Felly, wrth gwrs, fel amser rydyn ni'n gweithio ar gyfer ymateb amser 2017 o mettreion fraedd cyfarwyddig yn y gyfrofiogol Fylogyriedd, rydyn ni eisiau opallu neu ddegwydd i'ch gael Moras GOLDEN. Fryd gyda'r ystafell iddo i'r ystafell iddyn nhw, rydyn ni'n mynd i'n beth fod yn ddegwydd i'r cyfarwyddig i'r ystafell iddyn i g과erfod ar gyfer mwyloedd ymddangos iechydig. Felly, ac rydyn ni'n meddwl i'r ystafell iddyn ni ymddangos i'r ystafell Rwy'n ei wneud. Rwy'n ei wneud. Y drwy adeiladau yma yn y gendig yma, hefyd, ond y cyfrifiad eriaeth a'r sgolwngaeth y byd o'r anumhau yn cyfrifiadau yn Ysgrifent Gwyrddol. Felly, rwy'n i gweithio Melysa Donald, y Prif Weinidog yng nghymru, Mike Ffllann, y Ffhrinf, ynghyddiadau ynghyddiadau deiligol ynghyddiadau ynghyddiadau ynghyddiadau ynghyddiadau, O'Brien, director of campaigns for captive animals protection society, and Liz Tyson, consultant and born free foundation. Members have a series of questions to put to you. It may be that other matters that arise from the evidence may require you to get back to us in writing, so I hope that you will bear that in mind and thank you for your co-operation. I am going to ask Emma Harper to kick things off. Fon and panel, there has been a lot of discussion around welfare versus ethics as we propose this ban for wild animals and circuses. I am wondering what the panel's thoughts are about the advantages and disadvantages of pursuing a ban on ethical rather than welfare grounds, and what would the panel's views be on the three criteria that are used to propose the ban, which are impact on respect for animals, impact on travelling environments on the animals' nature and ethical costs versus benefits, and what would be your views on how clear the purpose and policy objective of the bill is? From the born free foundation, I think that our perspective has been equally with the policy process in England as well that a ban could have been introduced under welfare grounds. That said, we do not believe that the two concepts are mutually exclusive, so we think that ethics and welfare necessarily are inextricably linked. Our concern for welfare is inevitably going to be either based on or informed by ethical decisions. I saw in one of the previous sessions that one of the questions raised was about how transport fits into this ethical bracket, because surely that is more focused on welfare rather than ethics. When we are talking about respect for wild animals from an ethical perspective, when we are talking about respecting their natural needs and their natural behaviours, I think that it fits perfectly that we would say that it would not be ethical to transport lions, tigers and elephants in the back of lorries because it frustrates their ability to do that. While, as an organisation, we would have liked to see a ban brought in on welfare grounds partly because we would like to see that aspect of the Animal Health and Welfare Act tested to be able to fulfil that, we are happy that a ban is proposed to be introduced in the most expedient way possible. If that is via unethical grounds, we certainly agree that respect for animals, etc., etc., are really important. I had a bit first got involved in this a way back in 2007 when there was a Westminster committee set up who refused to take basically anecdotal evidence on the welfare aspect, so that's why the kidney ethical aspect came in. From my point of view, I've always thought that wild animals and travelling circuses should be banned and I could quite happily say on welfare grounds. From the ethical point of view, it is a bit of a no-brainer from my point. There is no real benefit other than entertainment for having certain species and circuses. Graes, does actually matter the grounds for banning this? Is it just the fact that we need to get a ban? So, from, you know, caps have worked on this issue for 60 years now and from our interactions with the public, it is a mixture where people think that the inherent nature of travelling, of the training of making those animals perform, they feel that that's a welfare concern, but I agree with Liz's comment that it is so linked to ethics because people have this feeling that it's wrong to do that and that may stem from the fact that they think that it compromises the welfare of the individuals, but I think it's, as the government themselves have pointed out in your policy documents, that it is this growing opinion of public about how we see animals and I think that people just feel that they don't think that it's right that we use animals in this way. However, that's delivered. I think that it's meeting the needs and those viewpoints of the public that's that's a priority here and of course for the animals themselves. Emma, do you want to come back in at this point? Yeah, I think last time we took evidence, they talked about the five freedoms for animals, so freedom from hunger and thirst, pain and discomfort, injury and freedom to express normal behaviour and freedom from fear and distress. Can animals that are in a circus environment experience the freedom to express normal behaviours? Categorically no. I think that you might have freedom from, I think, injury and disease potentially because there is the potential for veterinary care, but in terms of natural behaviours, in terms of natural environment, in terms of social groupings, in terms of just having the ability to make choices about their day-to-day life, then I would say that no, they're severely frustrated if not impossible to me in some circumstances. Absolutely agree. I think the incidences of stereotyp behaviours which we see in animals in circuses and in other facilities, so just to explain what those are, their behaviours that we may see animals performing that are unusual, that don't serve any function and you normally wouldn't see animals in the wild. That may be a tiger pacing up and down in a small area back and forth or shaking their heads from side to side. That is recognised as an indicator of the impact of captivity on animals and it is seen in wild animals in circuses as well. I think it can show that they are being deprived of being able to perform the behaviours that they would perform naturally, which of course if we're comparing the environment of a circus and long hours of confinement to what that animal would have naturally in the wild, then you can see why it may not meet the needs that those animals have. What are your thoughts on the penguin parade, Edinburgh Zoo or wild birds of prey at agricultural shows, just on the basis of what you've said just now? Our organisation would also be opposed to those using animals in those ways because we feel that again we don't think it's going through the three reasons that were set out for this bill, the impact on respect for animals, we don't think that it fulfills that. Again you're teaching people that if you're kind of parading animals or displaying them in such a form of entertainment that that would be inappropriate. Again with falconrys, our organisation again would oppose the use of animals in that way. We think there's lots of similar ethical and welfare concerns with animals used in that way. However we are aware that today we're here to talk about circuses in particular and that is the issue that the public have responded to with regards to the consultation. We fully support this bill as it is but the one thing in Edinburgh Zoo is that they have a permanent enclosure and the bulk of the time they're able to exhibit more natural behaviours. At the end of day falcons and everything do need to be exercised and by flying and one way the display is actually exercising them and teaching them to go and grab food. It is a different matter from the transportation of this bill is the issue. We're going back to your point earlier. Ms Harper was the name of travelling circuses, the whole point is that they're travelling and so space is limited and so you might have inappropriate species next to each other which would induce fear as well so that's a point I would like to make. Can we explore that at this point because your submission talks about the impact of group housing and possible aggression and abnormal behaviour? Could you expand on that for us? When you only have a certain amount of room to transport things, the point is that fear, if you're scared, the first thing you do in a lot of species is to fight, to appear bigger than they are. It's to dominate the situation, to tell the other guy, hey, don't mess with me, even though inside they're very scared. I'm perhaps also on a point of clarity at this point. On page 6 of your submission, you said that a ban should cover all wild animal species without exception. How does that differ from what's proposed to be clear? It's bullet point 7 in your submission. Just so there's no loop holes so that people can then argue that this isn't a wild animal, so it's just so it's really clear. And how would you propose that it's done? Under the definitions that are already there that you've got in the bill. Okay. Have you a fear over any specific possible loop holes? Has the bills drafted? No, not at this point. No, it's drafted. Okay, right. Anything else on this topic, Emma Harper? No, thank you. Okay, so we'll move on. I get the panel's views on the general scope of the bill. The bill doesn't include static circuses. It doesn't include the transportation and keeping of animals in Scotland as a part of a travelling circus. It also doesn't cover other forms of animal performance and you've touched on those already. Can I get your views on the scope of the bill as drafted? As I said earlier, it's quite historic. The reason this came about when it first was mooted a decade and a half ago. England and Wales was talking about a total ban on circuses. At that point, one of the most famous circuses who was based their winter quarters in Blackpool was trying to buy a site in Kilmarnock to relocate. There's any parallel between this bill and the mink bill that came in in 2001 or whatever. We didn't have any mink farms but it was being proposed to be banned down south so we implemented a ban up here so that they couldn't relocate. The natural context of the bill has not really changed going back 15 years. I see this as a preventative measure. I've got to hope that the committee understands the way circuses have changed over the years. I've been in this job 30 years and before that I was a keeper at Edinburgh Zoo for seven years and all the penguins. Back to your question, sir. The penguins are free to come and go on the parade. Nothing's forced to go out. 30 years ago we had about six travelling circuses coming to Scotland with elephants, tigers, lions, the Eolfleradio circus, a giraffes, hippos, et cetera. That's diminished over the years. I don't believe there are any circuses based in Britain now that have got any large cats. The last of them went away a couple of years ago. We know the story of Annie the elephant and that was the last elephant that was using captivity. People aren't clamouring to see these performances now. Circuses aren't adding animals to their collections to try and get people in. The whole perception has changed in the last 15-20 years. If it's preventative, then why not add in static circuses so that they might not appear? Pass. I don't know. However, you have a better chance of ensuring some better conditions for animals in static circuses because you're taking out the travelling aspect. We visited every circus that has come here in the past 30 years. Some of the accommodation for them is what you would class as suitable for actually to be housed and sleeping, but there's no way it can exhibit any natural behaviour in that aspect. Some other areas. With regard to the comments on static circuses, we have outlined that we feel that they could be included. Again, coming back to our work, we interact with the public on this issue all the time. It's a huge part of our work to engage with the public to get their opinions and, hopefully, to raise awareness on the issue. People's concerns are that animals are being used in a circus to perform in the environment that a circus is. The travel aspect is a large part of that, undoubtedly, and it is one of the main arguments that we use about why we feel circuses with animals should be banned. Again, coming back to the ethical basis with impact on respect for animals and the third point of ethical cost versus benefits, putting those animals on display and making them perform behaviours in a static circus, if we're talking about circuses here in the same way that we're talking about a travelling circus, a static circus. Fundamentally, using animals in that way is what people have the concern with. I don't see why I'm aware that currently there aren't any static circuses in Scotland, but there's also very few or non-accommodate travelling to Scotland at present. We would like to open up that maybe the inclusion of static circuses would be an option. Do you have evidence of wider public concern about animal performances beyond travelling circuses? The consultation is very much about travelling circuses. I'm struggling to know what is public opinion out there. In terms of other consultations similar to that or polls that haven't been carried out to my knowledge that I've asked specifically about that, I am going off the history of our organisation or the organisations and also working with local people. There are council bans, as you're aware, within Scotland and elsewhere in the country on the use of animals in circuses. We have engaged a lot with the public. They have supported that, they have rallied for that. In the conversations that we have, it's not about one type of circus over another, it's using animals in circuses. That is the concern. If I can just add to that. I think also just watching this or being part of this advocacy and