08:48
Item 2 is an evidence-taking session on the rural support plan. We have scheduled around an hour and 30 minutes for the item. To keep us on time, I would be grateful if questions and answers could be concise.
Members of our predecessor committee agreed to hold a short inquiry into the Scottish Government’s rural support plan, which was published right at the end of the previous parliamentary session. We have held a targeted call for views and have had three round-table discussions. I thank all stakeholders who have fed into the consideration so far.
Today, we will take closing evidence from the Scottish Government. After that, the committee will consider a report, and then we plan to hold a chamber debate.
I welcome to the meeting Gillian Martin, Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs; and Jim Fairlie, Minister for Agriculture, Marine and the Islands. I also welcome their supporting officials from the Scottish Government: John Kerr, head of agriculture policy; Anna Densham, deputy director of land reform, rural and islands policy; and James Muldoon, head of the agricultural support and policy development unit.
I remind everyone that you do not need to operate your microphones, as our broadcasting team will do that for you.
I invite the minister to start with a short opening statement.
Thank you, convener. I thank the committee for the opportunity to discuss the first rural support plan, although I have to say that, from the evidence that I have seen, the committee’s focus has been more on agricultural reform than on the plan itself.
The plan sets out the strategic priorities for the plan period and the available support for them, and it collates the breadth of the agricultural reform work into a single strategic and coherent package to meet the requirements of the Agricultural, Rural and Community (Scotland) Act 2024.
The first support plan launches the four-tier framework and brings together in one place the vision, the route map, the framework, the 2024 act requirements, the strategic outcomes and the agricultural reform. It also sets out the context for further agricultural reform, and it acts as the foundation for future changes. It is based on our significant and detailed engagement with stakeholders on, and co-development of, agricultural reform, alongside user research with farmers and crofters. That engagement is detailed in the consultation statement, including examples of how it informed the changes that were introduced in 2025 and 2026.
The reform will follow an evolving and continuous improvement approach, designed and delivered in partnership with rural communities and our valued stakeholders. It is supported by monitoring and an evaluation framework.
The co-development process does not seek to obtain the agreement of all parties but instead takes account of all views. Any change is likely to have supporters and objectors, and it is the role of Scottish ministers to make a balanced decision, taking into account all those perspectives.
The support plan is a Scottish Government document approved by ministers that details the strategic outcomes and the strategic priorities for providing support. We have been clear from the very initial discussions around the 2024 act that the first rural support plan is not set in stone. It is a living document that will be amended to reflect that evolving reform journey, and it will be amended to meet requirements under the 2024 act. As related proposals, the policies and duties will evolve over the planned period.
The Scottish Government previously delivered the five-year commitment to stability and simplicity, which concluded in 2024. Our reform journey started with initial changes made in 2025 and in 2026. In this parliamentary session, it is entirely about the delivery of agricultural reform, which is what I have committed to doing. I am more than happy to discuss issues with the committee as the reform journey continues.
It is good to hear that it is a living document and that it will evolve over time.
We now go to questions from members.
I will pick up on the fact that it is a living document. Some of the stakeholders who contributed to the inquiry sessions felt confusion about the end goal of the rural support plan. Will you clarify the Government’s vision for agriculture post-2030, considering quality food production alongside nature restoration, and for how the industry should manage that transition between now and then?
We have been clear right from the outset that we want to be world leaders in sustainable regenerative agriculture. That is a very simple statement to make, but, of course, there are a whole load of nuances and caveats within that.
There will be criticisms of the plan—I understand that people will always have differing views—but we have been clear from the outset that we are asking our farming community to help us to deliver world-class sustainable regenerative agriculture in order to improve our biodiversity and make sure that we have resilience in our food systems and thriving rural communities. We want people to come with us on that journey.
As someone who has been shepherding and farming for more than 30 years, I know that, in reality, people in the sector often do not pay any attention to the stuff that they hear coming out from Government. What they are doing is farming: tending their sheep, growing their crops and doing the things that they do on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, we have to make sure that our farming community knows what we are doing and why we are doing it, so that they can buy into it. The purpose of our approach is to ensure that we take that journey together.
Some of the criticisms that I have heard—I watched two of your evidence sessions and I read the Official Report of the third session—are absolutely ludicrous. A lot of the people who are making those criticisms were sitting in the rooms while we had those discussions. During the two years in which I sat on the agriculture reform implementation oversight board, which was in existence for five years, we often went round in circles because we thought we had agreement on certain things and then we were taken back to square 1 again.
The route map that we set out right at the start is the vision. The vision is to make sure that we have sustainable agriculture, are producing food in this country, are improving our biodiversity, are sequestering emissions, are preventing emissions from happening in the first place, and are putting rural communities at the front and centre of all of that so that they can continue to thrive.
Thank you.
A recurring theme that we heard throughout the evidence sessions was that, in real terms, there has been a reduction in the budget to support agriculture. If it had kept up with the position in 2000, we would be looking at a budget of £910 million, not £660 million. Is it fair to say that the Government is asking farmers and the agricultural sector to do more and more with less and less?
Nobody can deny that the budget is roughly what it was in 2018, and we cannot deny that inflation has had an effect—that is absolutely clear. That is one of the benefits of Brexit. Had we still been part of the European Union, we would have continued to get the levels of uplift that we were getting in the EU.
As I do not deal with the budget and the budget negotiations, I will pass the question to the cabinet secretary.
Mr Fairlie is right to say that the inflation that we have seen over the past few years in particular has had an effect on this portfolio and this sector, but it has also had an effect on budgets across the Government. Basically, capital in particular is generally worth less than it was before inflation started to rocket in the way that it has. I agree that there were some protections against inflation when we were a member of the European Union.
Despite that and the fact that we are in an extremely challenging situation, we are investing in this portfolio to the tune of £1.373 billion in 2026-27, and we are continuing to provide certainty of agriculture spend. As our farmers, crofters and land managers know—and as the First Minister, Mr Fairlie and I have reiterated—we are investing £666 million in 2026-27 to maintain direct payments to the sector.
We cannot control inflation, and there is nothing in our block grant that means that there has to be an inflationary uplift. If we do not get that, we have to work within the constraints of the money that we are given. We can raise revenue through our own taxes, although we are continually asked by some people in this Parliament to cut them, which would also have an impact on the amount of money that we could spend in all our portfolios.
We are giving certainty to farmers—certainty that farmers in the rest of the United Kingdom do not have—by committing to a budget over many years. Further, our spending review gives us the ability to consider the projections that we are making over that period.
It must be taken into account that any money that is put into this portfolio would have to come from other parts of the Government, following Cabinet discussions around the budget. It is increasingly unlikely that more money will come from the UK through the block grant. We know that the UK Government has made a decision to cut infrastructure investment in order to support defence spending—I think that that is what Andy Burnham has signalled. That could mean that our capital funding may be reduced by about £370 million. However, despite the projections about what the UK Government might do, we have committed to delivering direct payments to farmers, as well as all the other schemes that we have.
There has been inflation, but we try to maintain our spend as much as possible and give certainty to our land managers, crofters and farmers, so that they can plan. That is not the case in other parts of the UK.
