hound, but somebody might use a hound once this legislation comes into play. We're not talking about how people do it now and I totally get one for the pot and all of that and good. When this legislation comes in, it could be being used by people who consciously choose to find a way through because they can say that we're on a rough shoot and they can plan to do that and it will not be genuine to people who are genuinely doing rough shooting, it's people who want to do mounded hunting. That's the concern. We would, as much as we're talking about evidence and so forth, there's still the ability to use common sense as well and for us to have a degree of judgment to say in the balance of probability what is this, is this a legitimate rough shoot or is it something else. So there's evidence and there's common sense as well and that would take into account types of dogs and so forth as well. That's exactly where I was going to go with all of those questions, that the legitimacy of what BASC and everybody at the SGA and everybody else does is not the question. It's the people who are going to come behind you with the legislation as it currently stands and say, yeah, well this is a potential loophole and Robbie's absolutely correct, there was never such a thing as flushing to dogs, flushing to guns for fox hunting previously, but now there is. So there is a potential for a loophole there. So my question to you guys that are in the shooting, if the Government's position stays that two dogs are the limit and that's what it is going to be, can you still rough shoot? My perspective, Jim, I'm just speaking from the perspective of the shoot that I shoot on in Perthshire in your constituency. I would have reservations, I think we'd have to significantly alter the way in which we do the rough shooting in order to comply and I think that that would potentially happen in quite a damaging way in the sense that I don't think the shoot would probably feel comfortable running more than two dogs overall in the day because I think it would be open to vexatious allegations if we did, to be frank. Okay, I understand that you feel that it might be open to vexatious allegations but could your shoot still function with two dogs? Not to the same level it is now and I think that's the important thing, we as a shoot have done absolutely nothing wrong and to be honest I do not see why we are being in a sense punished for the actions potentially of some others. I think the obligation should be on the Scottish Government to find another way in which to deal with this issue without impacting on activities that are hitherto have been perfectly legitimate. Okay, I would have thought that laws were always on the basis of the people who would abuse the law as opposed to the ones who are keeping with it but anyway. Would you still be able to, let's ask SGA and Jake, would you be able to function a rough shoot with two dogs if that was your limit? It would be difficult because you've got tiredness coming in and then dogs, you've got all these different things you want to train on, dogs, all the different things you would need to make the day happen and the dogs are working so hard and cover that you would never believe. You try getting through rushes, just walking through them and thick rushes, they've got to hunt like man to produce what we are trying to get to achieve and it would curtail it a lot. Thanks, it's an interesting one. It depends on what your take on or your definition of function is. If you take your car into a garage and ask them to do a full service on it, give them one spanner they'll be able to function but whether you actually get something that's positive out of it at the end then it's very unlikely and for me if the bill passes as it is then rough shooting will end as it's practised now. So you would need more than two dogs? Gem, could you stop please? Thank you. Jake, could you finish and then move on to Peter? So I rough shoot, I go out, I did have two dogs at one point, I've now got one, I used to walk up the hedgerows and let the dogs flush and shoot. So that's rough shooting. Also rough shooting is going out as exactly as Ross described it. So yes it could still function if I go out with my one or two dogs which is very very minimal impact and makes absolutely no consumational benefit whatsoever but it will cease to function as Ross described it. Yeah, briefly I'll just say as Ross said it will cease to function as it currently is and I'd just like to say that the way the bill is drafted causes concerns amongst our members. It creates ambiguity and people the way I read it I wouldn't be able to go out in the way that I do currently and a lot of that would be echoed by the way that Ross described how rough shoot functions so yes it is hindered and curtailed by this bill. Thank you. I'm going to move on to Alasdair on another topic we just want to delve into a little bit more deeply Alasdair. Thank you. The Government has offered some clarification about the proposal to permit two dogs per person on a shoot. I'm curious to know firstly whether what your view is about those clarifications but also as we've discussed today one of the alternatives to that is obviously two dogs per shoot as a whole. So again as part of my question I'd be interested to know what the implications of what you've mentioned that's what the implications would be on or off shoot of limiting to whether it'd be possible with two dogs on a shoot as a whole and whether it would restrict what you do in terms of wildlife control or merely as a social event. Mr Allen both would be impacted. I think the clarifications although you know I can see it's in the spirit of trying to be helpful. There is a fundamental misunderstanding I think about how gun dogs behave you know it's not a case that you know when you've got if you're working two or three dogs in front of you that they work kind of in a line going forward they move around they go left they go right they cover other dogs ground and the thing that I'm most concerned about with this is that if you do did have a cops which was well covered and you had more than what more than two dogs working in it I would be really concerned that the whole thing would become open to vexatious allegations it would be quite conceivable for someone who had an anti-shooting agenda to phone up the police and say what they're doing there I've seen more than two dogs go into that wood and I've seen a hair come out that should be investigated that's what I'm worried about with this it's the questions though in the hypothetical situation that you only had two dogs. I'm saying is two dogs would not be sufficient in the vast majority of cases for rough shoots I mean I've been on so many rough shoots you know in the 24 years that I've been on this earth and you know I didn't think I've ever recorded a situation where we've just had two dogs working it's just not something that happens. I heard earlier about the types of dogs and so surely if you've got a range of dogs Labrador Espanol about the loophole aspect we're talking about in the future and how it might be used is that people who were fox hunting would have hwns so that would be a clear indication at the moment as to the difference a way for the police to see the difference between a rough shoot being used as a smokescreen and a rough shoot that is a genuine rough shoot so you could tell it potentially by the type of dog. Are you saying yes? Things are at the stand at the moment yes that's the difference between the two one of them one of the differences between the two. Would it be possible in the future and I don't know enough about dogs but could it be possible in the future to train Labrador Espanol into yeah that's what I'm wondering right so so that that's the thing right especially on the face is definitely not right so that that's the thing that we need to be really getting