campaigning process both here and in England and also to a lesser extent in Ireland over the last seven or eight years. I also wonder whether the reason that static circuses haven't formed part of it was because everything started on the basis of looking into banning on welfare grounds. England then invited Scotland rejecting the idea of banning on welfare grounds and going for ethics. Now, when it was being considered purely on welfare grounds, then obviously travelling was a huge part of it. I think that it's almost sort of a kind of layover from that, that we still have the travelling part. But really, if we're being honest and we're talking about ethics, then I agree with what Nicola is saying that actually if we're saying it's unethical to use wild animals in circuses then obviously the travelling may impact that, but the wider issue really should be that they shouldn't be used. That said, again just coming back to what we said before, we're really grateful that Scotland is hopefully moving forward on this and so we understand that again the consultation has been carried out with that in mind, but I guess for me that would perhaps give an explanation as to why static circuses have been left out. The only thing I would like to add is that in the static circuses the housing environment is more permanent and can be better adapted to their welfare needs. As the others have said, the consultation highlighted that travelling was the main issue. Cabinet Secretary has put it to us that the Government intends to legislate on other areas of animal performance, but it's not included as we've just discussed within the scope of this bill. While local authorities last week said that it might be better to have a catch-all approach rather than a piecemeal approach, what's your view on that? I have to approach in the sense of it because I know there's discussion of potentially… A wider scope of the bill, it was put to us I think that the scope of the bill could also include all the other areas of animal performance. I'm interested in your views on this specific targeted approach to circuses rather than a wider approach. It's a difficult one if in an ideal world I would love to say of it as an organisation, I mean form free. What we do is work to campaign for, to protect and also to oppose the use of wild animals in captivity. In an ideal world we would love to see all of these things dealt with equally, we're very aware of the practicalities of it. We were heartened in a meeting with civil servants, which we attended along with a number of other panellists here to say that the issue of mobile zoos, the issue of reindeer displays, etc, may be looked into soon and we certainly welcome that. What I would be reluctant to say is that that should be considered now because I imagine it would be a huge amount of work, it would cause a huge delay and we'd potentially miss the opportunity to just get this ban in which we still think is incredibly important, so in an ideal world not a piecemeal approach but in a practical world I think we would rather see this bill come in and then continue to work with the government to proceed on other issues. We have included comments in our submission about mobile zoos and similar uses of animals. Again, going back to the ethics that's what we're talking about today is that we feel that on all grounds using animals in mobile zoos is the same. We think that there's got very similar welfare considerations if not the same and we know that there's the report that's been mentioned now which expanded the remit from just looking at animals in travelling circuses to other forms of travelling and entertainment with animals, which included mobile zoos and came to the same conclusion that there were grounds for a ban on animal welfare grounds for those as well. We support that. Again, I think we share the feelings with Liz there of being sort of torn where our organisation would and does campaign for an end completely to the use of animals in that way, but on the other hand wanting this to move swiftly so that we can get this bill in given that we feel it's grossly overdue for a bill of this nature to come into effect anywhere in the UK. I think that with Scotland leading on this would be a fantastic and significant start on that on this issue. It may be down to public perception. I mean the vast majority of the surveys that have been done that I've seen are against wild animals in travelling circuses. There is a growth in bird of prey demonstrations, there is a current growth in what is classed as mobile zoos at, called them more, kind of mobile exhibits because it's not a zoo as such, they're not taking tigers and lions about, but anyone here could hire for their children's party or their school £800. You pick the species you want, which is mainly snakes, small mammals and spiders etc. So, these are all travelled and we've had some concern in the past that snakes are being travelled alongside ferrets, alongside other things. So, we do have a concern about that. I think that is kind of down the pecking line towards the circus aspect. I think that we would say that given the history, the public opinion, the work that's already been done on circuses, that that would be the priority, but we included it because we want to strongly point out that we think that it needs to be taken just as seriously, probably in due course after the passing of this bill, given the, I mean, just a small highlight there of the issues. You know, we've got the travelling aspects, they've been travelled in, many of these animals are put in small crates or boxes, we've found mobile zoos where there are social animals being kept singily, they're out on the road for many hours at a time, they're then at the events for many hours at a time, there's the handling aspect which maybe even goes beyond circuses because these animals are being passed around, they're being handled by children, by adults, we feel that there's a whole catalogue and this is a relatively new industry. So, you know, of course it is only just becoming the attention of authorities, like local authorities and at government level, and even NGOs and animal welfare groups, but we wanted to include that given that we think it is certainly worth the same amount of consideration in future. A counter-argument that says that properly run displays of this type encourage respect for animals, it certainly encourages a greater understanding of them, so is there not a balance to be struck here? I think that's an argument that's been used about circuses in the past. As I say, our organisations worked on this for 60 years, not me personally, but reading back on the campaign and the sort of arguments that have been put forward for circuses in the past have been very similar, that it was a way that people could view and get close to wild animals in a way that they wouldn't have had before and to learn something about them potentially, but I think that, as we've already pointed out, as a nation, attitudes towards animals are changing and there are ways that we can achieve knowledge and respect for animals without having to have them live in front of us to handle and have our photos taken with. Richard Lyle. I am the convener of the cross-party group for the showman's guild and an ordinary member of the showman's guild's Scottish section, and I support the principles of the bill, but I have some concerns. Martin Burton represents the association of circus proprietors of Great Britain, stated his concerns last week at lack of clarity regarding the definitions of the bill. He said, clearly, economic impact on circuses with wild animals that already do not come to Scotland will be zero. However, the economic impact on animal displays in shopping centres, as my colleague Finlay Carson asked earlier, in regard to penguins on hawks, wild bird displays, outdoor shows, santa displays, use of reindeer and eventually on zoos will be massive. That is the direction that the legislation is going. It will eventually close your zoos, which Nicola O'Brien was alluding to a few minutes ago. Do the panel agree that the bill relates to travelling circuses and therefore does not cover static circuses zoos? Do you believe that it covers other animal shows, wild west shows or any show with a different theme or does it need to be tightened as per the cab sex or recent letter? From the definition's point of view, we had a concern about the definition of domesticated animals but not about the definition of circus. One of the things that is often thrown up when we are talking about, when we have had the same thing in different countries, where this idea of this legislation or something of its sort being the thin end of the wedge and then the floodgates will open and suddenly you are not allowed to have a pet dog or a pet cat. That would, in terms of if we could impact animal welfare in zoos, if we could impact animal welfare in other situations, we would be very happy but we are also very aware that legislation is very tightly and narrowly focused. I think this one is. We have for years since 1981 we have had circuses excluded from zoo licensing and it has worked perfectly. The licensing regime in the UK is specifically for circuses. We haven't had falconry shows accidentally captured and that has exactly the same definition. A travelling circus is a circus that effectively travels. People know what a circus is and they are not going to confuse it with a falconry show in a shopping centre or a mobile zoo because the legislation and the precedent already shows that that has never happened. Certainly it is not the case that anybody involved in advocacy and lobbying to introduce animal welfare legislation will know that introducing one certainly does not open the floodgates to suddenly fix everything else at all. Caps have expressed concerns about the definition of circus, haven't you? We understand that it has been stated that there is no need to specifically outline, given that there is a general understanding of what circus means. We welcome that, we are not saying that it definitely needs to be defined but we are welcoming it with caution given that we don't want some businesses that we would think would be class of circuses to be excluded. I think that really the definition needs to come from government for what you feel that it is that you are wanting to ban but I think that we and the other NGOs probably present would be happy to help define on that if that is what is deemed necessary. What type of business do you think could get through a loophole here? I think there have been some comments on this in previous sessions as well that there may be, for example, an act that has travelled with big cats and they may say that they don't subscribe to being class as a circus because they don't have some of the more traditional aspects of a circus or the image of a circus that conjures in the mind of the general public. They may argue that whether that means that when it came to being covered by the bill it would be agreed that it wouldn't be covered, that would be left open, so that's our concern. We don't also want to narrow the focus too much, so that it may end up in the same issue. Evening with lines and tigers, he said that he was out with the scope of the bill. When we go to councils, we've got 32 councils in Scotland who worked in the 1982 act, Civic Government Scotland Act, but a lot of them interpret the act differently. It was suggested by Andrew Mitchell of Edinburgh Council that if the Government wanted to improve this, how we deal with it, we'd better do it in one piece of legislation and that a piecemeal approach is not helpful. His colleague from Argyll and Bute agreed with him. What's your view on the council's interpretation of the act? The council is asking for other types of animal used to be brought in under the same bill. They're looking for clarification. The circuses part of the bill to them was, as I said, I referred to Anthony Beckworth, who sought clarification from someone in the Scottish Government, and they said, I don't know. I think that circus has existed. For example, any travelling circus has known since the introduction of the Zoo Licensing Act that they weren't a zoo, so they knew well enough to define themselves as a circus so that they don't fall under those licensing regimes. The evening with lines and tigers certainly defined itself as a circus when it was in England because they applied for a licence and were refused. Of course, it could be that the local authorities say, well, we don't know exactly how to define it, but actually that wriggle room is given in so much legislation. It allows so that we don't end up with absurd situations where something which clearly isn't a circus becomes one. While, as Nicola said, we want to make sure that all circuses are captured, I think that common sense would say that somebody performing in a big top with a group of lines and tigers would be defined as a travelling circus, and that was certainly how they defined themselves in England. Well, a travelling circus is basically with the clowns, acrobats, you go to the definition of circus, and this is the grey area that I'm concerned about. I support the bill, but it's been pointed out that there hasn't been a wild animal travelling in a circus in Scotland for a number of years, I think that Mike Flynn said that. What was basically said last week is to hop to go 27 miles, but more than that would affect the animals. I think that Melissa Greaves will agree with me. I know that the Government wants to ensure that it stops this, but I'm getting some research done just now of the 32 councils, but most of them already have banned wild animals and circuses on council land. To what extent could the definition of wild animal pose anterdepritational challenge to the bill? I think that less the