I will add one point to that, convener. The cabinet secretary talked about the unlikelihood of our getting an increased budget from the UK, and we must bear in mind that the UK Government has already Barnettised the support for agriculture. Some 17.4 per cent of the UK budget for agriculture used to be delivered to Scotland, but that has now been Barnettised to roughly 7.9 per cent.
I also point out that we do not control fuel costs, which is a problem for farming. The cost of diesel is a massive problem—in fact, I think that NFU Scotland has just written to the UK Government to ask it to start taking action on that now, because some farmers are clearly in trouble. We do not control factors relating to fertiliser, although our rural support plan and our programme for reform will look at using much less fertiliser as we go through the years, but that is not an immediate fix.
I take on board the point that you made, and, as the cabinet secretary said, we have talked about that issue extensively. We know the pressures that people are under. There are things that we cannot control and things that we can, and we are doing everything that we can to help.
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I appreciate that point, and I am keen to stay on what we can control. The cabinet secretary alluded to the fact that the funding is a choice and that money could come from elsewhere. Is it fair to say that agriculture is not a priority for the Government and that other portfolios are?
Frankly, that is a ludicrous suggestion. I am saying that we have a finite amount of money to put to all portfolios in Government.
It is about priorities.
I am not quite sure what Jamie Langan is suggesting. Actually, I am sure, and I refute it completely.
I appreciate that Jamie is new to the Parliament, but the purpose of this committee is to try to find real solutions to the issues that we face. I get that politics are involved, and always will be, but the reality is that we have given certainty and stability to the rural community since Brexit. We did not choose Brexit but, since it came, we have given stability and security. Go and ask a farmer anywhere in the country whether they would rather be under the Scottish Government’s portfolio or the UK Government’s, and then ask whether agriculture is a priority, and I think that you will get your answer—it will not come from us. We already know what we are doing.
You have both described the challenge and the pressures on the budget. It is clear that the budget is now trying to do more with less money, because it has not increased in line with inflation. Which of the objectives could potentially be challenged by that lack of increase in budget?
All objectives are challenged.
Essentially, the budget is being asked to do more with less money.
Yes, and I accept that we would much rather have more money. All of the objectives are challenged and challenging. Members have sat round this table for the past three weeks hearing evidence from everyone telling them that the situation is challenging, and we will not shy away from that. However, we have put in place a route map and a system that allows farmers to come with us and to work with us. We will always look to see what more we can do and how we can move budgets around. I am sure that we will come on to the four-tier structure.
What is the objective of the rural support plan? It is to give people an understanding of the journey that we will be on for the next five years. That stability between now and 2030 is essential. Farmers know what they are getting between now and 2030. There will be things that we will tweak and add in, and we will ask farmers to do more. However, that is as much about getting the mindset to shift as anything else. Over the past 10 years, farmers have heard that change is coming, and people have been arguing about things in various places, so there has not been a coherent vision for farmers to be able to say, “Right. I’m on this—I now understand it.” I mean that from a farmer’s point of view, and not from the point of view of people in here or the stakeholders. I mean people who are on the ground doing the job.
Beyond the vision, what objectives could be challenging to deliver with the budget that is available? That is what I am asking.
We are talking about the rural support plan, but your question goes a lot wider than that. In the second half of today’s session, we will come on to the budget and objectives of the whole climate action and rural affairs portfolio. There are schemes and funding streams within that portfolio that are outwith the support plan that Mr Fairlie is here to talk about. Some of those funding streams are available to leverage in private capital. We have seen that with the nature restoration fund and the funding associated with peatland restoration and woodland creation, for example. Those streams leverage in funding through sources of finance that are outwith Government.
In a challenging fiscal situation, we have to be agile and responsive to ways in which we can leverage in money that comes from outwith Government. Government money cannot achieve all of our objectives. With the climate change plan and the biodiversity strategy, we are at the early stages, globally, in looking at how we can leverage in finance from other areas. I have talked about that with the committee previously.
Convener, I want to talk about one other point that you asked about.
Is it on objectives?
Yes.
I think that Scottish Land & Estates said in one of the committee’s evidence sessions that, if the budget is what the budget is, we need to ask how it does more to meet the challenges. That is absolutely correct, and that is what will happen between now and 2030. The policy delivery group and I are considering how we make the money work a hell of a lot harder, and that will be based on activity. The activity is the thing that will help us to find the route map and get to 2030 and beyond, when we will be able to see quantifiable and deliverable objectives being met. However, there is absolutely no doubt that we are in a challenging environment.
More generally, on the shape of agriculture policy, in recent weeks and months, there has been a lot of commentary on livestock numbers. Will the minister clarify the Scottish Government’s position on the future of livestock numbers in Scotland?
Hopefully, this is the last time that I, the cabinet secretary or the First Minister will ever have to say this: there is absolutely no policy to reduce livestock numbers in Scotland. We went against the Climate Change Committee’s advice to reduce livestock numbers. We have a voluntary coupled support system in Scotland that people cannot access anywhere else and which protects the livestock sector, particularly the calf sector. We also have the Scottish upland sheep support—SUSS—scheme for the sheep sector. Nothing in any of the rhetoric that has been going round for years has suggested that the Scottish Government is looking to reduce livestock numbers. That is not our policy.
On the rural support plan, you will have seen from the committee’s evidence sessions that RSPB Scotland suggested that it might be best to rip up the plan and start again. What would be the impact of that approach on farmers, crofters and the wider supply chain?
I will try to be careful in what I say, because what we say in committee meetings matters, as does how people receive that on the ground—the people who we are asking to do the job. When we have an organisation that has sat round the table with us for five years and been part of the discussion but then, at the end of the process, comes out and says that we should rip up the plan and start again, that challenges the credibility of what that organisation was saying in the first place. I say that with all due respect.
We have worked incredibly hard to get to the position where we can say, “Okay, we know exactly what the plan is.” We have been round the houses. We have done everything. We have looked at every possible scenario in the past five years, and we have now set out the direction in which we are going. If we were to rip it up and start again, would that result in another 10 years of uncertainty and another period when farmers had no idea of what the end product would look like?
I completely refute what the RSPB said. It is contradictory and it does not help us to go any further forward. The RSPB and other organisations might not be happy that they are not getting everything that they want out of the discussions. As I said in my opening statement, being part of the discussions does not mean that you are going to get everything that you want—not everybody will. The Government, the cabinet secretary and I will take all the evidence that we have in front of us and make the best and most measured decisions that we can. If we get that wrong, we will look to change the system to rectify that.
We have amended some things. For example, with the calf scheme, we did not have a system that would protect smallholders and crofters in the Western Isles. When that was made clear to us and we looked at the evidence, we accepted that we needed to do something. We are prepared to be flexible, because this is not an exact science by any stretch of the imagination. Everything that we are doing has to be tested. We can test it with models and theory but, once it hits the ground, if we find that we have got something wrong, we will try to amend it.
I am sorry, but I simply have no faith in that comment at all. I have to say that I was more than a little bit disappointed—I was very disappointed—when I heard it quoted in the chamber.
I reiterate Mr Fairlie’s point that the plan is a living document. Obviously, we need to have a starting point, which is what has been laid out. We will have a period of five years for each plan, but that does not mean that it is static, it sits on the shelf and we just adhere to it no matter what. Technology, thinking and financial situations change, and world events can have an impact on everything that we are talking about, as we have seen this year.