into is that we're talking about dogs that will work as a pack would Labrador's who are out on you know people's dogs who are owned by and in the control of separate people on a rough shoot could they potentially form a pack so it depends the dogs would are trained to do fundamentally different things so it's supposed it's not about whether they form a pack or not it's about what that pack if it is a pack if that's what you know call a group of dogs working together what they're actually doing in the case for Labrador Espanol the clear objectives to flush and then if you shoot then retrieve it's can fundamentally different for hwns which are trained you know for a completely different reason let's be real we all know what that is so I I do think that there is a plausible distinction here between the two based on the type of dog that is used so that's so that's the way in which this could be enforced potentially yes so it's not maybe it's not such a worrying thing after all that this isn't I think it depends miss Burgess on the definition and we obviously would need to come and that would need to be looked at but the definition of run rough shooting would be crucial I think as part of all of this but yes I think you raised an interesting point my views on rough shooting are that dogs are used to flush not to chase I have a dog chases you put it on the lead and you take it home and you don't get invited back again clear and simple but that's well it's clear to me but the legislation doesn't appear to make it clear on definitions mercedes so earlier on if I've understood correctly from Mr Ewing's contribution he explained that the purpose of rough shooting is not necessarily about controlling wildlife and more to do with enjoyment and potentially providing food so will this legislation prevent that yes in its current form so it will prevent the enjoyment but for those shoots that do have an in what way will it prevent enjoyment so one example miss valalba would be so say we were limited to my shoot for example took the decision on the back of this legislation to use two dogs only I can tell you that we would flush far fewer birds far fewer hairs far fewer rabbits than we currently do on the shoot and in fact in some places in some parts of the ground I'm not convinced that we would actually put any quarry up whatsoever so the result would be a wholesale loss of enjoyment in the day one but two if there is the management aspect which we do we do control the hairs for management on the ground to prevent grazing that would also suffer as a result of this so the farmer on whose land on which we shoot would also suffer as a direct consequences of the provisions of this bill and so so the enjoyment is directly linked to the yield not necessarily I mean that's that is something that I think from my perspective I mean clearly it helps if you shoot something because I quite enjoy the eating aspect that's what really underpins it for me but it's not a you know a one-way thing other people have different appreciations for rough shooting some people just like going out you know whether you shoot something it's kind of you know obsolete but others you know you do go out with the intention of shooting something for food or managing as they say and would that be possible with just one or two dogs is him would it be possible to shoot something yes I mean I think you might get something but it would be considerably less than what you currently get on a normal rough shoot can I just pull this back a little bit and remind everybody that there is not a two-dog limit on rough shooting this is what the issue is I think and this is one of the reasons we're here that cabinet that the minister has said that you are allowed to use more than two dogs it's how the use of those two dogs are defined and how ultimately that that can limit rough shooting so bear in mind we're not talking about a two-dog limit here because the minister has made it quite clear that you can use more than two dogs I would say that he would consider reducing the shoot to only two dogs because of fears about vexatious accusation which is an unintended consequence of the bill that would happen as a result of this I mean I just would not feel comfortable so I just wanted to establish which I think we have of whether or not some form of enjoyment and killing could take place and it sounds like it could it could but to a much much lesser extent and and like I said from the outset this was not the proposed target of this piece of legislation it seems unfair and disproportionate that me you know and the people on my shoot as an example have to suffer as a result of the actions of others yeah it's part of my enjoyment and I stand by those words I'm going to bring in Billy what enforcement measures would you expect then in relation to the two dogs what enforcement measures yes well I mean imagine it would be you know if you got a call from a member of the public saying that there was more than two dogs working the police would be called out and I presume they would investigate it and I imagine that that would result in the shutting down of the shoot on that day okay I'm going to bring in Aria and then Alec yeah just to kind of come back Mercedes asked about the two dogs and you're talking Ross about the fact that you would lose enjoyment but why would you have to reduce it if we've established that the types of dogs you use on a rough shoot are not hounds that hunt in packs why would you have to reduce the number of dogs because you know unless people you all and you kind of like I heard laughter when I said could a labrador be trained to to work in a pack so if you're using dogs that won't could never ever don't say never ever but could we'll be unlikely to be using a pack then surely having a number of dogs at your rough shoot is fine because they're not hounds that hunt in a pack that kill in a pack I'm not going to let you answer that because I think the answer was in the question that Ariane asked what we've heard your view on that I'm going to move to Alec it's just quickly to say there could be welfare issues here because our whole detraetra is to retrieve anything that might be wounded on the shoot that's absolutely you would walk 10 miles to make sure that that had been retrieved properly and if you're going to I can give you an example I've got a wee black cocker called Maggie we were at the grouse last week there was a cock grouse towered in behind the bats the picker up was there was six labs and he whenever found it so I said right on you go Maggie and she found it you felt so damn good that you'd stopped any suffering you've got your barba you've got everything done right and that's what we might cut into if we restrict it to two dogs we need option stuff quite often a dog might have as good a noise as another dog and all different things peter yeah I'd just like to say that I was back to the point that Ross made you know rough shooting is important part of the social fabric of rural Scotland and you know it boosts mental health and wellbeing in the countryside I know that there's nothing better than getting out in the fresh air and being amongst people and doing a walked up shoot but it's also a sort of cost effective way of shooting and you know a conduit for beginners to get into shooting and I think we have to be mindful of this for the next generation particularly Alex Hogg you know for gamekeeping it's an important way of getting people into shooting and it's a humane way of shooting and it's very important that we respect the fact that this is a way that people get into shooting at a very big in our level and it's a way that I did it so I know a way that Ross Ewing did and Jake did as well so I think it's really important that this is protected and it is not hindered by the bill. I'm going to bring me Mercedes and then Alistair. Thank you yeah I was just