As many of you know, the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs & Islands Committee is currently taking evidence from stakeholders as part of the Committee’s Stage 1 scrutiny of the Wildlife & Muirburn (Scotland) Bill.
For new blog readers, this is the Bill that has been introduced by the Scottish Government in response to the recommendations made in the 2019 Werritty Review and is designed to bring in licensing for grouse moor management and introduce measures to put an end to the illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors.
The first evidence session took place on 31st May 2023 and the Committee heard from members of the Scottish Government Bill Team, led by senior civil servant Hugh Dignon.
The second evidence session took place on 14th June 2023 and the Committee heard from members of the Werritty Review Group as well as a range of stakeholders. It was a fascinating session and I’ve quite a lot to say about it but I don’t intend to comment until later.
You can watch the second evidence session on Scottish Parliament TV (archived video here) and you can read the transcript here:
The third evidence session (in a series of four) takes place today, starting at 9am in the Fleming Room at Holyrood. There will be two sub-sessions: the first one on grouse moor licensing and the second one on muirburn. The witnesses giving evidence in these two sub-sessions are as follows:
Grouse moor licensing:
Muirburn:
You can watch live on Scottish Parliament TV (here) or watch the video archive shortly afterwards via the same website. The official transcript will be available several days after the meeting and I’ll post it on this blog when it comes out.
The fourth and final session, scheduled for 28th June, will hear evidence from Mairi Gougeon, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Is there an account anywhere of the visit to the grouse moor on Monday which the chair of the committee stated was of huge help to the committee in their deliberations?
Or am I being naïve?
I am going to look for one later too. There needs to be a public record of it, if it was an official field visit. I made a comment about the estate on the previous blog on this site, about the second evidence session.