term wild animal poses a problem, but I think that it's the inclusion of the definition of domesticated animal. I think that the two are obviously mutually exclusive, but I think that the way in which the term domestication or domesticated animal has been defined is confusing. It could suggest that simply breeding animals in a captive environment for a few generations and taming them, which is very different to the process of domestication, which takes place over millennia and changes animals genetically, physically and physiologically, could become confusing. That could lend itself to arguments that I've heard before, which we certainly wouldn't subscribe to and would be interesting to hear the vet's opinion that a tiger bred for five generations in a circus is now domesticated with absolutely any scientific information that we have. However, our suggestion is simply to remove it, because the wild animal definition of an animal not normally domesticated in the British islands has been used successfully in the zoo licensing act since the early 1980s. There is no definition of a domesticated animal and yet that definition has served perfectly well. Our suggestion is simply to remove the reference to domesticated animals, because it may become confusing. From your background in enforcement and investigation, how do you view the definitions in the bill? Would you be comfortable with them? Yes, I would. The fact that it is commonly domesticated in the UK takes out things like camels, et cetera, which some people argue have been domesticated in other countries in the world, so that's that covered. Circus is a widely known term. I don't totally agree that a circus has to have every aspect of what some people think, because you've got the Chinese and the Russian state circuses coming here, they've got no animals, they never have had animals, so that's still classed as a circus. I don't really have any problem with the definitions and ultimately, when it comes to this kind of thing, it's the court that decides. There's lots of things that we deal with that hadn't got clear definitions, puppy farms since one. There isn't a clear definition in the eyes of the law on a puppy farm, but we can deal with that, so I don't really see there's a problem there. Where you do have a problem is 32 different local authorities having 32 different opinions. That comes across to the licensing sector everywhere, because you can pay, you want a dangerous wild animal license in Glasgow, cost you £50. If you want one in Edinburgh, they'll just price you at the market, you can't possibly do it, so there is no common ground there, and it's great that local authorities have banned circuses appearing on their land, but historically when that first came in Edinburgh, they went to Murrayfield, Deisrink, Carpark, they went to the Highland, Royal Highland show ground. If there's a loophole there, they will find it, so I don't have a problem with the definitions. I also want to come back to Mr Lyle's questions. Okay, you can turn with that, Mr Lyle. I'll be quick one. The best thing to get to the animal, what's a llama, a camel or a reindeer? A llama in this country is now classed as domesticated. There's been very clear guidance off the back of the Zoo Licensing Act because there's had to be for some time, and there's a schedule which helps local authorities to understand what is and isn't. I know that some species of reindeer are considered domesticated in some places and not elsewhere. I couldn't give you the exact species and subspecies names, but again that has existed in those schedules. A camel is never domesticated currently in the British Isles, and so that already exists, there's precedent in on the UK statute book. Let's move on, Dave Stewart. Good morning, panel. How effective is the UK Government's licensing system at safeguarding the welfare of wild animals and travelling services? I'd like to kick off with that. Material effect. Things haven't changed over the years, so I've got really no comment to make on that. The travelling aspect has always been the biggest concern that we've had. I agree with what Mr Lyle says that normally circuses these days will go 20 miles, 15 miles, whatever, but in the livestock industry, it's commonly known, the biggest problem with transport and animals is the loading and unloading. Even if it's a short distance, you've still got an element of stress there. Livestock can be easily physically handled. You cannot easily physically handle tigers and lions. Anyone else, Liz? Yeah, to add to that. Peter Jolly's circus, which is one of the two, one of the two circuses which currently has wild animals, performed with what is now the evening with the Lions and Tigers Act for a number of years. That act was licensed as part of Jolly's circus for, I think, two years, and then kind of broke off, came up here to Scotland, was in Fraserburg over winter. I think the first weakness that that shows is that he could literally take his animals out of the licensing regime, put them across the border and suddenly there were no meaningful regulations beyond sort of general animal welfare. I think one of the very telling things after that was then when Mr Chipperfield, Mr Beckwith, attempted to apply for a circus licence. My understanding is using the same lorries, the same accommodation, they were refused because it didn't meet standards. So what appears to have happened is that the same accommodation, the same standards, had been licensed for two years and then suddenly they weren't. So I think there's discrepancies about how has this been inspected. Also, for example, Circus Mondale also had its licence suspended after numerous warnings from which are documented from DEFRA, allowing members of the public to have contact with the reindeer when they're in winter quarters. There were issues surrounding the welfare of one of the camels, as I understand it, and repeated warnings eventually that resulted in the circus licence being suspended. There were all sorts of issues with getting the paperwork together and things like that. It doesn't look to us from the outside that it's done anything substantial to improve animal welfare, but to be honest, that doesn't really surprise us because that's what I think all the organisations who consulted or actually we refuse to consult on this particular measure, but all of the organisations who've been involved in this just looked at it from the outset and said that this isn't going to work. As you know, the Scottish Government rejected the regulatory approach and one of the arguments was the lack of scientific data on animal welfare. Would you agree with that assessment? I think one of the things yet, I mean there was a claim made by the Westminster Government when they introduced the licensing regime was that this would, and I think it was almost word for word, this would guarantee that high standards of welfare was met. When we then questioned the Westminster Government said, well what sort of analysis and what research have you done to explore how to meet welfare needs of wild animals and circuses, they confirm that they hadn't done any. From our view, it appeared to be based on setting the benchmark at the point of the best circus standards you could get, but whether or not those standards ever met animal welfare needs were never confirmed, and we would argue very strongly that they couldn't. So there was a real issue with the data and with enforcement as well, I think that's very helpful. Do any of the other panel members have any observations on that? I think that Mike Flynn's already commented. There's covered examples that I had with regard to Circus Mondeo. Our only general comment on it is that licensing and continuing the allowance of wild animals in travelling circus doesn't address the ethical concerns, which is obviously what this is based on. You've already touched on, I suppose in some ways, your ideal bill to answers to my colleagues earlier on, but I mean if you were starting from scratch and you were wishing to protect wild animals and travelling circuses, would there be other aspects that you would add to a bill that doesn't appear, or would you basically wish to endorse the Government bill? Is there anything you would take away or is there anything you would add on? From our perspective, the only thing that we would substantive is to remove the domestication definition for the reasons outlined. We understand, I guess, that it's about display, it's about performance and it's about exhibition, because banning ownership then goes into completely different territory, which would be arguably discriminatory. So, as far as we're concerned, as the bill stands, in terms of banning wild animals and travelling circuses, which is something we've all worked towards for a long time, we would support it as it stands to go through with the suggestion that the domestication definition is taken out. Thank you, Nicola. Yeah, in agreement. With the focus on wild animals and travelling circuses, again, we highlighted our concern over the domesticated definition, believing that it could be open to challenge. So, with the focus on wild animals, we would be happy with this bill. Mike Flynn. I think I said in my submission, I see this as a preventative measure. The circus community, and I've known every one of them that has come to Scotland in 30 years. They're very law-abiding. Nobody's going to break the law once and all. They're not supposed to do it here. Given that Martin reported last week that this has got to have no financial impact on the industry as it stands, I really don't have a problem with it, because that's not what the intention is. The intention is just to stop it before it starts. Lisa Dahl. Yeah, the BVA supports this proposed bill as it is, no actual additions or anything else. Right, that's very straightforward. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Kate Forbes. But I'd like to ask some questions about the enforceability of the legislation. The question is whether you think that there are implications of it being an ethical rather than a welfare basis for the bill on the enforceability. We had a comment from, if my laptop was fast enough, from David Kerr of our Gail and Beat Council who said that moving things to an ethical basis could be very profitable for defence teams because what we need when we enforce legislation is a clear definition. Any thoughts on the enforceability on the basis of being ethical rather than a welfare basis? I mean, Mike's probably way better to answer this, but just to put a small point forward then, because it's under strict liability, if you operate a circus full stop, then you've breached the regulations. I don't see that the background, once it comes to enforcing, is going to impact that, regardless of whether it's on welfare grounds or not. If you're operating a circus, you're in breach of the legislation, that seems quite clear to me. So I wouldn't necessarily say that was an issue, but Mike would probably know far better. I would agree with that, because although the bill is based on the ethical principles, because previous committees said there wasn't sufficient evidence to take on welfare, it's a black and white offence. If you're operating a travelling circus, it doesn't matter if it's ethical or welfare-based, you're committing the offence. Okay, great. Moving on to local authorities, do you have any thoughts on the proposed enforcement approach and provisions, in particular the discretionary nature of the obligation on local authorities to enforce the bill? That's something that springs up throughout lots of pieces of legislation in 2006, Animal Health and Welfare Scotland. It's not the local authority shall enforce it, it's to me. So that's a common thing across a lot of licensing aspects, so that's not going to make any difference here compared to other legislation. One of the problems you've got, and I'm sitting here buying Kozula's drum, is that local authorities are vastly underfunded, and when it comes to licensing provisions, it costs money. I'm a big supporter that if any licensing thing there, it should be self-funding, because local authorities are going to take money from other essential services to provide something that, in no disrespect to them, a lot of them are not trained to do. They don't know half the species that they're dealing with. In terms of powers, in the bill, I wonder if you have any thought of that, except in the point about the needs for resourcing, the lack of any provision that would enable local authorities to prevent a circus operating while they investigate and report a matter to the Procurator Fiscal or obtain records from the operator? It's in the bill that they've got the right with warrant to enter the appropriate premises to gain any information that would be sent to the Procurator Fiscal to establish if an offence had been committed. However, as I say, in other things, other legislation extends to seizing the animal that's involved. Nobody's going to be seizing an exotic animal from a circus, so that's why I'm saying that the fact that it's a law abiding community that we're talking about, I don't foresee that happening. I suppose that it's local authorities being able to serve a notice to prevent the activity from going ahead whilst the investigation is on-going. Technically, as soon as they took their action and decided that a report would be gone at the Fiscal, if the show then moved five miles down the road and started again, I'd be a subsequent offence, a subsequent offence, a subsequent offence. I just don't see circus people doing it. Claudia Beamish Right, thank you. I'd just like to continue with that line of questioning in relation to enforcement. Do you have any views, any of the panel, on the proposed maximum fine level, which is level five? Are you confident that