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My question goes beyond rehoming. This is a piece of legislation that is going through the Parliament. Given that your views are now based on animal welfare, how many greyhounds in Scotland will be affected by the ban?

Thank you, Mr Ruskell. That brings us to the end of this part of the meeting, and I thank the minister and his officials for attending.

I am going to suspend the meeting until 10.45. However, given that we are running ahead of time, I propose that we then move into private session for 15 minutes, until 11 o’clock, before moving on to our consideration of the Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill at stage 2.

Welcome back. Agenda item 4 is consideration of the Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill at stage 2. I welcome Maurice Golden, the member in charge of the bill, who is supported by officials from the Parliament’s non-Government bills unit, and Siobhian Brown, Minister for Victims and Community Safety, who is supported by Scottish Government officials. We will shortly be joined by Rachael Hamilton, who has lodged amendments on the bill. Parliament officials who are seated at the table are here to support the member in charge but are not permitted to speak in the debate on amendments.

I will briefly explain the stage 2 procedures for members of the public—and to bring myself up to speed, to be honest. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. I will call the member who lodged the first amendment in that group to speak to and move that amendment and to speak to all the other amendments in the group. Members who have not lodged amendments in the group but who wish to speak should catch my attention. If the member in charge has not already spoken on the group, I will then invite him to contribute to the debate.

The debate on each group will be concluded by my inviting the member who moved the first amendment in that group to wind up, and I will then check whether they wish to press that amendment to a vote or withdraw it. If they press it, I will put the question on that amendment. If they wish to withdraw the amendment after it has been moved, they must seek the agreement of other members to do so. If any member present objects, the committee will immediately move to a vote on the amendment.

If any member does not want to move their amendment when called, they should say, “Not moved.” Please note that any other member present may then move such an amendment. If no one moves the amendment, I will immediately call the next amendment on the marshalled list.

Only committee members are allowed to vote. Voting in any division is by a show of hands. It is important that each member keeps their hand clearly raised until the clerk has recorded the vote.

The committee is required to indicate formally that it has considered and agreed to each section of the bill, so I will put a question on each section at the appropriate point.

No members are participating remotely. We move to the marshalled list for stage 2 amendments.

Section 1—Dog Theft

The Government’s position has changed from being potentially pro-licence to being pro-ban. Was there not more scope to have a broader impact on the welfare of greyhounds with licensing rather than with what the bill will deliver—which, from what you have just told us, will not impact any greyhounds? The Government had it in its powers to introduce licensing, which could have been more encompassing and had a bigger impact by looking at things such as kennelling and dog transport. Your position has changed from licensing to a ban. What has changed since the last evidence session, in 2024, that has made you side with a ban rather than licensing?

You say that nothing can be done, but if there is legislation that forces those shares back together—

Welcome back. Our next item of business is consideration of a negative instrument. Do members wish to make any comments on the instrument?

I do not believe that that is pertinent to the negative instrument that is before us. Further instruments may come forward, but your point does not directly relate to this instrument, which makes, in effect, a very small amendment to the way in which data is published.

As there are no other comments, I assume that everybody is content.

That concludes the public part of our proceedings.

We had Andrew Thin in on 24 September, and he suggested that it was not logical not to allow shares in common grazings to be split, because

“The common land has productive uses that may not necessarily be only about grazing; it could be used for the benefit of the country.”

He went on to suggest that,

“in some circumstances, the best way to drive the productive use of common grazings land could be though shareholders being allowed to acquire shares that are disconnected from crofting land.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 24 September 2025; c 26.]

That sounds to me like speculation.

We heard examples of common grazings groups setting up hydro schemes or whatever and being a bit tetchy about the fact that some people who were non-resident and lived on the other side of the world were benefiting from the work that the group had done to attract funding to manage a hydro asset. Some of that money was actually leaving the community altogether.

I will come back to Josh Doble and then go to Donna Smith, or to Jackie McCreery; I can bring in everybody. It sounds as if we are all very much in agreement, but it seems like a contentious issue. With carbon credits—as someone touched on—there is a potential return on forestry and renewables in the future. That could be a real tipping point with regard to the whole idea of crofting and the sustainability of individual inby land without the common grazing.

I will bring in Jackie McCreery.

Thank you very much. Did you want to say something else, Josh?

I have a more general point. I did not previously know very much about crofting or how different it is from agricultural policy. A whole set of different outcomes are desired. In one of our previous sessions, Andrew Thin suggested that crofting could be the key to addressing rural depopulation and island depopulation in particular. How can we be sure that adding an environmental use provision does not detract from the overall outcomes that crofting is supposed to deliver?

Josh, you touched on the importance of townships. How might townships be weakened by including the environmental use provision? Are there enough safeguards and prioritisation, so that we will still achieve the outcome that crofting legislation is supposed to achieve?