O'r eu ceuxf y first item o busnes i gael i softly a'r first item i gael i'r private item ond hefyd. Gael oedd yn digwydd. We agree. Ieithio i gael i busnes i gael i'r first item i gael i gael i gael i gael i'r the Hunting with Dogs Scotland Bill, and I welcome to the meeting our panel who will focus on prosecution and policing perspectives. We have Michael Clancy, OBE, director of law reform, the Law Society of Scotland. William Telford, the detective sergeant from Police Scotland. Sarah Shaw, principal procurator, fiscal deputy, crown office and procurator, fiscal services. Robbie Kernehan, director of green economy from nature scot. We will take questions until around about 11 o'clock and I will kick off this morning. We have heard from witnesses the difficulties they have experienced or perceived around investigating and prosecuting alleged offences under the 2002 act, and whether the amended offences in section 1 and 2 will provide greater clarity and ease if those sections are included in the bill. Can you give us your overview of whether it is going to make things clearer and easier to enforce? I will kick off with William and then Sarah. I think that there is an improvement on the current legislation, the protection of wild mammals act. A big thing for us is the terminology and we think that there is probably still an opportunity to amend the terminology in the bill to make offences easier to enforce. Deliberates being removed from the bill, so that is welcomed, because I think that that did confuse matters. However, what is a fairly standard excuse, for example, for hair coursing is that the offenders will claim that they would just let their dog off for exercise or to do the toilet and it is just chased the hair off its own free will out with their control. We can find that difficult to disprove that. Where Police Scotland thinks that there might be a benefit is the inclusion of the term willfully, ableak intentionally or recklessly allowed their dog to do this, to sort of negate against those excuses. Good morning. As William has already mentioned, the bill certainly seeks to clarify the concerns previously expressed around the language in the current legislation, as embodied in Lord Bonomi's report and expressed by other organisations. There seems to be greater clarity of language and, importantly, consistency in the expressions used in the bill. Overall, it appears to be an improved position in the current bill. As has already been mentioned, the word deliberately has been removed, which perhaps adds some clarity to the bill under section 1. There are additional matters, such as the definition of cover. I note that some of the definitions remain the same and some terms are not defined such as to search for stock and to flush from cover. I assume that is because it was considered that it was not necessary to define those terms. Michael Cancy, one of the reasons for bringing the bill forward is to close loopholes. Do you think that it goes far enough? Good morning, convener. Good morning, everyone. That is an interesting question, and the proof will be in the eating of this pudding. Closing loopholes depends on what you mean by a loophole. That might be one person's perspective of a perfectly respectable defence. I think that we were concerned in terms of changing the definition about the use of the phrase using a dog. As you will see from section 1.4, section 1.4 tells us about a person using a dog when the hunting of a wild animal by that person involves the use of a dog, even if the dog is not under the person's control or direction. If there is a question about who is responsible for the use of the dog—I am not even entirely sure that one is using a dog when hunting—I reflect on the term in the 2002 act, which was hunting with a dog. There are issues about what that actually means. Then, of course, when the dog is not under that person's control or direction, one might say that it would be an easy defence to raise that I was not in control of the dog when it took off and, as we have heard earlier, chased a hare. That might be a perfectly feasible defence, but some others might think of that as being a loophole. Rachael Hamilton has a supplementary question. It is a point that Mr Telford made about some of the changes within the bill in terms of deliberate. How would you envisage that, because Lord Bonomy said last week that the bill is clear and simpler and we should avoid unduly complicating it? I am just wondering how changing the word or extending the potential scope in the bill would affect ordinary dog walkers. I think that there is a differentiation that could be factored in for those people who are here-coursing and those average dog walkers who have taken reasonable steps to keep their dogs under control. If there was the inclusion of reckless, we would have to define that. For example, hare-coursers will typically set themselves up in a way to find a hare, so they will, for example, line up along a field with the dogs and then walk the dogs until they find it. The hare essentially has nowhere to go, but it is flushed out essentially. That could be factored in. That is something that an average dog walker is not going to do. I would say that act in itself is reckless. We might not be able to prove that they are deliberately here-coursing, but that very act is reckless and is not something that an average dog walker would do. I am quite concerned about that, because I have seen hare-coursers and they had scarpered before anybody got there. That means that nobody had seen them. It was pitch black, they had torches. That is the problem with hare-coursing, which is that the police cannot catch these people because they are fleet of foot. If you are describing that scenario that they have gone before, even if a person was walking a dog at night, which is not necessarily going to be the case in the middle of nowhere, it is still that this bill needs to be very clear with regards to protecting ordinary dog walkers. How many occasions will you and your colleagues turn up to a reported incident of hare-coursing or whatever and have to stop and say what are the chances of that leading to a prosecution?  How often does that happen and do you think that the times that will happen will be reduced because the law is clearer and when you take the case to the procreator there is a more likely chance that that will be progressed? I think that, under the bill as it currently is, there will be greater opportunity to get arrests and potentially convictions. The inclusion of rabbits in the definition of mammal will aid that because, to an extent, that will negate against the excuse of hare-coursers that they were hunting rabbits—a false excuse, if that is the case. More often than not, a hare-coursing incident will be reported to us and nobody will be arrested. That is not just time to problems with the current legislation. First and foremost, it is tracing the people involved quite often by the time we find them that they have gone. For example, over the past month there has been seven suspected hare-coursing incidents reported to police. Three of those crimes have been recorded for the other four we did not have sufficient evidence to say that a crime was occurring. It is one thing saying that there are so many recorded crimes for hare-coursing, but there are potentially lots and lots more incidents that we cannot definitively say was a hare-coursing and recorded as such. However, it is certainly a prevalent crime type. Good morning, folks. I am possibly going to have to pardon the pun-takers in the rabbit hole here. I would be right in thinking, and I certainly know from my own experience that this is the case, that hare-coursers have a particular type of dog. Somebody walking a puddle is highly unlikely to be hare-coursing, but somebody with a larcher or a greyhound is far more likely that the bill needs to specify a particular type of dog or types of dog that would ordinarily be used in hare-coursing. That would certainly make enforcement more straightforward for the police. I would say that there is a select number of dogs that are used for it, as you say, so I think that that would make it more straightforward for police to enforce. From a legislator's point of view, where do you draw the line? A collie crossed with a greyhound could make a good hunt dog. Exactly, yes. There would be challenges. As I said, I am taking us down a rabbit hole there. You have covered some of those issues, but it was just in terms of some of the criticisms to Detective Sergeant that the police had made of the old 2002 act. One of the criticisms was the number and complexity of the exceptions to the offence of the deliberately hunting. I do not know if you can say any more about that, or whether the number of exceptions was itself a problem that this bill rectifies in any way. Yes, I think that the exceptions in this bill—there are not that many of them, but there are only three, and they are pretty clear and straightforward. So I do not think that there is any ambiguity with them. I think that that is an improvement. I wonder if the Law Society has a view on that, finally. I think that the exceptions are quite clear. Some of them replicate provisions that you see in the 2002 act, but I was just thinking to myself at the point that Rachel Hamilton raised about innocent dog walkers. May I just say in passing that people are not criminals until they are convicted of an offence. There may be suspected criminals or alleged criminals, but they are not actually criminals until they are convicted.  One could imagine creating a statutory defence as there are already in the bill statutory defences that revolve around the exceptions. You could have a statutory defence for a person who is walking one of the dogs that the convener or one of the members has identified as not being the kind of dog that is chasing after her or not being in the situation where they are doing anything other than simply walking their own domestic dog for the purposes of exercising the animal. Generally speaking about the exceptions, I think that they fit the bill. I have a point to raise on the environmental exception if I am allowed to proceed on that basis. You may have questions for that later. I do not want to hold up the committee at this point if this is not appropriate. We are probably going to come on to that a little bit later. Alice, do you have any further questions on the wider question of defences? Well, some of the… Moving on to the issue of rabbits, I think that a number of people have raised the issue of the accidental use of a dog, not use of, but a dog chasing of its own volition of a rabbit. I will not pursue that one too much further other than to ask whether people have a view on the inclusion of rabbits under the definition of wild animal and whether people are content in that case that the bill still allows for adequate pest control. Again, if I can perhaps go to William Telford first and ask if you are content that the bill allows you to make that distinction. Yeah, I think that from police Scotland's perspective we do welcome the inclusion of rabbits, as I said, would negate to an extent against the excuse that the dogs were hunting rabbits rather than heres. And perhaps if anyone else wants to come in on that, Sarah Shaw? I think that it's a useful inclusion in the bill. It permits prosecution under an equivalent section 1 in the bill. Currently, if COPFS receives a report of alleged hair coursing and it turns out to be a rabbit that was involved, we do have the potential of raising proceedings under section 11G of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. That's not to say that would be appropriate or possible in every scenario where rabbits are mentioned, but in appropriate cases that is an option currently open to us. The benefit of raising a prosecution under section 1 of the bill in respect of a rabbit or rabbits would be the penalties available in this bill, obviously, that they add to what's currently in the 2002 act. If I may convener, from another perspective, I could ask Robbie Kernahan from NatureScot again whether this distinction about misuse of the law, as it were, on hair coursing and the distinction that's to be made between that and legitimate pest control of rabbits, again, if that distinction is clear enough or workable enough in the new bill, does the bill allow for adequate pest control? Good morning, everybody. Nice to see you. My starting point is to welcome the policy and tension behind the bill. What we see in NatureScot is clarity on purpose and tightening up on removal of any of those loopholes. We've fixed on to better protect welfare and only a good thing from our perspective, now ultimately, hopefully, leading to better enforcement of the law. In answer to your question, Alasdair, I don't think there's anything in here that prevents effective control. For a variety of purposes, and we can come on to those exceptions in due course, but there's nothing in here that we think would actually prevent legitimate wildlife management control from taking place effectively. Thank you. Arrianne Burgess has got supplementary on offences, but I could ask you to also ask your question in the next section on exemptions, please. Thank you, convener. Thanks, panel. Good morning. I'm sorry that I can't be there in person today, and I really appreciate you all coming to add your perspective to this issue. I wanted to pick up on a statement in the written evidence from the National Working Territory Federation, which I raised with Barry Wade from the organisation a couple of weeks ago. Their evidence states that it is commonplace on a shoot day to use more than two dogs while flushing game from cover. We do not believe that the intention of the bill is to restrict control or interfere with normal shooting practices. Of course, the bill restricts the number of dogs to two for game shooting and one for flushing game. When I questioned Barry on that, he admitted that you might be using three spaniels to flush ground game. If part of that ground game is rabbits and if rabbits are part of the act, you are committing an offence. I would like to ask Michael and then Sarah, if you believe that this act, as worded, will indeed restrict so-called normal shooting practices so that flushing to guns by using more than two dogs, whether you are flushing rabbits, foxes or other wild mammals, will indeed be a prosecutable offence. I will start with Michael. Your question is yes. I think that the bill is quite clear about that that flushing with one dog and hunting with two is what is contained in the bill. I do not see that that is unclear in any way. On the face of the bill, it is clear when an offence is being committed and when hunting with dogs falls within an exception. As to how that exactly plays out in practice, it is difficult to say. Obviously, each case turns on its own facts and circumstances and how the law can be applied in each individual case. I cannot comment on that, but on the face of the bill, the offences and the exceptions appear to be relatively clear compared to the current legislation. Thank you for that response. I am going to move on now to theme 2, which is exceptions. That is exceptions in section 3, 5, 6 and 7. Last week, chief superintendent Mike Flynn from the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals stated that the purpose of the majority of the bill is to close loopholes in the act. He related that, under the protection of wild mammals act, every badger-bater said that they were after foxes and every hare courses said that they were after rabbits. In order to prevent the situation continuing, chief superintendent Flynn stated that many terms have to be defined better and that the