this level of maximum fine will act as an appropriate deterrent to the use of wild animals in travelling circuses in Scotland? I think that Martin, in his evidence last week, basically said that if you find 10,000 to 5,000 that put them into business, I mean circuses aren't like when I was a child. You couldn't get any circuses that were mobbed. Some of them have got very pure attendencies these days and they've got very high overheads, so I think that 5,000 is proportionate. Claudia Beamish It's worth adding that, as Mike said, once the ban is in, then I think that generally, if something is banned, then people do abide by it. I don't think that the circus community and the circuses with wild animals will try to get round it. I think that it will be, they're not going to be happy about it, but then that will be it. We don't have to worry about them trying to breach it or get round it in some way, or certainly that's certainly not my view anyway. Claudia Beamish Any other comments on that from the panel? Okay, thank you. That really concludes this evidence session. Can I thank the panel for their contribution this morning? It's been very useful. We are, as a committee, slightly ahead of schedule, so I am proposing that we move into private now and take item 5, and then we'll resume at 11 o'clock when the cabinet secretary joins us for the next part of the public meeting. Is that agreeable to members? Okay, so we will now move into private. Thank you. I ask that the gallery be cleared. Welcome back to the public part of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. The committee will now take evidence on the prohibited procedures on protected animals exemptions Scotland amendment regulations 2017 draft. We are joined this morning by Rosanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Andrew Vos, veterinary adviser and Judith Brown, solicitor. Cabinet secretary, do you wish to make a short opening statement on the draft regulations? Thank you, convener, and good morning to everybody. The draft regulations before you and effectively would amend 2010 regulations to include an exemption for tail shortening in some limited circumstances. I think you've heard research commission from the University of Glasgow recorded that around one seventh of working dogs surveyed in the 2010-11 shooting season, sustained at least one tail injury in that year with a higher incidence for certain breeds. The Scottish Government considers this research does provide sufficient evidence that shortening the tails of puppies at risk of tail injury while engaged in lawful shooting activities in later life will improve the welfare of those dogs. However, in line with the research findings, we do not intend that this should apply to all types of working dogs and require conditions to be met, which aim to ensure that only those dogs at most risk are affected by the regulations. The proposed exemption therefore applies to the only two types of working dog, spaniels and hunt point retrievers that are commonly used in these lawful activities. The evidence shows them to be at significantly higher risk of tail injury than other types. The evidence also showed that there was no benefit in reducing injury by removing more than the end third of the tail. For that reason, the draft regulations limit the extent by which a tail may be shortened to no more than the end third. The regulations also ensure, as far as is reasonably possible, that only those dogs likely to be used for lawful shooting purposes can have their tails shortened and that veterinarians are the only persons who may carry out the procedure. The operating vet must therefore be satisfied that there has been produced to him or her evidence showing that the dog is likely to be used for working in later life. The draft regulations also provide that the procedure may only be carried out for the purpose of dog welfare. As required under the provisions in the 2006 act, we did consult those considered to have an interest in tail shortening. In this case, a full public consultation on a tightly defined exemption took place between 10 February and 3 May 2016. Of the total responses, 92 per cent favoured permitting shortening and 52 per cent considered shortening should be restricted to the end third of the tail. We are, of course, aware that whether or not to introduce this exemption remains a highly emotive issue. Ultimately, the proposed amendment will place the responsibility for making the decision in the hands of those who are, in my view, best placed to make an informed professional judgment. These are the practising veterinary surgeons, mostly in rural Scotland, who know the clients who are working dog breeders, understand the risks of injury associated with normal shooting activities and, most importantly, also have a professional duty to ensure the welfare of all animals in their care. We are happy to answer any questions. Let me kick the questions off. The consultation document stated that this consultation concerns the case that has been made to us for the introduction of a tightly defined exemption regime. Could you outline for us, cabinet secretary, who made the case that the law should change and that docking should be allowed in certain limited circumstances? What made that case persuasive? Of course, a lot of that took place before I was actually in post. I will ask the chief veterinary adviser to give you some of the background to what led up to that. When all tail docking in Scotland was banned back in 2007, there was a lot of concern raised by people who were interested in shooting gamekeepers members of BASC that dogs involved in shooting would leave at risk of injury. There was a commitment at the time, given that if new evidence came to light about the risk of injury to dogs involved in shooting, we would review the evidence in Scotland. After 2007, there was the diesel study that was published in 2010, which has been mentioned previously. That looked at all types of dogs, so it was not focused on working breeds and it was not focused on actual working dogs in Scotland. I think in that study, if I remember rightly, there are only 24 dogs involved in shooting activities identified in that study. At the time, there were a lot of dogs that had traditionally been docked, so the population of dogs studied by diesel would include quite a high proportion of dogs that had already been traditionally docked. For various reasons, that study did not really give us the evidence that we needed that specifically applied to actual working dogs working in Scotland. For that reason, we were then asked by the previous Cabinet Secretary, Mr Lockhead, to commission some research. The research that we commissioned was done at Glasgow University, and that is where we are now. We are now in a position to consider the results of that research and the arguments that are made around what that research shows. The pressures really come from the people who have been closely involved in working dogs in Scotland and who believe that there is a significant concern about injuries to the tales of one docked working dogs currently working in Scotland. Let's look further at that research, Mark Ruskell. Yes, thanks, convener. We've had quite a lot of evidence about the limitations of that research, so can I just run through some aspects of the limitations? The diesel study that you referred to found out that a very significant aspect related to tale injury was the kenneling arrangements. Did either of those studies look at kenneling? Well, as I said, the diesel study was looking at all types of dogs, including working breeds and non-working breeds, and they only had a small number of what we would commonly understand to be working dogs involved in shooting. As you've heard, there were two main studies that came out of Glasgow research, two main papers. One of those was looking at owner-reported injuries, and it was targeted intentionally at the community most likely to experience those injuries, which was the owners of working dogs in Scotland. As a result, they were recruited from the Scottish Gamekeepers and BASC and other people who were involved in shooting. Can any of those studies look at kenneling? As you've said, the diesel study did look at kenneling. Sorry, the two Scottish studies didn't specifically look at kenneling. The second study, looking at veterinary practice information, looked at whether animals had recorded tale injuries or not, so it didn't look at the cause of those injuries. Right, thank you for that. Impact of tale docking in terms of behaviour and communication in dogs? Did either of those two studies commissioned by the Scottish Government look at the potential impact on those dogs of tale shortening and their impact on behaviour and communication? That wasn't a specification for the study. Why was that the case? I assume that the intention was simply to get statistical information about the extent of tale injury. The impact of tale shortening in respect of the interesting debate that I saw was being had around that was not the primary focus of that research. The research was an attempt to establish better information about what was being claimed in terms of tale injuries and the extent of it and whether or not that was borne out by actual facts. The contention was that the propositions that have been put to us were that working dogs were experiencing more tale injuries because they were predominantly undocked. The purpose of the research was to investigate that specific point that has been put to us. I am looking at this, cabinet secretary, from an all welfare point of view. We have had a lot of research that has been submitted to the committee that implies strongly that there could be impact in terms of communication and behavioural difficulties in dogs with docked tales. I am asking why that was not considered because clearly there could be a cost and a benefit to this proposed exemption. I did not instruct the research in the first place, so I can answer for the people who did. I suppose that the purpose of the research was just to establish the extent of tale injuries and to operate on that basis. I read with interest the discussions in the committee around that. It did not appear to me that from those discussions that there was conclusive evidence either way. I accept that there is an interesting discussion to be had around that, but my view is that that is something that needs to be taken forward by veterinarians and to be looked at in terms of how they would, in certain cases, manage pain if it was felt that pain was something that had to be managed. I did not, at this stage, get a sense that, on a UK-wide basis, the veterinary profession is actually at that point of that kind of discussion. OK, so Kenling and behaviour has not been considered. Can I ask about the ledgerus study? This was a self-selecting study. It was advertised in country sports magazines. Do you see any inherent biases in that study? Well, I suppose that, superficially, my first reaction to that is that this study was attempting to actually get information about dogs that were working. The previous studies we have looked at studies on all dogs, studies on working breeds, but, of course, not all dogs in working breeds will actually be working and that this was an attempt to get to those people who actually have dogs who are actually working. That was what that was attempting to do. I am not sure and I am not a statistician, but I am not sure how else easily it could have been done other than to reach out specifically to those who had those animals that were actually working. Can I ask why the emphasis on a self-selecting group has clearly got an interest in preserving the tradition? Why is this not being led by veterinarians looking at their case work of working dogs and actually assessing what the impacts could be? That was the purpose of the second study. The original proposal was to have three studies. There was the initial survey of the owners and users of working dogs. There was the survey of the veterinary practice data, which is known as the Cameron report. That was the second study that was published. That teased out the information that was, as far as we could gather, the information about injuries to dogs of working breeds on veterinary practice data. The third study, which was not able to go ahead in the end, was designed to give the best quality evidence, which would have been a prospective cohort study where we would have identified a group of dogs that were going to be used for working over the next shooting season and monitored what happened to those dogs as the season progressed. Originally, the research was set up with those three parts. Unfortunately, the third part was not achievable for various reasons. We have to interpret the first two parts of this study as best we can. We had evidence at the previous committee from a vet who would like to doctails. He had seen only six tail injuries in the last year. Does that not conflict with the figures that are coming out of the ledgerast study, which would assume that all dogs at some point in their lives would have a tail injury that would need to be presented to a vet? In reality, you could run a study over a 10-year period because a working dog has a working life. The working life is more than one year. You may see a small number of dogs with a tail injury in one year, but over a period of time that could likely be a lot higher. That might have been an interesting thing to have done, but it would have taken a very long time in which to do it because you would really need to have tracked a cohort of dogs over their entire working lives. None of the pieces of research have done that over that very long period of time. In those circumstances, if you track dogs over a long period of actual working lives, the incidence of injury