wondering if we have just on that point if we have any data on the proportion of residents of rural areas that take part in rough shooting. If I may answer that briefly I know that from a vast point of view we've got 11,000 members in Scotland I don't have the specific data on that but I'd be happy to go away and try and find it for you if I could write back to the committee. Alistair. Thank you it's just a brief question or observation really I understand the points that people are making about retrieving birds but just to be clear this bill is not about birds it's about mammals so you know interesting and useful as those points are you know the bill wouldn't touch on them as far as I understand. Okay we're going to move on Beatrice. Thanks convener I mean we've obviously touched on the sort of nature of my apologies I've missed you would you like to comment my apologies sorry thank you I just wanted to come back to the main purpose of this bill the minister has said several times that this bill is in pursuit of the highest standards of animal welfare whilst allowing legitimate control it's not entirely clear to me how an exception for sport sits within that but the exception does exist I don't see why rough shooting should be treated any differently than any other activity under section six and I think we seem to be getting away from that that main purpose of the bill. I've got a question have you any evidence at all that there's been any incidents whatsoever relating to rough shooting when it comes to animal welfare? I've heard you mentioned this before and you've mentioned before that nobody said anything about rabbits and we supported the inclusion of rabbits in this bill right from the beginning the reason we didn't we weren't asked specifically about rabbits and we possibly didn't anticipate that the inclusion of rough shooting would start to be questioned in this way which is why we didn't speak more specifically about rabbits a rabbit is a sentient wild animal and will suffer in the same way as any other wild animal when they're hunted flushed shot whatever so of course there are the same concerns for rabbits are there as there are for other wild animals but again this is around chasing the minister has repeatedly said it's about chasing catching and killing a wild mammal that doesn't happen in a rough shoot again if a dog was to chase rather than flush a rabbit and catch it and kill it that dog would be removed because they're highly trained dogs so I would dispute the fact that this rough shooting should play any part in this bill other than it's an exemption to ensure a perfectly legal pastime which is carried out to the highest animal welfare standards shouldn't inadvertently be caught up in this legislation which is specifically to to stop dogs chasing catching and killing mammals I think it just goes back to the point that the exceptions to this bill should be as few and as gnarly defined as possible to avoid loopholes and to avoid situations where wild animals might be suffering yeah I certainly agree on that point thanks convener we have touched on some of the enforcement issues my question will be for Billy Telford about the interpretation that was offered by the Scottish Government around enforcement of section 6 and we had last week that the government clarified that if a person shoots quarry flushed by another person's dog it may be unlawful under some circumstances so I just wondered what your views were on that yeah I'll be honest I'm not entirely clear on it myself as to how it will work in real terms as to whether it's someone else's dog but someone else has control of it so yes I'll be honest I'm not entirely clear on that myself okay anybody else want to comment on that can I bring in Mercedes who's got a supplementary on police understanding as well yes so last week we know was it last week or earlier it's all merging together so we've heard that the use of dogs will be tied to the specific activity that's the intention the revised intention behind the bill and if I understood correctly the evidence that we've taken previously um the government seems to be intending that if a person shoots um a wild mammal which has been flushed by someone else's dog as long as it was no it was only one or two dogs that flushed the mammal it won't fall foul of the legislation because for the purpose of that activity those dogs can be claimed to be owned by the shooter so I guess my question for Mr Telford is do you see any issues with the idea that dog ownership is interchangeable depending on the activity depending on the time how do you see that functioning okay so my understanding and sort of touching on your question as well so which I will need to clarify as well as we move forward especially you know if this is embedded in legislation is that it's to do with the control of the dog rather than the ownership so it's if they're using someone else's dogs as long as it's determined that person is in control of them is my understanding so yes I do potentially see an issue and there's an element of speculation in this in that if there are multiple dogs present you know if a pack may form or so forth there may be some discrepancies or the potential for false claims that the actual dogs that undertook the act of flushing you know we're in the control of one person when in fact they weren't or there were two separate dogs from two different people I think that's just when you've got that number of dogs there there is that potential if does that answer your question yes although I think confusion still remains it's slightly different from what we heard last week so another scenario and I'm going to bring Jim in because I know he'll have another scenario as well I've I've got two people with two dogs out in a walk with me out in a rough shoot I'm the only person with a gun those four dogs go in and they act of this separately because they're labradors but they they're hunting a a undergrowth and they're all laid out but in effect they are working together because they're not covering the same area these four dogs flush a rabbit I shoot it I'm not in control of those two dogs but I the the wording is to use dogs but those dogs were used to flush to me it's four dogs I'm then breaking the law because if I've got a gun I'm not in control of the dogs that are flushing in that instance but there's four dogs working at the the game where the rabbit's towards me so there's a great area I'll bring in Jim yeah thanks can be the the bask definition of rough shooting is virtually all quarry species listed can be walked up ie where shooters flush out the quarry as they walk through cover so is there a a concern from us police scotland enforcing this if you've got five guys out on a rough shoot and they've all got a dog or a couple of dogs each but they're well spaced out and as they're walking and they've got enough space between them that's not forming a pack but it still allows them to enjoy the rough shooting would you be able to interpret that if somebody then came to you and said those people were walking through a wood there was these dogs and a rabbit or a hare was shot would police scotland be able to interpret that scenario yes I mean if there was the information available to us making it clear that that's what happened yeah it's based on those circumstances what would you use to interpret that scenario would it be the kind of dogs would it be the environment that you were in would it be the um the how would you interpret it it would be all those things because we need to obviously we may get told that there is a line of persons with two dogs equally spaced but by the time we perhaps get there you know that that might not necessarily be the case or it might be afterwards everyone's together so we don't necessarily know which two dogs is with who and is where so yeah it would be all those things it would be witness