licensing provisions have to be specified and fleshed out if natureScot is to have a reasonable chance of doing a good licensing job. I would like to ask the panel if you agree with the statement and if you believe that the bill will close loopholes and remove ambiguities, despite its many exceptions and its licensing scheme. I will start with Michael again and then go around everybody. The exceptions that are in the bill have had manifestations in many respects in previous legislation and, of course, in the 2002 act, although not in the schematic way in which they are approached in the bill. That lends a significant clarity to the bill. It allows people to understand quite clearly what the exceptions are. It might be the case that, if the Government were to publish a sort of easy read guidance alongside the bill, that that would be an additional help. I think that that probably is our principal point on that. There are issues about some of the exceptions when one gets into them. If I were to highlight one that I thought was particularly problematic, which is the exception for environmental benefit. In particular, I would like to focus on the definition of invasive non-native species, which means a species that is included in the Scottish list of species of special concern. That is defined as meaning the list of species in the annex to the commission implementing regulation 2016-11-41, which has actually been implemented into our law by a piece of Brexit legislation, which allows for the annex to be adopted from being the union list of species to the Scottish list of species. I do not know if any members of the committee have looked at it, but it is not entirely clear, to be honest, when looking at it first of all, because it is a list that includes not only mammals but also fish and plants. I think that we could do better to explain what issues we are talking about. Certainly, having to troll through all the Latin classification names, it was quite a chore. I did that yesterday, which shows you how much time I had in my hands to do those things. We are trying to track down what is a corvus splendis. We all know that it is a splendid crow, but what is it doing there? Things like that are Reeves muntjac. I am not entirely sure that many people would have the time, energy or inclination to examine that fully. That is an exact example of what I would say would be a point where the apparent clarity of the bill falls down by adhering to the EU exit regulation, which is not pro-fair. That is the invasive non-native species EU exit Scotland amendment regulations 2020. On the point of licensing, NatureScot would be an easier person to ask about that. It seems that NatureScot does a lot of licensing, and I am sure that they are well skilled in identifying how to licence and the questions to ask to make sure that the licence fits with the law. If you do not mind, I would divert my attention on that to NatureScot for more authority to answer. Thank you, Michael, for your response on that and for flagging up the species list to us. That does sound a bit of an onerous task. Let us come to Robbie Kelman around my question mate. I do not know if I would need to kind of recap it, but it was picking up on chief superintendents Flynn's statements that many terms have to be defined better and that the licensing provisions have to be specified and fleshed out if NatureScot is to have a reasonable chance of doing a good licensing job. It is more about the clarity in the exceptions. I understand the point that Mike Flynn was making last week. There are two aspects to this. One is the exceptions within the bill. The more exceptions there are, the less exceptional they become. We appreciate the clarity that they provide, but recognising that there is still quite a lot of work to do to translate some of the legislation into clear guidance for practitioners. That is key to all of that. The second point about the licensing regime, which flows from some of those exceptions, is key part to making sure that the bill is practicable and enabled. I have heard quite a lot of the concerns from practitioners and others about the need to get that licensing regime right. By way of introduction, we issue between four and a half thousand to five thousand individual species licences on annual basis. We have a lot of experience in being able to provide an enabling, targeted, risk-based approach to licensing in line with the principles of better regulation and to try to do that in a way that is proportionate and transparent. Where we would pick this up is picking up on some of the ways of working that we have been advocating for a long time in relation to wildlife management that we work together. We share the responsibility to come up with a licensing regime that is going to be accessible, fair, clear and practicable. More importantly, coming back down to the policy intention behind the bill, is that it is consistent and enforceable. We will work through that as need be. We might come in to discuss this in a bit more detail this morning about some of the detail therein about how prescriptive or not we want those licences to be, because there is a balance to be struck between providing that clarity and prescription, at the same time as ensuring that we have flexibility in a licensing regime that can allow effective control of mammals where they are causing specific problems to public interest. Thank you for that. It is very helpful. Is anybody else that wants to come in on this? Just from the Police Scotland perspective, in terms of the definitions, we did not really have any major issues within the exceptions. Just one point is that the term reasonable steps is used regularly. For example, in section 3C, it states, reasonable steps are taken to ensure that any dog used in the activity does not join with others to form a pack of more than two dogs. We just felt that the term reasonable steps is a wee bit subjective, so we would welcome, perhaps, either an amendment to that or some clarity via a supplementary document to sort of detail what reasonable steps may be. On the licensing scheme, Police Scotland would welcome being involved in that scheme being drawn up just so that we can offer opinion on what would make the scheme practical in terms of enforcement. Thanks for that. That is actually really great when you get specific like that. Thanks very much. I just want to come in on the environmental benefits exceptions. Michael You touched on the specifics of the species list, but some witnesses and written evidence—notably RSPB and Scottish Badgers—have questioned the need for the exception and licences in connection to environmental benefit. The League Against Cruel Sports highlighted the concern, shared by many, that the exception will be exploited and used as a smokescreen for traditional hunting with dogs. However, if the exception and licensing scheme will be retained, do you believe that those sections would benefit from clearer definitions of terms such as significant or long-term environmental benefit and from guidance on how to determine whether each case meets those criteria? Maybe Sarah, I will come to you on that first. I do not think that I have a particular view to offer on the definition of terms such as significant or long-term environmental benefit. They seem fairly clear on the face of them. I think that any difficulty in applying that in practice will come to light in a practical scenario when a case is before a court, and someone is seeking to rely on that exception. From the prosecutor's perspective, I do not think that I have anything to offer in terms of taking issue with there being no particular definition in the bill. The terms that I have highlighted elsewhere are used frequently. I am not suggesting that they need to be defined. I have just observed that they are not currently defined, and that includes search for stock and flush retrieve. There have been issues in some prosecutions around the definitions of terms in the act, so I am simply highlighting that there are still terminology that is repeated frequently throughout the bill that is not given a definition, and that is perhaps a point to be considered. Michael Clancy, I am very quickly going to come back to you on a point if that is okay, and it is taking a wee step back. We have moved forward a wee bit quicker than I was thinking. In part 1, one of the bills says that a person commits a fence if the person hunts a wild animal using a dog. It is coming back. I just wanted your clarification from the Law Society's point of view on the clarity on a person walking a dog and a person who is using a dog. Do you have a concern about that specification? I think that we have set out in our written submission that we did have a concern about clarification. It might be necessary to improve understanding and consequently enforcement of section 1. The hunting of a wild animal by that person involves the use of a dog. There is clearly a difference between walking a dog and using a dog. As I said earlier, the previous legislation said that it was hunting with a dog. We move into slightly new territory with the physiology of using a dog. I have no doubt that the courts will be able to zero in on that physiology if it causes any difficulty in bringing forward cases. I am conscious of the time, so I want that to be really quick. Let's imagine that William Giles goes out and he finds three guys coming out of a back-off white van with three lurchers who say, yes, we were just walking a dog. Does the court have a discretion to say, no, we find on the probability that you were coarsing hairs? Is that—can you do that? Can the law do that? The responsibility for prosecution is with the Crown Office and Procurate Fiscal Service. The Crown has to prove an offence beyond reasonable doubt, so it's not— Can I suggest, just for time purposes, that this might be a question that Sarah should consider? Michael Russell is absolutely right that the Crown do need to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt with corroborated evidence. We need to prove that there's a crime being committed and be able to prove who's committed that crime, and the crime is defined in this instance by what's in the legislation. The Crown will have to have reference to the wording of the legislation and look at the evidence that's presented in the police report and consider whether the test is met and whether a prosecution can be brought. As to whether the scenario you describe would lend itself to a prosecution, I can't comment on it because I don't have sufficient detail. Possibly, possibly not. There are circumstantial cases where there is a sufficiency of evidence, there are circumstantial cases where there isn't. I don't know if that answers your point or not. What it seems to highlight to me is that we need to try and get something in there that's a bit more robust. Would that be fair?  It's making that definition because there's clearly been, Williamson said that there's a loophole or there's an easy way for somebody to say, I was just out walking my dog, the dog took off chasing a hare, but I know that guys go out lurchers and greyhounds and they do it in a specific way. It's how we make that bit more robust. Without just including rabbits in the legislation, is there another way for us to be able to find a way to make that particular part of the law more robust? That's what I'm trying to get to. There may well be a way to do that. I do agree that there is merit in considering the use of the words intentional or reckless in terms of how this events can be committed. I do think that the inclusion of reckless as well as intentional allows certain scenarios that might present in practice to be brought within the ambit of the offence, which currently may not, if it was left simply as of being intentional. I appreciate the word intentional is not used, but it's implied in the wording of the bill. I might be worth highlighting that Lord Bonomy highlighted in his report that the standard for reckless is high, it's not mere carelessness, so there is a distinction to be made between intentional, reckless and other scenarios that don't quite fall into the ambit of criminal conduct. Okay, that gives us something to think about. Robbie, I'm going to come to you now, if that's okay. Is Nature's Scott content with the exception for environmental bends, but from the perspective of your wildlife management schemes, now you can get a licence for up to two years for environmental benefit, but as the law stands at the moment, you've got 14 days to control a fox that's killing lambs. What is your perspective on that? On the first point in terms of the scope for environmental benefit, I don't think there's really much I will add. For our purposes, when we think about the needs to allow to use dogs for biodiversity benefits, despite some of the clarity that we can continue to present about the need for removal of invasive non-natives and how they are defined, I think the scope of the bill from our point of view is clear and we're quite comfortable with it. In terms of the consistency point about time scales for licensing, then I think my starting point is that it's far easier for us to be consistent both in terms of defining licensable purpose and then the discretion we may have as a regulator to decide what we think the most appropriate licensing period is for any circumstances, but I think again coming back to the policy intention here, the policy intention is to try and restrict these exceptions and again let's be honest, these licenses are delegations that are allowing, they're enabling people to do things which would otherwise be an offence and trying to strike the right balance between prescription and then reducing the likelihood of relying on those licenses versus introducing flexibility is key for us. Okay, but you're comfortable with the exception between environmental and ordinary wildlife management at the moment. We'll come on to licensing in more detail later on, but you're comfortable with it as it stands just now. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. I've got a quick question before we bring Alasdair Allyn in. Many weekends we will see mixed shoots where farmers will invite folk for the rural community in and they'll bring their labradors and they'll hunt and they'll retrieve and they're flushing pheasants or whatever to the gun and that circumstance will often see maybe half a dozen or more handlers, if you like, out enjoying that day quite legally because the vast majority of our country's sports or country's pursuits are still legal. William, it's a question for you. Given that there are some organisations out there who want to stop all shooting as a sport, do you think there's any risk that these mixed shoots, where more than two dogs are used, where maybe five or six are handlers, to flush pheasants, if they flush a fox or flush a rabbit, would that then give doubt to whether their pursuit is legal or otherwise? I suppose that it's difficult and that's where intent would come into it and that might be difficult to differentiate. That opportunity is always going to be there if there's dogs flushing game out legally and they're there and they encounter a kind of mammal and chase it. That risk is there, I suppose, and I don't know if that is necessarily addressed by the bill. That's really concerning because we do have organisations out there who want to stop any sport that involves the killing of an animal, whether that's a pheasant or a rabbit, but you'll know from your experience that if you send labradors or terriers into rough to raise pheasants or whatever, there's a good chance that you will get rabbits or whatever, which will be shot currently, legally, now. Do you think there's a chance that every Saturday there's a mix shoot on a farm that the League of Greens cools sports or one kind or other organisations of that? You're on the phone to say that there's five dogs in that rough they're hunting and they haven't got a licence. Do you think that's another difficulty that we're going to face in the future with this, currently, as the bill stands? It may well happen and I suppose we'll not know until it's introduced. If that was the case, Police Scotland, we're impartial, we would review all the circumstances, including intent, and we would make a decision based upon that. The last thing that we want is law that has to be first tested in the courts and the appeals court. We want laws that are fit for purpose. Can I ask the same question? Is that going to cause a difficulty for you where intent, as I say, it will happen if it's not on a daily basis. Every week we will have people using dogs for game shooting, for pheasants or whatever, which inevitably will cause rabbits and potentially other mammals to come in front of a gun. I think that it just very much depends on the particular facts and circumstances of each scenario as to whether it can be said that the activity falls within one of the exceptions or not, because otherwise it's an offence under the bill. As a prosecutor, we take each case on its own merits. The scenario that you've outlined is a possibility, whether that can be better addressed in the legislation. I don't know, but there's scope for a great area there. Okay, thank you. Very briefly, Jim.  