is likely to be considerably higher than at the moment. I specifically asked a question about what percentage of dogs now are being imported from south of the border so that they can be assured of already being docked, and that is full docking compared to the dogs that are being worked with undocked tails. There are lots of issues in there. I know from what the response that I have is that at the moment we are a bit of a guesstimate in terms of those numbers, but they are fairly significant. That will also have an impact on the numbers, because you are not looking at those numbers in the context of working dogs who are undocked, if you see what I mean. The other great unknown in that is the number of injuries that are sustained that do not present at veterinary surgeons. Is there any feel for the scale of that? The owners of the dogs are dealing with the injuries because they are relatively minor without ever presenting at a vet. I do not think that there is some evidence, although I need to remind people that dogs have a longish working life and that superficial or minor injuries in one year might become a more serious problem in subsequent years, that they are effectively a one-year spot check look, and that dogs that have minor injuries in one year may go on to have more serious injuries later. If I could maybe give you some figures. I know at the last hearing you were seeking to find some firm estimates of the number of working dogs in Scotland at how many might be brought in. We have obviously had the Basque submission, which gives an estimate of maybe 50,000 working dogs currently in Scotland. I have been having a look at some of the figures and trying to relate them to the information that we have from the research that has been done. If we assume from the Basque estimate of 50,000 working dogs, maybe 38,000 of those are Spaniels. From the ledarest study, it was reported that maybe a third to a half of working Spaniels are currently being imported from England, which most of those will be docked, either partial or full docks, as we have heard. Assuming that Spaniels will live for 10 years on average, they will then need to be 3,800 puppies supplied every year to maintain that population of 38,000 Spaniels. Approximately half of those might be imported from England, so we are left with maybe 2,000 puppies per year being bred in Scotland to keep that constant population of Spaniels in work. Now, looking at the statistics from the different studies, if we take those 2,000 puppies per year, according to the ledarest study, we might have 1,000 owner-reported injuries, and these will range from fairly minor nicks that can cause a lot of blood to be spread everywhere. They can look very unpleasant, but there will be relatively minor injuries to the more serious tail injuries. Of those 1,000 injuries, there might be 333 that need veterinary treatment, again from the information gathered in the ledarest report. Of those 333 injuries, there might be 66 amputations. That is based on the ratio of tail injuries to amputation, which is approximately 5 to 1. That was from the Cameron study, and it is also consistent with the diesel study, although the diesel study was actually more like 3 to 1. To provide those 2,000 working Spaniels, you might of course have to breed 2,000 Spaniels if every puppy from every litter went on to be a working dog. If only one in six puppies saved from a litter went on to be a working dog, you would have to breed 12,000 Spaniels. If we assume that there is a stable population of 10,000 of the Scottish bred dogs with an intake of 2,000 puppies per year, and they work for five years on average before retiring, you could then multiply the above figures by five to give an approximate total incidence in Scotland. That would give you maybe 1,500 injuries needing veterinary treatment, and that might give you 300 amputations in working Spaniels. Returning to the number of puppies bred, if we take the assumption that maybe 50 per cent of puppies go on to be working dogs and we have to dock the entire litter to protect those 50 per cent, we might have to dock 4,000 puppies to save 66 amputations, so there may be a ratio of 80 puppies to save one amputation. Remember that's in one year, so you have to remember that the puppies are exposed for their working life, so they might be exposed year after year for five years, and that's just to give some approximate figures which might help you. I'm not saying these are absolute, but this is to give you a general guidance for the sort of overall numbers we're talking about. I still get the sense that this is finger in the air stuff. I mean, there clearly was an opportunity when this ban was brought in place to do that 10-year cohort study, looking not at general dog populations, but looking specifically at working dogs, comparing the situation in England and actually coming up with robust data. Instead, we've got a survey publicised in country sports magazines. We don't take that kind of attitude to doing surveys on wildlife crime or fox hunting, so I'm just concerned about inherent biases and concerned about the lack of empirical data that's veterinary led. I'm just curious as to why that third study wasn't completed because I think that that would give us the information that we would need to judge whether this on animal welfare terms is a sensible exemption or not. Well, I'm afraid I don't recall the work that was done leading up to the legislation in the first place and the regulations in the first place. I think Ross Finney was the minister at the time, so I can't go back and work out what was done in those circumstances. It was Ross Finney who did give the assurance that the position would be reviewed if veterinary evidence became available. After that, there was a debate, I suppose, ex-post facto in terms of the legislation about this, which led subsequently to the instruction of the research that we are discussing. In order to have done the 10-year study, I have to say that I plucked that 10 years out of the air. I'm not 100 per cent confident what is the actual working life of one of those dogs as opposed to when they get retired, but assuming that it's somewhere between five and 10 years, which I think is probably right, there may be people in this room who have a slightly better sense of what that would be than I have. It's almost the case that Ross Finney would have required to have instructed it almost immediately that the legislation was passed, and clearly that wasn't in people's minds at the time of the debate. However, the issue has not gone away. The extent to which puppies are now imported from south of the border, because there is a different regime south of the border, is significant. The regime south of the border is less tightly controlled than what we are proposing here, because it permits the full docking, which is what we are not talking about here. We think that what we are presenting here is a proportionate move, which is fairly tightly controlled and does not preclude the possibility of further future research if people thought that was required. Nevertheless, we think that there is an inappropriate response to the concerns of those people who are actually breeding, raising and working these dogs. I agree with what Mr Ruskell said about the finger in the air with some of the research that we have seen. At the risk of being totally bamboozled by statistics again, I will ask that question and, hopefully, you will be able to answer it. What information do you have on the level of damage to working dog tails in the part of the UK where there is already an exemption? Is that work that you have done so that we can compare what has been happening in Scotland with a regime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland when the exemption exists? I do not love the top of my head. I am not aware of a comparative piece of work. I do know that the regime south of the border, the exemption is wider than we would allow, and the controls are a bit less tight. Therefore, I am not sure how useful that comparison would be in these circumstances, because you would not be comparing like with like. I am conscious that what we are actually proposing here is quite narrow, and we would need to see in terms of how that worked out. The breeds that are covered south of the border are wider, am I correct? It includes terriers, which we have excluded, so a comparison would not be very easy to do. He would have given us a ballpark. Again, what has been mentioned, we have had this time from when the ban was brought in and we are now looking at exemptions, and there appears to be very little information. If we have got the exemption south of the border, we know what breeds we are talking about here. Even a rough idea would have been helpful when we are making our considerations, but there does not appear to be that sort of information at all. The information has not been collected in England. The needs of study is the diesel one, and that gave an instance of 0.03 per cent in docked dogs and 0.23 per cent in undocked dogs. That is the best evidence that docking provides a protective effect against injuries, which some might say is self-evident that if animals have had their tail removed, they are less likely to have their tail injured. But that was all dogs. That clearly was all dogs, so you would expect the effect in working dogs to be even greater. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary, and those with you on the panel today. Could you tell us what assessment has been carried out of alternatives to tail docking to reduce tail injuries later in life? There was some evidence in the evidence that we have taken as a committee prior to today about that. In relation to the use of tail protectors and a small amount of evidence in relation to breeding for tail carriage, although I appreciate that that would take longer. There have been points already highlighted about the possibilities of appropriate cannelling, which my colleague Mark Ruskell has highlighted. I wonder if there is any comment on alternatives to the docking. None of the studies have looked at alternatives in detail, as far as I am aware. I read with interest the exchanges about the potential various methods by which tail injury could be, probably not wholly prevented, but at least partially prevented, and I am not professionally in a position to make an assessment about whether or not in the context of working dogs they are practical. I can see that they may be useful with a domestic animal who might, from time to time, be running out into wilder ground, but the difficulty with working dogs is that they are in that terrain all of the time, and that often creates in very wet weather. I should imagine that that creates some significant difficulties in terms of some of the proposed methods that are being discussed, but I do not really see any particularly conclusive lines coming out from the committee's evidence that they would necessarily be effective. I think that they are being presented as possibilities rather than anything else. None of the research studies have been designed in order to look at that. I am not sure where those other practices are in place. I do not know how you could design a study that would manage that. We have considered evidence such as the tail protectors that are available and used in the United States, and they seem to be marketed as protective tail tips, particularly for pointer dogs. The idea is similar to a 50mm syringe case, which is basically a plastic covering that is taped on to the end of the dog's tail. They seem to have fairly mixed reviews. If you look online, some people say that they work, others say that they fall off very easily. In the States, they will be mainly used for pointers rather than the spaniels, which will be the predominant concern in Scotland. I could well imagine that a full-tail spaniel with a fairly heavy protector on the end would likely be at risk of injuring itself or the protector would get damaged in the undergrowth anyway and fall off or pull the tail. I could well believe that these are not really practical solutions in the Scottish situation for working spaniels with full tails. At this point, it is speculative, really, what you are saying. Oh, yes. Nobody has really done any detailed research on the effectiveness of these things. I mean, we heard from Jim Dukes that wrapping a bandage—and I am not to disparaging this, but wrapping a bandage and Vaseline and ways of dealing with things in wet country was something that he was not very confident about, but if there are possible alternatives, it would seem that it would be useful to know a bit more detail on these issues, the kenneling and the possibility of protectors, and also the hair trimming. I would support Jim Dukes' comments about bandaging because dogs' tails are notoriously difficult to bandage and we have had experience of practice of trying to bandage them and getting a bandage to stay on with a dog whose tail is vigorously wagging and the dog is constantly trying to chew the bandage off or the bandage is getting caught in things or getting wet and muddy. I would certainly support his view that on a practical basis these things really are not practical in Scottish situations. In that particular one, anyway. Just continuing this theme about exploring possible alternatives to what is proposed, Mark Ruskell? Cabinet Secretary, I think that you said in your opening remarks that it was your intention that as fewer dogs as reasonably possible would be tailedog to then don't go on to work. I am wondering if you agree with Tim Parkin and other witnesses that we have had in front of the committee who say that, as a result of the regulations, there may be full litters of puppies from the relevant breeds that go on to be docked regardless of whether they end up as working dogs or not. Would you agree with that? If that is the intention of regulations, how do you ensure that that can be prevented? We confine it to the breeds in the first place.  