I我跟你, and welcome to the 29th meeting of 2015 of the Rural Affairs and Climate Change and Environment Committee. The committee continued its fact finding tour of Scotland, visiting the borders on Monday. We met with tenant farmers, as well as representatives of the Rockchairs for its Estate, and the Lowland Deer Network Scotland Group. I would like to thank those we met for their time and the views provided, which help us with our overview of land reform across the country. Before we move to the first item, remind everyone present to switch off mobile phones as they may affect the broadcasting system. You may notice that people are using tablets on the committee because the meeting papers are provided in digital format for those who are into the 21st century. The first item today is agenda item 1 about taking evidence on part 8 of the Land Reform Scotland Bill, which is under your management. We have been joined by a panel of stakeholders this morning. Alex Hogg, chair of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, Robbie Cernohan, unit manager of wildlife operations SNH, Richard Cook, chair of the Association of Deer Management Groups and the Lonan Deer Network Scotland Group, Duncan Or Ewing, convener of Link Deer Task Force in the Scottish Environment Link and Douglas Macadam, chief executive of Scottish Land and Estates. Welcome everybody here and we're going to straight into some questions. As you know, this committee made an incisive inquiry a couple of years ago into the management of deer and we suggested that the voluntary approach to the preparation of deer management plans should continue. The minister then decided to give deer management groups two years to complete these and I want to ask you as a panel, just as a starter, do you think that that approach by the Government is working and does it give time to allow this voluntary approach to deliver? I'll just indicate to bring you in. Richard Cook. Convener, yes. I believe that it is working. I think that the point that I want to make is that a lot of groups had deer management plans before the review but the deer management plans were operational in purpose. What has come into the picture and is very much now a dimension of deer management planning is reflecting the public interest in deer management and the new deer management plans that are being written at the moment. I think that we're in the mid-twenties of plans, so Robbie Cunningham will be able to confirm in terms of plans that are already being written with a number of more in the pipeline. A lot of them are replacing plans and they do address the public interest aspect as well as the operational aspects of the deer management group's activities. We'll look at some of the detail of this in a minute but, given the outline, Robbie Cunningham and you were mentioned there, what's your view of the development of plans? I think that at the last session we had on deer that we did highlight that the package of measures that currently exist in Scotland can actually provide the basis for a modern approach to deer management in Scotland, but we also acknowledge that more needs to be done by owners, by DMGs and by public bodies to demonstrate a willingness to look beyond perhaps the private objectives of land management and think about demonstrating much more enhanced action to deliver public interest. We have done an awful lot since those sessions back in late 2013, which, to be honest, we found hugely helpful because it did provide us with a focus to work more closely with ADMG and be clear about just exactly what we need DMGs to do, how we need them to operate openly, inclusively, transparently, but more importantly what we need them to deliver. That has provided quite a good focus about how we construct plans and what goes into them. Since the committee last considered it, the minister responded that we have spent an awful lot of time working with ADMG to produce a benchmark that clarifies our expectations of what a DMG should do, how it should operate, and also working through all the national policies, trying to translate them into a local level for DMGs really to get their head around what that means for them practically to deliver in their management plan. We have also undertaken a fairly substantial auditing assessment process against all upland DMGs principally to be able to measure how far away from that benchmark they are, and that has helped to highlight just exactly what focus needs to go into their management plans for them all, too. In short, we found that the committee session is hugely helpful in providing some of that focus. To be fair to the DMGs and Richard's association, I think that the penny has finally dropped that real and meaningful progress needs to be made in the next 18 months. I echo both those statements to state that I also sit on the executive board of ADMG, so I get a view of the progress that is being made. One of the points that I would like to make is how crucial it is that what we are discussing does not prejudge the outcome of the 2016 review, and, certainly from some of the previous evidence that I have seen, there seem to be almost a suggestion that there was a direction of travel towards statutory management. I think that, certainly from our point of view, it would be very important that we do not prejudge the outcome of that review, because we see a sector that has taken the signals that have been given to them and is making progress. Where the penny has not dropped or not satisfactory progress is being made, Robbie Kerrnihan. In your experience, is it the case that there is a problem across the entire DMG area, or is it the case that there may only be perhaps one estate that is a problem? It is interesting, Graham, and it is a real mixed picture. I think that what we have seen is that those people who are sitting in terms of the very important position of chair or secretary of those voluntary groups really need them to drive the process forward. Across the board, we have seen genuine and meaningful engagement from all those individuals who are effectively tasked with leading those groups. We are giving them every encouragement to do so. We are providing financial support over last year and this year to help them to construct plans of the 44 deal management groups in the uplands that we have assessed. We have already issued 26 funding packages and another seven anticipated. Some of those other groups are developing plans in-house, but our expectation is that all of them will have produced meaningful plans by the end of 2016. That is a very good news story, but I would caveat that slightly, because developing a plan is one thing. From my perspective, that is really just the first step, because the most important thing and the more challenging thing is actually delivering it, making it happen. It is still early days, but I think that progress, certainly over the last 12 months, has been particularly good. Duncan, are you in now? We think that the intervention of the RACI committee hearing evidence in relation to dear management has been hugely helpful and the involvement of the minister in this issue during the RACI evidence committee heard about the huge ecological issues that are faced in the uplands of Scotland, particularly from high-dear populations in some places. That is affecting our ability to deliver a whole range of public outcomes from the protection of designated sites through the expansion of native woodland, the protection of peatlands, hitting climate change targets and so forth. Whilst there has been progress, I concur with Robbie that the focus to date has very much been on process and getting dear management plans in place. Having clear deadlines has been very helpful, but in the future, post 2016, we really need more deadlines and a focus on outcomes and implementation. The commentary on dear numbers is always that there are far too many deer in Scotland and that the environment is in crisis. I have to contest that, because in the deer areas with which I am most familiar, deer numbers have been reduced markedly. I would look to Robbie to confirm whether the national picture reflects that. In the east grampions, for example, when I was the Secretary of the East Grampian Deer Management Group, we counted 36,000 deer in the early 1980s, and the number at last counted with 17,000, a reduction of more than 50 per cent. I also referred to a piece of information that I got from SNH yesterday, when I specifically asked them what the condition of the designated features on the designated sites where deer are present in Scotland as a whole is, and I will just quote it to you. 85.3 per cent of features within the deer range are in either favourable condition, recovering due to management, or unfavourable, but with the site condition, monitoring, herbivore or targets being met. In other words, deer numbers being in accordance with SNH targets. In other words, the proportion of designated sites that are still suffering from excessive deer impacts is 14.7 per cent, and although that is not something to be complacent about, nor I would suggest that it is a crisis. I think that we will explore some of these in detail in a minute or two. Do you have anything to add, Alex, at the moment? Sorry, it is automatic. We are worried about the socio-ecological side of things, jobs. We have got to remember that we have got to be in the public interest to have men and families at these glens. If our deer numbers get so low in some places, there is certainly jobs being under threat. We need to be aware of that all the time. We will explore that point and thank you for making it. I think that we want to explore this in a bit more detail, but just before we do, Richard Cooke talked about the reduction from 28,000 to 17,000, was it? 36,000 to 17,000. That does not necessarily tell us whether that is still a figure that is not in balance with the ecology. You make an absolutely crucial point, convener. It is about impacts, not numbers. The quotation that I gave you from SNH information given to me yesterday was about impacts. I think that the other point that always has to be borne in mind is that deer are not the only herbivores occupying the open hill range. They share their range with sheep. Sheep numbers have also declined markedly over the last 10 years by a million, which is about 30 per cent. Overall grazing pressure and trampling pressure is undoubtedly coming down at a significant rate. It takes some time for exposed habitats to respond to that change in utilisation. There are particular areas where sheep numbers have reduced. We are talking about much of my part of the world in the far north west, in the mainland in particular, some of the islands. That is the areas where there have been fewer sheep. Overall, the central islands and so on, there seem to be stories about pressures there that continue to be raised with us. We will explore that in some more detail just now. I want to look at the content of the plans and the processes that the deer management groups have been undertaking. Mike Russell is going to fly her away. Just before I come to inputs and outputs, I just want to raise the figures that you just gave. Your own publication, LDNS News, on page 6 on the native woodland survey of Scotland, just so that we are absolutely accurate in terms of figures, says that only 46 per cent of native woods are in satisfactory ecological condition. On a comparable basis, 54 per cent of native woodland-designated sites, as of June 2014, are in favourable condition, at a decrease of 5 per cent since 2010. There are figures that perhaps give a less rosy view than the one that you were giving. In your own publication. Exactly. The NWSS report was extremely useful and will be a reference point, which is a value for some time. I said that there was no grounds for complacency. I don't for a moment say that there isn't a problem. What I'm saying is that the problem is proportionate and can be managed. As far as the native woodland survey was concerned, we had one issue with that in that it had a default presumption that if an area of native woodland was not in favourable or improving condition, that it was due to deer. I know from the estate that I'm responsible for that the area where that woodland was deemed to be in that unsatisfactory state, there are no deer present because they are excluded by fencing and the damage was actually done by sheep. There are nuances of this that require further exploration. I think the point is that if the woods are not in satisfactory condition, then something needs to be done about it, but it's not just about the deer, although the deer are a part of it. I was at an event on Friday in Strachar in my constituency, which is organised by forestry and deer interests. The inescapable conclusion of that event, I want to come on to the way that deer management plans are put together, deer management groups operate, but the inescapable conclusion was that the problem was not being solved. At the forestry commission, for example, it had great intent, but it wasn't solving the problem, neither were private landowners, and that the figures being used were inaccurate, and that there was a complacency about the situation that was causing enormous difficulty. I think that there are many people who disagree with your take on this and who want to see more radical action. Let's come to the question of deer management group processes. Can whoever wishes to talk me through that process, what does a deer management group meeting feel like and look like? Who's there? What's the public participation? What's the outcome? Just talk me through this, what you believe is happening. Well, typically, because none of them are exactly the same and they all reflect the local circumstances in which they're located, deer management groups will be attended by a mix of the proprietors of the estates concerned, the land holdings concerned, by a number of the people who work on them and by representatives. Those are the prime movers, so to speak. They will also be attended by almost, without exception, Scottish Natural Heritage through their wildlife management officer. They will almost always have a representative from a forest enterprise because there are blocks of forestry land within nearly all the deer management group areas. Typically, they will also have representation from the local wildlife officer from the police and there will be a number of other interests too. If the mix of estates concerned includes charitable bodies, they will be represented. If they include public bodies, they will be represented in that capacity. Where I think there is still work to do is in how they engage with the public, and that's a point that was made in the review and which we're taking very seriously. ADMG has been spending some time in thinking about the best mechanisms for this. We've developed a simple off-the-peg website which we'll be launching in about a month to all the deer management groups so that they can use that as their principal window, so to speak, so that people can get information about deer management plans, about minutes and about the action plans of individual deer groups. We're addressing that. We accept that that's a matter of significant concern for the committee, and that they expect to see progress on that. Why don't the public show any interest? Is it because they don't have any interest or because they don't think their interest would be of any influence at all in that grouping? Different in different circumstances, but I certainly know of a number of circumstances where deer management groups have attempted to engage with the public and find that there is very little interest. Not a deer-related issue, but I recently, and this is just an example of rural communities sometimes being quite content with what is done around them and not wishing