The Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020 Review: Survey report

Annex 3: Scottish Sentencing Council response

The Scottish Sentencing Council is grateful to be given the opportunity to provide views on the amendments made to the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2006 and a wide range of wildlife legislation by the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020.

The Council is an independent advisory body and its main responsibility is to prepare sentencing guidelines for the Scottish courts. The Council's business plan for 2018-21 included a commitment to develop a guideline on environmental and wildlife offences. However, in May 2019, the Council announced that it had decided to defer work on environmental and wildlife crime in order to prioritise guidelines on sexual offences. It was noted that a delay may have been required in any case as a result of the Scottish Government’s plans to increase penalties for wildlife crimes, which has since resulted in the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020.

The Council’s business plan for 2021-24 expressed the Council’s intention to reconvene its Environmental and Wildlife Crime Committee and undertake research and engagement activity within that period to support the development of the guideline on environment and wildlife offences, subject to there being sufficient resource to allocate to this work.

The Environmental and Wildlife Crime Committee reconvened on 21 May 2024. As is noted in the minutes of the Council’s meeting on 07 June, the Committee reached a provisional view on the scope of its work, which was that environmental offences should be dealt with separately from wildlife offences, rather than that both should be covered in a single guideline. The Council agreed with this proposal in principle, and noted that the secretariat would carry out a scoping exercise on potential approaches for guidelines on these offences and present recommendations to the Committee and Council in due course.

It is expected that this scoping exercise will be ongoing for the remainder of this year. This means that development of guidelines on environmental and wildlife crime remain at stage 1 in the Council’s guideline development process, which involves determining the precise scope and approach of the guidelines (including, among other things, consideration of where animal welfare offences might sit in the context of this work).

Accordingly, the Council and the Committee have not yet specifically considered, and have no sentencing data in respect of, the changes introduced by the 2020 Act. The Council is therefore not in a position at this stage to offer views in respect of the questions set out in the survey. However, it is expected that once the scoping exercise is complete, the Council will consider what research and analysis it may wish to undertake to support development of the guideline. This may include examining potential impacts of the 2020 Act and seeking relevant sentencing data from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to assist with this, alongside engagement with stakeholders, all in accordance with stage 2 in the guideline development process. The Council’s secretariat would be happy to engage with relevant Scottish Government officials as part of that process, and would also be happy to participate in follow-up workshops in relation to the survey, to the extent that it is able to.