statements it would be common sense it would be the kind of dogs the kind of land we'd be pulling together as much information as we could because you know would it make any and I'm purely thinking off the top of my head here would it make any difference to you if when you get there and you want to investigate this alleged vexatious crime as Ross puts it and you said right gather up your dogs and you could clearly see Alec call two dogs Ross called two dogs and they all went back to them would that be part of your determination yeah I think I think it would because it would show that these dogs you know what has happened at that time isn't necessarily linked to it but it would certainly show that there is an intention to go out there with people in control of specific dogs so it would certainly be a consideration so that actually kind of gets to the point of it doesn't it that rough shooting would still be allowed to be using more than two dogs along as these dogs didn't form a pack and the dogs were being controlled by one person who only ever had two dogs under their control would that sit with you Ross on that particular point I would still have concerns because I think your average member of the public when it comes to clarity which is obviously what this bill is meant to bring I don't think we'd necessarily be able to tell the difference between a dog working as a pack or not working as a pack I think but it wouldn't be the average member of the public you'd have to convince so it'd be have to an officer of the law who was there with the specific understanding of what it was that you were trying to do but I think it comes back to what how these incidents are flagged up in the first instance is what I'd say you know if someone calls up if someone's not able to clearly tell whether something's illegal or not to me that's a failure in the legislation's clarity and what this needs to do is that everybody not just the police needs to be clear about what constitutes an illegal activity and not and in my mind I mean I'm still not clear to be quite frank and which is why I'm taking a very precautionary approach with respect to my own shoot on this if this legislation were to pass I would have severe reservations about using more than two dogs on the shoot because I think it could be open to fixations allegations and it was not clear what constitutes an illegal activity or not there's too much grey area in this but if you are accused of a fixations allegation surely when Billy and his crew arrive and they ascertain very quickly that you hadn't done anything illegal at all what would be the problem with that I'd hope that they would be able to but I mean the point is that it still results in disruption to the shoot day which has resulted as a manifestation of the cable not being clear in the first instance because someone has felt felt compelled to report it which is disrupted your shoot day you've had to stop capability to answer police questions interviews maybe there'll be an appeal for information as well that will follow on the back of that it just creates to be frank a whole load of bureaucracy when there doesn't need to be some in the first place I think the most important thing here Mr Fairleigh to be frank is everybody member of the public police people involved in the activity need to understand very clearly what constitutes an illegal activity and not and while this bill is intended to bring clarity of expression what it does is create ambiguity with respect to a perfectly legitimate activity which was never intended to be in the focus of this bill one thing if you look at part one of the bill it actually is quite clear a person is using a dog when the hunting of a well mammal by that person involves the use of a dog even if the dog is not under that person's control or direction and related expressions are to be construed accordingly so it's quite clear that rough shooting in that case would be very difficult very difficult indeed to to continue and in certain circumstances other than when there was only two dogs exception or not I'm going to move on Mercedes yeah sorry just a quick follow-up to DS Telford just to so I can understand a little bit around the practicalities of enforcement in practice I'm not sure how it works now how you envision it working in the future would you tend to be not joining but visiting rough shoots or dropping in or would it would it only become like come into your sort of frame of work if there was an accusation or whatever of some illegality or how does it work yeah certainly we don't tend to kind of do any sort of proactive visits to any rough shoots or anything like that we wouldn't necessarily be aware of when they're happening and I don't know whether that would necessarily change moving forward but yeah we don't really do that I suppose potentially a rough shoot could voluntarily notify that it was taking place if there were concerns that there might be accusations I think I'd come back on that point I mean we have what have we done wrong to merit this you know why is it that I should have to you know and declare on behalf of my shoot that we're doing x y and z today when we have got there's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that we have ever been on the wrong side of the law just for your peace of mind I suppose yeah that's fine but I just do not think it's proportionate for the Scottish Government to intervene in this way okay um Jake and then Peter thank you it's very thoughtful of you to think about peace of mind but I genuinely don't think we do have an issue with that um I think Ross has been reading my notes as well because literally the last five minutes he's covered most of the things that I wanted to bring up um what I will say and um it's still not clear to me and I'm I'm hoping it's clear to somebody in here that they could explain to me what a pack is and how a pack is defined because in a beating line if you have three dogs two belong into one person and one belong into the next when do they become a pack and when sergeant telford turns up and tries to investigate it not being there at a time when the alleged offence committed which could be when three dogs were in a 10 meter vicinity um then it's going to be very difficult for police Scotland to investigate something which they hadn't witnessed which was in the middle of a very thick wood or an embankment of wind bushes um when something ran out and they have somebody say so to say that some dogs were working together it needs to be defined what a pack is so it's all very well saying um people could walk in line with guns with a dog or two dogs each they can be 10 meters apart if they are if they have to go around a tree or a bush and they're now eight meters apart and the dogs start working in front of them and close the gap by a couple of meters is that defined as a pack there are too many gray areas and this bill was brought about as the minister said to to bring out a clarity and it does not it brings gray areas into something that should not be affected. Peter and then Jenny. Yes I just want to say about um proportionality I think that what's you know the conversation is going around today is that it's very concerning for our members that the police don't have to be called out and potentially disrupt a shoot day and I mean the way the bill is currently drafted and if that is going to be a consequence of that that puts significance concern in me and other stakeholders likewise I think we need to really hone in on this and make sure that people can go out and shoot with confidence and I don't think this bill currently offers that opportunity. Jenny Minto. Thank you convener and thank you for all the evidence so far I want to return to the the title of the bill hunting with dogs Scotland bill hunting a wild mammal using a dog now in all the definitions that you we've received about rough