So if they're flushing, does that become an offence if they don't actually chase the rabbit? I think it's really difficult to comment specifically. It would all come down to exactly what had happened, and it would need to be, we would need to look at the evidence and we would need to look at the terms of the bill or the act, assuming it's enforced, and then consider whether an offence has been committed. Okay, thank you. Michael Clancy, if we'd like to come on to that point. I think the bill means it clear that the killing of an animal is not a requirement for hunting. Hunting includes, in particular, searching for and coursing. It doesn't say anything about the subsequent killing, so on that point I think there's no jubiety. On the point of further, the courts have to interpret legislation, but that's what courts are for. Therefore, it's not as if the Parliament or indeed any Parliament has enacted legislation that is not subject to interpretation by the courts. That's part of the process of making sure that the law is enforced. We'd all love our laws to be crystal clear all the time, but the fact is that people are human and humans don't have that all-encompassing knowledge to make everything crystal clear from the start. We have to revisit it to take account of those different circumstances that Sarah Boyle has pointed out. That's helpful. Alasdair Allan has a brief supplementary and exceptions, so we're going to move to licensing. I know that it's been raised a few times about the example of a dog that slips a leaf. It must be tired hearing about this particular dog, but would it be fair to say that the use of the word use in the bill is what deals with some of the question marks about that, in the sense that the intentions of the human rather than the intentions of the dog are what prosecutors would be interested in and that use encompass that clearly. Does the use of the word use, if that's not a tautology, make it clear in this bill that the examples that we have talked about numerous occasions about a dog slipping a leaf are to do with the intentions of the dog, not the intentions of the owner, and therefore prosecution doesn't come into it? Is use an adequate way of dealing with the problem that we've been talking about? I think that the definition is clear, but the challenges still remain in proving that. On the face of it, I think that the bill sets out a clear offence. It's entirely possible that we will encounter difficulty in applying the wording in practice, but I can't comment on whether that will arise or not. There's certainly, as we've already alluded to, a definition of using a dog in subsection 4 of section 1, which is useful. There is a definition of using a dog in the current act, but it's not as specific. I'm correct in saying that it includes hunting with one or more dogs. There is a different approach in the bill. It's more specific as to what using a dog means and seeks to encompass the activity of persons who may not be directly controlling or directing the dogs. There's certainly a broad definition there to encompass a number of participants in any activity. But not the intentions of the dog? No, no. We're now going to move on to focus on licensing and recovery sections 4, 8 and 9. Rachel Hamilton. Okay, before I do that, could I get some clarity maybe in writing from the Crown and Police Scotland with guarding the concern of the term reasonable steps in section 3C, when law bonomy said that the courts would have no trouble with this expression? I wondered why in other parts of law that the courts are unable to manage this expression, which is widely found in statute. I'll move to licensing. Lord Bonomy noted that whether, without licensing, the same difficulties of proof and enforcement would remain. What is your view of the licensing that is set out in the bill in terms of that enforcement and proof? I mean, I think from Police Scotland's perspective, all we could say about what's outlined in the bill is, you know, it seems fair enough. I think really it would be difficult to provide any further comment until we actually saw that the licensing scheme, which will have to be obviously very, very detailed to allow us to be able to enforce breaches of it. So I think that that was probably where our involvement would be more relevant and we would be keen to sort of being involved in drawing that out. But certainly definitions like, you know, area to be defined within the or the area of the licenses to be applied to, you know, something like that, we'd want a really, really clear definition as to what that area was, you know, we're talking about grid references, you know, what we're talking about here. That's the sort of thing for enforcement purposes. We'd need to be really, really, really clear. I mean, that is, to use Michael Clancy's phrase, proof in eating the pudding because, you know, we've heard that there could be issues with a movement of animals between A to B, you know, animals don't see boundaries or marches. And therefore that's where the difficulty lies within the role that NatureScot will play in the licensing. Can I just keep asking you some sort of quickfire questions here? Lord Bonomy also suggested amending the act coupled with the code of practice for hunts and the introduction of monitors. And the code of practice was introduced but not the monitors. And is there any evidence that this approach has worked or indeed, you know, that combination of the approach can work? That's not something I could answer. I don't know at this stage but I can certainly find out and reply to you along with the other details you requested. But surely, since the first act, you've got evidence to suggest that, you know, what has been and given some examples of that in terms of enforcement. So sorry, could you clarify the question? Well, so the code of conduct was introduced. How has enforcement worked so far for Police Scotland? In relation to the code of conduct, I don't know how to find it and get back to you. In England and Wales, proportionately, there have been no more prosecutions than in Scotland and what specific changes within this bill do you see that would make prosecutions easier in terms of the way that the offences and exceptions are defined within the bill? I think the removal of the word deliberate creates less confusion. As I said earlier, the inclusion of rabbits, I think, will negate against hear-coursing or false hear-coursing excuses. I think that that would be the most significant features. The bill may see greater use of firearms in the countryside as land managers try to deal with the predation in the absence of dogs. Is this a concern for you? Is it something that you have considered? Police Scotland will always react to any relevant offences. We have a firearms licensing team, a rural crime team, so if issues do arise, we will deal with them accordingly. There have been firearms in the rural community for 100 years, so the majority of the agricultural community knows how to use them responsibly and legally, so I do not think that there is any undue concern at this stage or evidence to cause any concern. You noted in your written evidence that the bill contains no provision for police powers of arrest and search. Can you explain why the general powers available to Police Scotland and those set out in the schedule to the bill could be a problem? I was just looking for a bit of clarity around that just as there was nothing in there. At the moment, the powers afforded by the protection of wild mammals act and the wildlife and countryside act and other wildlife crime legislation is really effective. It affords us powers of search of persons, which is absolutely key in gaining evidence of offences. Talking about hair coursing, it allows us to take phones to potentially get evidence of phones, footage or so forth. We would hope that the powers afforded in this bill would be similar to the current legislation. Robbie Kenahan was saying that it issues thousands upon thousands of licences per year. In terms of that 14-day licence, it would be interesting to hear in the next part of this questioning how this will play out and what will be required of NatureScot, but in terms of the resource that is required from Police Scotland, has Police Scotland considered that a general licence with conditions and reporting requirements would be a better way of conducting that in terms of the current resources that you have to make any enforcement? There is not something that we have considered, to be honest. I would like to ask Volumet and good morning to the panel. What sort of role would you see Police Scotland having in regards to licensed activities? Would you expect to be notified beforehand that that would be part of the collaboration that you would want to see on that? I do not necessarily think so. Again, that is something that we would perhaps like to discuss when the scheme is being drawn up with NatureScot and so forth. At the moment, we have a close working relationship with NatureScot. As things emerge, we have those discussions. We do not necessarily always need to know exactly what licensing conditions are in relation to ABC. If issues arise, we can contact and we do contact LicensingScot and Likewise that they will discuss that with us. That avenue of conversation is already there anyway, so I do not think that we necessarily need to be overly intrusive. There are elements of trust there in regards to how people would generally be going about their business and conducting those hunts. You probably answered this to Rachel's question, but you touched on the need for collaboration when it comes to policing and prosecution into the licensing. Do you give us any examples of what you would like to see in that? Off the top of my head, the ease of communication and information sharing, which we have already got with the partner agencies, to be honest. That is already there. What I think is key is a licensing scheme that is really detailed and I appreciate the challenges of dogs moving from A to B, so it is not that easy to define areas. For enforcement purposes, we need something that is pretty black and white that is really detailed for us to enforce. We are going to move on to questions relating to NatureScot's position in Jim Fairlie. What is your position as the proposed Licensing Authority, including what resources NatureScot required to fulfil their own, whether that is adequately provided for in the financial memorandum? In previous sessions, people are generally content with NatureScot being the Licensing Authority, because, as you have said, you have issued thousands of them. What there were some concerns with, particularly in the rural pursuit and farming groups, was your staff having the full understanding of the circumstances under which they were trying to manage particular species of wildlife, particularly foxes. As we move on to licensing, it is quite interesting to try and think about how we can balance and manage all of those expectations placed in the past. Again, my starting point is that we have been dealing with species licences to try and prevent serious damage to a range of interests for quite a long time. There is something here about how we try and put together a licensing scheme, which satisfies Lee Scotland's desire for absolute clarity, uncertainty and prescription to work out whether offences have been committed versus the flexibility that practitioners need to be able to make on-site decisions as circumstances arise in a fairly dynamic way. When we talk about how we manage serious damage to livestock from ravens or other protected species, whether issues with badgers or some other protected birds, we have a good track record of that. We are in a good place to continue these conversations once the parliamentary process has concluded and we see the nature of the bill and, therefore, what we have to work with to design a scheme. Please take some reassurance that we will commit to that shared approach working together with all of the relevant parties to try and come up with a licensing regime that is proportionate. I come back to some of our frustrations about the lack of knowledge that we have at the moment and come back to whether we can resource that work. We do not fully understand the demand. We do not really know what the demand for licensing solutions will be. I would hazard a guess that the majority of effective mammalian control and certainly fox control is carried out without the reliance on some of the packs that we have heard and discussed over the past two or three weeks. I would hazard a guess that 90 per cent of fox control is undertaken effectively using shooting both during the day and at night and snaring. I suspect that it is a relatively small proportion of fox control that we are talking about here, but we will not really understand that until we start receiving that demand. At that point, we can begin to continue to evolve the approach about what we think is adaptive and proportionate and get that burden right. In terms of defining damage, for example, a lot of that is in the eye of the business. I will not go into the next question and continue with that one. Robbie, can I just ask you? The Scottish Government has said that they are going to publish guidance. On the back of Jim's question, that is going to be absolutely critical to how the licensing system works. Have you been involved in looking at putting that guidance together up to now? If not, will you be? Have you any idea of when those guidance notes, if you like, will be published before the bill turns into an act? Do you know whether it will be consulted on? In terms of the detail, convener, we have been involved in discussions with Scottish Government colleagues up until this point. As we go through the parliamentary process, it may well be that the licensing regime must evolve in relation to whatever may come by amendment. We will work within the legislative constraints in order to design a licensing scheme that best meets people's expectations. We can only do that in consultation, as we have heard from practitional groups and others, who have got a stake in this. I cannot put a definitive timeline on that at this particular point in time, but