I am not an expert in this, and I do not know how dogs are identified as being likely to be good working dogs, but I would expect that between three and five days it would probably be a rather difficult assessment. I do not suppose that even the best breeder can look at a three-day old puppy and think that that is the one that is going to be the champion working dog and the others will go to pets. I expect that there will be a degree of tail shortening among dogs who may subsequently become pets. That is one of the reasons why we want to confine that to as few breeds as possible, to those breeds from whom the vast majority of working dogs in Scotland are chosen, particularly for vets who are knowing the breeders and the demands of that particular economic activity to make the best assessment that they can. However, we are leaving it up to their professional judgment. Will you then further skew the findings of the ledgerus study, which is focused entirely on working dogs? There is a wider population of dogs out there that are getting the test dogs, which are neither working or... A study of actual working dogs is studying, effectively, adult dogs who are actually working. If we accept that not every single puppy from every single one of these liters of these working breeds goes on to become a working dog, then if they weren't working dogs, they wouldn't be included in that particular study. That particular study was looking at actual working dogs as opposed to working breeds. I think that the two things aren't the same, and we accept that because you can't know until a dog is an adult that it's going to be a working dog. However, of course, if you leave it until the dog is adult, then the issues that people are concerned about become even more critical and probably more difficult to manage. I'm not an expert, but I don't know at what age a dog can then be identified as being likely to be a good working dog. It's probably going to be over six months old, while shortening the dog's tail at that age is clearly going to be a bigger issue than between three and five days. There's not a significant loophole here, though. I'll give you an example. Somebody got in touch with me via a social media site a couple of weeks ago and said that they'd gone to England to buy a puppy with a dog tail. That had come from a litter of working dogs, but it was being brought back to Scotland not to be worked but to be kept as a pet. Is there not a significant loophole in the English legislation that could be replicated here whereby dogs could be sold and moved on effectively without a destination as a working dog? The loophole exists if it continues to be the situation in England, as we are describing. The fact is that people are already going south of the border to get dogs with docked tails. It's not as if we're not creating a loophole here. We're already experiencing the consequences of the difference between what is north and south of the border. Will some puppies with shortened tails end up as pets? Clearly that will happen, but by focusing on the very specific breeds that we're talking about, I remind you that that includes or doesn't include terriers. Terriers are a huge breed south of the border that can be docked. We're not including terriers. We're focusing it to a narrow population as we think is reasonable to focus it on. It's very difficult to see how you could focus it any more narrowly short of waiting until you've identified which dogs are actually going to be working dogs, in which case the animal welfare issues become even more difficult to manage. Let me explore the practicalities that that is, if I may, cabinet secretary. If some veterinary surgeons opt out of carrying out this procedure if it proceeds, would there be an issue over meeting the requirement that judgments would be exercised by vets who have a knowledge of those presenting dogs for the procedure and a knowledge of the likely use of those dogs would be put to? Would that process be undermined? Or would it be the view of the Government that it will largely be vets who, having seen the harm done working dogs because those of the dogs they see, who would be carrying, asked to carry out this procedure? I haven't really explained that clearly enough. I think you get the thrust of what I'm getting at. I suspect most vets who are practising in rural Scotland and whose practice includes dogs such as this because that's what the local area requires will be the ones who are most likely to accept the need for this because they are the ones most likely to see the consequences of not having done it. I don't think that there are so many breeders in Scotland that they won't be well known. The breeders of those particular breeds will probably be pretty well known as it is across the board. It's not as if every vet practice will have its own particular breeder very specific to it. There will be breeders in broader areas. Might there be some vet practices who choose not to do it? Yes, clearly that may be the case. Might there be some individual vets in vet practices who choose not to do it? Yes, that might be the case and I don't know how the practice management would handle that. I would imagine that the most likely outcome of this is that vets who are already well acquainted with all of this, who understand the issues behind this, are the ones who will be the ones carrying out the procedure but also the ones most likely to know the outcome of a born litter going on to become working dogs. I have written evidence in the past few days from vet practices and vets in rural settings supporting the exemption. However, can I touch on another aspect to this? Could it be that the resistance to this taking place that we have heard is out there among some vets is down, particularly among younger ones, to a concern about not possessing the skill set at the moment to carry out the procedure? I think that there are no vets under the age of 30, 29, 30 in Scotland who have had experience of doing this. If the resistance to it that we are told exists is because of that, what steps might the Government take to ensure that vets were equipped with a skill set required and therefore had the confidence to carry out the procedure? I certainly understand that for a vet who has become a vet within the past 10 years, they will have no experience of this form of tail shortening. They may have experience of dealing with tail injuries and they may have experience with requiring to shorten or amputate an adult dog's tail because those are procedures that they may have come across. I would have thought in the first instance that it would be a matter for the veterinary bodies to think about ensuring that there were skills, whether or not there is a role for the Government to step in. I would not like to commit myself at this point because we would need to talk to the veterinary association about what they thought might be necessary. It would probably be most likely to be those young vets who are wanting to work in rural practice that we would need to ensure that they had the necessary skills. I would have imagined that I wanted to say that the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons but I do not suppose that that is what I mean. If I could comment, as a vet I have docked puppies back in the late 80s when lay people were allowed to do it and I have also dealt with chronic tail injuries. The actual operation of docking a puppy's tail is very straightforward and I think this has really been overplayed. It is a very simple operation as has been explained. A young vet is talked through by somebody experienced who has done it previously that will not have any difficulty in the practicality of doing this very straightforward surgery. I think that we maybe could, as a Government, give guidance in talking with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. I think that it would be useful if we give guidance to veterinary surgeons explaining that if this legislation goes through we are not necessarily advocating tail docking for all dogs, we are not making it compulsory, we are simply giving the vets who see the value of doing it the opportunity to exercise their professional judgment about which puppies they decide are most at risk of having injury later in life because based on their knowledge of the breeder, knowledge of where puppies from that breeder have gone previously and probably seeing tail injuries in practice, they are the ones who in the best decisions decide, well is it justified to dock this litter of puppies or do I feel it's not justified? Vets have a professional obligation when we qualify, we take an oath saying our endeavour will be to protect the welfare of animals in our care, so that obligation should override all other considerations when a vet is making that decision. So if the vet generally believes that it's in the animal's best interest to have its tail docked then they will be acting in accordance with the oath. If they don't believe that then they will be failing their duty to carry out the docking. It is something that people will take seriously, I can understand that it is an ethical dilemma, but it is something that is for the profession, the profession or in a unique position to be able to make that decision and I think that they should be trusted and expected to make that decision. I am interested in the pain management aspects of shortening the tail of a puppy versus the more invasive aspects of managing an adult that is required in an amputation, especially following multiple engagements with a vet because of multiple repeated injuries. I wonder how you interpreted the research on the pain and distress associated with it. It says here docking but I am sure that shortening is a bit less invasive than docking a full tail. It is about being compared to the pain and distress of an adult animal. I looked at the evidence around that as well. Again, without medical knowledge, I thought that there was an interesting point being made at that very early stage in a puppy's life. There is an issue about some of the pain management because the puppy's bodies are not properly developed and therefore are not able to absorb badly some of any pain relief that might be given. An adult dog can get really good drugs in terms of pain relief but a very tiny puppy cannot because their organs are not in shape yet to absorb that. I am just looking at you since you are the one with the actual knowledge here. I think Tim Park can mention that although we have local anaesthetics that might be used on very young puppies, many vets will say that the pain of actually giving anaesthetic is as bad or if not worse than the very brief pain associated with the tail shortening procedure. Tim was talking about analgesic drugs. There is a very common drug that is used in veterinary practice but it is contraindicated for animals under six weeks old. Tim said that is because the liver is not sufficiently developed to be able to cope with that analgesic which would give longer term pain relief. The subject of pain in puppies is an interesting area. It is difficult to assess pain in neonates like puppies because of their lack of behavioural responses to pain. I think all vets would accept that docking is or tail shortening is a painful procedure so puppies certainly yell or vocalise briefly when the tail shortening is done. Typically they then put back with the mother and they start suckling and they become calm and some people have suggested that suckling itself releases endogenous opioids or endogenous painkillers so that is a form of comfort and pain relief for the puppy in actually suckling. There is that acute pain issue so yes docking or tail shortening of puppies is certainly painful at the time and that is an acute pain which will pass over a period. The wider concern or a couple of areas, one is that an experience of acute pain as a young animal can sensitise animals to painful experiences or stressful experiences later in life. Now we don't have any good evidence for that in dogs and we have to say that based on the anecdotal evidence or the accumulated massive experience it isn't commonly recognised that puppies that have had their tails shortened then go on to be chronically nervous or chronically stressed individuals. Many people have the experience of seeing working spaniels that have had their tails docked and go on to be apparently very happy active dogs so we have to bear that in mind. The other main area is the issue of nerve regeneration or neuromas. Now this is well recognised in human medicine that if you amputate a digit or a limb the seven nerve will try to regrow and that often forms what's called a neuroma so that's a disorganised mass of nerve tissue that's trying to heal and granulation tissue and that can in human patients particularly if the wound has been infected or been damaged so that you get contraction of the wound subsequently that can result in abnormal sensations so there can be parasthesia which might be pins and needles there can be a sensation called alodynia where previously normal sensations like touch can be perceived as painful and there can be heightened sensitivity to pain. Now those things are seen in maybe less than 10% of human patients who have a limb or digit amputation so there is this concern that if you sever a nerve you can get a neuroma in a way that's a normal response to a nerve being severed so it's not surprisingly you find these neuromas. Now they have been found in dogs and there's a paper from 1990 which describes six dogs that have had neuromas following tail docking and the reason these were investigated was that the dogs were showing