to intervene or take an interest, I recently, on the estate I look after, offered an area of Woodland, to be community Woodland, around the settlement in the Glen Concerned, and I held a meeting at which as many of the community, as we're able to attend, were present, and they took the view that they would rather not have the burden of looking after it and that they were perfectly happy for it to be looked after by the estate. Oh, I could take you to lots of groups who would cut your hand off to get an area of Woodland, but there we are, I suppose it's not so queer as folk. Duncan, are you doing? Just to say, I mean, we think there could be greater transparency, like you're suggesting, in the deer management planning process. Actually, we're surprised that in this bill there is no link back to part 4 of the act around, of the bill, around transparency. I mean, if you use the comparison of the forestry commission public register, all new plantings, all forest design plans have to go through a standard system, which is published on the forestry commission website. We think there should be a similar approach on the SNH website that all deer management plans especially should be published on the website, especially now that public money is involved through SRDP. SNH are also contributing 200,000 at the moment to the production of deer management plans. You're correct when you said earlier about there are genuine concerns really about deer numbers in some places and impacts on the natural heritage and the impacts particularly on designated sites. SNH are targeting in particular deer management as one of the key issues if we're going to resolve some of the outstanding issues around damage to features of designated sites and to achieve woodland expansion, native woodland expansion. You need deer densities of under five, probably closer to two per square kilometre, which we do not have in many places in Scotland. The forest enterprise is setting itself on this, are being achieved. Well, they take a third of the deer cull as well, remember. Indeed, and they're still not achieving the targets. Thank you. If I could pick up on Richard's point, when we look at how deer management groups engage with the public, it's got to be very much horses for courses, different groups will want to do it in different ways. In some places, it will be easier to engage with the community and others it won't. So, as an example, for instance, the Monaleith deer management group recently did have such a meeting and they got quite a good attendance. But again, that's a pretty engaged, populated area where there is interest and I guess being part of the national park may be helped that. There are other areas where that's probably not so easy or appropriate, in which case I think the portal that Richard's outline does give that public view, public window, which I think will be extremely useful. I just wonder if I could briefly give you a last question on this. Just put it to the panel who are people of great experience in this. If you took a long view of deer management in Scotland, you would, I think, inevitably, but you were used to challenge this, come to the conclusion that the state and legislative action so far has failed and that particularly public bodies have failed when they have left this matter, as they have done, from the establishment of the red deer commission onwards to landowners and large public undertakings. It has not worked. The problem has got progressively worse. The problem in forestry now is insurmountable in some areas in terms of growing trees and particularly native woodlands. The solutions to date have not cut the mustard and there needs to be much more radical action taken to stop this problem getting even worse. The solutions that come from public bodies, forest enterprise and SNH, well-intentioned as they are, do not work too. Mr Russell is right to remind us. In the 1990s—I think it was 1994—we had a report from SNH called Red Deer and the Natural Heritage, which at that time suggested that the red deer population needed to be reduced from 200,000 animals to 100,000. We now have a population in the Highlands of Scotland of over 400,000 red deer, so you are correct. Doug McAdam? What we have to remind ourselves is that we have a voluntary system at the moment that is delivering in the public interest across a number of areas, including deer management, which is done at very little cost to the public purse. The numbers are rising and damage is getting worse. That is not— I think that there is dispute about whether the numbers are rising or not. I think that this review that is going to take place next year in 2016 is going to look at exactly what you are saying, Mike, about whether it is delivering or not. Perhaps we should await the outcome of this detailed review that people are working towards. No, they know it is not. Your members know it is not. Well, I would dispute that. That is what I hear throughout my constituency and throughout the rural sector in Scotland. The reality is that the numbers are growing and that the management methods are not working. They are well-intentioned. In some places, they are having some effect, but overall, this problem has continued to get worse for the last 100 years, probably, and action is required that is effective now. The voluntary action has not been effective. Sorry, can I just come back at that point? I think that we also—and it maybe goes back to your previous point about native woodlands as well—we also have to differentiate between the red deer range and management through deer management groups there and the lowland situation, where, undoubtedly, the population in the lowlands is growing, there is a problem, and it needs dealt with, and maybe we will come on to talk about that later, but we do have to differentiate between the two. I guess that quite a part of your constituency is feeling the effects of that lowland issue as well. First of all, SNH, Robbie Kernan. Yes, some interesting observations. I think that I need to come back on some of them. There is no doubt that a meeting in Cowell of last week will have highlighted the fact that there is no established deer management group in that area has resulted in a lack of cohesive deer management because people will continue to act in isolation. I think that when you are managing red deer as a resource, we have long recognised that meaningful collaboration needs to take place and it is a shame that deer management groups in Cowell have kind of fallen by the wayside because that does illustrate that there is a problem, and people are not happy with the current provision, so therefore something needs to be done. I think that coming back to the legislation and how effective it is, it was only relatively recently, I think that it was 1996 before natural heritage was actually even encompassed in the Deer Scotland Act, so prior to that it wasn't even really considered to be much of an issue. I think that we have seen since the 1996 act and how the Red Deer Commission, the Deer Commission for Scotland and now SNH have positioned themselves, has always been to try and encourage and facilitate effective management and only when that doesn't work have we more formally intervened, and I think that we can actually demonstrate that some of the current provisions within the legislation can actually work because I think that we've got some very good examples of making meaningful reductions of deer numbers, and I can cite two or three examples, Ken Loughan, Bridalbon and others, where we have significantly changed deer densities. To some of that question a little later on, because two or three other people want to come in on Mike's point, so the first of these is Richard, then Duncan and then Alec Hogg. Yes, I mean you obviously, well I now understand who you're talking about, Mr Russell and I. I don't know a great deal about the Cowell area because it's not within our network because as Robbie said there isn't a deer management group in the area. We have actually been speaking to SNH about Cowell because we recognise that it's an area where collaborative management is necessary, and I think that as a part of this process that shall be called the 2016 process, we're not only trying to get the existing deer management group areas up to speed, we're also looking at areas where there is a case for introducing deer management groups or similar collaborative mechanisms where they aren't present at the moment, and Cowell is one of those. So it's not that this has escaped our notice. I think in general the statistic I gave you earlier about the impact on designated sites says something about impacts. You used a quotation from our newsletter, which is the lowland deer network newsletter, but the point is well made that most of the native woodlands are not in a condition which we would want them to be, and which I accept, but I mean the point earlier that that isn't always just deer, but I think we have to ask ourselves what is the role of native woodlands. They're not just there for their own sake, they're there to provide shelter, feeding, amenity, landscape. They're not just there for timber production, they're not just there for their own sake, they're multifunctional, they play a role in the countryside, they have a utilitarian role as well as an amenity role, and from that point of view the fact that they're providing accommodation in the winter for wild deer, or for sheep, or for other herbivores for that matter, other species of deer, it means that one is reducing the pressure on the exposed land nearby. So if that was an argument you would get to the stage where there were none left, by allowing this to happen. Well, exactly, and it's important that they should regenerate, and in general that can be done on a rotational basis by the use of ffencing, which indeed is, and there are good examples of that all over Scotland. Can you now, I don't want to dominate this, I proposed the last question, but I just want to make the point, I'm not specifically, although I'm using Cowell as an example, I receive information from other areas, you know, as a former environment minister I've had some experience of this problem, my long view of this is firmly, and firmly of the view that the system to date has not worked, that good things have been done, nobody's denying good things that have been done in places, but they require a more radical approach in order to ensure that this problem is contained and kept and got under control, and we need therefore stronger statutory approaches because the voluntary approach has by and large failed, that's my view. Duncan Orr Ewing? Just briefly, we have one of the least regulated deer management systems in Europe, and perhaps some of the biggest ecological issues that are arising from large deer populations in some areas, and if you compare our red deer populations with the likes of Sweden and Norway, our populations are in some places tenfold higher, and if you refer back to the Land Reform Review Group report, there was a suggestion in that, or the suggestion that urgent action in relation to deer management was required, they recommended that SNH should set deer culls and that there should be compulsory deer returns and that kind of thing, and we would certainly support those kind of measures and we hope they will be in place in due course. I'll give Alec Hogg a wee shot first just before we come back to Richard. Thanks. Mike, to go back to your problem with Srahaar, there's two points I'd like to make. One is, I used to work for the Forestry Commission on the west coast of Scotland at Lechaw. When I worked for them in the late 70s and late 80s, there were 33 rangers in that wee constituency alone, wildlife rangers. There's none left in Scotland from the Forest Commission, compared to what they had. In the past when you're an environment minister, why is the Forest Commission not starting to employ young rangers? There's no wildlife rangers, and that is part of the problem because there's no ground to manage anymore. What we're finding is contractors are coming in, shooting the deer in the spotlight and then they're not being part of the community, and also there is lots of locals in these areas who'd be prepared to go and take on a wee bit ground and control deer. They never get the chance, so that is two major problems within the deer management. We don't have the Forestry Commission here, but we know their remarks and we can explore them in due course. Graham Day wanted to ask a supplementary at the moment. Time will tell given the contribution that Mr Hogg has just made. If deer management groups are to operate successfully, we need to be able to call on all available expertise. I'm sure Mr Hogg will remember in the previous work that the committee did in that area, we highlighted the need for the gamekeepers to have a voice in deer management groups. I just want to ask him if the voice of your members and their expertise is now bringing an influence to the work of DMGs, or are we still in the same position? We're much more involved now and we're being asked for advice much more and we're getting a lot of the stalkers going on to the meetings, and it's far more broad brush now. Claudia Beamish Right, thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. Could I just ask particularly Robbie and Douglas, but any other brief comments as well? Just about the process in terms of public money now being put in to support the deer management groups, which I understand is in the kickstart process. Is there an expectation still that a state should be putting money into this to support it and going forward? How does that process work? This is public money that's being put in and rightly so where there are areas that it's not functioning at all, but just looking to the future, where is this money going to come from to manage the advertising, for instance, for public participation, the appropriate advertising or whatever the issue might be. Okay, Robbie. Happy to start. Again, just going back to the first principles here, deer management groups operate on a voluntary basis. Therefore, they are organised voluntarily and most of the organisation of those groups come from their members. There's very little money from the state, so it goes into helping to facilitate deer management groups' function effectively. Obviously SNH and the FCS staff attend, provide advice and support and guidance as necessary and provide that kind of public interest voice, as it were. We also recognise that collaborative deer management requires a certain amount of facilities and expertise. One of the problems that we've always had with DMGs is that they sometimes struggle with capacity and the expertise in order to mediate conflicts or resolve some of those things, but it is in the public interest to do so. Therefore, we are quite content to be able to provide some kind of incentive to make groups function more effectively and plan more effectively. With that in mind, we have managed to secure funding through SRDP to help groups function and that can be drawn down through the new collaborative action fund. There is money available to plan at a landscape scale to help groups like DMGs operate on that basis and deliver deer management more effectively. Since the committee last considered deer management, SRDP was in a bit of a hiatus, which is why SNH and the Scottish Government came up with a sum of money to help groups produce some of those plans. With the expectation that having gone through the process of better identifying what public interest we were expecting DMGs to deliver, those plans would be designed to help to address some of those concerns. We made available £100,000 last year and again this year. Most of that will have been drawn down by the end of the financial year to help groups produce plans. Moving forward, again