From my perspective, I have to be agile when looking at the analysis of outcomes that are associated with emissions reduction and biodiversity loss, because we have targets in place in statute that we need to reach. Agriculture is just one area of the climate change plan, but we have a delivery group in Government in which all the cabinet secretaries and ministers who are tasked with delivering on emissions reduction are round the table. Mr Fairlie is a member of that group, too. There are various ways in which we will monitor the effectiveness of all our policies, and we have the agility to be flexible.
We have to take the farming community with us. People have to trust us and we need credibility. People have to buy into the things that we are trying to do. We could try to force them. We could say, “This is the policy and you will follow it.”
One of the most forward-thinking farmers is a lad down south called James Rebanks—I follow him on Twitter. He is doing tremendous work. He is an upland farmer who does fantastic stuff. His criticism of a system that was imposed without proper consultation is brutal. We are determined that that is not the sort of system that we will have. This will be an iterative programme. We will work with the community and, if we get things wrong, we will try to flex. That is the beauty of our approach.
If I remember correctly, there was an awful lot of criticism of the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024 because it was thought to give far too broad-ranging powers. The reason why it gives those broad-ranging powers is to provide the ability to flex and move as situations change. The purpose of the rural support plan is to allow Parliament to scrutinise as we were going along, but the end result is that we have a system in which we can change direction if and when we need to.
It is about delivering a programme. I think that it was David McKay who said to the committee that about 70 per cent of the land that we are asking people to do things on is farmed land. That is the community who we are asking to deliver, and they are the people who we need to get on board. The most crucial part is having credibility among the people who we are asking to deliver.
Good morning. I want to pick up on evidence on engagement that we heard from stakeholders in previous meetings. Concerns were raised about uncertainty on what the land, agriculture and nature delivery—LAND—group will do and whether it will fulfil the functions of the agriculture reform implementation oversight board, or ARIOB, that people thought were positive. Can we get information on the remit of the LAND group and how positives from ARIOB will be continued with stakeholders?
I will take that, as I convene the LAND group. We had our first meeting just last week, and we agreed the terms of reference. It was a very good first meeting.
It is a multidisciplinary group. It is not a replacement for ARIOB; it is a separate group with stakeholders that will enable holistic and strategic discussions on the overarching approach to land use in Scotland. The group will offer advice on interaction between sectoral policies that relate to land. It will also look at how we can meet our outcomes in the various strategies that we have in Government, as well as providing economic stability, sustainability and growth.
The membership reflects a range of stakeholders from across land policies and sectors. I have a list here, although I think that I have written to the committee—
Not yet.
If I have not, I have agreed a letter to go to the committee. There is always a time lag between me saying that something is fine to go and it hitting the committee’s email inbox.
We have the Scottish Crofting Federation, Scottish Environment LINK, which represents a great number of environmental non-governmental organisations, Scottish Land & Estates, WWF Scotland, NFU Scotland, the Confederation of Forest Industries, the Soil Association, the RSPB, the Nature Friendly Farming Network, the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association, Woodland Trust Scotland and the Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs.
We did not want to have a big unwieldy group, and we felt that some of the representatives—particularly Scottish Environment LINK, which is quite a big membership group—would represent their members. I hope that we have the balance right. We have had only one meeting. If we feel that we need to bring in other expertise on certain areas of our work programme, we will do so. We will be agile with that membership. We had an excellent, positive first meeting in which we discussed the things that we might want to include in our work programme.
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I look forward to the letter, which, I think, will address some of the concerns that have been raised. Have any lessons that have been learned from ARIOB been applied in the formation of the new group?
ARIOB and the workstreams associated with it continue, so I will pass over to Mr Fairlie.
A lot of lessons have been learned from ARIOB. That is why we have the programme of work in front of us between now and 2030. I listened to the evidence sessions and took on board some of the criticisms, but I do not recognise what was said about a lack of engagement. James Muldoon has a list of our engagements, at various levels, with ARIOB and big groups of organisations of farmers, processors and so on. We spoke to every organisation that we could, but there were differing views. Some people wanted us to go very quickly in one direction, and others wanted us to go very slowly or to not do anything at all. I refute the point about a lack of engagement.
The frustration among stakeholders might come from the fact that they did not get everything out of the engagement that they wanted. ARIOB was not about people saying to the Government, “This is what we have decided you should do—off you pop and do it.” It was about getting an end route and getting to a position in which we can deliver the objectives that we have set out. When people have not got what they have wanted, they have taken that as our not having listened to them. We listened very carefully, and we have taken a balanced approach to ensure that—I will always come back to this point—we have on board the people on the ground who will need to deliver our objectives. We do that by ensuring that they buy into what we are trying to deliver.
Good morning. Minister, you have robustly rejected some of the evidence from witnesses, including the RSPB—
Could you pull down your microphone a bit? I apologise, but I am struggling to hear you.
Of course.
On that basis, what is your explanation for why, after years of stakeholder group meetings, consultations and policy development, we have reached 2026 with so many of the fundamental questions about the future support system still unresolved in the minds of many of the people who gave evidence to the committee?
I accept the premise of that question, but there is definitely an element of people thinking, “We didn’t get what we wanted, so this is not working.” As strange as this might sound, I am disappointed that Finlay Carson is not here. He and I had a conversation in which I asked, “What are your genuine concerns? What do you think we haven’t done in the rural support plan?” He said something along the lines of, “We were told that the rural support plan would give us chapter and verse: this will happen by then; this will happen by then; and this will happen by then.” We probably did not have a very eloquent conversation, but it was something along those lines. The rural support plan was never designed to provide that. It is supposed to give us the next steps.
The real work is being done in the advanced policy development group, which I set up in the previous parliamentary session to take account of all the learning and some of the frustrations. There was a lot of frustration within ARIOB, because, at times, it felt as though we were going round in circles—we thought that we had agreement and that we were moving on, but then we were back at square 1. That happened for a number of reasons, including who was in the room and what the objectives of individuals or groups were. I accept that that is what happened.
The purpose of the policy development group is to clearly set out the vision, the things that we have to focus on and the assessments that are needed of where those things fit into the whole system. We then need to deliver that.
At our meeting on 16 November, the group will look at three things. We will look at how we define smallholders and small farmers. We will look at activity—let me put on the record right now that, if you are not an active farmer in 2030, you will find that your support will be very limited indeed, as activity will allow farmers to unlock payments for their businesses. We will look at regions, activity and small farmers. When we have bottomed out those issues, officials will say to me, “This is what we’ve taken from that. These are your options.” As soon as I have made a decision, the committee will know about it. The committee will know about it because the people on the ground who will need to deliver what has been decided will know about it, in advance of the change in 2030.
Last year, when I came to the committee to discuss the Scottish statutory instrument on the less favoured area support scheme payments up to 2030, there was a lot of dispute about whether we were going quickly enough. We are doing things in the way that I have described so that people have a full understanding of what is coming in plenty of time before its implementation.
I take on board the deputy convener’s point. The policy development group will now do the really hard work at pace to ensure that the committee, the Parliament and, most importantly, stakeholders know exactly what will be coming in 2030.