shooting today it's all been about around using the word flushing not hunting I think convener you may have inadvertently used the word hunting when you were giving the example of your four labs and then corrected yourself but what we're talking here about as I understand it please correct me if I'm wrong is that we and the exception here allows as the bill said to search for stock or flush from cover and that's basically what we're talking about rough shooting being so I'd just like to clarify that my understanding of that is correct and then the other area is about actually something that jakes windows just said about the definition of a pack again in this section it says that reasonable steps are taken to ensure that any dog used in the activity does not join with others to form a pack of more than two dogs that to me implies a pack is two more than two dogs so three dogs and the reasonable steps and ds tellford i'd be interesting to get your thoughts thoughts on that yes but also if I wouldn't mind to get Robbie Marsden's views and also one of the people that are our shooters whether it's Ross or Jake yes so that's a fair question and that's something we raised at the first evidence session is I think we requested some clarity around what reasonable steps would be I suppose in the absence of a clear definition it would it would need we need to rely on sort of common sense you know can we determine if you know if somebody's made any legitimate efforts to call back the dogs you know and so forth so that's something we need to look at based on the circumstances but if we could have some clear definition on it it would be welcome it would there be a concern if you made a definition too defined that that could impact that could have unexpected consequences as well yeah I mean I suppose that that that's the balance of things and the definitions give you clarity but at the same time you kind of the kind of restrict you at the same time and certainly I mean yes I don't know what a way around it would be but we would have to just sort of look at all the circumstances to determine if reasonable steps you know had had been taken you know if the dogs were looking at distance from other dogs you know vocal commands and so forth so yeah we just need to kind of assess everything we could in the absence of any sort of clear definition Rachel Hamilton sorry I was hoping to hear from Robbie Marston sorry Robbie thank you thank you yeah um I said at the outset that I didn't know very much about rough shooting and I've certainly learned a lot during this session and some of the things that I've learned that rough shooting is done primarily for enjoyment and the pot which I agree with Kirsty Jenkins that that seems to be odd with a desire to be of the highest welfare standards but I also have learned that it's possible to continue rough shooting in a restricted way with two dogs I've heard that from all sides that that would be possible it would be it would be it would be a reduced level and as you can imagine the director of the league against cruel sports I would welcome that but and I see it as one of the compromises that we're willing to accept that you can use two dogs in in these sorts of circumstances I've also heard that Police Scotland think that they would be able to understand when there were more than two dogs whether or not there were an offence being committed we talked about distance and about vocal commands and common sense I I sometimes worry about common sense being a one of one of one of the criteria because I think if you apply common sense to what's going on in with mounted hunts then that that's sort of a matter of conjecture but but those are the things I've learned that this the bill as it's written at the moment would enable rough shooting to continue at a at a restricted level and that those people who who are doing it feel aggrieved by that that it would be at a restricted level but I think that their grievance should be directed at the mounted hunts who for 20 years used other methods and loopholes and that if there is a danger of this becoming such a loophole then I think that restriction is something which we would all expect and in some ways welcome. Rachel Hamilton It's a really daft question but it's to decetale for again. Have you ever been called out to dog walkers with more than say three dogs two dogs however many and it's been reported that they have ripped an animal apart? A dog walker, I can't remember any specific instance of the top of my head but yes I think we probably have. What happens in that sense is does it tend to be somebody that is a hair coursing or is it a genuine mistake so they have taken reasonable steps to control their dog but unfortunately because it's not a trained dog haven't been able to control the dog and therefore you've said well look we understand it happens. Yeah so what's happened on both sides so we have had incidents of dog walkers whose dogs have run off and killed animals and again I can't recall any specific instance but what we would do under those circumstances is to try and establish if they've taken reasonable steps have they been negligent you know where they're walking so we would take into account all those things. We also get hair coursers using the excuse that you know they just let their dog off to do the toilet or get excise or up to this point we're chasing rabbits. I suspect under those circumstances if we could prove they killed a hare you know and we suspect that they were haircoursers we would look to gather evidence that the libel charges rather than just accept that the case it was an accident if there was a dead hare and other evidence to indicate their haircoursers. And what kind of dogs do haircoursers use to chase hairs? Lurchers typically yeah that sort of dog. I noticed that the latest figures show that there were a hundred offences prosecutions from in Scotland around hair coursing which was higher than I expected actually because I know there are a lot of reports but not the ability to prove that haircourcing has been an offence. I just wanted to ask the people in the room about the exception for a bird of prey killing as reasonably as possible. I think that kind of veers off rough shooting Rachael Hamilton. I want to stick to it specifically or we could be here till next week. It was quite clear from the evidence that we took from the bill team early on and from the minister that they were caught out by the issues around rough shooting. I don't speak for most people but I think that most people would understand that there needed to be strength and legislation around haircoursing and including rabbits in this would appear to be the simplest solution. But in my opinion, the Government bill team didn't appreciate what rough shooting was and we heard from Hugh Dignan last week that he'd watched some YouTube videos but really he hadn't done that until after the issue had been highlighted. If I remember, Police Scotland also suggested that they weren't quite sure about the implications of rough shooting. In your opinion, would there be other better ways to catch haircoursers rather than the unintended consequences of almost banning rough shooting as we know it right now? I mean, in terms of haircoursing, I think that we had initially, at the initial consultation period, suggested that the phrase and reckless could be added in to sort of negate against that argument that they'd just let their dog off for exercise because ultimately, if we could sort of say that they were lined up in a row walking through a field, even if we can't prove that it's deliberate, it looks pretty deliberate but even if we can't prove that, I would say that it's a reckless act because it's always a high chance that they're going to expose a hair in the dog that will chase it. I certainly, Police Scotland, thought that that would be a kind of valuable addition. So