Wildlife Management Bill – stage 2: the noose tightens around the neck of Scottish grouse moor criminals

Yesterday the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs & Islands Committee finally started its two-day consideration of the Stage 2 amendments of the Wildlife Management (grouse moor reform) Bill after a two week delay to proceedings.

For new readers, this is proposed new legislation to regulate grouse shooting and its associated management practices by way of licensing schemes, introduced because of the continued illegal persecution of birds of prey on many Scottish grouse moors.

The Committee was joined by Environment Minister Gillian Martin MSP and some of her civil servants, and there were other MSPs in attendance (Edward Mountain MSP (Conservative), Stephen Kerr MSP (Conservative), Colin Smyth MSP (Labour) and John Mason MSP (SNP), none of whom were eligible to vote on the Stage 2 amendments but who were present to speak to amendments they have lodged.

There weren’t any big surprises in this first session and it soon became clear that Committee members were voting along party lines.

The Committee dealt with glue traps (nothing to do with grouse moor management but included in the Bill as a sort of related topic in terms of wildlife management) and then got into the nitty gritty of wildlife traps. There are still a few amendments to deal with on wildlife traps at the start of the next session but then it’ll move on to the big issues of grouse moor management and muirburn.

I won’t go through each amendment in turn because I’d be here for hours and besides, those interested will be able to read the transcript when it’s published in the next few days [update – now published at foot of this blog], but I will highlight some of the big decisions made at yesterday’s session.

The main ‘win’ from our perspective was the Minister’s decision to ban all snares on welfare grounds, including the cynically rebranded so-called ‘humane cable restraints‘ (rebranded to make them sound less archaic). The grouse shooting industry’s aggressive campaign to try and have ‘humane cable restraints’ exempted from the ban has failed miserably. Only two Committee members opposed the amendment for a ban – the two Tories, Finlay Carson and Rachael Hamilton. It was a pattern that was repeated throughout the proceedings.

Incidentally, as an aside, I keep reading arguments from the game shooting industry to justify the continued use of ‘humane cable restraints’ because they’re used by researchers and conservationists to trap wildlife, notably foxes, for example to fit radio collars, and the foxes are subsequently released unharmed. Therefore, they argue, ‘humane cable restraints’ are fine to use. What they don’t explain is for how long those foxes are ‘held’ in the ‘humane cable restraint’ (snare) – I’d wager that it’s not for up to 24 hours without access to food, water or shelter (the permitted time a fox can currently be held in a snare in Scotland until this Bill passes). No self-respecting scientific ethics committee would support a research application on that basis.

Another big ‘win’ was an amendment lodged by Karen Adam MSP (SNP) who successfully argued that offences committed under the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 should be considered as relevant for a potential suspension or revocation of a wildlife trapping licence (and also for a grouse moor management licence, although that part won’t be considered until the second session). This is a really important amendment because it means that when, for example, someone has been convicted of, say, the sadistic crime of badger-baiting (like the recent conviction of depraved Millden Estate gamekeeper Rhys Davies employed on a grouse moor in the Angus Glens), that person should not be considered fit to hold a trapping or grouse moor management licence. I was astonished (but not really) to see that Tories Finlay Carson and Rachael Hamilton opposed this amendment.

On the issue of full cost recovery for trap licences (i.e. that trap licence applicants should have to pay a fee to cover NatureScot’s administration of the licensing scheme, an amendment lodged by John Mason MSP (SNP)), Rachael Hamilton had lodged a counter amendment to remove this provision. The ensuing debate was hilarious, and Rachael’s argument was muddled and frankly, idiotic. She berated John Mason:

“He [John Mason] also should not, with respect, castigate assertions that illegal behaviours have been related to rural stakeholders“

She then went on a politicking spree, accusing the Scottish Government of “kow-towing” to another party (the Scottish Greens) as part of the Bute House Agreement (the shared policy agreement between the Scottish Greens and the SNP) but by this stage, Jim Fairlie MSP (SNP) had heard enough. He spoke to her directly, barely suppressing his exasperation:

“By the stakeholders’ own acceptance, this Bill was brought forward as a result of raptor persecution, which has been going on for decades, and the fact that there are going to be consequential wildlife benefits of bringing in this Bill does not necessitate the fact that the public purse should pay for it. Now I’m not saying one way or another how or where I’m going to vote on this at this moment in time, but to sit here today, you’re almost, sorry, the Member is almost trying to say that this has been brought forward as a result of the Bute House Agreement on the drive of the Greens. No, it’s not. It’s been brought forward because raptor persecution has been happening in this country, for decades, and the landowners who were responsible, or whose employees were responsible, did not shut it down. So I’m afraid I’ll be supporting the landowners and the rural workers more than most, but on this point I’m afraid I fundamentally disagree with you“.