I would be happy to come back to you if you would like some more clarity on that. That would certainly be helpful to get an idea of time scales and consultation time scales wherever that would be helpful. One of the points that I was making to you earlier on was about the time scales of a licence, and Rachel alluded to it—the 14 days, as opposed to the two years for environmental. You have got 14 days to deal with a fox. From a practitioner's point of view, a land manager's point of view, a 14-day time scale to try to deal with a predatory fox is too late and too prescriptive from the point of view of, while you are going to wait until the start of killing lambs, you know that it is coming out of a wood, and I could go through all the scenarios, you know the scenarios, too. I do not need to translate them to you again. How do you feel about the licence for particularly fox control? I do not take Rachel's point of view that we would need more guns in the countryside because walked-up packs do that anyway. What is your view on having an extended seasonal licence or an annual licence for specific walked-packs to try to control foxes in particular areas? I think that you know as a licensing authority and as a regulator, and we have actually got quite a lot of discretion to decide how we want to implement a licensing scheme. We can be very specific and tight about that within a specific seasonal window, if that is the direction of travel. That would constrain, I suspect, quite a lot of the flexibility that practitioners currently benefit from. However, my understanding of the policy intention behind the spell is to try and reduce the reliance on the use of more than two dogs as far as we are able. The opposite end of that spectrum is that we can issue a general licence with specific conditions attached to it, which would allow a more flexible approach to something that is quite well-established in common place, but it is quite clearly setting out conditions about how we expect people to operate. There is something in between in terms of a class licence, which people made reference to over the past couple of settings, where we licence a trusted operator to act in accordance in a certain way and report back to us. There is a range of licensing solutions in here that I would not necessarily want to pin my colours to the mast exactly at this particular point. I also like that as a licensing service we are constantly seeking to improve based on evidence and feedback. Whatever we decide to implement by we have a licensing scheme on day 1, when the bill that receives royal consent and we are into licence, I might not necessarily tie us to that approach. I think that we would need to learn as we go. You have also heard from contributors to discussions today that we will need to learn as we go as a licensing authority, because this is new territory for us and we would need to work quite closely with those practitioners' groups to help design something that is going to work for them, but to secure the safeguards in place that we know that the bill is trying to achieve. A lot of the stuff that we have talked about just now has been particularly based around hunting with dogs for foxes. That is where a lot of the controversy has been, but as we have just seen this morning, we are speaking to Sarah and William that it actually goes into other areas. Do you think that the wider review and species licence committed by the Scottish Government and what impact that particular scheme has on that? Yet, as part of the Beat House agreement, there is a commitment to look afresh at how nature Scotland discharges its licensing functions. That is probably because we are regularly tripping up against these types of questions about how transparent we are, about how proportionate we are, about the complexity of operating heavily amended legislation in the wildlife and countryside act, which provides the majority of our licensing functions, is complicated and complex and the licensing tests do not necessarily reflect what is in the protection of adgers act, which is different from the conservation regulations. In the Dearscot act, there are all subtle differences in law about the tests that need to be applied for different purposes and for different species, and that is confusing. As a licensing authority, we will need to be absolutely satisfied that there is a clear licensable purpose, that there is evidence that there is something that we need to allow and that there is no satisfactory alternative. The types of questions that we would be posing to applicants who are suffering damages, what other alternatives have you implemented before we rely on something that would otherwise be an offence? I will pursue that point very quickly. I promise that I will be quick on this. From a previous licensing experience, I have gone through that, proven that the damage effect got the licence and it became very easy there on. We already know that foxes predate lambs during lamenting. I have asked this question already in previous sessions.  There could be a good reason for a licence. Cards on the table, there is no doubt at all that predation of livestock takes place from foxes and we are quite clear of that. There is a licensable purpose, which is why preventing serious damage to livestock is in the bill. The burden of proof to evidence that is part of the discussion that we need to have in putting together a licensing scheme, because we can take a very light touch with that and be quite enabling. Let's be honest. We are wanting to prevent damage rather than necessarily react to damage that has occurred, because that doesn't occur, but a lot of financial loss and trauma for those people suffering it, and we want to be enabling. I think that those are the types of conversations in which we need to be clear with applicants about where the burden of proof lies with them in order to demonstrate clear and an evidential need. I remind members that we have about 15 minutes for a further 10 questions, so that we can keep them nice and succinct. Ariane Burgess I have more questions for you. You started to go through the kind of things that you would ask people to demonstrate if they are applying for a licence. In discussions that I have had with people around the bill, we have a situation in which we are killing foxes to protect lambs year after year without any long-term improvements. There is no reduction in the local fox population and there is no better lamb retention rate. Last week, we heard from one kind on League Against Cruel Sports that they are opposed to licensing schemes because they fear that they will create new loopholes that will allow the continuation of hunting with dogs for sports. However, if a licensing scheme will be retained, I would be interested to hear what you think about and these groups and other organisations have called for this, aligning the licensing scheme with the international principles for ethical wildlife control, so that in order to obtain a licence, applicants would have to demonstrate that they are complying with those principles. What are your thoughts about that? I agree entirely with the principle that we want our licensing. There needs to be some means by which we can monitor and receive feedback in order to continue to refine the licensing regime to ensure that it delivers what it says on the tin. Would nature Scottish sharing licences, at certain times of year, or in a certain way, or using certain methods, address the problem in terms of whether it is damage to livestock, damage to arable and protecting ground-nesting birds? We need to be clear that that licensing regime is effective, so that requires a certain amount of adaptive management to learn by experience. We have that for other species' licensing regimes, where we are continually trying to receive information and improve the process, both from a practitioner point of view but also from a conservation point of view, and certainly from a welfare perspective, which is again an integral part of that. In terms of aligning our approach with the ethical principles, I think that we are fairly well aligned both by the shared approach that we published and worked up in conjunction with other partners. The first point of that is whether we need to modify human behaviour. Those are the types of questions that we ask in a licensing regime. What other or satisfactory alternatives have you explored before relying on something that would otherwise be illegal? Are there any non-lethal methods that you have used? Are there other methods that you have used that might involve killing mammals that do not rely on something that would otherwise be an offence? I have referenced naring and shooting as perfectly legitimate means to allow effective fox control. Please demonstrate to us why they are not effective in your particular circumstances. We are now going to move on to the next section on prohibition on trail hunting. I understand that the trail hunting prohibition has been introduced to take pre-emptive action to prevent trail hunting becoming established here in Scotland. What are your views on whether that will assist policing and prosecution of hunting with dogs? I will roll in my second question. I would be interested to hear your views on the exception to allow the training of dogs to follow an animal-based scent and the implications of that for training dogs such as police dogs. I suppose that making trail hunting illegal would limit the opportunities for those who wanted to undertake illegal fox hunting disguising it as a legal act, but I know that that alone is not necessarily a reason to make trail hunting illegal itself. The evidence does not indicate what little trail hunting there is in Scotland is used as a guise for criminality, although I believe that it is at times in England. In terms of the training of dogs, we did a police Scotland have a bit of concern around that. There is obviously an exemption to allowing dogs to be trained using animal-based scents, providing no more than two dogs are being trained at once. Could I have our dogs in Police Scotland and presumably other emergency services are trained using animal-based scents, and often that is up to six dogs being trained at once? That would potentially create logistical issues for us. We would be keen that there was some sort of exemption that was built in for emergency dogs. Okay, thanks. We will now move on to enforcement, which is part 3 of the bill. Thank you, panel, for coming along. I have a quick question that may require a longer answer. I am just interested to hear about your views on the enforcement powers in the bill and whether they are providing adequate, effective and proportionate powers for policing and prosecution. I think that you have come to William Talford first, please. In terms of powers afforded here, of premises outwith a domestic dwelling house, they are very similar to powers afforded in the protection of the Wild Mammals Act. Where I saw clarification in my call to views was that there does not seem to be any reference to arrest powers of persons or search of persons. We would certainly be keen that I know that there is criticism of the protection of the Wild Mammals Act, but what I will say is that the powers afforded in that legislation are really, really effective, so we would sort of like that full range of powers available in this bill as well. That was one of the thoughts that I was having about consistency with other acts, and then also there's the protection of livestock that's been upgraded in the beginning of this session or the end of the last session as well. So what consistency there is in this act with previous acts? Yes, very much so, and certainly the powers afforded across various wildlife legislation, the protection of badgers act, the life and countryside act, protection of wild mammals act, are very, very consistent, which does kind of make enforcement that bit more straightforward. You know, you're not having to sort of think, well, if I'm using that legislation and I've got those powers, actually there is consistency there and that's a really valuable tool for the wildlife crime officers on the ground who are enforcing it. Thank you very much. Michael Clancy, I know in The Lost Society's written evidence, you've made some comments about perhaps a lack of definition under consent or connivance, and then also I think you questioned around the three-year prosecution window. Is there anything you'd like to add? I don't think so. In fact, when I was looking at the three-year period in preparation for this meeting, I saw that earlier legislation had similar time limits. So I'm going to say that I stand by what the criminal law committee said, but I will raise it with my colleagues and deal with criminal law committee as to whether or not it may be a supplemental letter might be in order through the committee. Okay, thank you. Robbie indicated like to comment, I think, on the previous question. Robbie. Thank you. I was just to come back on that point on trail hunting before we leave it entirely. I think it would be remiss of me not to make it quite clear that use of dogs is an integral part of wildlife management, and from our perspective, we need to ensure that use of dogs is still permissible for some very specific things. It's a condition at the moment for any night shooting licence that we issue for wild deer that the stalker or hunter has a dog available to them for follow-up. In order to enable those provisions, we need to allow dogs to be trained for that purpose. Use of training for dogs is certainly for deer management purposes, and for specialist tracking for dealing with millions of invasive non-natives, it's pretty key for us in order to realise our vision for a nature-rich future, so it's just to make sure that that is on the committee's radar. I know that it is, but it's quite important that we retain the ability to use dogs for those purposes. I wonder if you had any comments with regard to the enforcement sections of the bill? I don't think that I've got anything in particular to add to what William has already said. I'm also aware that there's consistency with the Animal Health and Welfare Scotland Act. I'm aware from discussions with Scottish Government colleagues that there's a consistency of approach even with that piece of legislation, so that's to be welcomed. I was really just to ask on the business of enforcement whether you are content with what the bill now says about the restrictions, potentially for an individual on the keeping of a dog, or did the restrictions on them having a particular horse? I wonder if perhaps Sarah Sean, William Telford, could say anything about that. Sorry, is this in respect of deprivation orders? From the Police Scotland perspective, we just had one suggestion for an addition to the deprivation order, and that is that a person should be permitted to reside in the same house as a dog. That's to negate against the excuse that it's my wife's dog or my son's dog, and that is an excuse that we do encounter. I simply welcome the option to have a court impose a deprivation order following conviction. I think that it's a useful tool to have, obviously sentencing is a matter entirely for the court, but I think it's a really useful option to have available. Finally, a question for Robbie Kernahan. I appreciate that it's not about quite the same subject, but we have heard it put to the committee that there might be an increase in the number of guns in the countryside as a result of this, and I know that you touched on this before, Robbie, but can you say a bit more about your views on whether that's likely or not? Well, again, it's quite difficult to be specific about it without really fully understanding the demand