there will be public money available to help monitor delivery of those plans in terms of money for habitat impact assessment to actually measure the impacts deer are having and also the benefits of those plans being put together. Just to make it clear that the funds that are being made available from SNH are made available on a match fund basis, so the deer group's concerns are all raising new money to pay for their 50% of the deer management planning process. If I could just pick up a point from Graham Day, three of our deer management groups are now chaired by gamekeepers, by Storkers. I am very keen that that should continue. I completely agree with what is your premise that the people on the ground are the people who know best and should drive the deer management process. I am very keen to encourage that. Just back to Mike Russell's point, I am very concerned that deer are being portrayed possibly by you and the people who speak to you of no value in themselves as being vermin that should be removed like rats. If that is the case, I think we must bear in mind that there are considerable benefits, including environmental benefits, as well as employment and social benefits, that flow from the management of the deer population in a sustainable way. We are working very strongly towards the sustainable management of the deer population in general. Of course, there are areas and always will be areas. Deer management is a reactive process. It reacts to change. Of course, there are areas where there is work to be done. I firmly believe that the principle, the voluntary system with the flexibility that underlies it, is the best possible way of addressing that. I have heard that before. Can I make a list of what I said or what I intended to say? I would be grateful if it was not misrepresented. I do not think that we need to be talking about rats and things like that because I do not think that it actually helps us in what this committee does. We are about the environment. We do recognise all the parts of the environment, even if some other people do not. Sorry, Doug McCallum. Can I come back to the original question? I would agree with what Robbie says. I think that the provision of public money to help that initial process and get going is a very good use of that money. I think that we can see parallels in other areas where we are trying to break ground. What I would like to say is that the bulk of the cost of deer management across Scotland is still borne by the private sector in terms of the day-to-day management and the cost that comes with that. That is a very small part compared to that whole, so I think that that is just a very important point that we should all recognise. There was a point about the portal and so on. Does that mean that agendas, meeting papers, minutes and so on, are going to be available on that portal? It is the sort of thing that you would expect perhaps to be published on notice boards and village halls and so on. Indeed, as I say, different deer groups will find different ways of doing that to address their local community interests. However, the web portal that I anticipate over a period will become pretty standard and will be the best means to find out what is going on. Looking to the approach that has been taken in the bill, I welcome your views on whether SNH should have a power to amend plans rather than just approve or reject those. Should it have the power to impose its own plan? If unhappy with that, prepared by a DMG, does it actually have the suitable expertise to do that? Richard Cooke, then Duncan, are you in? In practical terms, that is what happens. The development of deer management plans is, as I say, in practice a process of negotiation in which SNH is very closely involved, particularly in view of the public money aspect of it. That is what happens. They amend as well as approve and I think that it would be fair to say that if they disapproved, the grant would not be paid, so that would not work. I think that the measures proposed in the bill should give SNH additional powers to intervene in specific circumstances where things are not working. I do not have a problem with that. I mean that I think that if there should be an individual or two or three individuals who are not collaborating with their neighbours in the management of a shared deer population and normal powers of persuasion aren't sufficient to change that, then I don't think that we have a problem with SNH having the opportunity to intervene if it needs to do so. I would remind the committee that the section 8 powers that SNH already has under the deer legislation have not had to be used, for which I give credit to SNH because they like to use their influence and persuasive powers rather than a big stick as far as possible. SNH is supposed to be publishing shortly a review of progress with deer management planning progress in Scotland that hasn't been published yet. We do understand that there are some private landowners who are not following the process. They are outside deer management groups or whatever. We do agree that the proposals that are proposed, the new powers to SNH, to intervene in the deer management planning process, are required. We also think that they should be implemented now rather than later, as recommended in the land review group report, which came out after the racy evidence that was taken a couple of years ago. We think that those powers will be required in any case because there will be some landowners that are outside the system. We are dealing with the bill, as it is, and the proposals in it, as they are, not implementing things earlier, but we hear what you say. Douglas Thank you. Our view would be that SNH already has section 7 and section 8 powers. They have the power to intervene, to drive deer management groups in a certain direction, and to direct deer management plans in a certain direction. It is important that we maintain that balance of the public and private interests and how that is developed. To move to a more top-down, draconian process could upset that balance and could upset what we are trying to achieve. Even Duncan mentioned earlier about looking across the water to Scandinavia, I think that even when you look there at the processes that they have, they are not even at that top-down. We should take note of that as well. We could have a long philosophical discussion about local government, and so on, in Scandinavia, compared to local decision-making, but we do not have that here yet. Robbie Kernan Just coming back to the question and picking of a point that Mike Russell made, the actual process by which those plans are constructed is crucial here. What we have attempted to do with every DMG is to take some of those national policies, for example Scotland's biodiversity 2020 route map, Scotland's forestry strategy, and distill them down into meaningful bite-sized chunks for deer management groups across the country. We have effectively tried to spell out the ask of what the policy direction is across the country and to try and help DMGs to understand what that means for them. From an ecological point of view, if healthy ecosystems are actually driving quite a lot of the debate, and I think that it is quite rightly, we are asking groups to begin to think about, how do they address the 56 per cent of native woodlands that are in poor condition at local level? What meaningfully can they do to demonstrate that they are actually aware of that problem and are not addressing it locally? In terms of woodland expansion, across those groups of estates, what is realistic for the groups to consider in terms of new woodland creation designated features? How many features can we begin to address? We are really beginning to spell out what the ask is. There are some things in there that groups have to do because it is a legal requirement, and there are some things in there that they should do because it is sensible from a deer management point of view in terms of creating new woodland, for example. They are being encouraged to think about them. Those are not regulatory requirements. They are being encouraged to think about government policy and to try and implement that voluntarily, and we will incentivise them to do so. Quite a lot of those discussions are about what do those groups consider to be the priorities for them. The priorities up in North West Sutherland and Caithness for peatlands, for example, might be very different to the priorities down in Angus Gleithnes, where maybe woodland is more of a priority. It is not a one-size-fits-all. We are asking those groups to actively think about what they consider the priorities to be locally and then to try to address some of those priorities in the plans, which I think is quite a sensible way of doing it. SNH is fully engaged in that process in terms of our staff going along and helping to facilitate some of those conversations and supporting and providing directions to what we think should go in those plans, because it is really about delivering the public interest. As I said, it is early days. We have only seen two or three of those draft plans with those public interests outcomes built into them. I know that this is quite an ambitious ask, which we are putting to the deer management groups, because I suspect that they will not be able to do everything in here. It is the start of a process, and we are trying to get them to be quite ambitious about what they can do within the next five years, and if there are things that they cannot tackle, they cannot lose sight of them, because those are big issues, and we need the DMGs to grasp them. We need to move on, but, just before we come to section 7 and 8, Dave Thomson, you have a question for the SGA. I thank you, convener. Good morning, gentlemen. It is to do with the socioeconomic impacts of those things. I notice from your submission from the SGA that you would hope that deer management practice, which goes against the socioeconomic interests of communities, will be similarly liable for penalty, which you are quoting a bit further up. It is a very good point. I have no doubt about that. There is a real concern, and I understand the concern, about jobs and about the effect on people in the areas. Maybe a little bit of comfort, and I will get your comment on that. Section 4 of the Regulatory Reform Scotland Act 2014 already places a duty on regulatory bodies. I will just read it to you. In exercising its regulatory functions, each regulator must contribute to achieving sustainable economic growth, except where that is inconsistent with its functions. That is legalese. I dare say that we could argue around exactly what it means, but it would appear that there is already a duty to take into account socioeconomic factors. I think that it is probably already there, but I would be interested in the comments, not just of the SGA, but of SNH. How do you—this is only a year-old piece of legislation—balance those things, and how do you take that into account? If anybody else wants to comment as well, that would be fine. I am happy to go first. You are absolutely right. Part of our founding legislation means that we actually have balancing duties in place in carrying out all of our functions. We are already obliged to take into account the interests of owner occupiers of land, about the needs of agriculture and forestry and the natural heritage, in reaching decisions about the appropriate density and numbers of deer. Specifically, we are talking about the Deer Scotland Act, but that applies to our natural heritage functions, too. The regulator's code and the duty that is placed upon us is relatively new, legitimately speaking. There has already been an expectation for some time that we take into account the interests of owner occupiers and the socioeconomics associated with any of our decision-making. Once we welcome the new code, I think that our view has always been one of balance, actually, to make sure that we do get the balance between ecological outcomes, social outcomes and economic outcomes in everything that we do. That is obviously a key part of any of our decision-making when we are thinking about the reduction, for example, of what impact will that have on local economies and jobs? I just wonder if Solomon works for you, because it cannot be easy to get up balance right. It is not, but that is effectively what we are tasked with. That is really what we are there to try to mediate, facilitate between the public interests, between what the legislation expects of us in terms of preventing damage, but also taking into account the needs of agriculture, forestry and, indeed, sporting objectives, which is why we perhaps get it in the neck from everybody, Dave, but that is part of the job thing. In the SGA, are you comforted by the fact that this legislation exists, and from what Robbie Kernahan has just said? I never knew about that legislation, but it sounds like there is a wee bit of protection there. The other thing that I would like to say is that, when you have a man at the glen, he is not just a stair stalker, but in a way he is policing that ground as well, and it is very important in this day and age to recognise that he is on that ground seven days a week. Several other people want to comment on the whole panel, so we will start off with Duncan or Ewing, then Doug and then Richard. I will just make the point that, in the context of sustainable deer management, we actually need more deer management to happen, not less, so you would envisage that we need to have circumstances where you actually facilitate the ability for more people to carry out deer management, and sometimes because of the systems that we have in place, that prevents some of the wider engagement in deer management that you would hope could arise. I would just say that I very much welcome what you point out. I think that that actually allows us to look at deer from a slightly different angle, which is very much as a natural sustainable resource. Having the right economic sustainability requirements built in is very important. We have got a resource there that we have got to harvest and we have got to do it sustainably, so we need to make sure that the numbers are there to do so. We very much welcome that. Anne-Ritchard. Duncan largely made my point for me that deer management needs people. As far as the community benefit from deer management is concerned, I think that the committee would have heard on Monday that the grass routes are very much involved, particularly in the lowlands in deer management, and certainly the lowland deer network is very keen indeed to see that proliferate and be the general pattern. Right, we will stick to deer management at the moment. But what if the management plans are not agreed and Sarah Boyack is going to lead on this? Thank you very much, convener. We have been spending a lot of time talking about where things are working. We want to explore the issue of where control agreements have been introduced, where they are voluntary. We particularly want to get a sense of how section 7 and 8 work together, because we have never had the powers in section 8 actually used, so I want to tease out the calculations behind that. In the evidence from SNH, we have spent a bit of time talking about how section 7 actually works in practice. Can you give us a sense of how fast it is or how straightforward it is to get a seven-section agreement on using control agreements for deer management? Yes, I can. We have currently got nine control agreements across the country, ranging from small agreements with two or three properties through to a fairly significant agreement in Bridalbon, where we have the whole deer management group signed up to a section 7 control agreement. It involves 27 estates, and we have taken a population of over 75,000 hectares down from about 12,000 to 13,000 to 