now looking back, and you now have heard the additional evidence on rough shooting, do you rethink the position on the introduction of the inclusion of rabbits and definition and the implications it has with rough shooting that maybe wasn't thought out enough by the Government and that's why we're sitting down the table today and do we need to look at further amendments to make your job easier? That's a good point on rabbits and I fully respect that it's been added to make our enforcement powers more straightforward in relation to haircoursing but I do see that it does potentially create problems with rough shooting. I recognise that that may create problems. I'm going to bring Kirsty, then Jake and then Arianna. I just wanted to clarify that the inclusion of rabbits in the bill was for two reasons, one of which is to help with detecting illegal haircoursing. The other is because rabbits are sentient to wild animals and they're included for their own protection and I think that's getting lost a little bit in this. Thank you, Sergeant Selford. If I could just a point for you to consider and perhaps help out with. Were convictions concerned for using longdogs on rabbits, hairpoaching, coursing, you mentioned recklessness which I think would be a beneficial addition but coupled that with permission to be on the land itself because recklessness wouldn't necessarily gain the conviction for haircoursing, but if you coupled that with permission to be on the land, would that strengthen what you could do to gain a conviction for poaching? Yes, I think it would, yeah. Just on that point before I bring Arianna. It's the lurcher point that you made. Would there be any other dog that they would use? Yeah, lurchers, sort of greyhounds, whippets. A couple others, but yeah, it's fairly specific. It's only a couple of beats. And I just wanted to see if he might like to come in on anything we haven't heard from him yet and I just wanted to afford him the opportunity to speak to anything that's just been coming up, but just kind of recently I noticed some expressions there and I would love to hear your perspective. Mike is more than capable of indicating if he wishes to come in and speak, so I appreciate you intervening Arianna, but I will bring in Mike if he has a comment to make. Oh, I mean, if you look back at, as has been said here many, many times, this is primarily for people's enjoyment. It's a sport in my opinion. Yes, it will control some species. If it's pest control of conservation, which has been mentioned a couple of times, there's sections that deal with that. Why should rough shooting or any kind of sport be above, so to speak, what I would class as essential purposes, essential pest control, if a farmer's got an infestation or something, they could apply for a licence through that. So I don't see why rough shooting or any sport should have a higher threshold, i.e. more dogs, than somebody that's doing it for an essential purpose and has got to have the scrutiny of a licence. So that's basically where I sit on that one. There is obviously issues going on. I still feel that it will put the police on an impossible task. If the maximum is two dogs, the maximum is two dogs, regardless of how big the situation is to complain is, if they turn up and there's two dogs there, it's within the law. If there's three, are they a pack, are they joining, are they working together, all this kind of stuff, it just does not seem workable from an enforcement point. To answer one of Ross and Jake's questions, that wasn't a question from Ross and Jake. Everyone I know that's involved in rough shooting is a lawful, law-abiding citizen. But as soon as this becomes a loophole, the ones that are not law-abiding will use that as an excuse and again that'll just turn us everybody that's doing it lawfully. Thank you very much. Thank you Mike, that was helpful. Jim Fairlie. One very quick comment and it is purely a comment both from yourself Robbie and from yourself Mike. The bill team stated last week quite categorically that the purpose of this bill was not to curtail hunting. The bill has to be about what the bill is about and but they did say that that would not entail the purpose of the bill was not to stop people from legitimately hunting. So I think that that bit needs to be clarified that that's out with the scope of this conversation. Ross. I just raised a point on that as well just because I'm mindful that this is potentially coming up in the next few years of this Parliament. But there's obviously questions raised about the SSPCA's capacity to investigate wildlife crime and consideration and is currently being given as to whether they should be afforded statutory powers. I think it's for exactly the reasons that the chief superintendent has set out there that I would have difficulties with the SSPCA having an investigatory role and I think it's fair to say and I'll ask. Are you going to leave it? Yeah, I think that's out with the conversation today. Mercedes, have it's on this point? Okay, Mercedes. Just a quick comment on Jim Fairlie's point about the purpose of the bill. I accept that but I think that we also need to be mindful of the effect of the bill and what we're hearing is that the effect will be changes to current practices. So I do think that that is important that we acknowledge that and explore that. Yeah, I fully accept that that's in the bill but it needs to be clear that the bill team actually stated last week that there was to be, this was not to be about curtailing people's ability to hunt. People should still be allowed to hunt. Okay, we're going to move on to the very final questions, Karen Adam. Thank you, convener. I have learned a lot today, so thank you everybody for all your points and comments and questions. It's been really helpful. I keep bringing this back right to the animal welfare point of this and that is the purpose of the bills to stop animal mammals being chased down and ripped apart and killed. So what I'm hearing here in terms of rough shooting is that you're already abide by quite high animal welfare standards. Yeah, you'd agree. You do not want the animal to be ripped apart, punctured, anything that would ruin your enjoyment of eating the mammal as well if it was ripped apart before you got it. So in that case you know that would not be in the scope of the bill but understanding there could be some unintended consequences that we're really looking into here. So what I'm hearing it is that there won't be a limit on two dogs for rough shoots but you're concerned about the perceptions, the vexatious complaints etc. But what I'm thinking is I think I've got quite a lot of confidence in the police to be honest and I think we're not giving them enough kudos for what they do and their understanding and it's not just common sense. I think if I was to turn up to a rough shoot I would know if there was a pack of hounds chasing down animals to rip apart and the difference between dogs who were retrieving whole animals or whole birds and I think the police have a great relationship with people in the countryside particularly gun owners in a local police. I know near me no people who own the guns and would do shooting in the area. So I know I kind of get into the point of my question here. I'm just seeing that in terms of the vexatious comments and that if there is no breaking of the law then there is nothing in those terms to be concerned about. It's the animal welfare that we're really pinning down on here. So I'd like to ask DS Telford you know in terms of the relationships with the police and people in the countryside, the police, they're trained to spot these kinds of animal welfare concerns surely and the difference between rough shooting and a hunt. Firstly it's nice to be appreciated so thank you very much. Yes we've always got a cadre of wildlife crime officers across the country. There's approximately 