signs of being in chronic pain so they might have been biting the tails or the tail might have been sensitive when it's handled. Now whether the neuromas in those cases were actually causing that or whether they're just incidental finding we don't know but the point is these were causing obvious signs in these six animals but again on the wider scale that syndrome of a tail shortening operation causing chronic pain later in life to a dog is very unusual so these are highly unusual cases and it's not generally recognised that spaniels that have had their tails shortened by a third will go on to have very painful tails or be constantly biting at tails or showing signs of pain which would require a further operation. Now there is some interesting work in pigs on neuromas I'm sorry to go on but this is quite interesting yeah I could go on if you're interested but maybe I think you might be I think you might be giving them more information that's absolutely necessary. I think we've got the gist of it. You know the proportionality of shortening a puppy versus the pain or the animal welfare issues with the injury of an adult tail would the adult injury outweigh the I guess the puppy shortening with it at five day old? I mean having personally done you know both procedures shortening a puppy's tail apparently seems to cause very brief pain the puppy then suckles gets comfort from the mother and then there doesn't seem to be any obvious long-term effect bearing in mind there might be this concern probably a valid concern about potential chronic translation life but with the tail amputation of an adult dog that is certainly very serious operation in terms of surgery it's relatively straightforward surgery but usually the problems in the healing process quite often the tail tip swells up stitches can come out that there may well be infection so that is a much more serious and potentially painful operation in an adult dog than a tail shortening procedure in a newborn puppy. Could I just ask you Andrew whether there's evident what evidence there is about some infection in dogs after after the docking procedure what proportion? Well I don't think anyone has done those studies we've heard anecdotally that I think we heard from one witness previously that she had seen letters that had actually died from either blood loss or infection but that is incredibly unusual. Sorry I'm not asking the right question I do apologise I meant in adult dogs oh adult dogs yeah who haven't had their tails docked I mean that they might have to have an amputation and when the amputation has happened what proportion there might be for infection I apologise for not being clear. Oh right okay I don't think anyone's gathered those statistics but generally an amputation it probably depends on what sort of injury and what had caused the injury has to and how long the injury had been left before it is seen by by a vet as to how likely it is that infection would get into the wound and become established. Certainly with modern antibiotics then you know there will be routine to give antibiotics if you're doing an amputation but there could well still be infection established before the operation takes place but I don't think anyone's gathered that information systematically. Alexander Burnett I think you've got a brief question here. Thank you very much convener. Cabinet Secretary I was going to ask you about whether you had a feel for the number of dogs potentially affected and how many spaniel and hunt point retrievers are born in Scotland and how many of those went on to be working gun dogs but I think Andrew's given a fairly comprehensive extrapolation of the data that is available is there anything you'd like to add to that? Not really. Clearly as we're all aware there are a lot of working dogs in Scotland they're working in a legitimate area of economic activity but not all of the breeds not all of the litters that they come from will all go on to become working dogs. I suppose we could try to begin to define even further how many specifically dogs will be affected but I think the numbers at the moment can only be as broad as they are partly because we are constantly aware that there are a lot of dogs being brought in from south of the border and that changes the stats a bit and that changes the numbers we're talking about because our estimate of the numbers of those working dogs has got to always be thought of in terms of well probably about a third of them are actually not dogs that were bred in Scotland any longer they are dogs that have been brought in from elsewhere. Thank you. It's a really my supplementary questions around the sort of data collection I mean I think it's been repeated there's a lot of limitations on some of the data that's been given given you know we have microchipping there have been issues around breeding licences and the on-going monitoring of this legislation should it pass can ask the cabinet secretary for her views on on future recording of statistics around dogs? Well I mean I'm I'm kind of hoping across a broader range of animal welfare issues that we are going to be able to take things forward the statistics around dogs specifically in purpose of this I mean I'm not quite sure statistically how we would construct a set of stats that gave us the very particular kind of information that we're looking at here or trying to look at here but we will go away and have a have a think about that have a think about whether or not there is a better way to count dogs heads or tails and try and establish what the what a more accurate picture is going to be. I don't think we will ever have an entirely accurate picture. We know dogs are imported from all over the place not just from south of the border and we can see if it's possible to refine further some of the information that we've got in terms of numbers and I'll let the committee know if we think that there is a way to do that there may not be in which case I will let the committee know either way. Thank you very much. Just before I let Dave Stewart in, the reference to microchipping brought something back to mind. I think we heard an assertion that the pain felt by a puppy might be equated to that involved in the process of microchipping and it was also suggested that if a microchip was inserted quite close to a nerve that could actually be quite a bit more painful. I just wonder perhaps if Andrew Rose could comment upon that evidence. My experience in practice predates common microchipping so I can't comment first hand but I think it's unlikely that generally microchipping causes significant pain and my personal opinion would be that shortening a tail of a puppy is going to be more painful than putting a needle in to inject a microchip. There may well be exceptions as we heard. David Stewart. Thank you, convener. Cabinet Secretary, could I return to the types of evidence that you will ask vets to determine to find if a dog is liable to be a working dog? But just before I ask you to answer that, this morning, by a happy coincidence, I received an email from a working vet in my patch in the Highlands and Islands and if I could just briefly quote, convener, his comment on this and he said, and I'm quoting, for practising vets, there's also concerns as how any amendment to legislation could be enforced and evidence suggests that it's impossible to assess the suitability of a dog for a working role at five days old or less. I called them to older in 2007 and colleagues across the border have raised concerns as how the current exemption regulation in England leaned room for abuse in terms of providing in concrete terms the working function of the puppy. This could result in many dogs unnecessarily undergoing this painful procedure despite the fact that they will not go on to fulfil a working function in later life. How would you respond to this working vet's assessment of your plan legislation? Well, I've already conceded that at three to five days old it's probably almost impossible to identify which puppies in a litter are going to be effective working dogs in their adult lives, but I've indicated, of course, that you can't wait until they're mature or you could be detailed shortening when they're a lot older, but I presume that's a much more traumatic experience if a puppy is six to nine months old when you do that as opposed to three to five days old. What we are proposing does not mean that only puppies who then become to go on working dogs will have their tails shortened. That's why we've talked about breeds rather than working dogs per se, but it's also why we want to leave that to veterinary judgment. I can't speak in regards to the individual vet there. That may be a vet who makes a decision that he or she is not going to do this, which will be something that they're perfectly entitled to do, but what we have said is that vets will be looking at the history of the breeder, that they're dealing with, that they'll be looking at the people that are bringing the dog, the gamekeepers, those with shooting licences, those who are actively involved in hunting, if somebody rocks up from a suburb in Aberdeen with a dog that wants its tails shortened, I could imagine that a vet may be somewhat sceptical as to the likelihood that that's going to go on to be a working dog, but dogs that are brought in by either recognised breeders or by those who are actively involved already in the activities that involve working dogs will be viewed differently by vets, and it will be a matter for individual vets and individual circumstances to make these decisions. I'll send on the email to you and welcome your comments because I appreciate that you can't necessarily answer this cold. My final question is about enforcement. You mentioned the Aberdeen example. Let's just take a hypothetical situation in the future, that you get evidence that vets are not checking that the animal is likely to be involved with used for working connection with the lawful shooting of animals. Who would then be the inspector of this? Would it be the vets professional association? Would it be some new organisation that you're setting up? Who's going to inspect it? The old story is that we need to check who's guarding the guards in any legislation, don't we? What's your inspection regime going to be? To anticipate setting up a specific body of inspectors to deal with this particular issue, we don't do that with GPs or any other clinical kind of thing, so I didn't suppose we'd be doing it for vets in respect of this. We are relying on veterinary surgeons to have a proper professional attitude towards that. If there was repeated reporting of, if you like, a rogue practice or a rogue vet out there, then it would be a matter for the professional body to deal with rather than the Government. Obviously, just for record, clearly along with the cabinet secretary, I understand that we have a very professional group of vets across Scotland and I wouldn't expect it to be an issue, but any legislation requires teeth as well, so there's not going to be any new body that you would require the professional association of vets to take any enforcement action if vets were breaching this legislation. I would expect that it would be a professional matter for the veterinary association if it felt that vets were doing unnecessary tail-shortening on, and let's be honest, it would have to be on breeds that weren't working breeds. That would become something of an issue. It would obviously also be a technical offence under the Animal Health and Welfare Scotland at 2006, which can be enforced by SSPCA inspectors or by local authority, so that would be a technical offence. However, as we've heard, almost certainly the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons would want to take action if they had cases reporting that vets were docking otherwise in accordance with the legislation. Do you remind the committee what the sanctions are under that legislation, if there's a breach of that previous legislation? I should maybe refer to a lawyer. Sorry, I'm just making sure that, due to the prior knowledge, our current today's decisions are quiet. If the procedure did not accord with the terms of the proposed exemption, it would amount to the offence of mutilation under section 20 of the 2006 act, so that would be a criminal offence. I can check exactly what the level of penalty would be. Just when you're looking after my unfair comment there, I take it that the SSPCA would still have a role as it has in general animal welfare when it comes to this legislation. For example, if an rape constituent in Highlands and Islands referred a case of a vet not looking into whether an animal is likely to use for work in connection with the lawful shooting of animals, they could refer that to the SSPCA, who could look at the 2006 legislation in terms of any potential breach. Is that my correct understanding of the law? Yes, that's correct. The penalties for offences for an offence under section 20—a person who commits an offence under section 20—is liable and summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding £20,000 or both. Potentially, then, if it was a vet, it could be subject to professional mis-contact under the professional association of vets and any criminal action under the 2006 legislation. Richard Lyle is looking up section 20. Can you confirm to me that, under the act, it's also an offence to take a protected animal from Scotland to a different regime for the purpose of having its tail docked in another country? We've had a discussion about people in Scotland who are taking animals down to—I talked about people going south to buy animals to bring them in. I didn't say you said it. It's been discussed previously that people take their animals to England to get them tail docked if they do early breaking the law. In the context of