8,000 hectares. We have taken a population down from just over 12,000 to 5,000 years. That demonstrates that we can negotiate meaningful agreements over large tracts of Scotland with very different and complex ownership patterns. Obviously, the length of time that it takes to negotiate a solution will depend on the number of people that you are trying to negotiate with. Some of those negotiations might take longer than others. I think that what the Wildlife and Natural Environment Act did in 2011 is try to ensure that section 7 and the link to section 8 are more integrated in the fact that we can put a very clear timescale on which we would seek to try to secure a voluntary agreement. That is time-bound to six months now. We have got good experience of being able to secure some of those complex agreements in that time period. I reiterate the point that I tried to make earlier that the current provisions can work, and we have got good examples of where they can work, where we can secure environmental gains. In each of those agreements, we can demonstrate meaningful progress in terms of habitat outcomes, where habitats are improving as a result of those interventions, but at the same time ensure that they remain reasonably compatible with on-going sporting management. To me, that is quite reassuring. The process is reasonably well understood by those people who have been exposed to it. Generally, when we introduce the concept of a control agreement, it is not universally well received because people still think that it is state intervention, which is not necessarily always necessary. There is a little bit of a selling job to be done that this is a voluntary agreement. We can negotiate. We are willing to be sensible and reasonable, but we need to be clear about what success will look like and success will be dictated to by habitat response and environmental outcomes. I do not know if that goes as far as you would like in terms of answering a specific question. In terms of the use of section 8, I think that we tend to flex the muscles as and when we need to if we are finding some of these negotiations become difficult, because the very fact that we can threaten the use of section 8 where there is less room for manoeuvre, less room for negotiation actually helps those discussions to reach a voluntary outcome. We are never far away from that if we are having some of those very difficult conversations. I think that that is really useful, because it is clear that section 8 has not been used. We have not seen control schemes actually imposed, but in your evidence from SNH you spend quite a lot of time highlighting what you perceive as the risks of using section 8. One of the key things that struck me was whether you see it as a priority to use section 8 because of the process of assessing whether section 8 would be a useful power. You clearly use it as a backstop to bang heads together, but let us see that you have a section 7 agreement. Most people are playing ball, but maybe one or two aren't. Can I tease out the issue of the one-off assessment? You highlight that issue as quite a risky way to go and you question whether a one-off assessment would actually do the trick. You question the extent to which you have got to go through a whole process before you get to that point. Do you think that section 8 control schemes, as they are currently identified, are appropriate? Is it too tough a process for you to actually use it? Is it only useful to use a backstop up to the kind of impression that I have got from reading your evidence? If we are going to move forward with a section 8 control scheme, we, as SNHs, regularly body need to be absolutely clear that there are actually the primary cause of damage. We are obviously reassured when we have followed a course of events where we can clearly demonstrate damage associated with deer management. However, that is really all about our risk appetite. It is reasonable for us now to conclude that, off the basis of a one-off assessment with our knowledge about impacts deer are having and the number of deer involved, that if we can't secure a voluntary agreement, we could progress to section 8. However, it does carry an increased risk of successful challenge because, as we know, ecological relationships are complicated, there are other herbivores involved, which is why we would have more confidence if we can be more assured in our assessment that damage is actually down to deer and there is a clear audit trail that allows us to reach that conclusion. Duncan, I was just going to say that section 7 and section 8 are useful tools in the toolbox. They can be quite lengthy to negotiate. We would argue that a swifter system is required, but I would also remind the committee that section 7 agreements are very much geographically focused. They are focused around areas, particularly around improvement of the condition of designated sites and for road safety, but the range of public outputs that we are now requiring from our uplands now go much wider—the protection of Peatlands, native woodland expansion. Those are all far wider public objectives that we now require from our uplands beyond designated sites and the road safety issues that are covered by section 7, so we think that there is a case for expanding the scope of SNH's involvement across a range of issues in the uplands. I would just say that I would like to share Robbie Cohn's analysis of the value and benefit of section 8. I think that they have been helpful. I would anticipate that, as the deer management plans that are now being developed are rolled out in practical terms, that they will hopefully remove the need for intervention of the sort that SNH has had to apply in terms of section 7 with section 8 in the background. I think that they will also address Duncan's point that they can look at the wider environment but beyond designated sites, which have indeed been the focus of intervention under section 7. It would be remiss of us not to mention the name Ardvar before we leave this particular point in the agenda. It throws up the contrast between current discussions by a neighbouring landowner to say that there are far fewer deer than were measured previously, but, on the other hand, a failure by three landowners—only three, not 27—over two years to get to a discussion about a land management order. The John Muir Trust is not prepared to accept a land management order that includes fencing. That is the only way that you can pay for fencing, and section 8 order has not been applied to a situation. I am only reading in the local press about the numbers of deer that are said to be fewer than there were when they were last counted, but I am also aware that, as I said earlier, Richard Cook agreed, the actual impacts of how many deer there are can still be far out of balance with the needs of that particular landscape to regenerate. What is going to resolve something like that if three landowners cannot be got moving within a two-year period? Who is going to pick that up? I think that the asset situation is an extremely interesting one because it is the crucible of all the difficult issues and potential conflicts that deer management groups potentially face. In that particular case, you have got an absolute standoff between the competing objectives of the different landowners, all of whom have valid aspirations for their pieces of land. In circumstances like that, I do feel that there is a use for the intervention powers of the state through SNH because it has proved of a really rather long and reasonably long period impossible to get the parties to find some compromise in some middle way which addresses the common ground. It is difficult to see how this is all going to go, but these issues, albeit pretty extreme in discussion in Ascent, are quite typical of the issues that are under discussion in groups right across Scotland. To bring the committee up to date with where we are on Ascent, we did rehearse some of those arguments when we met 18 months ago. We have effectively asked the Ascent Peninsula to develop a deer management plan along the lines of the same ask that we have put to all our deer management groups. With the best will in the world, I think that what we have seen being produced falls significantly short of what we had hoped we would see. Some of that is because of the very complex and competing land management objectives of those players in the peninsula, and some of it is undoubtedly down to the capacity within the group about whether or not they are able to reconcile some of that. However, if I was to draw any analogies to what is in front of us and the current provisions in the bill, essentially we are rehearsing the arguments whereby we have made a notification of those on those estates to produce a plan. It has fallen short of our expectations and we have recently notified them of our intention to secure a control agreement. I went up to Ascent and chaired the meeting two weeks ago to explain that process to all of the owners up there, not just the three that are owners of the designated sites but some of the smaller estates as well. To explain what was in a section 7 control agreement, the process is associated with it and what we might like to see, because, in our view, the day management group has proved to be largely dysfunctional. That notification was not met with open arms. It has been made quite clear that there are estates up there that are opposed to signing a section 7 control agreement, and we have condensed the timescale within which we would like to secure arrangements with them. We have given them a three-month time period. We are going to meet one-on-one with them to explain what we would like to see, where we go and what the risks are. I suspect that it will come back to the SNH board and, indeed, potentially the minister to take a view about whether or not we have the appetite to regulate a system that involves two community-owned estates, two or three very small sporting estates and an environmental NGO, because, among themselves, they have not been able to work through that. For the powers of raising fines and things like that, that bill includes ought to be a message to those people out there to get their act together. That has been a very firmly message coming from SNH that the risk that they run of not securing a voluntary agreement actually brings into section 8 territory and potentially significant financial penalties to it. Duncan, are you? Just a wider comment. In the context of this bill, there is a land responsibility rights and responsibilities statement, which very much focuses on who owns land. We would argue that there also needs to be a strong emphasis on how natural resources are used in the public interest as part of that statement. That might help to set the context for some of those disputes that occur, as Robbie says, across Upland, Scotland. We cannot have a ffencing solution for day across much of Upland, Scotland. Indeed, but without going into the detail of that. Passing comment, just so that the committee is aware, I cannot underestimate the strength of feeling and the significant breakdown in relationships between all those estates up there that actually make sitting around the table having a meaningful, mature conversation even more challenging than it is normally. Thank you for that bit of evidence. Just to come back to what powers SNH does have and going back to your evidence, because one of the things that you point out is that a control scheme can only remedy damage that has been caused. It cannot seek to enhance the site. I wanted to ask the panel where you think that that is a deficiency in terms of the powers. You have to go through all this effort of getting people in a room and trying to get agreement. What you are doing is remedying the past problem, but you are not necessarily getting a better solution that everybody would be able to sign up to and would benefit the area. My observation on that is that the way that the Dear Scotland Act has written, the regulatory impacts are to restore damage, to prevent damage and to it is not there to incentivise enhancement. That is why some of our other tools are about buying enhancement rather than using regulation to potentially enhance habitats to condition that they have never been before, which goes back to the earlier point about whether or not we have the appetite to use section 8 on the basis of a one-off visit. To be honest, quite a lot of the condition of designated sites at the point of designation does not provide us with a meaningful baseline on which we can demonstrate that deterioration has occurred. It highlights the complexity of the legislation and is trying to make meaningful assessments of ecological condition if we are going to use regulation to restore them. As a follow-up, you stressed the legislative requirement that deer have to be the primary cause of damage, but one or two of you have said, if it is not the deer, there are other things as well. How do you get an integrated approach? Deer management control orders might be a very effective way to get everyone around the table working together. How do you get those other issues dealt with, when that is potentially what would give you a long-term solution of both addressing deer but also being able to bring an area up to scratch? I think that we go into all those negotiations very cognisant of the fact that domestic stock, as often as not, has got an integral role to play. Occasionally, we find the fact that those decisions about the balance between domestic stock and wild herbivores still remain within anesthete's decision making about where they consider the most appropriate balance to be between domestic stock and wild deer. In the ascent situation, if I can use that as an analogy, we have 12 townships within the ascent crofting trust property. We have the Unipool common grazings, who are part owners of Cunyug, that John Wier trust owns. When you introduce that additional complexity of domestic stock with wild deer, the negotiations take more time, which is illustrative of the point where it is proving to be quite difficult to get a sensible solution. Can I ask you why you do not publicise the details of those agreements or even their existence on SNH websites? I think that we have done in the past, but certainly the deer commission, all of those agreements were readily available, as was the county information, and there is certainly a reason why they should not be, so we will take that on board. Back to the point about the balance in the decision between wild and domestic grazing. Of course, the other upside to that are the policy signals and the drivers that come through things like CAP, and these, of course, will have an influence on people's stocking rates. People, I think, as we have seen in the last year or so, are reacting quite strongly to that. We have areas where there are a lot more domestic grazers put back out into the hill than there were two years before, and in other areas, obviously, there has been reduction. That is obviously a significant point, too. I think that we should move on to deer management planning in the lowlands for change, Alex Ferguson. Yes, if we could come to what sounds like comparatively peaceful pastures of lowland deer management, there seems to be some dubiety over whether upland deer populations are increasing or decreasing, but I do not think that there is any doubt at all that, in the lowland areas, they are very much on the increase. Exploding might not be too strong a word. Of course, we are dealing with very different beasts in lowland deer management, quite literally, because we are dealing with very different species. One of the things that struck me from the meeting that we had just last Monday was just over how much of lowland Scotland there is no recognised deer management. It was also