Can you remind us of who sits on the policy development group? Does it have the same membership as the LAND group, plus NFU Scotland?
No. I will list the members of the policy development group, which I chair. It includes Jonnie Hall from the NFUS; Martin Kennedy; Denise Walton from the Nature Friendly Farming Network; Richard Lockett from the farming and wildlife advisory group; Steven Thomson from Scotland’s Rural College; rural payments and inspections division delivery colleagues, because we can sit here, and this has happened—
I am sorry to interrupt, but keep going with your list.
Hold on. I have it written down. The group also includes Ian Davidson from the Scottish Land Matching Service; Donna Smith from the Scottish Crofting Federation; and Andrew Moxley, who is a scientist. Government officials will take down the actions—not the minutes but the actions—that come out of those meetings.
The policy development group does not include the environmental NGOs and others that are on the LAND group. The LAND group’s membership is separate from the membership of that group.
The policy development group includes the Nature Friendly Farming Network and Richard Lockett from the farming and wildlife advisory group. The practical people who are delivering on the ground are the people who need to be in the room. We can come up with policy ideas that sound good, but we need to have people who will say, “Yes, but have you thought of this, because that is what will happen in reality?”
Thank you for providing that clarity.
Minister, by the end of your answer, I think that you had acknowledged that there was a significant gap between what stakeholders thought should be included in the rural support plan and what the Government intended to include in it. Is that what you are saying?
No. That might have been what stakeholders wanted or expected, but that was never what we intended or what we told people. I do not think that I ever put on the record that the rural support plan would give chapter and verse on what would come next. If I did, that was on me, but I do not think that I have ever given the assurance that the rural support plan would provide a timetable of exactly when things would be delivered. What I did say about the rural support plan is that it is the next stage of how we go forward.
The other thing about the rural support plan is that it unlocks our ability to move away from the CAP measures and allows us to move to our own system.
So, it is a misunderstanding in relation to expectations and Government intentions.
Those are your words.
Okay. I will stick with the issue of engagement with RSPB Scotland. We heard repeatedly about the amount of consultation that the Government had undertaken, but when we asked witnesses what had changed as a result of that engagement, most struggled to give us concrete examples. The example that you have given us of a policy that had changed is the introduction of the calf scheme. Can you give me some examples of significant elements of the plan that were changed specifically because stakeholders persuaded the Government to change course?
On stakeholders helping us change course, the calf scheme is probably the prime example. We are enhancing greening through the plan. I think that the initial numbers of farmers practising greening were about 2,500 at one time, and I know that, although I cannot remember the exact number, significantly more are adopting greening now.
The ecological focus area requirements were initially based on 5 per cent of the land, and that is increasing to 7 per cent, so that is changing. We had to fight tooth and nail to get that. There are very specific issues in Orkney in particular. We had to take the Orkney issue, look at what is happening there and then make sure that we had included enough options in the system to allow Orkney farmers to take part in the scheme while not losing productivity.
Those are two examples alone. Other things are going on all the time, so if people were not able to give you precise examples, I am sorry, but that is not on us. We are doing the things on the ground that matter. We had a lot of lobbying about the Orkney situation, so we took actions to ensure that Orkney farmers were able to take part in the system and become part of the EFA without it affecting their productivity to the point where they just dropped out of the system.
The biggest issue that we will have here is if we create systems where farmers just say, “You know what? I’m out.” We would then have no negotiating position with them and no ability to have their behaviours work in the way that we want in order to deliver the objectives. It is very important that we keep farmers on board.
It goes back to the point I was making about James Rebanks earlier. In England, farmers are coming out of the system left, right and centre because it is just not worth their while. We have to avoid that. We have got to get these people, who are our partners in delivering this, on board.
One of the topics that came up quite often throughout our evidence sessions was information technology systems and the frustrations associated with them. Given the other headwinds and challenges that the agricultural sector faces, frustration with those issues is understandable.
I would be keen to hear from the minister what lessons have been learned from previous IT challenges and what assurances can be given going forward that this will not be a lingering issue for the sector.
One of the lessons that has been learned from previous systems is: let us not delay payments. That is essential. You will know exactly what I am talking about. We had a period when getting payments out the door was a problem.
Let me put on the record that the Scottish Government never actually missed those payments and was never given any penalty by the EU during the entire time for making late payments. There was a period when the IT system did not keep up. However, we have stretched every sinew to make sure that the IT system enables those payments to hit bank accounts at the right time. We have brought that forward to the beginning of the payment period. By law, payments can be made between September and June. We start in September and get out as many payments as we can—to the point where that has almost become embedded and farmers expect their payment in September. The reality is that we have until June to make those payments.
We are going above and beyond to make sure that we are helping farmers in the best way that we can. As we change our IT system, work is going on behind the scenes on what I think is called the target operating model. These guys sitting next to me—my officials—are getting on with the hard work of making sure that we can make the transition.
I have heard criticism in the past that we are not doing nearly enough because the IT system is broken. It is not. The IT system continues to deliver funding payments every year, on time and into people’s bank accounts, which is exactly what it is designed to do.
As we change it, we will have to make adaptations. We have a fabulous team that is led by Jo. I cannot remember Jo’s second name, but it does not matter. She is doing a phenomenal job of making sure that, as we bring changes forward, she can say, “Yes, but we will need to do it that way.” That work is under way simultaneously. The IT team is working with James Muldoon, and John Kerr has oversight of the whole thing to ensure that we transition come 2030 and beyond.
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Dawn, do you want to come in on this?
Yes. I would like to focus on the four tiers, if that is okay. As you will have seen, generally there was wide support among stakeholders for the front loading of tier 1 direct payments.
Currently, payments are based on acreage. Is there an argument for front loading payments on the first tranche of acreage and then tapering them as holdings increase? Potentially, payments could be capped, too, because smaller producers would then benefit proportionately more than those with larger operations and landholdings.
You have opened up a perfect opportunity for me to—forgive me, convener.
A brief opportunity.
A brief opportunity—I am sorry; nothing is ever brief with me.
My idea, which I have tasked our team with delivering, is that we have an army of people from the Borders to Shetland producing food in line with the objectives that we have set out in the plan. The only way in which we can do that is through activity. Front loading and, potentially, capping are all tools that we can use, but the primary focus is on making sure that we have people who are delivering a resilient food system, supporting sustainable communities, delivering for nature and biodiversity, and undertaking sequestration. In addition, all of that must be done through a just transition.
That is why the first meeting that we will have with the policy development group in November is based on the elements that I told you about. We need to determine what the regions are, what activity is taking place and what the definition of a small producer is, so that we can specify how best to support the people who are doing the job on the ground.
Front loading and exemptions may well be part of that, but we will take those issues one chunk at a time and work our way through them. We will build that into the system so that, by 2030, everybody will know exactly what is coming and that transition will happen. However, if people are sitting on huge chunks of land and doing very little for it, we are not intending to pay those people any money at all, if we can get away with it, on the basis that they are not delivering the activity that the objectives of the 2024 act set out in the first place.
Good. That is very clear.
