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I have nothing further to add.

Amendment 19 agreed to.

Amendments 20 to 26 moved—[Jim Fairlie]—and agreed to.

Amendments 32, 33 and 36 follow the committee’s recommendation at stage 1 to ensure that the provision relating to the requirement to see a dog with its mother is worded consistently with the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Regulations 2021. That covers circumstances in which a dog may be separated from its biological mother for welfare reasons or if the mother is deceased. The Scottish Government agrees with the committee and the Law Society of Scotland’s suggestion that responsibility for confirming that a dog is at least eight weeks old should be placed on both the acquirer and the supplier of the dog.

Since 2018, Scottish Government campaigns have consistently reinforced to prospective purchasers the importance of seeing a puppy with its mother, ideally at the breeder’s or seller’s premises, as well as verifying the age of the dog. Amendments 39 to 44 will place the relevant responsibility on the prospective supplier as well as on the prospective acquirer of the dog.

Finlay Carson’s amendment 69 would have the same effect as my amendments 39 to 44. I therefore ask him not to move it.

I move amendment 32.

The reason why we put the certificate in is to get the proposition that the member wanted right at the start, which is that people must take due care and attention and get all the relevant details when they are going to buy or sell a dog. However, there is no legal penalty for not having the certificate. We think that requiring that the certificate be held for the rest of the dog’s life is not fair from the point of view that people would then believe that they are legally bound to have it.

I will go back. The amendments will, however, avoid any misunderstanding or unnecessary anxiety for otherwise law-abiding and responsible owners who might misplace their certificate and be concerned that simply failing to retain a completed certificate to show to a police officer or an inspector would in itself be an offence that could lead to prosecution. I therefore cannot support amendment 4, which would require the certificate to be shown to a veterinary surgeon on request.

Even if my amendments were unsuccessful and section 4(5)(b) remained in the bill, it would remain the case that registered vets would not have similar enforcement powers to the police or inspectors. It is not clear whether vets, in practice, would want to become involved in investigations involving their clients and we could not mandate them to do so without thorough consultation. Their inclusion in the bill would need to be discussed and agreed with the veterinary professional bodies.

I move amendment 45.

I ask the member why she considers that the Government would try to put a loophole in the bill. We all agree that we want the bill to pass. The Government is not trying to do anything here that would stall it or stop it. We have given a clear commitment that, all things being equal, we will get this done within the 12-month period. The amendment is meant to give us an insurance policy in case anything goes wrong, so that we do not have to start again. There is nothing underhand or untoward being done here; it is simply to give us an insurance policy.

Will the member take an intervention on that particular point?

I am not saying that you should ask me to do that, but I am quite happy to hear your thoughts and considerations. You have scrutinised the matter as much as anybody has, so I am keen to hear your thoughts on it.

I will let George Burgess answer that question in the interim.

In terms of the on-going negotiations and clarification of what the Bew review will deliver, Scotland currently gets about 70 per cent of the funding envelope that is available for the UK—we want to ensure that Scotland gets at least 70 per cent, given the weight that is given to Scottish agriculture and the work that we want to do with climate mitigation, food production and the natural environment.

I hope that we will get a funding package that is an increase on current funding levels, that the engagement between ourselves and the UK Government is collegiate and that it understands what we are trying to do in the rural portfolio. We want to enable Scotland to carry out its climate mitigations, stop rural depopulation, ensure that we can continue to produce food and improve our biodiversity. We are trying to do all of those things, but none of that will work unless we get funding. I hope that the new UK Government is in a negotiating spirit when we start to meet with it.

Good morning, convener and committee. Congratulations on being an award-winning committee. I thoroughly enjoyed watching your speech and seeing your photographs on Thursday evening at the Holyrood magazine award ceremony. Well done.

On the timing of the crofting bill, you will be aware that we have gone through the consultation process and that our officials are now looking at what people have fed back into that. The priorities on the bill are to help more people to become crofters and to better support existing crofters and their businesses. We want to enable more and different activity to be undertaken on common grazings, including empowering the Crofting Commission to tackle breaches through a more streamlined process and to resolve crofting regulatory issues more quickly through new and revised powers for the commission.

There have been 15 engagements throughout the crofting regions, and that work will now all be put into the mix. I have made some visits to crofting communities to have face-to-face conversations with people about what they are looking for from the bill.

The bill will be introduced in this parliamentary session, at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.