160 and in the 13 territorial divisions in Police Scotland there's a wildlife crime liaison officer who has overview within that division and I have overview nationally. So amongst normal response policing and community officers, uniformed officers, there inevitably isn't that expert knowledge because it is a very niche crime type. Certainly amongst the wildlife crime officers there is that knowledge. I would certainly like to think as well. Obviously though even if you've got a good knowledge of the crime types and the modus orbarandi and so forth, sometimes with the likes of anything involving hunting with dogs when we're talking about things that might involve multiple dogs and it's in a rural area with limited witnesses, there are those challenges presented. That's not to say rightly or wrongly anything to do with the bill but there are those challenges there but we have to work with that. Can I ask just a follow-up on that, if that's okay? If the police were forewarned of rough shoots being taken place in the area, would that be helpful? Yes, I suppose there is a benefit to that if we would have to look at what we were doing with that information. We would be using that information to proactively engage with the rough shoots but then we'd need to make sure that as Ross said we need to have good relationships and maintain relationships and we don't want legitimate rough shoots to be feeling like they're persecuted. Yes, I definitely think that there is something in that but there might need to be further discussion had and working on building relationships and so forth but yes, there may be something in that. The issue would be if people that were, you know, it would only be legitimate rough shoots that would welcome us, you know, people that were using it as a guise for anything else, you know, probably wouldn't notify us. So that would be a kind of tell-tale as well. We have rapidly run out of time but there's one or two people who quite like to still come in, Robbie, Ross, Jake and Jim. I just want to address the phrase that has been used all morning which is vexatious complaints. It seems to me that all complaints are being discussed as vexatious. There's a difference between a vexatious complaint and a complaint and in my experience, the police recognise a vexatious complaint. I think we all do in terms of, well, that's the reason why when the League Against Cool Sports submits evidence to the police we are meticulous and I know Billy Telford can testify to that. In the video evidence, the mapping, the witness statements, we certainly don't make vexatious complaints. I just wanted to make that distinction that there are complaints and there are vexatious complaints and vexatious complaints that don't usually work. Ross. Just to follow up on what Mr Marsden said there, I mean, I think it's worth everyone being mindful of the fact that there are groups of people out there that you genuinely take upon themselves to disrupt legitimate countryside activities, whether they be hunt saboteurs, but also increasingly that is infringing on game shooting, both driven grouse, pheasant, partridge, whatever. It is starting to infringe on a much wider scale, so I think we just need to be mindful of that. One thing that you mentioned there, Ms Adam, and your question, you were indicating that rough shooting wouldn't necessarily be curtailed. I mean, I do take issue with that in the sense that someone that wanted to run three dogs on a rough shoot, as they often do now, would have to stop doing so. Simultaneously, I think that a lot of shoots, as I say, if you're putting a number of dogs through vegetation, then they're going to have to limit that to two if they want to be absolutely safe. That wouldn't be a legal requirement. That would be something... It would be a legal requirement to you. You cannot use more than two dogs to flush a mammal for cover, to then be shot. But if that other dog belonged to somebody else, that would be a completely different. No, my understanding is that any two dogs that result in the the killing act that comes later. Okay, thanks, Jake. Thank you, Peter. Thank you. I'm just in relation to D.S. Talbot's comments on reporting. You may or may not be aware if you night shoot and Police Scotland now have the facility for you to be able to report that you're night shooting. Quite often, if people see a lamp in an area and they get concerned or if they hear gunshots at night, then they will phone police. They used to have a system whereby you call in and report it, which I've done many times. Unfortunately, I've been on hold for a significant period of time myself and, obviously, with the staffing levels that Police Scotland is suffering at the minute as well, that might not be an appropriate thing to have to do for every rush shoot. So, on a Saturday across Scotland, you might have upwards of four, five, six hundred rush shoots and Police Scotland dealing with those extra calls to have to report that will be problematic. Jake said that he's covered the point for me, but I'd also like to say that, obviously, the shooting community has a very good working relationship with the Police, and what's underpinned by a lot of this is also fire arms regulations, which people have to have shotgun certificates. That underpins a lot of the trust, too, and the good working relationship that we have. I just want to ask—because this is all about ensuring that the bill is about providing clarity and making a safer route to prosecutions to go ahead and be successful to ensure that those committing wildlife crimes are prosecuted and everybody would want to see that happen to the full extent of the law. It's just unacceptable. However, do you feel that what's on the table at the moment does protect those who are legitimately carrying out country sport—because it's not here to ban country sport—or pest control or whatever? Does it give you enough confidence that the laws will allow you to prosecute those who are breaking those laws as it currently stands, or do we need to see it substantially amended? One final thing—I'd like to include—we've heard about breeds. Should there be something in there about breeds? Could we be confident if we said that the only breeds of dogs that are allowed to be used in rough shooting would that be something that you would find would work? I'll go to you first, Billy. On that note, at face value, yes, but I think that Mr Fairlie raised a valuable point at the last evidence session. The problems get into where you're talking about cross breeds and things and opportunities to get around that. At face value, there would be a benefit to that. How it was managed and how it was defined would need to be worked on, but it would be a benefit because there is a handful of breeds that are used for hair-corsing. I suppose that, often in legislation, it could be—rather than having a list—unless nearly always exclude animals that later you would want to include. However, if there was something in the legislation that said that it was flushing for rough shooting purposes with a dog that is widely recognised—a dog that is trained for that purpose—that might assist. I think that it would assist. At the moment, the bill, to make it easier for Police Scotland to protect those who are not committing crimes and to prosecute those, we need to be amended. I think that, just from some of the issues that I raised around the ability for us to gather evidence, particularly on the rough-shoot issue. It was just a word of caution, although it probably would assist if you use a long dog, such as a loucher. I would suggest that, in some beating lines, many terriers are used, and they are very good at flushing game. Perhaps not to make it too restrictive. Finally, I think that Mercedes-Benz. Thank you. It is a further question around enforcement. I will be guided by the convener if he feels that it does not fit