On the levels of funding within the four-tier framework, the majority sits within tiers 1 and 2 at the moment. As we move closer to 2030, that will shift to tiers 3 and 4. Nature restoration and climate action fall under tier 3. If we want to encourage those aspects, is there an argument for starting the funding transition a little earlier to ensure that people who are making that journey—and those who are already on it and doing those things—receive the benefit of it?
No, I do not think that that should happen at this stage, because we have given assurance of stability and certainty between now and 2030.
Tier 2 will end up doing a lot more. How we allocate funding across the tiers—dare I say this on the record?—is almost irrelevant. The end journey is the most important bit. How we shift money between the tiers will be very important at the time that we are doing it, but the timescale for that, and how much money goes into the individual tiers, is not as important as what we are trying to address. How can we do that? We will then use the system that we have put in place to adapt to that situation.
We need to put a lot more money into—farmers will hate me saying this—continuous professional development. The very phrase makes people’s blood run cold. However, CPD is about how we learn to do things differently. When someone is considering how to change the way in which they have done things for the past 25 years, they might think, “I do not like this change and I do not feel comfortable with it, so how do I do that?”
It is not about sitting in a classroom with spreadsheets in front of you; it is about how we create opportunities for farmers to speak to other farmers one to one, where their peers can tell them, “We tried this and it works.” That is why it is important for us to have Denise Walton and Richard Lockett on the policy delivery group and why we will ask people to look at what Dee Ward, Tom Bowser and Johnnie Balfour in Fife are doing.
I would like to add to that—
I would like to come back in. When will the certainty on the funding, the tiers and the plan be delivered by the Government? We have a direction of travel, but it is not clear what will be in the plan from 2030, or whether the budget split from 2030 will be part of the long-term plan or might change as the policy develops during the parliamentary session. The committee needs to hear when the plan and the costed tiers will be available to us so that we can see the shape of the transition over time.
I do not think that we should ever set in stone how much money will be allocated to each tier. We have to have the ability to monitor what is happening and see where changes are being made, so that we can put more money into different areas and take money out of other areas if we need to. That is the purpose of the tiered system, because it gives us the ability to put money in and change people’s behaviours.
How does that deliver certainty? If a farmer is looking to plan for the long-term—perhaps they are doing a landscape-scale restoration project with their neighbours, or perhaps they want to change their business model—they will need access to support and advice and will need to know that the budget is available. How do you—
But you will know—
Hang on a second, minister. Can I finish my point, please?
How does a farmer know that they will have long-term certainty for those tiers beyond 2030, so that they can bid into the funds successfully?
There will be long-term certainty. As I have said a couple of times, between now and 2030, the policy delivery group will come back to the committee to say, “This is what we have done on regions, on activity and on the various other things.” Come 2030, the group will have looked at a range of issues. When people go on to the interface—I hate the phrase. When they go on to their computer to make a claim under the integrated administration and control system, there will be an opportunity to have drop-down boxes that they can go into and out of to say, “I can do this over here and that over there,” which is why we need the flexibility. Every farm will be in a different place and will have a different destination that they want to get to. Every farmer will have the ability to go into the system and say, “In tier 1, we get this amount of money and in tier 2 I can pull this from here to there.” The system will allow farmers the flexibility to be able to go on the journey with us.
How would you plan to do that now if we do not have certainty on what will be available in the different tiers?
Budgets are negotiated year on year. We go into budget negotiations with certainty about the commitment for what will be in the agriculture portfolio, which is £660 million for this year. We want to be able to maintain that.
I also want to talk about the AECS budget—apologies; I have fallen into the trap of using acronyms. The agri-environment climate scheme promotes a lot of the land management practices for tier 3 that I think Dawn Black alluded to. We have already said that that will increase in the five-year period from £106 million this year to £151 million in 2030-31. The trajectory has already been set out. No other part of the UK has that multiyear certainty. We are constantly monitoring the outcomes that are associated with the payments and everything that is associated with what we want the outcomes to do, and we are able to be agile and shift money around in the portfolio.
Some of the budget lines that I deal with are demand led. There will be periods when the demand is not there for one scheme and so I will be able to move funding into a scheme for which there is demand and which will have outcomes that relate to emissions reduction, carbon sequestration, stemming biodiversity loss or any of the other good practices that we want to see on farms. We have the agility to do that. I would be a hostage to fortune if I were to say, “We are going to do X amount in tier X in this year,” because things will need to be adapted to the analysis of the outcomes.
Can we take from that answer that the funding is flexible and moveable, and that budgets may change from year to year? You have offered some welcome certainty about AECS funding and put a figure and timescale on it, but everything else is dependent on budget negotiations between parties in this Parliament. Does that not leave ordinary farmers and land managers in a situation in which they feel a bit uncertain? They will be asking, “Should I lobby somebody?”
That is absolutely not the case, because we have already provided that certainty in the rural support plan. That plan is in effect a framework that we will use to underpin what goes into the various tiers and also the other funding streams that land managers, farmers and crofters can apply to. We can be agile in shifting money around when we see more demand for one particular area and less demand for others—I can do that in year.
Let me try to clarify this point, just in case I am not understanding something. You are talking about farmers having certainty between now and 2030 so that they know what is coming with changes in EFAs and so on. However, the message that should come out of this evidence session—the message that I, the cabinet secretary and the First Minister will be delivering—is that farmers need to start engaging with the process. We have made it as simple as we possibly can so that, between now and 2030, they can understand what is coming. As we make decisions, we will tell them what will happen come 2030, and they will need to be engaged by then—there will be a requirement for the farming community to say, “This is the system and I am going to engage with it.”
Because the budgets will be within the four-tier criteria, the system will then enable farmers to pick the bit that suits where they are at any particular time. The baseline on one farm will be completely different from the baseline on another; the baseline for an East Lothian farm will be completely different from that for a croft. People need to be able to pick and choose from the four tiers what they need at that particular time, which will allow them to build resilience into their personal businesses.
Minister and cabinet secretary, you have told us on several occasions that there is certainty, but numerous witnesses have said that we are heading towards a cliff edge in 2031. The minister said that we will know what the plan is by 2030, but we will be at the cliff edge by then. What is the timetable for the plan? Will it be—
I am sorry—
—by next year, or by 2028?
I am sorry, but I refute that point entirely.
Minister, you will need to go through the chair. We are in a committee of the Scottish Parliament—
My apologies. Okay, I will go through the chair. I refute—
Minister, I am asking you to go through the chair. Andrew Baxter, please finish off your question, and then we will come to you, minister.
I apologise.
To be fair to the minister, I had finished my question.
Right. I call the minister.
I refute the claim that we will be at a cliff edge by 2030. As I have now explained on a few different occasions, advice will come back to me as we go through the policy development programme with the people who will be in the room. As soon as I have made a decision, the committee and, therefore, the farming community will be told. There is a meeting on 16 November, and there will be continuous meetings over the next three years in order to consider all the stages that we will need to change, adapt and make workable for people on the ground.
That is a process that we will go through across the next three years. It will not change how farmers make their claims just now—that will stay as it is. It is a signal to farmers that, come 2030, we will be working to that programme, and here is how they will be able to access it. However, they have certainty between now and 2030.