very well brought home that the bill has a one-size-fits-all approach in that there is no specific recommendations for lowland Scotland as opposed to upland Scotland. When you consider that, in the lowland situation, we are talking about deer management in and around heavily populated urban areas, as well as perhaps much more owner-occupied farms, that sort of situation. I just wonder how the panel feels. A lot of the submissions that you put in really asked how the Government intended these measures to work in lowland situations, and I wondered if you would comment on how you think the bill as published would impact on lowland deer management. I should answer that first. Alex, we did talk about this on Monday. I think the fact that there are not deer management groups, and we call them lowland deer groups, to distinguish them from deer management groups. That is quite an important distinction, because, as you say, the only common ground between deer management in the Highlands and lowlands, if one looks at it in a black-and-white sort of way, is that they share the word deer—different species, different habits, different geographical context and everything else. Since the lowland deer network was formed in 2011 and its purpose was to introduce really a culture of collaboration in the lowlands, which exists over much of the Highlands but has not previously existed in the lowlands, the number of lowland deer groups has increased from six to ten, so that is happening. However, the absence of a deer group over much of lowland Scotland, and indeed each deer group only has partial cover of the area where it operates, so one actually has little formal collaboration, and it is not terribly formal, even though it is most formal, does not mean that deer management is not taking place at all. There is a big appetite and considerable demand in the sense of personal interest for deer management, and there are very few areas—I entirely accept what you say—that deer numbers are increasing very rapidly in the lowlands, and that is something that we should be concerned about, very concerned about, and that is why we are trying to develop mechanisms to deal with it. However, there are a large number of individuals who are involved in deer management in the lowlands. Whether it is enough or not, we just do not know, we do not know what the population is. We have good evidence that it is increasing, evidence such as the increase in road traffic accidents, evidence such as the increase in economic damage to plantations and woodland and, indeed, on agricultural land. What we are talking about here is a sector that is very much behind the red deer sector and has a great deal of distance to go to develop its potential capacity, but I would emphasise that deer management is going on. It is going on by people who are remarkably committed and skilled. I have been immensely impressed by the individuals I have been dealing with, and I think that we can make good progress with that. Applying the same sort of approach as we are in the uplands is not really workable. It is impossible to write a deer management plan that follows the model that we have designed with SNH for the highlands in the lowlands. We have only just begun to talk and think about what a deer management plan or what deer management planning in the lowlands would look like. I cannot say very much about what it would look like other than a register of the ground covered, the people involved, the level of qualification and the record of their calls. It would be difficult more than just to have a stock taking at this time and to have an action plan. Can I ask for Robbie Cynullan's view on that same question? I think that it is important to reflect on the very different context in which deer are managed in lowland Scotland. Our previous considerations at the committee have been very red centric and upland focused. It is important that we do not lose sight of the very real deer management challenges in lowland Scotland. The challenge for the lowland deer management is to try to ensure that we get a proactive and preventative approach before problems arise. We have talked about section 7 and how SNH can respond to a problem, and we can do that in lowland Scotland. That is in relation to deer vehicle collisions or what it is to do with particular issues of designated sites in Forestry. That is still quite a reactive approach. Although we helped to set up the lowland deer network Scotland, it was really to try and provide a bit of a bridge between those very skilled practitioners that Richards alluded to who have got the appetite and the expertise to do a job and to manage deer effectively. We tend to be struggling to get the owners of land and those people with the rights to start thinking proactively about deer management, because it does not really seem to be a big issue for them, whether they are local authorities, whether they are some of the big agricultural owner occupiers. Deer do not sit particularly high up their priority list. The challenge is to match up the skills with the practitioners that we have good engagement with and who have taken the time and effort to set some of the lowland groups up with the resource. That is a challenge for us. Legislatively, I do not think that there is anything that we can do there because it is about raising awareness of the need for deer management with those people that own land. We have got mixed experience of trying to engage with local authorities on that basis, for example. Who are big landowners and who have a responsibility to proactively think about deer management in all the properties that they manage? We have got very good examples of Dundee City Council or Aberdeenshire Council on Latterley, Perth and Kinross who are beginning to think about their position on deer management. Across the rest of local authorities, it is just not top of their priority list and that is something that we need to continue to tackle. Graham Dey wants to make a soft supplementary point. I want to pick up on Robbie Kerrnagan's point and maybe for Richard Cook. I mean, councils have a responsibility for deer management handed them by the Wain Act, didn't they? If, by and large, they are not exercising those responsibilities or taking the lead in that regard, what do we do? Well, the Wain Act makes it a duty of public bodies to manage deer sustainably and the responsibility of other land managers to do so. I think that it is a very good question. Certainly SNH, backed up by LDNS, has done its best to bring representatives of local authorities into the same room to get them to understand that they have a responsibility and to consider how they might address it. I have to say so far that we have not been very successful with one or two good exceptions. That is concerning. Well, we will make a note of that. So, Doug McAdam wanted to say something and then another supplementary from Dave Thompson. Yes, sorry. Yeah, thanks. I think in the Lowlands, I mean large landowners down there can give a lead to this process, I think, and many of them will already have their own internal deer management plan in place. But I think one of the biggest challenges in the Lowlands is the huge numbers of people involved. We are talking a whole different nature pattern of land ownership, lots of small fragmented ownership across the area, and the big challenge is how you get that collaboration from such a large number of people. Okay. Richard Cooke can then bring in Dave Thompson. I did make the point on Monday that it may be that some financial incentive will help people to collaborate and particularly bring farmers and possibly local authorities into the picture. I referred and it's still new territory. It isn't even available yet to the Environmental Collaborative Action Fund and whether this might be available to Lowland deer groups. If so, it would be a strong incentive to form groups where individuals are already carrying out deer management and would promote collaboration. That could be a step in the right direction, but it's untested and I simply don't know whether a loose grouping such as a Lowland deer group would be likely to be able to put together a proposal. For example, for the creation of a larder, and I did mention on Monday the need for larder facilities in the central belt, for example, whether that type of investment could be covered under the Environmental Collaborative Action Fund, but I think a financial incentive would be very much in the public interest. I would like to make a point about the game meat hygiene regulations from Europe. It doesn't allow an amateur deer stalker to take a beast into the butcher with a jacket on, so therefore he's got to take the jacket off in his shed and then take it to the butcher shop and which makes it illegal then. If we could tweak these game meat regulations, it would allow access to all local butchers and restaurants and legal access to venison, which none of them can get at the minute. The way it works up north, the game dealers pick up massive amounts of lots from estates, which is fine, but when you break it down into the wheel lots of woodland and stuff in central belt, there's no way of getting it into the market. If that was sorted, I think that it would help massively with the deer control. I think that we've got the kind of picture of that, Richard. We'll make a note of that. In terms of the bill, obviously, there are things that go beyond the bill, and that perhaps is a business of development of the actual plans about how to do this, but at the present time looking at the lowland question, Dave Thompson is a supplementary. Thank you very much, convener. It was good to meet Richard and his folk on Monday with the committee and the boarders. It's just really, as a point of clarification, I suppose. One of the leaflets that we had on the table in front of us showed the area that LDNS covered. A minute ago, Douglas said the lowlands down there, but the leaflet actually showed the definition of the area that you covered as a lowland deer network, being what most folk would understand as the lowlands down here, up the east coast, right through Aberdeenshire, through Murray, taking in the black isle and parts of Easter Ross. Those are the lowlands, but most folk, when they hear the word lowlands, think central belt and round about that. It was just really for clarity to get it on the record. Am I right in thinking that this is what the lowlands, when we're talking about the lowlands in this context, that's what we're looking at right round the east coast, even into Highland? That is correct. There's a significant overlap between the highlands and the lowlands, and if one relates it to the species, red deer are to be found in the lowlands and row deer are to be found in the highlands. It's by far from being a clear picture, but the map that you referred to, which shows in orange the lowlands in terms of the height above sea level, is correct. For example, there's a very effective deer group in Bamfond, Buckingham, Llewland deer group, which is perhaps one of the best. It covers a very large area. It certainly doesn't cover the whole of the area. There's nothing further north than that. Your map did seem to show what's of Easter Ross as well, which intrigued me. The map doesn't pretend to indicate where there is collaborative management. It indicates where there needs to be collaborative management. On the basis of finishing this section up, unless Alex has got another... No, no, I'll make it afterwards, because I think I don't want to enter really back to the floor. Maybe the same point, convener. The obvious question to ask here is, I hear there's progress being made, and I know there's moves to establish three different groups in south-west Scotland, in my part of Scotland. I hear there's progress being made, but the fact is that we have a big increase in the population that is likely to continue. Is this approach... Are we, as a committee, to assume that this approach is going to take care of the problem, or is the more we need to do to try to encourage a more rapid expansion and perhaps a more organised, because we're the best will in the world, and I absolutely understand about the professionalism and the dedication of the voluntary people involved. I don't doubt that at all, but is it enough to rely on that to deal with what is going to become an even greater problem? Things that need to be done, and they've already been alluded to. One is to get the local authorities to pay attention and to understand that they have responsibilities in this respect, and the other is that although we have representatives on our group of the NFU, they are not really as responsive on that front as they should be. Farmers are, of course, by a considerable scale, the biggest landholders and land managers in the area, so their active participation and involvement is important. We are a voluntary organisation, and we do have some support from public funds. It's very difficult to make people co-operate who are not inclined to do so, so anything that can be done to encourage that and draw attention to it would be valuable. I've already alluded to the possibility of making some of the SRDP funds possibly available to support collaborative management mechanisms and projects that they may want to do. I don't want to constantly appear to be a Jonah in these matters, but it seems to me that what we've just heard, but what we've just heard, mirrors things that we have been hearing for years in other parts of Scotland in terms of how we tackle the problem.  