Speeches in the Scottish Parliament

2 March 2011

A concern has arisen about whether licences will be granted to kill raptors to protect a species that is bred for the purpose of its being shot for so-called sport.

I have made it clear that I think it ridiculous that it might ever prove possible to get a licence to kill a valued, protected species to protect a species that is bred in huge numbers solely for the purpose of shooting.

I lodged an amendment at stage 2 to seek to resolve that matter and make it impossible for a minister to issue a licence in such circumstances.

Since stage 2, the Parliament has approved the code that governs the raising of such birds for shooting.

That statutory code makes it clear that it is up to those who rear the stock to protect it adequately.

That strengthens the case for there being no need ever to issue a licence to kill raptors to protect birds that are raised specifically to be shot quickly thereafter.

I have lodged a similar amendment today, taking out the reference to mallard, which was one of the points that concerned the minister when the proposal was debated at stage 2.

However, I have also gone further and lodged another amendment that would completely remove any doubt about the matter.

It would remove the power for a minister to issue a licence in such circumstances in relation to species that are specified in a schedule.

A schedule can be relatively easily amended if there is a case to extend the number of species—for example, to include the likes of goshawk, sparrowhawk or tawny owl—or, indeed, to remove any that are listed.

I welcome the minister’s indication in previous debates that a high test would always remain to be passed before any licence was issued, namely that there was no alternative measure to manage the situation.

The more that one thinks about it, the harder it is to envisage any circumstance in which a licence could be issued. Indeed, no such licence has been issued since the provisions were put into statute many years ago.

We could put the matter to bed once and for all by removing the power for a minister to issue such a licence—a power that has never been used.

We are having this debate because there is a persistent problem in Scotland with bird persecution, which has come to be one of the main debating points in the bill, notwithstanding the fact that the bill did not contain provisions on the matter at the start of the process.

It ought to be a matter of national shame that a minority of Scots persistently and routinely shoot, poison or otherwise trap or illegally kill some of our most magnificent wild creatures.

Anyone who has had the good fortune to study our predator birds at close quarters can testify to their magnificence.

Those creatures have evolved to hunt; they have penetrating eyes and are able to soar to great heights.

Some have a wingspan that inspires awe.

What kind of people seek to destroy them by laying poisoned bait, setting traps or shooting them?

There is no evidence that such things are done for some kind of perverse pleasure; it appears to be an approach to managing certain grouse moors on some of our big estates.

I am by no means talking about all our big estates, but there are too many examples to pretend that the practice is not being used routinely in some localities.

Recent studies of golden eagles and hen harriers—a report on which was done only last week—look systematically at areas of land in which the absence of certain species is only plausible and explicable by those species being persecuted as a result of certain management practices.

Such practices are specifically designed to remove those species from the territory in pursuit of an economic objective.

The pressure that underlies such actions is to increase the supply of grouse for shooting—that is their economic purpose.

Some estates seem to believe that they can operate with the required level of shooting only if they remove some of our most iconic species.

Today we have the opportunity to do more to eliminate that evil practice.

Many people in Scotland are dismayed that although we know that the practice goes on and have a fair idea of where it does so, we have been unable to stop it happening.

Part of that must be to do with how that set of crimes is prioritised at the local level, but part of it must be to do with inadequacies in our law.

A vicarious liability has been introduced in the bill. I welcome that and think that we should take it further.

We need to fight crimes that have an economic purpose with severe economic consequences.

That is what lies behind my amendments today.

The amendments have been developed over several months of parliamentary debate and today is our last chance to deal with them.

I have broken my approach into three separate amendments.

The first, amendment 43, provides those in Parliament who are not prepared to go along the road as far as I would with the ability to go some way towards bearing down on such a nasty set of crimes.

Amendment 43 seeks to allow ministers to formally indicate under certain clear conditions that they have reasonable cause to be concerned about what is happening in a specified area when that concern is scientifically formed on the basis of evidence, and provides for an appeal to challenge whether the minister is acting reasonably.

If any appeal fails, the minister can then come to Parliament and, by order, formally register that Parliament should be concerned about what is happening. Parliament would then have the opportunity to agree or not.

The prospect of that measure being taken might help to focus people’s minds and lead them to act against the crimes that we all want to be eliminated.

Being named and, I hope, shamed in that way would have an economic consequence for the estate that was managing its land inappropriately.

However, if the estate was not deterred at that point, there would be further steps in the process, which is why I have lodged amendments 44 and 45.

They would ratchet up the actions that the Parliament and ministers can take.

Why should those estates that are not prepared to end practices that eliminate some of our national treasures be allowed to continue with economic activity that motivates such crimes?

At the least, the amendments would allow ministers and Parliament to formally express concern about what is happening in some areas and, moving further on, would remove from estates that are not following the approach that we all want to be taken the right to shoot on that land, with the severe economic consequence that such a move would have.

Peter Peacock: I welcome the minister’s latter point about a review of the penalties.

That will be an important part of strengthening the law.

I also welcome the vicarious liability provisions in the bill.

Nevertheless, I think that vicarious liability will be as difficult to prove as almost any other offence relating to wildlife crime.

That is partly why I want to go down the route that I have been trying to go down and make practical action against those who perpetrate these crimes much more effective.

I have taken something like 15 acts through the Scottish Parliament.

I have stood where the minister is standing and have picked holes in many of the amendments that have come before me, explaining why they were technically flawed.

It is one of the great benefits of being a minister that one has a legal department to provide one with the arguments.