That work is going on behind the scenes. There are two ways in which we could do this. I could come back to the committee in 2030 and say, “Here it is: here are all the answers to all the questions that you have had over the past three years, and here is the finalised document. You now just need to get on with it”, or we could make the decisions, lock it down and then say, “This is the decision that we have made on regions. Come 2030, this is what regions will look like. This is the decision that we have made on activity. Come 2030, this is what activity will look like,” so that people know what that is and can start preparing in advance.
09:45
I have made the decision that that is how we will do it, in order to give people an understanding of what is coming, but between now and 2030, the system that we have in place to give that certainty is staying exactly where it is. There might be some minor changes, such as an additional calving index or an additional EFA, but they are not massively important to the bigger change that will come in 2030.
I will come back to direct payments, which were a big part of the discussion during our engagement sessions. We heard from the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association that the direction of travel in England, where they have been phased out, has been catastrophic. Will the minister set out how the Scottish Government intends to use direct support through the rural support plan to drive food production and give farmers the certainty that we have talked about?
I hope that people are now beginning to fully understand what we are doing. I understand that the tenanted sector has different concerns, but that is more about what it is able to do. There will be areas in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 and in the implementation of some of the regulations that are coming forward that will allow those protections. That is probably not an issue around the rural support plan—that is probably about land tenure.
Sorry, I meant in England.
Yes, absolutely. I do not like to do this, because it sounds political, but I do not mean it to be. If we look at what happens when schemes are not worked through carefully with full engagement, and the people who are being asked to deliver are not part of that process, we find that it is catastrophic, because people drop out of the system. That is why we have done it in the way that we have done it—it was always about co-ordination between the Government and the sector.
I think that we have done that well, or we would not be in the position that we are in just now of understanding where our issues are and how we are going to try to tackle them. It will be difficult to tackle those problems. There is no question about that, but that will be the work of the policy development group and officials, so that they can come back and say, “These are the really knotty problems that we have. These are your options, so you need to choose one of these, and then we will come back and deliver that certainty.”
To go back to Andrew Baxter’s point on the three-year period between now and then, if people do not know about it now, they are not listening. I read the farming press on a regular basis. The change has been trailed time and again. I am glad that the committee has held this evidence session, because it will, I hope, bring the focus of everybody who is involved and everybody who gets a payment to the fact that this is changing and that it will be changed by 2030. If you do not understand that by then, that will be on you, not on the Government.
What is your position on the importance of direct payments to drive food security?
It is vital. We must make sure that we have a resilient food system. The first objective of the 2024 act was to make sure that we have a resilient food system in Scotland that allows us to give stability to the economy in rural areas and deliver the food that we want to see on our plates and in our shops. That is the backbone to everything.
I want to pick up two areas where there has been consensus among stakeholders. It is important that the Government listens to their views. One is on whole farm plans. We have heard a lot of evidence that whole farm plans are perhaps less useful for farmers and land managers than they could be, and there are concerns that they might just be an expensive box-ticking exercise. That said, they could also be transformational in supporting farmers and land managers to develop new business plans and meet new objectives.
The other aspect relates to tier 4. Many stakeholders think that tier 4 could do a lot more to support rural communities and help train farmers. It has the potential to produce better whole farm plans and enable more co-operation.
I am interested in your thoughts on those two areas where there is consensus. You often focus on perceived division between stakeholders, but there is consensus on tier 4 and whole farm plans.
You have pre-empted me. I was hoping to return to the points on which there is agreement. Whole farm plans are useful, as they allow farmers to understand their own baselines. However, I understand that they might feel like a burden too far, particularly for smaller producers. The policy development group will consider that.
The whole farm plan allows a farm-scale baseline so that farmers know exactly what is happening on their farm. The most important things are soil and water—that is it. If the soil is right, you can pretty much know that you are going to put a resilient food system in place. When a farmer does the whole farm plan—getting soil analysis and biodiversity stuff done, making sure that they have an animal health and welfare plan in place—that gives them stability to know what is happening on their farm and consider how to improve things and move on.
The reason why it has become a bit of a box-ticking exercise for some people is that they have not seen the direction of travel or what is coming next because they switched off and stopped engaging. That is why it is important that everybody switches back on. Whole farm plans are going to give farmers the ability to better understand what is happening on their farm and what the situation might look like in 2030 if they do not take the action to change.
Are you in listening mode when stakeholders say that they get the concept of whole farm plans but do not see the route from the whole farm plan to a practical fund that could help to enact it?
One hundred per cent we are listening. We will do everything that we can to engage so that people understand why the whole farm plan has got value and what it does not only for individual farms but for Scotland agriculture plc. It allows us to know what our issues are across the country, where our biodiversity could be improved and where our soil quality could be improved. Those things are vital in building the ability for us to get the badge that says that we are world leading in regenerative agriculture.
What about tier 4?
The views about tier 4 are right. We need to work out how to use funding there, because when a farmer switches on, wants to know more about this and wonders who they should speak to and where they should go, that is where tier 4 will come into its own. We need to ensure that funding is available so that farmers go to the right people who can deliver the right advice in the right way. That will mean that farmers can take it on and implement the things that they need to on their farm.
The work that is being done by Johnnie Balfour, Dee Ward, Tom Bowser and all the others is important. We are going to speak to those guys about how they changed their systems, and they can provide examples. There is also the work that Denise Walton is doing. I was at Denise’s not long ago. We need to consider how these people work and engage with them to find out how to change.
When farmers think, “God, I cannot do without fertiliser,” those people can say, “You can, if you do it this way. This is what worked for me. You might have to tweak it a wee bit on your farm, but it worked for me, so maybe you should try it.” Not everything will work first time. People will make mistakes and things will not happen in the way that farmers anticipated, but every farmer knows that that is what working with nature is like.
There is value in tier 4 and the whole farm plan. They can get us from where we are to where we want to be.
Laura, back to you.
I am out of questions for now.
Okay, Andrew Baxter.
I have lost my place in the papers, convener.
We have some questions on front loading or active farming. Are there other aspects that we want to explore?
I do have some questions on those.
Okay, Laura, I will bring you back in.
Sorry about that.
During our evidence sessions, there was consensus that any system needs to be based on activity and productivity, but there was no clear agreement on what activity is and what an active farmer is, which you touched on earlier. I am interested in your thinking on how we get to a definition. Do you think that we can get to a point where we can get agreement on a definition? How quickly do you think that we can do that? NFU Scotland told us that that is an urgent and critically important issue, so I am interested in where things are on that.
The reason why activity is on the agenda for the next meeting of the policy delivery group that I am chairing is to do exactly that. We will get that definition pinned down. We must bear in mind that the first principle of the 2024 act is to produce food. How do we produce food in a sustainable way that works with nature, allows us to reduce our emissions and creates biodiversity gain? That is the purpose behind the legislation, but the activity and resilience of farm businesses must be front and centre in that, because they cannot do the things that we need them to do if they are making a loss as they produce the food that this country needs. To me, the issue is clear and simple. The question of how we define the term might be trickier, but we will work on that behind the scenes and I will come back to the committee as soon as we get that pinned down, so that the committee understands that as well.
Apologies for earlier, convener. I am back on track now.
When we raised front loading with witnesses, there was remarkably broad support for the principle across organisations that disagree on quite a lot else. Is the Government actively pursuing that as a policy option?