from a licensing perspective, but one of the issues that we regularly deal with is the lack of firearms holders in an agricultural setting whereby we've got an ageing farming population and certainly an ageing crofting population that are maybe not as active in managing wildlife with firearms as they perhaps were. That is something that, in terms of capacity to deal with some of the issues that this bill is looking at, we are very aware of. In managing wildlife conflicts, we still need to have a strong base of skilled practitioners who know what they're doing for a variety of wildlife management reasons. Thank you. I've got a question specifically for the Law Society. You mentioned in your evidence about the ancillary powers in part 4 of the bill, and the regulations under the section may make different provisions for different purposes and modify any enactment, including this act. Even I, as someone who's not a lawyer, would suggest that that was a very, very wide power which could potentially allow ministers to make modifications to that without parliamentary scrutiny. Can you comment further on that, Michael Clancy, please? Yes, we have a general on-going concern about ministerial powers to make regulations and regulations under section 21 of the bill will make different provisions for different purposes. That's a pretty ordinary provision, but modifying any enactment, including this act, seems quite broad. I think that although that is contained to regulations under that section, that is changes that are incidental, supplementary, consequential, transitional or transitory, or saving provisions, nevertheless it's very broad. We would suggest that, at the very least, Scottish ministers should be required to consult upon such regulations with such persons as they consider appropriate. Thank you very much, and Rachel Hamilton. Okay, so two quick questions. On the back of Alastair Allen's, what facilities and storage do the police have to seize a horse or store a quad bike and who pays for that? And this is sort of to most of the witnesses, but if there's a spurious allegation, Robbie Marsden was talking about field investigators, I think. Perhaps it was an allegation from a field investigator. Will a licence be revoked on site or revoked on conviction? And if a farmer suffers loss of livelihood, should there be compensation? NatureScot would know how general licences work, but there's nothing in the bill that suggests that there could be compensation or there could be a method of appeal on a conviction. Who wants to take that? Robbie, do you want to take it on the basis of the general licensing that is operated? I'm happy to respond to that, Rachel. From a regulator's point of view, when we are discharging our licensing from outside, we've got quite a lot of discretion about how we do that. And generally, licences that we issue are based on trust and confidence. So as a regulator, if we're beginning to lose trust and confidence in how a licence is being complied with, we can revoke it and remove it. That doesn't have to be on the basis of any criminal issues. Indeed, we have got an experience of doing exactly that on the balance of probability that an offence has been committed out. So we already, as colleagues have mentioned, we have a relationship with Police Scotland where we keep in touch about potential offences taking place and then how we will reflect on that as a regulator. And so I think we're fairly well versed in making sure we, how conditions are prescribed in licence and then what we might want to do by a follow-up. And we can talk about compliance monitoring if we needed to, as part of the licensing scheme, but on the point about compensation. Again, that's not something which we generally engage with to any of our losses as a result of wildlife management or predation. As we engage with practitioners to think about mitigation and we maybe incentivise schemes to help people to live with wildlife, very rarely do we actually compensate specifically for loss. Okay, that's interesting. And on the point about the again resource facilities. In terms of seizure of quad bikes, we would have provision for that. You know, we do seize vehicles regularly, so there's provision for uplifting the vehicles and storage. Horses are perhaps a different matter. Provisions would need to be put in place. I don't imagine, you know, if we do seize horses, it's anything that will be happening regularly. Obviously the priority is going to have to be the welfare off the animal. So that is something we will perhaps need to look at. And where the whole scous will be on that as well. Yeah, that's right. You know, we do seize dogs so that there's arrangements there and, you know, there is funding sources as well. So yeah, that is something we will need to look at. Thank you. Very finally, the decision not to provide for vicarious liability or reverse burden of proof. Police Scotland said that they weren't in favour, but it didn't actually give any reason for that. Could you give us the reason why you didn't think it was a good tool in your box, so to speak, to have vicarious liability or reverse burden of proof in the bill? We felt that, in terms of vicarious liability, there's a list of potentially relevant persons that will be liable for prosecution, and we felt that that was suitably detailed. Can I ask Michael Clancy on his views on those points? Of course. Lord Bonomy went into this in some depth in his report, convener, and I think for shortness of time perhaps we could write to you about vicarious liability and reverse burden. We're not in favour of reversing the burden. It should be the prosecution's obligation to prove beyond reasonable doubt, and I think that that probably is where I would like to leave it at the moment. Sarah Shaw, do you have any comments on making clarity on whatever those provisions have made it easier for you or do you not have a position? Not necessarily. I note in the policy by random that there wasn't an evidential basis for introducing an offensive vicarious liability. Based on the provision in section 2.1, it was considered that there wasn't a need that that offence in a sense addressed the area of vicarious liability, although not directly. We've run over time slightly, so thank you very much for your attendance today. That's been most helpful. Certainly the evidence that we've heard today will help us to form our stage 1 report. We're now going to briefly suspend to allow witnesses to leave, and we'll have a short comfort break and resume at 11.10. Welcome back everybody. Our next item of business is consideration of the Scottish Government's Aquaculture Regulatory Review. I welcome to the meeting Professor Russell Griggs, OBE, whose review of the regulatory framework for the aquaculture sector and recommendations for change have been the first stage of the review. We're going to have some questions to take us up to around about 10 past 12. I'll kick off. Can you give us your views on what the current stakeholder relationship and trust in the decision making process from your engagement with the industry and communities is? Yes, I can. In simple terms, I would say that it's not very good. I think that's based on a number of factors. This is an industry that's developed since 1970, when it started off as a little cottage industry, really, and it's now grown into, in part of it, a very sophisticated industry with some very sophisticated decisions to be needed to it. Over time, as it's become more complex, each of the partners involved have their own issues around whether they do this. As I said in my report, it's the only one of those reviews I've ever done where nobody, and I do mean nobody, wanted to retain the status quo. The relationship between some of the stakeholders had got to a point where it wasn't just about trust of the organisation, but it was about trust of individuals inside the organisation. Based on a whole load of things, whether those things are true or not doesn't really matter, they're perceived as being true. The one thing we have to do, and that's what I thought all the way through as we go back into this, is to put in place a system that tries to restore that trust. Part of that is by making it robust enough that everybody gets their voice, but based on a simple three-part process that Government makes policy, regulators and planning authorities put that policy into place and industry and other stakeholders comply and do that. It's about how you change, but no. On a couple of occasions, the two civil servants who are a company made round in this had to cover up their eos on some of the comments that were made by people that I suspect that would be my easiest way of describing how much the feeling has felt out there. You have obviously views of experience of big industry and communities and so on. You're well aware of the pressures that are, for example, with local communities and renewable energy in the south of Scotland. Is it similar with communities and fish farms? Is there scope for that to improve or do we need to start making improvements now to make sure that both communities and industries thrive? That's a very big question, if I may say so, and let me try and do it in some part. One of the challenges of all communities at the moment is deciding what is the voice of the community. I think that that's getting much more complex and much more difficult as we go on.  I suppose that is now what you would call an economically active part of a community and an economically inactive part of a community. It's about which voice should have the biggest say in community decisions, not just about renewables or indeed about fish farms, but indeed a whole load of things. It's quite clear from the work that I did on this that the voice, the anti-voice in some places is very well funded, it's very well resourced, which perhaps the local voice isn't. So it's about trying to bring into that some balance so that we understand when we're listening to voices. It's not just the loudest that should get the way, but it should be one that's based on evidence. There is no doubt if you look at the communities involved in the fish farm, they have economically benefited well and will continue to do so going forward as they go forward. Some of the negative are people that don't want to come at it from a very different view, which is much more to do with their view on what rural life should be, which, interestingly enough, may not be the way that those that have lived there for decades etc will put in place. Do I think communities get enough say in this? No, I don't, which is why I've recommended within my report that there needs to be a social contract built into any of these things that we take forward and indeed once we get to figuring out how much the industry is going to pay to get these licences, that's what we want to call them, then there has to be more of a part of it that goes back to the community, not just the jobs and the other bits of infrastructure that we get. You mentioned some communities being well funded, but my issue is always whether the evidence is well founded. Funding and founding are two similar things, but can drive a different outcome. Are there plans to put the right mechanisms in place to make sure that we do have peer-reviewed evidence and whatever so it's not a polarised argument? Part of my recommendation, as you know, is that there should be a scientific body in the middle of this that reviews all evidence, because one of the things that I saw as I did all this—I've talked about 90 different organisations and people—was an array of scientific evidence that would take you from one end to say that there's nothing going on at all, to another end to say that the world is about time. We need somebody in the middle of this to judge that, but that scientific evidence I think is slightly different to the point that you're making about communities. Now, because communities are comprised of different types of people, people who have lived their all their life and want to work and people who have gone there for different reasons to do that, we need to find a balance of listening to those voices. When I say it's well resourced, there's no doubt in a couple that I looked at is that the reporter who was doing the evidence of it was ambushed by the bits of the community that didn't want it, because they were well organised and the bits that didn't want it went well enough organised. So I think there's two issues here. I think there's one about the scientific evidence. We need to have some central look at that, but I think there's a much wider social debate about, as we start to look at everything from fish farming to second homes to rural housing, as Rachel and I were exchanging viably on a minute, about how we deal with community input and who we listen to. It's a really, really challenging subject, so it's not something easy. So I think there's two bits at the scientific bit, and what I was looking at I think is really straightforward, the more social impact of how we change or regard the changing nature of some of our rural communities is a different issue. Thank you. Harry-Anne Burgess. Thank you, convener, and Professor Griggs. I'm joining virtually. I'm very sorry that I can't be with you today. So it's interesting to hear your perspective around community, and thanks for doing all that work. I've been speaking to coastal communities as well, and I speak to people who earn their living, catching crabs and lost lobsters. The coast is where they swim, it's where their children play, and also, of course, tourists come to enjoy diving and water sports, and they bring money into the local economy as well, and they don't want the fish farms. So it is an interesting bit that you're talking about who is the community, and they don't want the fish farms, even if they would receive a payment, as many of them would actually see it as being bought off. So you were talking about a recommendation of a single consenting document, and it doesn't seem to include a mechanism for communities to reject the imposition of a new or expanded industrial fish farm in their local waters. So I'd like to hear your thoughts on the principle that coastal communities should have a say in where fish farms are located. I think, and if I haven't put it properly, that there is, in my recommendation on who gets involved in the consenting process, the community is in there, and the community is one of the bodies that would have to be statutory consulted. So I guess what I'm saying, and from one of my previous remarks, is about the community has to decide who that voice is, and how we do that we have to have a long debate about, but no, I believe strongly in the community having a view. The challenge with communities is there will be different voices, and it's about how you listen to those different voices within that, and I spoke to lots of coastal community groups as I went through my work when doing this. I think the way that fish farming is developing now, and especially fin fish, for put shellfish and seaweed to one side, will become much bigger but much less intrusive, if I can put it that way, on coastal waters, because most of it will be done online, and it's probably only going to be the last year or so that we see fish out in the water as we move forward. So I think part of the challenge in all of this, and I say in my report that I hadn't visited a fish farm for 20 years until I started to do this, and my goodness was I shocked when I went and visited some of the new fish farms that are really sophisticated technical pieces of infrastructure where the majority of the development of the fish is done online, and it's only the latter parts that is done on scene. Now that's very different from