here. We have discussed issues around enforcing the section 6 exception of no more than two dogs being used for sporting activity, and we have been talking today about rough shooting, and how it might be difficult to ascertain which dogs were used, who is using them, etc. If the limit is taken out, could there not be enforcement issues because then we would have activities taking place with more than two dogs? Would there not be issues around enforcing the limit in other areas, in non-sporting areas, so if we are talking about, for example, mounted hunts, would there not be confusion then? I guess what I am getting at is that, although we have heard that there are enforcement issues around the limit in this instance, if it was not there, would there not be other enforcement issues? Yes, I suppose there would be. It is not an easy fix, and I am glad that I am not the one who is writing the bill. I do not quite know how to answer that, but I suppose there would. If there was not that two dog limit, if you removed the issue around the number, that there are still potentially packs could still form, whether or not there is anything to do with two dogs, there is still an issue of potentially packs forming. So, yes, there are challenges there as well. I am going to bring in Jim and then Rachel to close the session unless anybody has got any burning points right at the end. Jim and then Rachel. Again, sorry, the pressure is on you today, but it is your job to enforce. Including rabbits in the definition of wild mammal will aid in the detection and enforcement of hair-coursing offences by removing this activity as a potential cover that says that in the policy memorandum to this bill. Do you think that this should be if the Government are hell-bent on including rabbits in the definition of wild mammal that if hair-coursing offences do not improve in terms of prosecution because at the moment obviously it is very, very difficult? Do you think that that should be looked at in a post-legislative way and that there should be figures presented to the Scottish ministers regarding this because if this law does not work and hair-courses are still not found to be breaking the law, do you think that that is something that this committee should be considering? I suppose that is probably not really for me to say. Well, it is your job to make sure that people who are breaking the law are found to be guilty of breaking the law and therefore one of the reasons that this bill is coming forward states categorically that it is to aid the enforcement of hair-coursing offences and I just wondered. I may have picked up your question wrong, so I certainly think that in terms of enforcement of hair-coursing the addition of rabbits would aid police investigations. Is that based on evidence? Yes, I would say that it is because it is. Can you give the committee that evidence because I have not seen that, so it would be good to have it? Sorry, it is just for amendments' purposes. I think that if I get it right, it is whether there should be some reporting mechanism that would suggest whether the legislation is working in the direction that it should. I think that it is more a question for the Government in reporting rather than suggesting how they could work, but I think that it is worth putting on record. Thank you, Jim. Or is it Rachel? Contrary to what Robbie said, I am a great believer in common sense. I think that common sense is a great thing. I understand that it can leave loopholes, but I am also very alive to the point that Mercedes makes that it makes it a lot easier for the police to be absolutely certain that, if there are more than two dogs, there is a potential for the laws to be broken. My comment or question is that the working relationship that Peter talks about between Police Scotland and the shooting community is very strong on the basis of the fact that we all have guns and the police therefore know who they are, they have already gone through that sort of process with you. So, if the law stands as it is and the two dog rule stays where it is, surely there will be a bedding in period of this law where the police know who the shooters are, because I know in my area, the police know who is going out and doing that rough shooting. And if these vexatious claims are made against you, there may be a period of time where that has to be ironed out, but again the police are going to get to know who is in the countryside making these shooting days and who are the ones who are going to be breaking the law. So, if the two dog rule stands, is there enough there for you in terms of common sense your understanding of what happens in the countryside, the people that you are dealing with, to be able to take a view that there has been no law broken here and we are comfortable to let it go, and why would that be so difficult for the shooting community to take on board on the basis that you also want to stop the illegal activities that are happening in the countryside? Surely that is the ideal compromise. Pili, do you want to comment? Yeah, it's difficult to comment generally. Yeah, obviously we need to sort of consider all the circumstances at the time. It may be the case that there's this shooting. I'll be honest, I don't know if that's common with rough shooting, but people with firearms coming from out with the area, I don't know if that's common so that that would create a problem there. Who is organising the shoot will be within your locality? Who's organising that shoot is going to be within your locality surely? I think that's probably a difficult question to answer, but I think once again we know what direction you're moving in, Jim. Ross has a very, very brief comment, and if there's any other stakeholders that would like to comment on that, please indicate now, but we're 15 minutes over the session unfortunately. Mr Fairlie, it was just in response to what you said that, from our perspective, the absolutely central issue here is that aspects of the rough shooting practice, if you like, are going to be regulated quite unreasonably in our view by this bill. That is the central issue, so it's less about all the stuff around the periphery, but rough shooting is being impacted in a disproportionate way that is not consistent with the principles of better regulation, and that is our view. We need to decouple the two, and it's the way the bill is drafted fundamentally that creates the ambiguous nature of it, and I think that's what needs to be addressed. Alex is one thing. Everybody in here has got a couple of spanners that are here right now, and we've all got up to leave to get out the door, and none of them are on a lead. Can you imagine the mayhem, and then trying to suss out what's going on? It's just you've no control over it. Everybody's making for the door and dogged everywhere, so it's something to mind about. It's a bit hard to what he says, not what you're thinking in real life. I just want to say thank you very much for organising this round table. It's very much appreciated. It's sometimes felt a bit lonely and a bit sort of being out of control sitting on those seats over there, so I think that everybody here will agree that this has been an excellent opportunity. Thank you very much. Thank you, Robbie. I appreciate you putting that in the record, and we as a committee absolutely appreciate the responses that we've got, which the call for further evidence was given very short notice. We appreciate you travelling in today and your time, especially those who've travelled quite some distance to be with us, but it's really important that we scrutinise the bill properly to ensure that legislation that does come forward is fit for purpose. We will reflect on our discussions today and consider how we take forward the evidence that we've heard today ahead of stage 2 amendments to the bill. We will now move into private session. Thank you all.