We will look at every available lever that we have in order to get the best value for every pound that we spend. If that means that front loading comes out as the most effective way of doing that, that is what we will do. We will look at various opportunities to make the money that we have go further. As we said earlier, the budget is not as high as we would like it to be, so it has to work a hell of a lot harder. That might mean front loading, it might mean capping—all those things are in the mix. We will hammer those things out. We will have the agreements, disagreements and squabbles within the policy delivery group that will enable us to come back with answers that will then be locked into what the 2030 system will be. However, front loading is definitely on the cards.
I have a question about eligibility for support schemes. Some sectors, such as horticulture and market gardens, are currently not supported, often because they are under the 3-hectare minimum area requirements. Could those areas be considered for inclusion? I also note that pig and poultry sectors are not supported, whereas sheep and cattle operations are. Pigs and poultry operations might not take up as much land space, but they are still valid operations and contribute a lot to our economy. Do you think that those could be brought into the schemes?
Operations in the pig and poultry sectors can make claims if they have eligible land. Those operations have chosen a particular type of farming that is unsupported and are not looking to get support in the same way as other farmers are. However, they can make claims on other areas of land if they are eligible to do so. Operations in the pig and poultry sectors are more likely to look for one-off capital investment-type support rather than the kind of support that we see in the sheep, cattle and arable sectors.
The pig and poultry sectors have not been forgotten about by any stretch of the imagination: as you know, the cabinet secretary found £2 million to help the pig sector, which has been going through a very difficult period in the last wee while. However, the pig and poultry sectors are in a separate box from other sectors, although operations in those sectors can make claims as long as they have eligible land.
On the eligibility of smallholders under 3 hectares, one of the other things that we are looking at is how we define what a small producer is. Again, that will be addressed in our first policy development group meeting. We want to define what a smallholder is and think about whether there is a way to support horticulture operations under 3 hectares. We would need to be careful about that—I am going to be dead straight about this. If we are talking about a diluted and smaller pot of money, we need to think about how we would support them on a continuous, ongoing basis without stopping funding other things, given that we have a fixed budget. That said, there are things such as the small producers pilot fund, which puts money into the learning and development that small producers are looking to do.
I am open to finding ways to support anyone who is growing food, supporting our work on biodiversity and emissions and creating stability for communities. I am open to helping with all of that, but we have to work within the confines of a budget that, as we have already agreed, we would like to be greater.
The issue is certainly not off the table, but I have to be honest that the current requirement for eligible operations to be 3 hectares or above is probably the one that will gain more traction in terms of the ability to fulfil the objectives that we are looking at. Of course, there may be other ways in which we can support smaller producers over and above that, but I cannot promise anything in that regard.
10:00
I am glad to hear that, because there are some really good local market gardens that are doing a lot of good and are contributing to their communities’ local economies. I think that we ought to be looking at the issue of eligibility, but I accept that what happens will be determined by the criteria and how those operations fit into the grand scheme of things.
I want to ask about animal health and welfare. Why is it listed as a sub-outcome rather than an outcome in the plan?
I do not think that it is a sub-outcome. It is intrinsic to everything that agriculture in Scotland is about. Whether we are talking about sheep, cattle, pigs or poultry, everything comes back to animal health and welfare. The whole farm plan requires farmers to have an animal welfare programme. We have probably the highest animal welfare standards in the world, to use the Carlsberg way of saying that. The issue is intrinsic to what the Scottish industry is not only required to do but proud to do, because it gives us a global standing as being one of the best countries in the world for livestock production. I do not accept that it is a secondary thing. It is front and centre of what we are in relation to agriculture in Scotland.
I am not quite clear, then. Is that a mistake in the document? Is it something that is going to be changed? I am looking at it now, and the outcome is “High Quality Food Production”, and “Animal health and welfare” is listed as a sub-outcome of that.
Okay, maybe there is a drafting issue there, but that certainly does not dilute or diminish the requirement that the Government places on the industry—and which, to be perfectly honest, the industry places on itself—to make sure that animal welfare is front and centre in everything that we do.
One thing that came through in the evidence was the need for capital funding to address some of the bigger issues in animal welfare, such as replacing farrowing crates. Is that something that you are aware of and interested in taking forward?
We are certainly aware of it. As Emma Roddick will be well aware, there are ongoing consultations about farrowing crates and hens. We will have to wait and see where that goes, because we could be talking about an investment of sizeable chunks of money if there were a requirement across the four nations to do what comes out of those consultations. We will have to pick that up once the consultations are completed and the analysis has been done.
I have a final question on what is missing. I think that there was the expectation that there would be more information around support for market gardens, which Dawn Black mentioned, and fuel crops. Where is that detail? Is that coming in a future revision of the plan? Is it going to sit somewhere else? When can the committee expect to see it?
As I said, the plan is an iterative process. It is not set in stone. The new plan that will be produced in five years’ time will set out the next stage of how we go forward.
On fuel crops, I was at an interesting event the other day where people were talking about hemp. You do not eat it, but it certainly has value in terms of what it does to soil structure and what it can be used for. Things like that will come up as we go through the process of working out where the funding is going to go. However, I see no issue with farmers growing a break crop that is not necessarily food, as long as it is doing biodiversity good and enhancing the soil.
You clearly dated yourself with the Carlsberg reference, minister, although it probably bypassed the younger members of the committee.
The plan is called a rural support plan, and one of its five outcomes is “thriving rural communities”. However, Scottish Rural Action told us that the plan “does nothing” to properly integrate agriculture with the communities around it. Do you agree with that assessment? I suspect that you do not. If you do not, how do you see the rural development and rural communities element fitting in the agricultural support element of the plan?
I find it a strange assumption that farmers are not part of their rural communities. They are integral to those communities. Farmers pay an awful lot of money to pubs, garages, shops, post offices and all the other things that create rural communities. They are probably the guys or women who clear roads during heavy snowfall or remove trees from roads when there is windblow. Farmers are integral to rural communities.
However, funding is available—I cannot remember what we call it, but the cabinet secretary will know the name—to support rural communities. The assessment that Andrew Baxter mentions almost means that farmers are separate from rural communities, whereas I see them as a huge part of rural communities.
A number of streams of funding are directly applicable to community cohesion and community work, on top of everything that Mr Fairlie has said about how farming can be the linchpin for a lot of activity. When we left the EU, we left behind LEADER funding and we therefore brought in community-led local development funding. In this year’s budget, just over £9.3 million is associated with that. Since we lost LEADER funding, there has been about £55 million in the fund and around 1,300 local community groups have benefited from it. During the summer, Mr Fairlie and I went all over Scotland and saw examples of where that has been used.
There are additional funding streams that support community development. We have the carbon-neutral islands scheme. A lot of the money in that is used for improving infrastructure, such as retrofitting housing stock that has become damp and unliveable by installing heat pumps and better insulation. Many things that are integral to resilient communities are outwith the rural support plan and in different funding streams in the budget lines that I am in charge of.
Thank you for raising the community-led local development fund. What are the Government’s long-term plans for that fund? Will you commit to putting it on a genuinely multiyear footing, rather than expecting community organisations, which often rely on that funding, to operate from one annual funding decision to another?