what you would call the traditional fish farms that were set up from the 1970s onward, and I guess the industry would even accept that not all of those are in the optimal position if you had this wonderful position called hindsight, and that's why one of the other recommendations in the report is to say, as we go through this, we need to look at where all the fish farms are currently and in the future and see if they're in the right place. Okay, thank you for that reassurance, because it was in conversation with coastal communities that they felt that they weren't going to be recognised in this issue, but it's good to hear that you are concerned and that you're wanting to make sure that they do have a voice. Yes, I think I'll let me be very precise. I think that the community should have a voice, and who that voice is, is for the community to decide. Okay, thank you. Karen Adam. Thank you, convener, and good morning, Professor. I would like to ask what are your main observations on the key issues with the current regulatory framework? Okay, I think that my main... I've been doing this for a while, and there's no doubt that if you look at any planning or development process, the best way to do it is to start before you do it. If you want to do something, you get all the interested parties around the table before we even get to filling in the application form to decide what the issues are and that we're all going to have to deal with as we go forward. That's what's got this very sexy name of multilateral pre-consultation, which is not what it is. That's why I believe that any... It's worked very effectively, for example, in offshore wind. That's why my view is that the way this is done at the moment, which is to leave everybody to do their own bits, just doesn't work. Because they do them sequentially, they do not have to do them sequentially, but they tend to do. The developer can only talk to one of the interested partners until he wants to talk to another one. So my view is the only way any of these things work, especially when they're complicated, which these things are, and especially when it doesn't happen that often. This is not something that's coming in front of a planner or SIPA or anybody else every day of the week. They probably get three or four of these a year. So it's not something you're building up an expertise on as you do it all the way through. So the best way at the beginning is, in a managed format, is to get everybody around the table to say, here's what I want to do. What are the issues going to be resolved in that? Can we resolve those or not? And what do we have to do with it? Because developers will also tell you that having a no as early as they can get is as good as having a yes as early as they get. So my view is that this is like a lot of bits of the planning system where it's not joined up. And it's not difficult. It's not rocket science to join and join it up. It's just a bit more challenging. It needs a bit more work. But in the end, you get a much better end result so that when the application ends up going in, all the parties around the table have more or less agreed on it, so it should go through the system more smoothly. I've got some numbers, if you're interested, to show that every part of the system is way over the statutory obligations on how long they should take to do things. So they're not fulfilling any of the targets that have given themselves to do that, by miles, not just by the odd day, by miles. That's because we do it piece by piece also. Somebody wants to speak to the planning department then, they're going to speak to SEPA then, they're going to speak to NatureScot, and then NatureScot might speak to SEPA, they might speak to the planning department, so there's no continuity or cohesion within the process. You touched upon communication there and that's what I was thinking in terms of investors and stakeholders. Maybe not necessarily, so what you're saying there is not necessarily the communication that people are bringing forward, but maybe the understanding of the framework, their understanding of it bringing forward and maybe misunderstanding, miscommunication there? It is. For example, SEPA might have a scientific view on part of it, the developer might have a different scientific view on it. What we need to do is take those two scientific views together to find out what the right one is, and that's why we need a party to do that, but it is about people talking to each other. It is quite simple stuff, it is just about people sitting round a table discussing a subject and looking at what the pros and cons are and figuring out what the ways and the way the challenges are, where we're going to have to do some more work, where it's quite simple and taking it forward. The poor planning authorities, I really feel sorry for them all of this, were given this to do some years ago. This is not on land, this is on water, and what goes on on water in the planning terms is very difficult and very different to what goes on on land. So some planning authorities have resource and expertise that goes back, but that's going away as time goes on because people retire. So this is not that none of the bodies are doing their job badly if I could put it that way, but they would do it a lot better if they all talked to each other and communicated and did it round the same table. You spoke there about the resources and the level of expertise, so is that due to people, office holders, and being a lack of them, or do you see that as being any other issues? If the answer to your question is yes and no, and I'm not being difficult, it is, because as time has gone on, those people that are specialised in off-shelf fish farming, for example, retire, they don't necessarily get replaced because this isn't something that you do often know than a council's planning department, for example. So if you're looking to recruit somebody into it, you'll probably recruit somebody into it with a more general knowledge of planning rather than somebody to do this, who might sit at their desk for a year before something would come into their expertise. So it's a mixture of not doing it often enough so you don't build up your level of expertise to a lot of the experts, and there are still some about retiring and people not coming in. So I've tried very hard in my report to say that I'm not criticising the planning officials. This is not their fault. This is just to do with the way this system works, and that's why it needs to be taken out. As the ex-GF executive of CEPA said to me when we interviewed him, those applications are very important because they're generally to do with tens of millions pounds of investment. To let some junior member of staff deal with them in a non-cohesive way just doesn't seem sensible, so we need to lift them. We need to make sure that the more experienced and knowledgeable people in the organisation do that. They are just very different, and there's not many of them. Do you think that there's potentially a reluctance for some of the big companies to invest because of the uncertainty over that? We've heard that there is a lack of resources, not just in planning, but a lack of resources and technical expertise when it comes to our marine environment. We saw that with the Clyde cod boxes and whatever. Is that a big constraint? Does it need to be addressed given the importance of salmon farming to our economy? Should the Government step up to the mark and provide some of that funding to resource that whole process a little bit more? I would do, because my recommendation is to say that if we move to a system similar to Norway, where you buy a licence for 25 years and pay a lot of money up front to do that, a portion of that money would go back into resourcing the process of doing that. That is one of the challenges that we have at the moment, and we need to pay for that. The industry is quite happy to pay for that, but direct answer to your question. If that went on for some time and didn't get any better, then the two Norwegians and the one of Faroe's big international businesses would start to look at how they do those things, because they are investing a lot of money. Recently, the Faroe's one that I want to invest £700 million is in the Scottish agriculture industry over the coming years. They are not running away, so I am not saying that at all. They want to build the industry here, but we need to construct it in a better way. We are all parties, and it goes back to the point that people are making in our community. It is not just about the industry, so the industry, the community and the regulators and indeed the Government all have a say in what this goes on, and what is becoming a much more complicated area. Of course, the group that we haven't talked about is the customers who buy the salmon and the mussels and all that at the end, and who themselves are imposing a lot more environmental restraints on what they want from their customer to produce. The fish farm producers have already got long lists of audits, etc., and they have to go through. However, I think that there is a way out of that, and I think that it is quite a straightforward way out of it. The industry is up for more investment. They want to grow the industry. At the moment, it is complicated and frustrating, and that is what we need to take away. As you eloquently put at the beginning, we need to restore the trust between all parties. We do not have to like each other, but we just have to restore the trust between all parties to make sure that, as they develop and look at each of the applications that come in, they consolidate, perhaps shut down some of the existing farms that perhaps weren't in the best place that could have been in the first place, but it is done collegiately between us all. The aquaculture industry, as you have just touched on, has a target to double production by 2030 through expansion of open net salmon farming. However, I have been talking to concerned environmental NGOs and communities that stress that there is no evidence, either from Scotland or anywhere else, that open net farming is or can be environmentally sustainable. On the contrary, we know that effluent from open-cage farms is discharged and dumped, untreated into the sea, toxic chemicals are used to kill sea lice, and that is also discharged into our marine environment. Tens of thousands of wild wrath fish are taken from the wild to clean the sea lice off the salmon, and then the wrath are killed. Nothing of the emissions from importing salmon feed from across the world or the impact on wild salmon populations here due to sea lice, escapies and disease. I just wanted to ask you if you recognise that the environmental impacts of the industry are not currently sustainable in the environmental sense of the word, as opposed to it often being used sustainable or being often used in economic sustainability. Have you seen any evidence to suggest that open net farms could reduce pollution, sea lice and fish escapies, the close to zero? I go back to what I said earlier. I think that a lot of the science is based on how salmon farming was, not how it is going to be and how it is now. I think that that is what we need to build up as a scientific base that looks up where the industry is going, which is very sophisticated, very technical. A lot of it is done on land and on their small part events that we have done offshore. I think that when we have done that—I am not a scientist, so I cannot—we will find that a lot of the issues that have been raised may not totally go away, but they may well be in the category of being manageable and being the way we look forward. I do not think that this is an insoluble problem if I could put it that way. I do not think that putting it all on land is a really sensible way to go at all. If you look at the parts of the world that are looking at it, they have dreadful problems with disease, their carbon footprint is astronomical. In all honesty, the reason that Scottish Salmon does well and has a premium is because part of its life is in Scottish waters. If you put it in a big concrete tank and grew them there, there would be no advantage in Scottish salmon over somewhere in bread around the M25, so we have to be careful that that might be the end of the Scottish salmon industry. I am less worried than you are about where we are in all of this because looking at where the industry wants to go technically over the next year and over the next of the coming decade in terms of the way it controls pollution and the way it controls that, much more on land within very sophisticated production units to produce salmon up to a certain size of offshore, I think that a lot of what you were talking about will never be totally eradicated, but I think that it will become to work where it is environmentally manageable. You have already alluded to how sophisticated and technical modern-day salmon farming already is and the key recommendation about a new single consenting process. I wonder if you could give examples of what we can take from the Norwegian one-stop-shop approach, an example of what they do that we don't at the moment, and if you could expand on how you would see the new process working in practice and who should take overall responsibility? The Norwegian one-stop-shop is quite interesting because it is not really a one-stop-shop. What it is is that there is a one-person shop that takes the application in and then goes and speaks to all the other people that he needs to do to make it. From a developer's point of view, it is great that you pass it on to one person and then they go and do it. They then go and bring in all the other parts of the Norwegian government and regulatory system that they need to do that. That means that you get it back in a safe form. In my report, what I say is that the single consenting process needs to be managed. At the moment, I suppose that the place that you would logically put it is in a different part of Marine Scotland, which would have the task of taking applications as they come in and gathering round the local planners and regulators that they need to do that and taking through each one as it comes to be. It is much more of a managed process as one person in charge of it. That does not stop all the other parties putting in what they need to do. In my view, it is slightly better than an Norwegian process. It does not disappear into a system. It is a very much managed process of all the parties working together. I know that that is exactly what both the regulators and the industry want to do, is to sit round the same table to look at what they do. The single consenting document comes from a process of all the people involved, including the community, sitting round the table to say, here is what we are going to do. That is really important for two points of view. When you get something consented, it is really important that you understand what has been consented and what then you can change and what you can change without going back through the loop again. That is why this document is not just about the application and getting it through the case. It says to the developer, community and all the regulators, here is what we have agreed to do. As technology advances, as in the science advances, it allows those involved in that to move forward without having to come back through the loop. However, here are the things that, if you want to change, you have to come back and ask us to do. It gives much more certainty and much more clarity, not just to the developer, but to the planning authority, to the regulator, etc., of what they have agreed to do. In answer to a specific question, at the moment, I see somebody, a new part of Marine Scotland, taking on that role. You need to