However, I was never wholly convinced that, on every occasion, I was not overegging the pudding.


The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth (John Swinney): It was very obvious at the time.


Peter Peacock: Mr Swinney comments from a sedentary position, but he, too, is noted for overegging the pudding on many subjects.

In the end, it comes down to one thing.

We must make up our minds, in Scotland, whether we are prepared to accept the crimes that continue to be committed no matter what legal provisions we have passed.

It is all very well for us to come here and say that we find those things unacceptable but, sooner or later, we must define what we are going to do about the situation.

The provisions in my amendments are what we want to do about it—it is time to stand up and be counted.

Amendment 53 was lodged following concern that the provisions in the bill do not fully match the requirements of the relevant EU directive.

There are species, such as the water vole and the red squirrel, that deserve more protection.

That was debated at stage 2, and I am clear that the Government shares the concerns to protect those species adequately and that it believes that it has sufficient powers to do so.

Nonetheless, concerns remain in some quarters that the provisions are not as strong as the EU directive implies. I am sure that the minister does not share that view.

The amendment is lodged in the spirit of providing her with an opportunity to make it clear on the record that there is nothing to fear in the wording’s being different and that the effect is the same.

I hope that the minister can give the necessary reassurance and we can all save ourselves a vote.

Amendment 56 relates to the powers of the SSPCA, which were fully debated at stage 2.

I understand the concerns that some members have about the issue.

The minister pointed out that the offer by the SSPCA—which, in my view, was a generous offer—to deploy resources to help fight wildlife crime raised important issues that should be properly consulted on before any decisions are made.

I agree with that point. My amendment seeks to make provision for such consultation before the enactment of the powers that it contains.

The minister has indicated an alternative approach, whereby a criminal justice bill might provide a vehicle for change at some point in the future, and it would seem from earlier debates that a majority of people may prefer to follow that route.

I understand that.

The reason for amendment 56 is to reiterate my belief that the SSPCA could have an extremely important role to play in gearing up our ability to fight wildlife crime, particularly when police budgets are under such pressure.

However, amendment 56 has also been lodged to entice the minister to go a bit further than she has done before and indicate that the Government is committed to moving towards consultation at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Such a consultation would allow all the necessary issues to be explored.

If the minister is in a position to indicate that policy, I do not intend to push the issue further today.

I thank the clerks and the bill team, whom I burdened considerably, given the size of the amendments that I lodged—although they also had a hand in that.

I genuinely thank them for all their efforts in helping me.

I also thank RSPB Scotland, of which I am a member, the Scottish raptor study groups, which do remarkable work in helping our understanding of the condition of our raptors throughout Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and others who helped with the amendments that I proposed today.

The bill has made some good progress, although it has not gone as far as I would have liked.

As Roseanna Cunningham rightly said, it is not only what is in the bill that is important, because there have been important policy clarifications along the way.

Indeed, there were further clarifications today about the consultation on the powers of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which I hope will happen in the not-too-distant future so that we can get the issue bottomed out properly.

I draw attention to the fact that, in the course of the bill’s passage through the Parliament, we have clarified that its provisions will help to protect the native black bee on Colonsay and other islands.

That is a significant and important development.

I welcome the vicarious liability provisions in the bill—I have said that many times throughout its passage—but I do not underestimate the difficulty that there will be in securing any convictions under them.

I suspect that some of the estates that are involved in nefarious practices realise that difficulty as well.

They are the kind of clientele that can readily afford to get the best lawyers to defend them in the courts.

I think that there will be big challenges on vicarious liability, but I genuinely hope that the provisions work.

That is why I lodged amendments in that regard, and I am disappointed that they did not make the progress that I would have liked them to make.

However, as Liam McArthur said, the amendments have—at least, I hope that they have—explored some territory and opened up future possibilities that we may have to come back to as we continue to monitor what is happening.

One important thing that has been developing is the science of understanding why territories are unoccupied by certain birds. I refer to a book that is being published this week—sadly, it is being published posthumously.

It was started by Jeff Watson, who used to work for SNH and was a considerable expert on Scotland’s golden eagles.

I remember being in Harris with him many years ago.

He pointed out an eagle that was soaring above us and, during a walk around the shoreline that evening, he talked about the problems of protecting raptors.

He explained some of the basic science that was being explored then.

I hope that those principles go much further in the scientific world, and that we develop our understanding, which is already quite sophisticated, so that it becomes far greater and enables us target our efforts increasingly around good scientific evidence on where things are clearly not right in certain parts of Scotland.

I hope that that work continues in the spirit of Jeff Watson’s scientific work.

John Scott: I will try to be brief; I apologise for using up Peter Peacock’s time.

Is Peter Peacock aware of the feature known as intraguild predation, which involves superior predators predating on other predators?

Hen harriers are predated on by golden eagles. That is one well-known reason why hen harrier populations are not growing as they might.


Peter Peacock: But it is not the only reason—that is the point that I am trying to make.

We need to develop the science further.

I am talking about rigorous work that we ought to respect, but we also ought to encourage its further development so that we can use it as a tool to bear down on a problem that we all believe still exists.

Having said that, I think that we may have to come back to the issue of licensing estates at some future date.

The more I have thought about that matter in our interesting journey through the issues, the more it seems that there is a simple solution.

Every estate can be licensed.

They can be given five years to sort things out; if they do not, they should not get a licence.

That would focus people’s minds wonderfully.

The issue has not gone away; it will come back.

I hope that my colleagues who are on the front bench in future years will pursue it.

If they do not, I will lobby them from outside the Parliament.

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