There's acceptance that there's no great unity amongst those involved. There's acceptance that some organisations and people don't want to be part of it or need to be reminded constantly of their duties, local authorities, and there's no accurate figure of what the problem is. I could take you back to analysis of the situation in other parts of Scotland 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years ago that we would find exactly those issues being raised. So I don't doubt the will or the determination or the desire to have change. It seems to me that you don't actually have the mechanism for change because you've still got all these same problems that are just repeating themselves now in the south of Scotland. If you go on doing the same things you get the same outcomes. I think that this issue requires us to do different things and therefore I think that we need stronger statutory regulation. I go back to that point and that alarms me what we're hearing about the Lonins because it just repeats what we've heard about other places for a long time. You've had me in trouble before for putting words in your mouth so I won't do that again. I think that what I would say is that if the Lonins Deer network hadn't been set up under the voluntary principle it was promoted and initiated by the ADMG because we aspire to manage deer throughout Scotland then you wouldn't be hearing about the Lonins at all except where they cause problems up the highways and byways of Scotland. We're moving in the right direction. It's not good enough, it's not fast enough. I would have grave concerns that a statutory approach to this would have the greatest difficulties in designing one that would work. When you hear about problems in terms of numbers of deer, I'm not going to fall back into this issue of being described as being anti deer because I'm not. When you hear about these problems, very often people say, I wish we had acted earlier with more information because what we thought to the issue was it turned out to be much worse. It just seems to me that I'm not criticising that people are doing good work but I'm saying that the common elements in this are the same elements that were in place 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago in other parts of Scotland and the problem kept getting worse. So we should learn from that, step back and say that we need to do something entirely different to resolve this problem in the south. I don't see what difference you could bring except a much stronger statutory framework that made real demands upon getting this problem solved. That's the difference of opinion between us but I do think that you learn from your mistakes and if we just go on doing the same things we won't learn from them. We're doing a lot more of the same things and I think more of the same things is leading us quite firmly in the right direction both in the Highlands and the Lowlands but you do make an important point about information and I should perhaps have said this in the answer to Alex Ferguson's question is that we're short of information when it comes to lowland deer. Doing a count of the rodeo population is in practice impossible and as Robbie may wish to comment on what we really need to know is what's being culled and where it's being culled and monitor the impacts of deer where they are. Now we can't get information on what's being culled SNH can collect data on culls where they know that culls are taking place but they can only send out returns to people they know of and that's a very partial picture and I suspect it's within the power of government to join up some of the information gathering processes they've got and I'm thinking in terms of the agricultural returns to get much more accurate and complete information on deer culls. I'm not sure deer culls would necessarily tell you how many deer you have. It tells you how many deer have been shot but it doesn't tell you how many deer there are. Well but the number of deer as we've said on a number of occasions is less important than the impact of them so if you're using the cull as a proxy for what's taking place and it is possible to extrapolate populations from culls bearing in mind that you're cross-referencing with habitat impact and environmental impact and economic impact then I think the number of deer in itself is not a vital statistic. Again information from the past would suggest that if you try and extrapolate from culls to numbers you make it impossible that that simply does not work because all you're doing is measuring effort and impact you're not measuring numbers. You can't do it so that rather than reassuring me Mr Cook I'm sorry to say you have added to my worries. Well I don't agree with you that that using cull as a reference for population is inaccurate and population modelling as has been developed by SNH is very valuable in relating the one to the other but as I said earlier the numbers are perhaps less important and this has been said for decades as long as I've been involved in the deer sector the numbers are less important than the impacts and if the impacts are negative then management action is required to put them right. Right but we're in a situation where we're dealing with this bill which includes just to remind you the land commission might well be one of the things that finds us a priority to actually do to find a way towards a solution about a method to deal with this matter but before we come to Claudia's question Robbie Kernan on this point from SNH and I have another supplementary just before we move to Claudia. Okay I'll try and make it brief two or three things to build on that discussion. One of the other things which SNH has done since the committee last met and talked about deer management was to update and refresh Scotland's national approach to deer management and it was envisaged that it would be a reasonably light touch revision but after our discussions I think at committee last time it was a bit more of a routine branch so what it's tried to do over the next five years is really spell out where we consider the priorities to be collaborative planning and ensuring deer management groups up their game is certainly one of those priorities but one of the others is actually on lowland and urban deer and there are challenges in there as we've kind of alluded to and I'm sure that some of the provisions within this bill won't do any harm but I think we've all accepted that they won't necessarily resolve some of the issues which we've touched on. There are two things I wanted just to kind of highlight to the committee. One is there is no doubt in my mind there is a need to ensure that we raise awareness of the need for and benefits of effective deer management and that is really about public perception and I think some of the nervousness about local authorities actually is this still where some of this resides in the fact that having a discussion about whether or not to kill wild animals is a good thing or a bad thing still is quite a difficult thing for local authorities to reconcile and I think we've seen that through a number of reasonably high profile case work so there is a need to establish and raise awareness on that specific point and the second point is actually it does go back down to our understanding of what's happening within the lowlands about road deer management specifically. Of the 100,000 deer a year which we receive records for being called in Scotland that is based on returns from about 3,000 properties there are 20,000 properties on the agricultural census and I suspect most of them will be killing deer so it does just highlight our lack of knowledge of what's happening in low ground Scotland and the need if we are actually going to tackle it we do need to think about how best we ensure that we better understand some of those issues and so it is recognised within the government strategy for wild deer and there's some pretty tricky issues for us to work through there. Do you need to add to this Doug at the moment or are you happy that we pass on? It was just a very quick comment to say that you know a key part which LDNS is trying to address is this awareness you know we've got to remember that the the people I was talking to in terms of fragmented ownership are farmers their principal job is farming and they haven't up to this point possibly recognised that they have a responsibility for deer management on their ground. Duncan are you ready? I mean I just add I think again it would help as part of the the land rights and responsibilities statement to make it clear that everybody has a responsibility for the sustainable use of natural resources which include deer. Okay I'm not I'm going to come on to Claudia just in a second but before we go I'm just going to put it down as a question to you. There was some doubt raised by people about road accidents involving deer. I'm wondering if we've got any method to actually ascertain what the ballpark figures are not just in terms of the deer deaths but in terms of the effects on humans and their vehicles and so on and if we can get that it's not in the bill but it's one of these factors which actually engages people in the lowlands just as it does in the highlands in a very big way so I don't know whether Robbie Kernahan can help us because there was a challenge to the figures that SNH provided us with in the committee and I'd like to get an up-to-date picture on that. Okay I'm happy to talk to that in a bit more depth I'm interested to know where the challenge has come from because I wasn't aware of it but I mean we have done a little bit of letters in the Scottish field other places like that you know. We have we have figures are wrong far too high. Spent a little bit of time over the last five or ten years trying to better understand and quantify the scale and extent of the problem of deer vehicle collisions. With the best will in the world using the data we have available to us coming from a range of sources Transport Scotland the local authorities insurance companies we have estimated and it is an estimate that at between seven and ten thousand accidents a year involving deer vehicle collisions going back to the point about where those are and picking up on Dave's point about lowland deer network 70% of them are involving rodear not red deer so it's the interaction between people and deer rather than there being too many deer it's about where we've got busy carriageways. We can break that down further into issues about how many of them result in significant personal injury and indeed fatalities so those figures are there I think we have a certain amount of confidence in that data because it's it's been through a recently rigorous QA process and we are encouraging upland DMGs and others to be able to respond to some of those figures. Now the solution is not straightforward because we know it's about driver behaviour about about driver awareness about speed about roadside vegetation about poorly positioned fencing and indeed occasionally about deer numbers so the solutions are complex but one of the things I think it has highlighted is that these are the types of triggers where SNH can intervene using its powers to try and ensure that we can resolve those specific points in the country where there are hotspots and we've done that in a number of ways in a number of locations. It does illustrate to me that if we know there is a problem we can respond to it but it's not addressing the national perspective as a work still responding on a reactive basis. We understand the situation that thanks thanks for the update just now. Doug McAdam did you have anything you needed to add to that you were indicating? No. Right fine. Claudia, move on I think. Right thank you convener. Could I turn our minds to the penalty for not complying with a with a control system? Very briefly section 71 of the bill would increase the penalty with a section 8 control scheme from £2,500 up to £40,000 and the Scottish Government bill team explained when they came before us that the rationale was that the current relatively low penalty for complying would mean that the landowner might simply or I would could choose should I say to pay the fine rather than comply with the requirements and do you accept that rationale or are there any other comments about increasing the penalty? Robbie Kerr? I understand the rationale why STE have opted for that increase for refusing or willingly to comply with the control scheme. £40,000 it's a maximum fine comparable with other wildlife crimes so I can understand why logically and consistently they want to have a fine of that nature comparable to other environmental crime. Compliance with a control scheme could bear potentially significant costs so I understand entirely why STE have brought those provisions forward. A point that's worth making is that even before you get to the fine S and H of the power to recoup all their costs of implementing measures that would be required so I think to say that it's an incentive for people to perhaps take the fine rather to avoid the cost advantage is not is not correct because they will still have to bear the cost of implementation of these control orders whether it's done by S and H whoever so you know with that in mind that the cost will still be borne by the owner you know the fine is a substantial increase and you know I would I would also challenge whether it's comparable to some of the environmental crime penalties that are there when we look at the scale of maybe serious pollution incidents that are up at a league that might justify some of these fines you know that this is perhaps not of that magnitude. Okay, Eric. Does the fine apply to if there's nine owners who want there and haven't got any and one owner is shot all the day, does the fine also apply the other way about? Well that's a question which we'll find out when we ask the Government thank you for that we will do. Jim Hume. Thanks very much it's just regarding the deer panels there's section 69 is making a minor amendment to the 1996 act on the role of deer panels which are of course consultative panels which S and H can appoint either for advice at a very local level or at a national level so just really interested in the panel if there are any views comments or any thoughts on implications of that amendment? My observation is that well we have not used panels as often as we might have done but part of the rationale for trying to ensure the localism agenda is sufficiently addressed and to think about perhaps using a panel to make sure that local community interests are sufficiently heard seems to me to be a sensible addition within the provisions of this bill. Okay is anybody in the other members of the panel any views or the content? That's good if you're content that's fine by me. Everybody noted. I would like to thank all of the members of the panel for what's been a very informative session for us we will conclude this at the moment and have a five minute no longer than five minute break right now thank you we're moving on to the agenda item on land reform scotland bill continued oral evidence session on the second panel this morning from whom we will hear evidence on part six of the bill on the entry in the valuation role of shooting and deer forests and I welcome to the panel Douglas McAdam once back to the panel chief executive SLE Richard Coog chair of the association of deer management groups again Colin Shedden director of British association for shooting and conservation good morning Rupert Shaw vice chair of NFU scotland's legal and technical committee NFUS good morning and Alistair MacTarger president of scotland's assessor association good morning and Bruce Cooper the angus glenn moorland group good morning I'd like to kick off with that right at the heart of this issue which is the panel's views and if you just indicate you're going to reply to this are you clear about the policy objectives of this part of the bill do you agree with the justification for ending the exemption for shootings and deer forests but continuing to exempt some of the right rural businesses such as agriculture so a two-part question anybody who wants to start Doug McCallan I'll kick off then I think the first answer is new what I did know it was an evidence from Scottish government to this committee civil servants said that the exemptions were being retained for agriculture and forestry because they were sustainable and in line with government policy priorities for agriculture and forestry now in our view given that the exercising of sporting rights shooting and deer forests are essentially about sustainable harvest of a natural resource but also in the process of doing that they deliver a whole range of other public benefits such as deer management which we talked about earlier vermin control biodiversity and conservation rural employment food production landscape management wildfire management investment into local businesses I could go on now I would have considered that those areas that I have just outlined are absolutely in line with government policy and indeed the other day Fergus Ewing minister for business tourism and energy came to launch a bit of research which was actually talking about such socioeconomic benefits and community attitudes to that and he whole heartedly put his backing and the Scottish government's backing behind what shooting and shooting sports deliver for Scotland so I would have said that everything that that's delivering is slap bang in government policy priorities so I'm slightly perplexed as to why they would be treated differently to other land uses well we'll explore that what else wants to come in rupert shaw so all right still with automatically you just point the microphone at yourself that would be fine thank you convener good morning everyone well we are absolutely opposed to this and I'm very glad I've just witnessed the previous section it seems to me as a as a farmer member of the union that risk and responsibility for managing the wild resource is about to be transferred to us at cost and then we're also potentially to pay rate on this activity it seems