put in quite strange people into that, and I am being slightly flippant. They need to be an interesting mix of people that understand the aquaculture industry. Going back to the point that Karen made, not people that just do this on an odd day, some people that really understand the aquaculture industry, some people that also have that wonderful thing about understanding rural communities. Because what rural communities worry about more than anything is that somebody 250 miles away is making a decision for me, and I do not want to do that. So whoever is this person that manages the process has to be clever. They have to understand rural communities, and it is their job to make sure that all part of that works. The clear, clear message coming back from everybody as we put in, and the single consenting process that they all agree with, so I have no disagreement on that, was whoever manages this has to be an expert in communities and in the aquaculture industry at the same time. There are not many of them about, but there are some, so I am quite content that those people exist out there, and they take all the people around the table and take it to that. So it is very similar to the Wengie one, but in my opinion I think that it would be slightly better. Thank you. I would just say that it is not rural communities, but island communities too. Indeed, I am fairly. It is very quick. Just on the point that you made about bringing everybody together in one stop shop, do you see that as potentially you said that one side of the argument was more organised than the other at the start of your introduction? Do you see that as potentially stifling the growth of the industry in Scotland if one side got themselves more organised through that one stop shop? No, because I think that… I am sure that you used that phrase that you challenged the one stop shop. Is that a potential? No, I do not think so, I think, because part of the role of the person sitting in the middle of this, the ringmaster shall we call them, who does all this, is to make sure that it is the right voice for the community, so that you go into the community, as the convener knows, all my life at the moment is spent with finding out what communities think. It is quite challenging, but there are ways of doing it, where you go into communities and find out what the proper voice in a subject is, and I do not think that we do that well enough at the moment within this area. So I think that there will be a lot of community engagement, a lot of community consultation at the outset to find out what the correct voice, if that is the way of putting it is. So I do not think that it is just whoever turns up making the loudest noise, it is about what the benefits will be, what the impact will be in the community, and having that clearly explained. To be fair, wind farm operators do now probably a lot better than they did what 10 years ago and 15 years ago when they come in to consult with communities, so very much in similar vein to that. So I think that this is just about good management, and that is why it is so critical that the person who manages each of those applications understands communities. I have been listening very closely to what you have been saying. I live on an island, I represent our island butte, so I am struck by the different views from across the community, and I think that you are absolutely right when you say that you need to have the person that is there that can listen to both sides. As you said and as the convener said, restore the trust. We have taken evidence about what happens in our seas across the last year, and you made the point as well that water is different from the land, and a lot of my constituents on both sides of the industry and the community's perspective ENGOs talk about that as well. One question that I have been trying to understand is how the flows of the water impact the fish farms, how they are impacting, and the cumulative effect of that, and how, as you have pointed out, you have different planning authorities and how they are linking together. I guess that the point that you raise is an interesting one from a number of aspects. I suppose that we do not gather together, as I have tried to say, the science, all the sciences out there. My goodness, as more papers have been written on this and probably anything else, I have got books on it, but there is nobody gathering it together to give an opinion on your point that if you look at this across a whole of Scotland or across all the islands or across that, there are, because of the debate about how much is local and about how much is national, and we do not know at the moment, to be perfectly honest. If I take the views of the wild salmon body, for example, you could go in various different directions, but all we know really generally is that fish farming is one of 11 things that could have been impacted on wild salmon and probably on a bad day, probably on the upper level of about 10%. We need to understand what the other 11 things are doing, and that is all to do with that. I think that this comes back to having somebody or a thing that takes all the science, all the evidence that is there, and giving advice because I do not understand all the flows that you are talking about. I am not a scientist, that is not my job, but somebody needs to. Then, as happens, there are parts around the west coast where there are particular flows that are particular to that part of that coastline, which you will not see anywhere else, and therefore should you treat those differently to other parts. I think that the science bit in this is critical to make sure that we more, we better understand, because each coastal community quite rightly goes away and does their own bit of work and they come up with it, but every time they come up with that there will be three others that come in and show something slightly different, so we need a body that brings all that scientific data together to understand because how water flows is really interesting. From another part of my life some years ago, when there is wonderful news that we are going to do everything by wave energy came to us, that is fine, but it depends on what the wave is, so it still needs a lot of science around it. If I may as well, on the other point that you raised as well about the technology and how that is changing, how that can be made more obvious and more accessible perhaps? It is, and I think that it is quite interesting that we visited one of the new plants up in Melbourne, and I think that they are going to do a very clever thing, and a positive thing, which is turning it into visitor centre, so that locals and visitors can go and visit it to see how all this works. It is quite interesting, and I hear what it said about coastal communities, but I spend a lot of time, as you would in doing this, on people on ribboats driving out into the ocean etc. What the people on the ribboats do is also when they are not driving people like me about the ocean, is to drive a lot of tourists about, and they would have a different view. They say that fish farming is very positive, but all the tourists that they get on them in general will always be others. They really are interested in what goes on and how it is done. I think that making it much more visible and much more transparent so that people can go and see what happens is what the industry should do more. One of the comments that I make in the report is that I do not think that the industry has done a great job over the years of selling itself, or indeed how it does things in a wider community. I think that that is a very important, clear point that you have made. I think that we have seen that with the way that wind farms have operated, and also in my constituency the whisky distilleries as well, and the sharing of their technology and the sharing as to how things have changed. I think that that is helpful. Should I just move on to the other fish types as well while I am here? I am just interested as well. You touched on the fact that we were just talking about fin fish, but there are also connections with shellfish and seaweed as well, so any thoughts that you have on those questions? I think that the reason that they are different is because they are different. Fin fish is now a very sophisticated, heavily invested international business. I think that our shellfish sector is growing interesting enough starting to grow a bit more because a lot of the bigger companies in Orkney are buying shell farms on the islands etc to give them some scale. The challenge in the shellfish sector is that there is not the margin that there is in salmon farming to give you the opportunity to invest in some of the sophisticated technology to take it forward. There are issues, but I do not think that the great issues with shellfish could expand. However, if you look at where it has gone from and compared to fin fish for over the past 10 or 15 years, you do not see the same technological growth and how shellfish is done than perhaps. I am not saying that it has not changed, but it is not to the same degree, but I think that until they get to the same point where they can charge a price point similar to the can and the fin fish sector, they will not make the margin to make that. That is a commercial fact of life. I find Seaweed fascinating, because I think that it is like there is still clondycing for gold out there. Not just on how you do it, but on what all the end uses are. We have to remember that the scale that we are talking with Seaweed is huge. I put in my report, and if I misremember my number, I apologise, to get 1,000 tonnes of seaweed farmed, you need a farm that is 7 kilometres by 5 kilometres. That is a huge bit of ocean. That is because you farm Seaweed flat. It does not go down. It is entwined to a bit of horizontal rope, so just the way that it is structured makes it need to take up. My issue around Seaweed is that I do not think that there will be any constraints other than sea hazards. I know that it is an issue that a number of people have raised already about if you are going to have something that is 7 kilometres by 5 kilometres sitting out near one of the islands. Where do the fishermen go? How do they get around it? I think that that is more of a practical issue, but if you speak to all the people in the seaweed industry, they want it to grow, but they are not talking about astronomical numbers yet until they have figured out what it is and what they are doing. I think that there is a long way to go in the seaweed sector before any of us around this table can decide what it would look like and what we would want to do in terms of consenting to help them on the way. I will always remember my trip to the seaweed farm because it was in a foreshade gail out in the middle of the Atlantic, so it was quite choppy. We might be able to look forward to something of that order in September. Let's hope that it doesn't get delayed any further into the autumn. Rachel Hamilton. I just want to ask you about the new regulatory framework. How it might improve the reduction in sea lice infestations, improve the numbers that are dying, and maintain the genetic integrity of wild salmon. I wanted to get your thoughts on how you thought that the Scottish Government had responded to the recommendations of the Wreck Committee in session 5. How will welfare issues improve with a single consenting process for new applications, as suggested in your review? It is the bit before the single consenting process that is the key in my recommendations, which is the creation of a framework. Lawyers, when they go to court, know what they can and cannot do because it is all tied up in case law. When we drive our cars, we have a framework in which we drive our cars in with the rules and regulations, and that is put in place before I even get to wanting to go and pass my driving test. What we do not have currently is a framework of how we operate fish farming or aquaculture in Scotland. That is why I think that you need the framework before you need the consenting process. Within that framework we would set targets over a 10-year period of not just the volume of fish we could do because you would have to put some environmental constraint track that, but also to do with sea lice. I will list in my report a whole host of other things you put in that constraint. That is the Government's job. It is not the regulator's job, but the Government's job because that is policy. That says that we want to have a fish farming industry, but we understand that it does have challenges and here are the constraints that we are going to put around that. That makes it much easier for the single consenting process because what it then has is that when an application comes in, it looks at the framework and says, does it comply with the framework? Does it not comply with the framework? If it does not comply with the framework, it has a lot of work to do. That is why I was quite clear in my report to say that this is a three-stage process. We need the framework before we get to the consenting process. If we just put in the consenting process without the framework, we will still be wandering around looking at millions of bits of science because we are all arguing about the bits of science. The framework decides what is the good science and what is the bad science so that around sea lice and all that stuff puts it in there. I think that the way the industry is going anyway technically will reduce a lot of the stuff that has been talked about this morning because where all the stuff using the technical term goes on alone is in seawater. If you can cut down the amount of time the salmon has to be in the seawater, that will greatly reduce it. As part of that framework and the industry are up for this as well, we should be setting targets around how long salmon should spend at sea. Currently, it is fairly open-ended. It can be two to three years. The industry would like to get it down to one year. That will take some time and take a bit more sophistication, but it is getting there quite rapidly. That will address Rachel some of the points that you are making, so it will reduce sea lice, it will reduce the amount of chemicals that we have to put into the water, etc. Will it be perfect? I do not know as the answer would need to follow the science, but I think that the way the industry is going technically will reduce a lot of what is currently seen. I come back to the point about when we are looking at the fin fish sector—I will forget the other two for a minute—we must stop looking behind us. We must look ahead because the industry is developing technically and it is developing the way it does. That is where we have to make our decisions on not what happened 15, 20 or even 5 years ago, but about where it is going. If we do that, we will start to get a different perspective. That will still not stop some people not wanting it, but that is a different view that has nothing to do with me. However, if you look forward now, the risks that have been identified over the last years will become less because of the way we do it. I cannot call into that. That was done, that is the Government's choice. I was asked to do my piece of work and I have done that. I am on the understanding that the framework is going to take quite a considerable amount of time to get to the stage where it is produced. Meantime, your observations of some of the issues within the industry that I have just spoken about, do you think that there should be priorities or technology should be in place before the framework? I think that that is a very good question. The answer is that I would hope—I would be preaching hard around the framework, if I am honest, in terms of time, because I think that