Rachael Hamilton responded:

“Well, thank you to Jim Fairlie for that intervention. I mean of course, the whole objective is to ensure that we get those people who are operating illegally and that is the most important part of this Bill, but there’s no connection between raptor persecution and grouse moors. There are other reasons for persecution and those reasons would be predation, intraguild predation, the habitat etc, so we can agree to disagree on that“.

Eh?? After all the evidence presented to this Committee on the absolutely unequivocal link between grouse moor management and illegal raptor persecution, Rachael Hamilton is STILL denying the link exists, at this late stage of the Bill??! That’s either wilful blindness or embarrassing stupidity. And then describing the ‘reasons for persecution’ as being ‘intraguild predation’ and ‘habitat’ – it’s just mumbo jumbo.

Unsurprisingly, Rachael’s amendment was not supported by other Committee members (apart from Finlay Carson).

However, the issue of full cost recovery for trap licences was not resolved during this session because the Minister stated that her colleague, Biodiversity Minister Lorna Slater MSP, had recently (in January) commissioned a formal review of all species licensing undertaken by NatureScot, which will include assessing the potential for full cost recovery of licences. The review/report is expected within six months. I don’t know how that will impact on the progression of this Bill, given the Government’s stated intention to see the Bill passed before summer recess.

Conservative MSP Edward Mountain’s amendment suggesting that the withdrawal of wildlife trap licences should be based on the criminal burden of proof rather than the civil burden of proof was not supported. Neither was his amendment calling for an exemption from requiring a trapping licence if an applicant was (a) born before 31st December 1983 AND (b) had been using traps for 10 years consecutively. To be fair to him, although I thought his amendments were unsupportable, he did argue coherently and politely without the barbed sniping that was evident from some of his Conservative colleagues.

Labour MSP Colin Smyth didn’t find much support for his amendments on trap licensing, including a proposed condition that a trap licence shouldn’t be issued if its primary purpose was to manage the number of wild birds (Red Grouse) available for sport shooting. His arguments were passionate and eloquent and based on REVIVE’s campaign against ‘Killing to Kill‘ but he accused the Tories of making false claims about the impact of his amendments (it was argued that the amendments would effectively introduce a ban on grouse shooting) – they wouldn’t, and Colin announced his intention to press these amendments again at Stage 3.

The Minister’s amendment to create a specific offence of interfering with a lawfully set trap was approved, with an important caveat, ‘unless a person has reasonable cause to do so’. I’m guessing that a ‘reasonable cause’ may include concern about the immediate welfare of a trapped animal in distress, although a recent case in England based on those grounds led to the prosecution of a person who had released two highly distressed non-target species (a hare and a deer) from snares on the Duke of Norfolk’s estate in West Sussex. The person was subsequently found not guilty on all charges (see here). I may come back to that case in another blog because it’s interesting on a number of levels.

I note with some amusement that several grouse shooting organisations are trumpeting what they perceived as ‘a significant victory’ yesterday after the Minister removed a provision in the Bill that would have allowed the suspension of a trapping licence on the basis that a police investigation had started (into alleged trapping offences). Some of you may recall the Stage 1 discussions during the evidence sessions about the definition of an ‘investigation’ and when an ‘investigation’ could be deemed to have started (e.g. When someone reports an alleged offence? Or when the police issue a crime number? etc). It was a painful process that didn’t actually provide much clarity, even from the police, so for the purposes of having a water-tight Bill I think it was reasonable for this provision to be removed.

But is it a ‘significant victory’ as the grouse industry is claiming? I don’t think so. I think what the removal of this provision actually does is provide the police and NatureScot with a far less prescriptive regime and instead allows them more discretion when making an assessment of whether an offence has been committed and therefore whether a licence suspension or revocation is appropriate. That seems like a bit of an own goal by the grouse shooting industry, but if they want to declare it a victory, in what looks like a desperate attempt to appease their members amidst what is otherwise a catastrophic Bill for them (in their view), then good luck to them.

It’s been anticipated that the Committee will require two sessions to consider all the amendments at Stage 2 of this Bill, although judging by the pace of yesterday’s session I’d be surprised if they get through it all on time. The second session will take place on the morning of 21 February 2024.

The Scottish Parliament has agreed to extend consideration of Stage 2 to 23rd February 2024 so if they don’t manage to finish on the morning of the 21st there’s a small window in which to potentially squeeze a further session:

You can watch yesterday’s proceedings on a video archived on Scottish Parliament TV (here) and I’ll post the transcript when it becomes available (usually a few days after the meeting).

UPDATE: Here is the transcript of the meeting:

UPDATE 25th February 2024: Wildlife Management Bill – stage 2: further restrictions on grouse moor management agreed (here)