to me that this proposition doesn't suit those 17,600 agricultural holdings we talked about many of which are in many terms on the floor at the moment in terms of price of commodities and the rest of it and we have a real challenge in terms of educating our membership as to what are shootings throughout the south of Scotland where I am shootings are not managed commercially many shootings are in fact casual affairs in my own area they're dominated by the scallop boat men many of whom will come on to those cops and winies and wins on dairy farms and casually take the opportunity for a country pursuit and I feel there's a real risk here that for many land holdings under pressure by bringing in a rateable and a legislative requirement on them to register as shootings in fact that opportunity to excise sport by many will be withdrawn and shootings will become in fact focused on those larger land holdings where it is already a commercial activity and so we're quite firmly against a proposal thank you we heard the NFUS proposals what about Colin Sheddon yes I'd like to make a couple of fundamental points on this we have produced evidence in the past that has demonstrated that shooting in deer stocking is worth something like 200 million pounds to Scotland and maybe some people have looked at that and thought that's quite an attractive target to tax the unfortunate thing is when you delve down and look at the detail you find the 88 percent of these businesses are actually run at a loss or break even so very few are actually profitable because they don't follow a profit making model and I was pleased to see that Scotland and the States produced some evidence recently that demonstrated 90 percent in your survey again and we're showing that these businesses were not run as profitable businesses and Doug demonstrated quite clearly that there is a lot of wider benefit to the environment and society from from these shooting businesses so we feel that it's unfair to look at these businesses as other businesses that are based on profit making models because they clearly are not okay but the balance of these things we have to discuss that's what we're here for Richard Cooke convener um I'd simply to say that we also oppose the removal of the exemption for sporting sporting rights on the grounds that have already been said I don't want to repeat what's been said but as I said in the last session deer management needs people um an extra cost imposed against deer management is likely to attack the major cost of deer management which is employment and so I'd be very concerned about the implications for employment and the infrastructure that's necessary to continue deer management across the country with this additional cost should it be introduced we uh do you want to say something yes Alasdor McTaker morning just to say that the assessors obviously have no opinion on whether the tax should be imposed or not that's a matter for the parliament to decide and and for legislature to decide what the exact wording of the legislation should be our role is simply to apply that tax if and when it is is actually legislative for and in the meantime to advise the parliament and its officials in terms of of the preparation towards that Angus MacDonald yeah thanks convener just following on from the general comments that we've heard so far and panel members may or may not be aware that the Scottish wildlife trust has put forward a proposal that revised rate on deer shooting it could for example be based on the the level of deer cull required to protect public interests and then only be charged when an owner or occupier was not achieving the adequate culls how would the fact that the panel members feel if uh if that proposal was uh worked on and brought forward uh yeah okay uh Bruce Cooper did you want to say anything about those those questions I had nothing new to say I think it was all said before me but um I think it's hugely important to consider where the money's going to come from because I as a manager working on a highly in the state I know fine that we we don't make a profit and any other taxation on that may affect our ability to employ okay thank you Richard Cooke then Rupert Shaw then thank you I'm I'm delighted that the Scottish wildlife trust have made that suggestion because we made it ourselves if I could just read from the relevant paragraph of our submission um we propose we would therefore propose that relief should be available for sporting rights which are managed in a way which meet relevant public interest criteria for example a land holding which participates in a deer management group for which there is an effective deer management plan endorsed by Scottish natural heritage might qualify for relief this would have the effect of promoting collaboration furthering the public interest and strengthening the voluntary approach to deer management so I just wanted to say that that I think is a very constructive way of turning what could be a penalty into an incentive to sustainable deer management so Rupert thank you well if I quote what I heard in the earlier session about red centric upland focused legislation uh I feel there's a danger here as well uh what are we doing to edge it I'll bet you don't we we spent we looked at the whole gamete of deer in the last session you know let's be clear about that I wouldn't want to deduce the the witnesses from the last one and we heard all about the rest of scotland if you were there I hope you did too I I did absolutely but I live in a part of Scotland where there is no deer management group at moment so to hear the refrain that bringing in a rateable activity to incentivise to take part in something that has not yet been constructed in many areas has not yet fully established seems odd at this stage okay thank you yeah whilst I wouldn't necessarily agree with the detail of what Scottish wildlife trust have suggested the principle of reliefs and reliefs for demonstration of of good management I think is a very good one and indeed we've mentioned that in our own submission too I would agree with Richard in terms of functioning deer management groups and deer management plans as a basis for for such relief but also I would commend the wildlife estate Scotland initiative we've now over 30 estates accredited across Scotland which provides a demonstrable way of showing your delivery for wildlife and for biodiversity in an independently accredited fashion so if we were to go down that route I think that would provide a very good basis for a relief that's going to incentivise the right sort of management thank you Mike Russell and then Sarah Boyack yes I think like it or not and most people don't like to be taxed in fact I would say everybody doesn't like to be taxed this is likely to happen given the proposed on the bill I think what we should focus down on is the accuracy of the measure the definition of what is being taxed so that it does at least the minimum harm possible and perhaps some good could I ask you to comment on on three possibilities within this we've heard the wildlife trust one I think what I've heard generally in discussion of this over the last few months is this the deer management effective deer management should not be taxed because effective deer management is essential for a variety of reasons including environmental reasons that there should be the utmost care about taxing small and medium sized enterprises and particularly tourism if they are price sensitive now I haven't seen any evidence of price sensitivity at all but equally there's an absence of evidence but that doesn't prove it's not there so we would need to see evidence of price sensitivity but we should tax large-scale recreational activity and one of the reasons for that is that the reduction the removal in 1995 if it was a real disincentive to those people the removal should have created additional economic activity in the countryside there is absolutely no evidence that happened from 1995 onwards in fact quite the reverse is true so there's no evidence of a disincentive in those circumstances so if we were to make those distinctions perhaps the panel could suggest how they might be applied and other distinctions that might be made Colin on the final point when you talk about large-scale recreational activity I imagine you're talking about large relatively intensive driven game bird shoots and on large estate and on large estate what would concern me would be that if these were being taxed and they may currently be making just a small profit they may feel to remain profitable that they need to intensify even further and I think most of us would agree that whether it's grouse shooting pheasant shooting partridge shooting the level that takes place in Scotland is not at the same intensity as in some other parts of the UK and we wouldn't probably want to move in that direction it would worry me if a tax drove people to intensify their game management rather than de intensify it could you be positive about other exemptions I mean you can if this is likely to happen and it is likely to happen trying to find the right way to apply the accurate way is what I'm trying to get so are there positives that you could think of yes certainly I would support Doug's comment relating to our black state Scotland Richard relating to effective and sustainable deer management all being exempt my concern would be probably for the assessors because they would be in the invidious position of having to actually first of all determine which properties have to be included and then which properties have to be exempt and I think there's going to be enough lot of work for them in the next couple of years to bring in all the properties concerned and then an even greater burden of work to determine which ones have to be exempt or to benefit from relief so it starts to make a very very complex situation a complex problem for them in an area where maximum revenue could be £4 million. The time scale for this will be determined by secondary legislation so there isn't necessarily a time limit on which it might go forward and I see various people want to come in so Alec Ferguson first. Well just a brief point convener and thank you for bringing me in I always try to agree with Mike Russell where possible but it isn't always possible in my in my own position and he's just said that he in his view since the rates were taken away in the mid 90s he believes there's been a great decrease in sporting activity if I can put it that way. I think in my experience I would say the opposite. A rural employment.  You see we can agree. I'm glad they agree again right very good piece is broken out Rupert and then Sarah. Thank you a challenge for the union in getting a position in relation to this proposal was not having sight of some of this detail which you're now touching on and this is the key issue I think for many smaller land holders you know there is a real fear if I have a couple of wins that row harbour up in overnight does this mean I'm now liable for an additional tax I think we need to you know we really need to have unpicked before we proceed with this in a legislative way actually what shootings could mean what it what is an assessor's take on that small family farm that happens to have a clump of trees with row there in the valuation role prior to 1995 so as the legislation simply seeks to remove the 1995 exemption I think it is safe to assume and the legislation doesn't do anything against that it's safe to assume who's talking in the same definition I asked about definitions the last meeting assuming that can you be just a little bit more positive about some exemptions well I think that the fear remains when it's an assessor's view of sporting potential you may not have looked as a non-field sports at a dairy farmer for example at your holding as a sporting opportunity and I think like so much we need we need a process of consultation and education for those many land holders farmers etc who were currently outside of the field sports sort of game cover sort of activity to understand are they now going to become liable for a rating sorry Doug McAdam then Sarah Boyer yes I think it's worth I hope making the point I might miss or so I actually disagree with your assessment our understanding is that if the exemption is removed we go back to the original valuation acts which actually says that because what we're actually valuing here is the sporting right which is shootings and deer for us and that applies to virtually every non-urban acre across Scotland where sporting right exists so it does apply an R view to small farms it applies to the small field outside Falkirk where someone's now paying 100 quid to shoot rabbits it applies right across the range and so the 8 000 entries that were on the valuation role before were actually you know not doing the job I don't think anybody in this room or in the parliament you know expects it to be applied to a field outside Falkirk with 100 rabbits that's what the legislation says I don't think it does I think it's quite clear section 66 1 2 and 3 and 67 1 2 have no such intention it you know and with the greatest respect I don't think that helps a debate the debate is should there be a reimposition and what exemptions should apply certainly I wouldn't support the imposition of sporting rates on a field outside Falkirk with 100 rabbits I wouldn't support it for the dairy farmer that had you know one shoot a year there are businesses which are going to be taxed I think that's likely to happen we need a sensible discussion about how we you know how that matter goes forward and I don't really think fields outside Falkirk that's with the greatest respect help that sensible discussion well just a minute I know that Sarah's been very very patient here the member from Falkirk east agrees there is no such field okay there are more rabbits than that yes okay I think we've got to try and focus this a bit and Sarah Boyack perhaps can do a brief supplementary in following up from this discussion and it was really to ask the assessors I think we've heard from a few people about not for profit businesses and just wondering how not for profit businesses would fit into the small business bonus scheme have you thought about all those issues I'm not sure if that's talking about the same thing there in what the assessors do we value a right or an occupation of property and whether that property whether that occupation is financially viable or not is largely of little importance but we are valuing a hypothetical tendency if there are difficulties in terms of being able to meet rates bills or the ultimate rates bill then that's a matter between the rate payer and the director of finance in terms of ability to pay and it's not about your ability to pay it's it's about a threshold that there is that if your business is below a certain level you don't you are you are exempted automatically there's nothing to tease out what research we've got as to how many businesses would fit into those categories I don't think there's anything in legislation that said that below that level of value there'd be no entry in the valuation role hypothetically every shooting right as as Doug said should be in the valuation role I think what's happened over a hundred years leading up to 1995 is that a degree of pragmatism came in to say that that these are the valuable shootings these are the shootings where the right is exercised and there is some value in that that right and these are the ones that entered in the valuation role I think we now have to re-establish that position that's what assessors have to do in the next two to three years to to analyze the the nature of the the landscape if we can call it that and see what exactly is there that can be it can be valued and how it's valued rupert yeah and then if I may based on what alastaz