it is very, very important to get that in place, but I would hope—if we agreed that there would be a framework, which we all seem to have agreed on that. However, as we start to get applications in and re-evaluate them now, we start to look at what the framework might look like in the future. In many ways, doing one or two applications might help us to form a better framework, because we are taking some of those decisions early on, but we will still have to go and address things like the scientific evidence, et cetera. I am bringing that together. I have some sympathy with your point of view that should be done quicker, but I do hope that, as the applications come in, given that we have a roadway and a direction of travel, that what will go on out there will help that direction of travel, perhaps, to get to where it wants to do a bit quicker. Can you bring in my series for a quick supplementary in this, and then to move on to the next section? Thanks, convener. Good morning, Professor Griggs. It is a slight tangent, but, as we were talking about welfare issues and sea lice, I thought that it might be a good moment to bring up the ras fisheries. As I understand it, the remit of the report was to review the operation of the regulatory framework for aquaculture from the perspective of other users of the shared marine environment, including wild fisheries. The ras fishery is a wild fishery. It is entirely economically interdependent with aquaculture, so I wondered if you could just talk us through your rationale for not considering it as part of your report. I did consider it as part of my report. We did speak to them, and I suppose that this comes back to the point that Rachel has just made, is that when you come to design the framework, you have to put all of that into the pot to decide what you can do. There is a list of things that you would start to consider, such as the impact on wild fish and ras, and everything would go in there. So why I have not specifically mentioned it in my report, and you may be well be right, it is not that I did not think that it was unimportant. It is just that as we start to get all those experts around the table to look at what all the issues are, I am sure that that is one of the issues that will come forward if we want to put in it, so I am not disregarding it if I could put it that way. That is reassuring. Do you think that it would be appropriate that the wild ras fishery would introduce stock assessments or limits on catches, given that we are getting reports of extreme declines in the ras populations? I have no idea as to answer that question. I could do with a good scientist sitting beside me perhaps to answer that, but I do not know. I think that all of those things are things, and that is part of the challenge that we need to go away and look at, not just where we need to cohese the science, but where there is gaps in the science, and if there is gaps in the science, then we need to commission people to go away and do that scientific work to fill in the holes. I suppose the point that I am angling at is that we have fisheries management plans required for other species, so would it not make sense to bring in something similar for ras, as has been adopted elsewhere in the UK? Pass. Okay, no problem, thank you. Okay, have you covered your second question? That was under three, and then four, or...? Yes, if you could move on to your next question. Okay, sorry, I will keep it brief. So we have the precautionary principle enshrined in Scottish law, through the UK withdrawal act, and I was wondering how relevant would you say this principle is to decision making about environmental harm caused by salmon farming? The precautionary principle is a fascinating subject that we could spend all day discussing the precautionary principle, and the precautionary principle operates well where somebody who is deciding on what is a precaution understands what it is that they are talking about in the particular sector and the specific technology that they are talking about. The precautionary principle sadly, where you just don't know anything about it, leads you generally to take no risk at all, because that's what you do, and that's why what has been called the adaptive principle, which is somewhere in the middle of this, has become, I think. So my view is, if the precautionary principle is put in place by people that understand what it is they are doing, and therefore make that decision on knowledge, understanding, science, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, then it's fine. The challenge that we have with the precautionary principle, and speaking to a lot of the people that I did doing this, is that if you don't know anything about it, it tends to put to that, I will take no risk at all end of the spectrum, and that's where it shouldn't be, because the precautionary principle is supposed to make you make good decisions on good knowledge, and if you don't have the good knowledge, it's very difficult to make good decisions, all that answers your question. Thank you. I don't know if anyone else wants to come in on theme 4, otherwise I can ask my question on theme 5. Well, no, I'm going to carry on. We're very short of time. You spoke a little bit about seaweed earlier, and this is something that I find absolutely fascinating and quite exciting. I know that you probably know this, but for the case of being on record and for MD watching it, it can be used for human consumption, food consumption, animal feed, biofuel, fertiliser, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, biomaterials in terms of packaging, and actually mitigating climate change in the form of carbon sequestration. I have a bit of an interest in this and have been looking into it, because one of the local authorities in my constituency actually commissioned a consultancy company to see if this could be a financially viable business, and it was recommended that it absolutely is for commercial cultivation. When you were speaking earlier about there could be a clash of interests, as with a lot of—we're looking at the seascape at the moment and how those things are. Do you think that there's a space for this in terms of diversification into other areas? Is there anything that a potential seaweed sector could learn from fin fishing and regulations in that regard? I guess—I'll try to answer your question sensibly. I think what you said at the beginning is the opportunity but also the challenge. Seaweed could be used in a whole host of things, so it's trying to find out what your target market is. At the beginning it has always been a challenge. I guess if seaweed is to develop it needs to do what Finfish did, which is focus down on what is my advantage by where I am and what I can sell. Once they've figured that out then they can do that. I do think that the spatial challenges with seaweed are quite significant. Until we technologically come up with a different way of creating seaweed, which is basically sticking a little bit of seaweed in a rope and putting it around it and allow it to grow. It all sounds quite simple, but that's exactly what it is. Then we'll still have that spatial issue. The challenge is to get 1,000 tonnes of wet seaweed that then turns into it. By the time it's dried you're reducing your quantities. I think it is—in my view, I'm very positive about seaweed, but I think it still has a journey to go both technologically and figuring out what the best markets are and the best type of seaweed then that can grow in Scottish waters, as it was mentioned earlier, to do with water flow and everything else as well. I think that there's a long journey for seaweed still to go, but you're quite right. The thing that's pulling them on and on is this plethora—literally plethora—of possible induces for it. I'm just going to touch on this very briefly. Spatial planning, you referred just to seaweed, but we've got seaweed, we've got the inshore fisheries with mobile gear, static gear, we've got renewables, cockle fishery, mussel fishery. It's one of the starting points not to look at the whole spatial planning issue and the pressures that all those different sectors could bring to our inshore marine environment. Indeed, as I went round, I think I mentioned a report. Each council is now supposed to produce a marine plan. I don't think many have, because it's quite challenging. It's not without its issues. I think that Orkney and Shetland have, but I think that a lot of the others that have where aquaculture and marine issues are very important to them, I've still got to do that. I think what I would say is that the vehicle is already there to do it if they want to do it. But again, it comes back to resource, it comes back to who you would get to do it, because it's not easy, but I think the vehicle is already there. How you then mix that in with what they're doing on land in terms of spatial planning is not for me to say, but I agree with you entirely. If we go back to what I was talking about earlier, about wave power, I mean, once you put that in the middle of power as well, then it becomes much more complicated. You could end up just having our water around our coast and totally unapproachable by anybody if you wanted to get on with it. Appreciating the local authorities and marine planning has got to be something that we investigate, but they've already got the task to do. It was given to them some time ago. We've touched on resources a lot in the conversation. The resources automatically move on to finance, so Alasdair Allan's got some questions on finance. Thank you. I suppose really a general one, firstly, is if you're able to offer any outline, any view about firstly additional potential costs or additional benefits, indeed, around the new process, particularly in terms of your recommendations and the consenting process, and where the balance you feel of those costs and benefits might lie with the various parties involved? It's been quite interesting. There's no doubt, and I made it quite clear in this, that what I'm recommending will cost money. It's not going to be a cost-neutral exercise, it's not. All the parties have agreed that we need to do this and we need to do it that way. The way we need to do it is that the industry pays in its licence fee. However, we'll only give that from where we moved in the Norwegian model, where we pay a lot of money for 25 years or where we adapt what it is that we want to do, is that there needs to be a section of that allocated to resources to do this. That's not just for the person, Marine Scotland, who's going to manage all this, but that's back in each local authority, and it's quite interesting. In the conversations that we had with COSLA around the costings around this, COSLA sees this very much quite uniquely as something that each local authority should decide how to do on its own. There shouldn't be a national policy for this, if I can put it that way, because some will want to keep it in house, some will want to contract it out, some will want to give it back to the Government to do it that way, but to get back to your point, that's why we need now to start to look at how much all the proposals that we all go ahead are going to cost. That thing performs part of what we're going to charge the developer to develop the project. We then have to add in a portion of that, quite a large chunk, about what goes back in community benefit, whatever we call community benefit. Everybody is up for that. If you look at the amounts of money that the companies that we are talking about in Finfish already have to pay for licences in Norway and elsewhere, we're talking about considerable sums of money. How should we collect that? You can do it two ways, in my opinion, either the Government collects it all and then puts it out again, or you get the crime estate to do it. The crime estate already leases some of the land, they charge it, they've already got a process in place to do it. I'm having dinner with the crime estate tonight and I'm sure they will be saying that that's not what they should be doing. My own view is why create something new if it already exists, but we need a central body that brings all the money. Interestingly enough, the local authorities, as we go round and we talked about going back to your point at the beginning about trusting, are trusting that whatever service we put in will bring the resource back to them of what they're doing. They're not saying no, no, no, no, it all has to come to us. They understand that to get A you've got to do B and B is about creating a sensible form of money that you charge the developer for the project that allows to put in place the resource that you need to make that work well for them and everybody else and also then to give the community that benefit. Thirdly, which I just about forgot which I shouldn't, to go back to the point that has been made myriad round this table today, to allow some funding to go back and do some of the scientific research that we're going to have to do around some of this stuff as we go forward. Perhaps related to that very last point, you mentioned earlier on that there was a certain kind of circularity in the funding system that exists in Norway. Could you explain that a little bit more? Oh goodness me. Very briefly. The answer to the question, could we do that off-piste please, because it's quite complicated and we'll take a little bit of time from that. That will be fine, you can write a letter to the We'd absolutely appreciate your views on that. Finally, the final question, Arrianne Burgess. I'm just going to pick up Professor Grey, you were talking about science just there and your review says that those using science must ensure that they have the most current, effective and relevant scientific evidence if there are any negative issues. We really need to get the final question answered and move on. Apologies. Yeah, this is the final question that I need to get answered, convener. I just wanted to understand Professor Griggs, you know, there is concern in community groups and NGOs about the fact that there's a proposed central science evidence base and that will be run and managed by the industry and the Scottish Government. How would you assure concerned stakeholders that your recommendations will ensure independence of the science used for decision making on agriculture expansion and regulation? I guess I would say it would be the same independent science that we use for any other part of things that Government do. The Scottish Scientific Advisory Group covers all parts of science in the Scottish Government and that looks very independent. How you manage it by the industry and the Scottish Government doesn't mean to say that it's not independent, so I would see something like perhaps the Scottish Science Advisory Group, which is the thing that does and advises the Government on science generally, being that independent body. It's not about trying to preclude any science, it's about making sure that the science that we look at is the best possible science that is available, and that's what my understanding is, that something like the Scottish Science Advisory Group is there to do. Thanks very much. Very unfortunately, because I know that we had a lot of supplementaries that we weren't able to bring in there, that this is a topic that the committee is intending to carry into turn next session. Indeed, we're hoping to ask the cabinet secretary questions on your review and also the establishment of short-term project board at our first meeting in September, so no doubt we'll cross again in the future. Thank you very much for your time this morning, Professor Griggs. We now move on to our next item, which we'll be taking in private, so that concludes our business in public.