that, it sounds very much like it. Yes, yes. That's great. I didn't apologize. Apology, if you think I was meaning you, I wasn't. People going south to buy dogs and bring them back as opposed to taking their own dogs? We were talking previously that people have to physically take them from Scotland to England. The other thing that's happening is that people might take the pregnant bitch into England to give birth, and then they can legally have the puppies docked in England. That is a practice that we've anecdotally referred to. I just want you to clarify. I don't want to make a big issue out of it. Although she may have covered my next question in your opening statement, the committee last week was told that a combination of breeds element and the regulation could provide a huge loophole. What is your response to that? We've narrowed down as far as we think is reasonably practicable. I'm not quite sure what loophole is being discussed in respect of that. As I said, south of the border, terriers are included in the exemption, and we've deliberately excluded terriers from the situation in Scotland. I think that there was some conversation about mixed breeds, but the mixed breeds would be within the hunt point retriever and spaniel general breeds, rather than being bred from outside those two breeds. We have got that down as far as we can in terms of actual breeds, and I'm not clear. Other than the loophole about there might be some dogs that end up as pets having their tails shortened. Other than that, I'm not quite sure what the loophole would be. How would you think vets would be certain that the breed that they are presenting is being presented with for docking is covered by the regulation? I would seriously genuinely hope that a vet can tell when a spaniel is in front of me—has to be said. I'm not sure I'm quite so confident on hunt point retrievers, but I would definitely know a spaniel when I saw it, and I would assume a vet did as well. I would hope that a vet did as well. I would defer to my veterinary colleague here, but I'm guessing that's fine. Again, I think that's a sickly matter of professionalism, and if you're presented with some weird cross and you weren't sure if it's a pointer or not, then you shouldn't be docking it, because that would be your professional duty. Again, that's not the fact. I used to have a Yorkshire terrier, but different breeds and breeders are cross breeding. Is there any scope for any dubiety? I know what a spaniel is. If there was any scope for any dubiety, then a professional vet would be asking questions about the ancestry of the dog, and if they didn't get reasonable answers, then, clearly, the situation is such that they would have to say no. Yes, I accept that there are lots of cross breeds appearing, although vets are becoming quite familiar with the more popular cross breeds. In the case that we've identified just a few moments ago, you would be quite confident, I presume, that they were taking every care in this matter. If members have completed the questions that they wish to ask, I propose that we move to agenda item 4, which is consideration of motion S5M-05754, that the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee recommends that the prohibited procedures on protected animals exemptions at Scotland amendment regulations 2017 draft be approved. I invite the cabinet secretary to speak and move the motion. I should say to members that procedurally this section can last up to 19 minutes, and it should be noted that Government officials cannot take part in this part of the meeting. Refer to the comments that I've already made, convener, and I move that the draft prohibited procedures on protected animals exemptions Scotland amendment regulations 2017 be approved. I would now invite members to make any contribution that they wish to make. Mark Ruskell Thank you, convener. I dealt with the animal health and welfare bill in the second session of this Parliament. The issue of tail docking and the issue of potential exemptions for working dogs was given very thorough scrutiny at that point. We didn't agree to that, and Parliament didn't agree to an exemption. That was on the basis of the veterinary evidence that was presented to us. I don't feel anything's changed. I'm not being presented a robust scientific case for bringing in this exemption at this point. I believe what we've had in front of us has been deeply unscientific. It consists of one study that was a self-selecting study through the pages of country sports magazines. We have another study that's based on a wider population of dogs, which doesn't distinguish working dogs. We have a third study that wasn't even commissioned and didn't even take place. This is 10 years after the exemption, sorry, after tail docking was banned in Scotland. We just don't have the scientific evidence on this from an animal welfare point of view, I believe, to allow this to pass. None of the studies have looked at the wider causes of tail injuries. They haven't looked at kenneling. None of the studies have looked at the wider potential behavioural impacts of removing tails from puppies. Again, we've got nothing to compare the costs and benefits. As a result, if you look at every single veterinary body in this country, not a single one is backing this legislation, this change, this exemption. You have to ask the question why that is. In England, exemptions were brought in, but they're full of loopholes. Essentially, the Scottish Government wants to mirror that situation here. It wants to weaken the progressive legislation that we passed in session to match the unworkable exemptions that exist in England and Wales. I don't think that it stacks up, and I think that the evidence, yet more evidence, and the estimates that we've heard today about the number of puppies' tails that would have to be docks under five days old to prevent a tail amputation in a working dog, just doesn't stack up. I don't believe that the pain and the injury that's inflicted in a puppy at that age is 80 times less than an injury that causes amputation in an adult dog. For all those reasons, I can't see a robust scientific way to back the proposed legislation, and I'll certainly be voting against it. Claudia Beamish Thank you, convener. Cabinet Secretary, I'll also be voting against this exemption regulation today. In my view, some of the research hasn't been done that needed to be done over a 10-year period. Some of it isn't clear, and some parts of it are, in my view, too speculative in some areas for me to be able to support the amendment. I highlight the issue of there being no research into kennalling and into alternatives, no actual scientific research into the alternatives to docking, although we've heard from Andrew Vars today on some of that aspect of it. Also, in my view, Andrew Vars' evidence had some maybes in it in relation to the numbers of spaniels, and there were some extrapolations to receive some evidence from one study and then link it to another study, which made it, in my view, quite unclear and uncertain. There are also concerns that I have about the impact on behaviour and communication after docking, because, as we know or as I know anyway—and this is just purely from my own perspective—Dog's Tale tells us a lot, and we don't know there isn't, again, research into this. I don't know how that research indeed could be done. Difficulties in assessing pain in puppies is also a big question mark. I have to say today that, in terms of animal welfare, I am not convinced by the evidence to committee that docking is a proportionate response and that there is enough research as we stand today, so I will have to vote against that. As well as the written evidence and oral evidence, I have also looked into this a little bit as well, and I have spoken to vets directly. As someone who has participated in amputation of limbs and humans, I think that there is a proportional response to avoid future injury by allowing the docking of puppies' tails. I think that it would seem appropriate to allow the vets in rural practices to know the breeders and to know the people involved in the working dog businesses that they will be quite, I guess, appropriate as the people who will make the determination as to what will be appropriate. My additional concern was about hunt point retrievers, which is quite a big breed, but I found out at last time that we took evidence that the HPRs are not just hunters or pointers or retrievers, they are becoming more mixed in the skill required for those dogs, so that would make it seem appropriate to include the hunt point retriever breeds, but, again, if it was a pointer that was proposed to have its tail docked, those dogs, according to their breed, their courage of their tail is horizontal so that it does not go into undergrowth. I think that I would be quite supportive in allowing the professional vets to help to support that. I am somewhat disappointed with the lack of joined-up evidence that the committee has received, given the time that it has been available to gather information, and that there is already an exemption present in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, on balance, I believe that the preventative measure of tail shortening to reduce the widely accepted extreme pain that tail damage can cause in later life, I am supportive of the Government's motion. I, to start with the position that we have a problem of future pain in adult working dogs, there is tail damage, and the question is what we do about that. I would echo Mark's points about being disappointed with evidence, but on both sides, in the past 10 years, there have been opportunities for both sides to make a case. I was really disappointed two weeks ago in asking those who were against tail docking about alternative solutions, in light of the fact that there is future damage in adult working dogs and there weren't those solutions in place. From an animal welfare point of view, for me, it comes down to that pain is a puppy versus pain as an adult. With it happening to an extent in England already, I think that there are loopholes that are being used at the moment, and it would be far better to have a more proportional response to target a more limited population in Scotland. Lastly, I want to finish off with the point that, although evidence is critical in that, having spoken at length anecdotally within my constituency, I recognise that there is a problem with adult working dogs, and at the moment we do not have a solution to that pain. Angus MacDonald I think that the salient point in all of this is that, if tail shortening is to go ahead, those animals would be up to 20 times less likely to suffer prolonged injury in later life, as we have heard on numerous occasions. Another salient point for me is in the letter of study, which tells us that over one in two spaniels and over one in three salient point retrievers, with full-length tails, sustained one or more injuries in one season. Therefore, I believe that the case has been made by the Government, and I will be supporting the legislation. Do any other members wish to contribute? No? From my perspective, I see that this is a preventative move aimed at avoiding significant painful experiences in later life, and it is targeted at those dogs that are at risk. I understand the concerns of some animal welfare organisations.  Are we saying that we know there is an issue there, but so be it? Like Kate Forbes, I must admit the evidence that we got in person the other week to the committee from both sides of the argument was not to persuade them in either direction, but the subsequent written submission from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, which was backed by a variety and a sizable number of knowledgeable rural vets, convinces me. Although I do feel that, as we have touched on earlier, there is a need if this is passed for some work to be done to ensure that vets have a clear understanding of the exemption and are competent and possess the skillset that is required for the practice to be carried out, so I, too, will be supporting that. Does any other member wish to make a contribution? No? In that case, I invite the cabinet secretary to wind up. I do not think that there is really anything that I want to add to what has already been done to remind everybody that we have deliberately used the language of tail shortening, because this is not a return to tail docking even in the very limited circumstances that we are proposing the exemption. A removal of one third of the tail still leaves an expressive tail, and I believe that some of the concerns, as much as I understand the emotional response to it, are very emotional. The problem is that we have an issue among us—a relatively small population in comparison to total dogs in Scotland—who are being used for a very particular working experience and need better protection than they are getting at the moment. I therefore put the question on the motion. The question is that motion S5M-057504, in the name of Roseanna Cunningham, be approved. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. I ask members who are in favour to raise their hands, those who are against any abstentions. The result is seven votes in favour, three votes against and no abstentions. The committee's report will confirm the outcome of the debate. If members are content to delegate the signing off of the report to the convener, you are indeed thank you. The motion has been agreed to. Cabinet Secretary, thank you for the time of you and your officials. At its next meeting on 20 June, the committee will hold an evidence session with stakeholders to explore waste generation and disposal in Scotland. We will also consider subordinate legislation on the environmental impact assessment, miscellaneous amendment Scotland regulations 2017, SSI 2017-168.