just said I think that you know confirms are concerned that you know this has the concert has the potential for unforeseen circumstances which were which may of course by the nature of those holdings impact the poorest in the most remote areas of Scotland what we're talking about various thresholds and so on in the small business bonus which Sarah has just sort of talked about and we're just saying to you these could be applied in terms of sporting rights and therefore you know this is a question which is live and which we will ask ministers about you know what the impression of assessors are and so on we'll be determined by what the secondary legislation comes out with but on the back of that we've got agreement that the idea of exemptions for good behaviour so we'll put it that way might be a way forward rupert and then Richard yeah it's just to reinforce if I made this business of unforeseen circumstances I think you know an assessors view of the potential of of a holding you know may impact some of our poorest and smallest farms in the most fragile and remote areas of Scotland this I'm sure is not the intent of this bill in terms of bringing in another tax burden Kate I think we're got parallel lines here we're talking about small business bonus for low income you know businesses so the potential in deer is about looking at the impact in that small business of that which is what Sarah's been asking about it's about shootings as well and that takes the thing into a completely different realm because I can absolutely see what we're talking about working in relation to deer management I have real difficulty in seeing how it works in the sort of small farm chute and I just leave that on the table no it's not the same okay thank you mcdonald yeah thanks just picking up on allister mctaggart's point can you give us some assurance that there is a capacity for assessors to go out and speak to the sector we have heard that in order to meet the statutory duties all sporting like rights should be valued and entered on to roll regardless of whether the right is exercised so I'm just curious as to whether you feel that the rights would have a nil value should the sporting rights not be utilised that's certainly a possibility that the first stage that we have to go through is to establish who occupies who are the proprietors tenants and occupiers of the various shooting rights that exist across scotland so that's the first and immediate task that we face that's a that's quite a significant task given that the source of that information or the source of that information may be wide and varied and we have a fair degree of research to go through to establish that position thankfully we've already had or my colleagues have had meetings with representatives of certainly the gentleman here to my left meetings have taken place as recently as last thursday and we have made some some very good progress thus far in terms of how we go about our business over the next next couple of years there is one line in the proposed legislation that it may be of assistance and that is in the reintroduction of the section 1a of the 1888 actus in 1988 which says that these will be entered in so far as exercisable so that there may be shooting rights out there that cannot be exercised and in that case then there's provision there that such a right might not need to enter the valuation role that how many that may be is something we need to discover the other point to make is that assessors don't make value assessors follow the value that others make the value that assessors apply in the valuation role is is our assessment of annual value or net annual value which the rent that passes for the property to establish that we look at what is actually paid by way of rent between landlords and tenants in this case of shooting rights and we will analyse that to come up with what we think is a fair and reasonable level of value for various subjects in various parts of the country again is it will be the assessor's opinion of that but that opinion can be challenged and challenged as far as the courts if we can't reach agreement on that value. Richard Cooke. On the subject of the small business bonus scheme more a question than a statement am I not right in thinking that this has a different standing in statute than the bill and is separate from the bill is there any guarantee that the small business bonus scheme will continue to be applied in future out with the statute because if not this discussion is is to some extent hypothetical. Okay we've we take your point I should just slightly correct myself from what I said earlier about there won't be secondary legislation because it says quite clearly that the government's intention is for the proposed change to take effect at the next revaluation on the 1st of April 2017 when properties are valued as at the 1st of April 2015 the tone date so in fact there won't be any secondary legislation but the discussion about the small business bonus is germane to us and our report and therefore it is relevant to see means to encourage people to do things well. Although the date is to be introduced is the 1st of April 2017 that is being brought back into the rating system with effect from the date of the next revaluation there are already provisions whereby the assessor can introduce that value at any time up until the 31st of March 2018 the existing legislation allows where the information is not fully complete to the analysis it's not concluded that that value can be introduced retrospectively up until the 31st of March 2018. Okay Collin Shedden. Can I just ask a question relating to the term exercise ability because my understanding was. Well wait a minute we can't continue to cross question each other. No no no the panel. It was raised it's just that my understanding and my recollection was that pre 1995 the owners of land that had a sporting potential were taxed whether they used it or not. Exercise ability probably related to inaccessibility of land or some other physical barrier that prevented the shooting rights being undertaken. Whatever. But the important point is that pre 95 if you owned land and chose not to exercise the shooting rights you were still taxed on that rateable value. Okay thank you for that clarification Doug McAdam. I think it might be we did actually cover this in the meeting with the assessors that we had last week so it might be a useful point of clarification and we discussed this very issue and what it was was in an era where physically the rights couldn't be exercised and we asked for an example and for instance it would be maybe an old glee bland that was still inside a village so there were actually physical barriers to actually exercising the right but everything else for a sporting right exists would have to be identified, surveyed, valued, put on the roll. Okay well we'll ask the ministers about that. Richard Cook. I'm concerned about what Alistair referred to earlier is the pragmatic approach if it's to be reapplied as it was in the past and the point that Mike Russell was making about scale. I can think of a situation where a deal management group may have a number of members who take say 100 stags and 200 hines annually and other members who may take one stag and two hines annually. If one is going to be exempt because it's small then that's quite inequitable in terms of the neighbouring estates who share access to the same deal population. I'm hearing what you're saying just now. Okay that's questions that we will ask that's our job to do and thank you for your points. We have to move on to about the expected take by the tax. Jim. Thank you very much convener. A couple of strands to this question. One is the accuracy of the Scottish Government estimate that that estimate is that they would get a gross revenue of around £4 million. It seems to be basically justifying that by looking at what was brought in 1994, which was about £2 million, and doubling that because none domestic rates have doubled since then. Of course, in my simple view, none domestic rates are relating to property values, which shooting rates aren't. We wondered what the panel's views were on the accuracy. Then again, we have to look at what net revenue would do if it would be cost-effective to gather in those rates bearing in mind the small business scheme that we've talked about, but of course extra staff that might have to be taken on by local authorities etc etc. Thanks. Yes. Douglas MacCarron. I think Bruce Cooper then Alistair. First, they asked the accuracy of the £4 million figure. Well, it's obviously a guess in the dark. It's based on what was on the roll before, and I think as we've already covered and ground in this session, what was on the roll before isn't what would be on the roll in future. What percentage of that is liable to reliefs? We don't know. To me, this goes to the heart of the matter, which is that we can't put a proper figure on this because there hasn't been a full analysis, there hasn't been the due diligence of an economic impact assessment done, and part of that is because the mechanism hasn't been clarified how it's to be done. Now, surely there should be steps for a process like this that are gone through, which is generally referred to as a due diligence, so that we all understand what this looks like and can make informed decisions, and I just don't think that that's been done. Hence, I would say, yeah, the figure isn't accurate. We've no way of knowing that. Bruce Cooper. Well, I would just like to ask how this expected to take a £4 million is going to encourage the landowners to employ to keep these small and fragile communities alive. There isn't a profit, and these rural communities need to be invested into heavily to survive as they are just now. Alasdair McTaggart. In terms of the estimate, I wouldn't like to speculate as to whether the increase would be £4 million, £6 million or £2 million. That's something that needs to be established having looked at all of the evidence. At just a point, a couple of matters out which may affect individual views of the estimate is that the value in 1995, or the values imposed when the tax or that part of the rating system was removed in 1995, were actually 1988 levels of value. That was the tone level set for the 1990 revaluation, so those values are today 27 years old. From that starting point, the assessors in our response to the consultation stated that a number of factors will affect value in that interim, including those that are removal of a tax may have made more money available for rent, so the landlord may take a large proportion of available income by way of rent. There's been significant change in the legislative background. We heard much of that this morning, but we've had the Dear Scotland Act 1996, fire arms legislation, food hygiene legislation and a number of other acts all affect the use that can be made of land, so that will impact on rents and therefore rateable values. Of course, the economics of the rural landscape have changed. We now have large tracts of the upper lands covered with wind farms. How does that impact on shooting rights and the value of shooting rights? Those are all matters that we need to examine to see if they impact and if they do impact by what amount. It's just a question following up on for two Alison MacTaggart, who's obviously president of the Scottish Assessors Association. That would take some man and woman power from assessors, so surely your association will have had some estimate of how many man and woman hours this work would take and be able to inform us slightly better about what sort of implications that would have financially. Yes, I think that our original estimate was based on the assumption that we put him back in what was there in 1995. If I can remember the figures, it was something like 2 per cent of the total number of subjects in the valuation rule. However, as has been mentioned earlier, if we are to consider every possible entry that may be made, which is down from the largest estate to the smallest croft in Scotland, we may be looking at 52,000 to 55,000 additional properties, where we'll have to consider whether entries to be made. The point that I would make is that those are largely in the areas that are covered by assessors that have smaller numbers of non-domestic properties. The amount of staff and expertise that are in those offices today, as compared to 1995, is much changed and the staffing levels are reduced. There is a more significant task for perhaps the assessor for Scottish Borders than there is for me in Brentshire. That is something that we have been discussing with the Scottish Government officials as to how we deal with that. Our plan is that the values will be in place by 2017, provided that we can get the response to the information requests that we put out. Assessors rely almost entirely on information that we gather through the rights that assessors have to obtain information under the valuation act. If we get that information and we work collaboratively with the industry, I am sure that we will manage that, but it will take co-operation to get where we need to be by the date of the revaluation. I have one other question that has occurred to me, having listened to the last exchanges, which is whether we know the impact on revenue intake, income tax, national insurance and VAT when the rates were last abolished, whether we have a marker of what impact that actually had, to what extent there were any jobs created. It would be quite useful for us to pin that down. I am not going to ask anyone unless they instantly have that in their pocket, but I think that we as a committee would be good for us to look at it. The second question that I wanted to ask is a comment that has been made by the chartered surveyors that they believe that a review or economic analysis was needed before the implementation of the proposal was made, and they believe that, without that, the part should be removed from the bill. I was wondering what the comments were from the panel on that submission from Ricks. Doug, as I said at the outset, I would totally support that. If you pardon the expression, we are all shooting in the dark a bit here. To make informed decisions, we need that due diligence. A business regulatory impact assessment was rather weak in this area in our view. Any other responses to that? No? Okay. We can look at. We might want to specifically examine, given the evidence that we have had from across the panel this morning, ourselves. I think that we have dealt with the issue about exemptions and so on. Did you have any points to make, Claudia? Just very briefly, convener, just to follow up in case there was any other comment particularly from yourself, Alasdair, about that you have touched on borders already as a local authority, I believe. However, how much extra work ending the exemption might mean for local authorities more generally and whether they would have the capacity to deal with the extra work in the time available? Yes. I think that there are two components to that. The first is the work that the assessors will have to do, which is the valuation work, and then there is the work that directors of finance will have to do, which is the gathering of the tax or the collection of the tax. Perhaps the greater part of that will be in establishing the values. The billing mechanism is fairly well established and it is just a small addition to that. The harder part is establishing who should be entered in the valuation role and at what level of value. That is going to take some time. I think that in terms of the cost of doing that, we have mentioned this in discussions with the Scottish Government officials and I think that it has also been raised with COSLA and COSLA have taken this on board. When discussions are had in setting budget levels, I think