That is always the issue when Governments have yearly budgets—you often cannot commit multiyear funding. However, you have my assurance that, in the budget negotiations, I will prioritise areas where I see funding that is doing great work and having outcomes above and beyond what we initially thought. I would say that CLLD funding is one of those pots of funding. I have seen many projects, even in my constituency, that are making a difference to vulnerable people. In my constituency alone, funding has gone into a circular economy social enterprise that gives employment and training to adults with learning disabilities. To namecheck it, it is called Wood Recyclability. That is just an example.
During the summer, I was in Tiree, where CLLD funding has been used for a leisure centre that also provides childcare and enables people to come together in the winter months. There is also a gym, which is the only one on the island. That helps with community cohesion, particularly in an area where there are dark winters and very little to bring people together, and there is social isolation. That is hitting quite a lot of objectives beyond anything to do with economic development. It is bringing social cohesion in many ways. I feel strongly that the CLLD fund is important.
I welcomed the minister’s comments earlier about livestock numbers. I do not want to rehash that issue, as he has made it clear that he does not want to speak about it again. However, that seemed slightly at odds with reported comments from the cabinet secretary at the Climate Action Committee in September. My question is more for the cabinet secretary. Given your title and brief, how can you reassure farmers that, to you, agriculture is not just a tool for the climate change and environmental agenda but is a separate stand-alone priority for you and the Government?
First, I do want to talk about livestock numbers. I have wanted to talk about livestock numbers every time I have been asked about that. I feel very annoyed that I was misrepresented in the way that I was. As soon as the Climate Change Committee gave advice to the Scottish Government that we should have policies in place to reduce livestock numbers as part of our climate change plan and our carbon budgets, I, along with the former cabinet secretary, Mairi Gougeon, and the First Minister, immediately said that that was not an option for Scotland.
First, that is because we do not want to offshore our emissions and import food that we could grow here. There are many other ways in which we can reduce emissions on farms that have nothing to do with livestock numbers coming down but are about how we farm, feed and look after the animals.
I want to get this on the record once again: we have no policies in place to actively reduce livestock numbers. This will not be the last time that someone tries to get me to say otherwise. I accept that people will be political about the issue but, when people are political about it and put out misinformation on what I or anyone else has said on the issue, that damages the confidence of farmers and affects people’s mental health. That was what I was hearing. I had to refute that point in talking to farmers in my area, who knew that I had not said it but who thought that it might be a prospect.
I am on the record countless times on that issue. There is no mutual exclusivity between farming well to produce food and doing so in a way that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve biodiversity. In fact, that is the key to those objectives.
Time is tight, so I will move on.
Cabinet secretary, you will be aware that, in the previous session of Parliament, our predecessor committee found it difficult to scrutinise the climate change plan, because there was no certainty on plans or programmes and what they would deliver for the agriculture sector. We now have the rural support plan in front of us, but many stakeholders have told the committee that they still lack certainty on what individual programmes will deliver, not just between now and 2030 but beyond that, when we will be in the middle of making what I imagine will be pretty challenging decisions on how we cut emissions leading to net zero. Do you have reflections on what certainty can be provided now on what the Government’s spend will do to help achieve the climate change plan?
My reflection would be that the climate change plan sits at the top and is underpinned by a number of strategies across lots of portfolios and sectors. Obviously, the climate change plan draws on the wider agriculture reform programme and the rural support plan, which you have heard a lot about today, as well as other strategies such as the land use strategy. As they are combined, they provide a coherent structure in which we can see that we will have sustainable regenerative agriculture and deliver on the policy objectives in the climate change plan. We also have woodland creation and peatland restoration strategies as well as the biodiversity strategy. In effect, all those strategies underpin the climate change plan. Land use more generally—not just agriculture—has a huge part to play in a number of streams of work.
10:15
From memory, we made a couple of changes to the climate change plan as a result of some of the predecessor committee’s recommendations. We expanded some information on the support that is available for various workstreams, such as woodland creation and agroforestry. Wider land use diversification was one of the committee’s asks. We provided more detail on agricultural reform and we have been through quite a lot of that information today. Once again, we clarified our position on livestock policy and we added more detail about agriculture mitigation measures and the associated emissions reductions.
Why are stakeholders saying that there is still no clarity about whether the plans and policies add up? You are describing the tiered nature of the climate change plan, the rural support plan, and the stuff at the bottom, which is about achieving things, but does that all add up? Where is the transparency on what spend delivers in the reduction in climate emissions?
We will do that analysis year on year. The Government’s delivery group will look at how effective our spend is and what it is delivering in every portfolio. There are a number of workstreams that will do the analysis. I wanted to strike a balance in making the climate change plan readable and usable without being unwieldy and having too much information, which is why we included sectoral annexes. Your predecessor committee suggested that some parts of it could have included more detail. The climate change plan is a large document, but it is underpinned by a series of other policies and work that is being done throughout the Government and by sectors. I hope that it provides clarity but, if it does not, you can write to me and ask for that.
As an example, we introduced a 410-day calf scheme. I do not know whether we have written to the committee about that, but we will provide it with a copy of our analysis report, which shows that the policy has reduced emissions in year 1. We might go further, but there will be ongoing benefits from the policy. We are looking at the genetics of the cattle that produce less methane, how we feed cattle to reduce methane, and how we can reduce emissions from agricultural machinery.
The cabinet secretary has described the overall picture, but every portfolio across Government is looking at individual areas to consider what can be done. We are doing a number of things in the agriculture sector. For example, peatland restoration will help us to sequester carbon, and we will still be able to allow farmers to graze the land, because we know that there are systems in place. The name has gone right out of my head, but some farmers are grazing peatland that has been restored.
At this stage, I do not think that it is possible to say, “This and this makes that, which will add up,” because those are all projections and models, and the work is ongoing. We can see how each scheme functions and we will continue to do that.
Can I come back in on that point?
We are a little short for time.
I have one sentence to add. The whole farm plan will give individual farms an assessment of how they are contributing.
Much of what we have talked about is about delivering a just transition for farmers and crofters and ensuring that they are not left behind. I am interested in the Government’s views on how the rural support plan will ensure that there is a just transition and what a successful just transition would look like in five or 10 years’ time.
I hope that what we have been talking about this morning will have provided an understanding of what the just transition will look like from our point of view. Things will not change dramatically between now and 2030, but I say to anyone who is out there listening to this, “Please pay attention to what is happening, because these changes are coming and you need to be aware of them and be prepared.” We will deliver as much information as we can, so farmers need to know what is coming and be prepared for it. Farmers should do the whole farm plan, understand what their farm needs and get the ineffective cows out of their system. They should do the things that they need to now in order to get their baseline to where it needs to be so that they can take advantage of all the other funding streams that will be available in tiers 1 to 4 when we get to 2030.
That is what a just transition will look like in practice. It will deliver a long-term and resilient agricultural sector that keeps rural communities in Scotland producing food, delivering for biodiversity and sequestering the emissions that we produce while growing food—that is the panacea and the golden ticket that we are aiming for. I encourage our farming community to pay attention to where we are right now and to get engaged in the process.
Thank you. We will now take a short comfort break and allow for a changeover of officials. We will resume as near as we can to 10.30.
10:21
Meeting suspended.
10:30
On resuming—